Sitting of 12 February 1907

Preamble
The House met at Two of the Clock.
Message to attend His Majesty.
The House went, and, being returned;
Mr. SPEAKER informed the House, That he had issued, during the Recess, Warrants for New Writs, for Derbyshire (North-East Division), in the room of Thomas Dolling Bolton, esquire, deceased.
For Banffshire, Alexander William Black, esquire, deceased.
For City of Perth, Robert Wallace, esquire, K.C., who hath accepted the office of Chairman of Quarter Sessions for the County of London.

NEW WRITS.
For County of Lincoln (North Lindsey or Brigg Division), in the room of Harold James Reckitt, esquire (Chiltern Hundreds).
For County of Monmouth (Northern Division), The Right Hon. Reginald McKenna, President of the Board of Education.—(Mr. Whiteley.)

ELECTIONS.
Ordered, That all Members who are returned for two or more places in any part of the United Kingdom do make their Election for which of the places they will serve, within one week after it shall appear that there is no question upon the Return for that place; and if anything shall come in question touching the Return or Election of any Member, he is to withdraw during the time the matter is in debate; and that all Members returned upon double Returns do withdraw till their Returns are determined.
Resolved, That no Peer of the Realm, except such Peers of Ireland as shall for the time being be actually elected, and shall not have declined to serve, for any county, city, or borough of Great Britain, hath any right to give his vote in the Election of any Member to serve in Parliament.
Resolved, That it is a high infringement of the liberties and privileges of the Commons of the United Kingdom for any Lord of Parliament, or other Peer or Prelate, not being a Peer of Ireland at the time elected, and not having declined to serve for any county city, or borough of Great Britain, to concern himself in the election of Members to serve for the Commons in Parliament, except only any Peer of Ireland, at such Elections in Great Britain respectively where such Peer shall appear as a candidate, or by himself, or any others, be proposed to be elected; or for any Lord-Lieutenant or Governor of any county to avail himself of any

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authority derived from his Commission, to influence the Election of any Member to serve for the Commons in Parliament.
Resolved, That if it shall appear that any person hath been elected or returned a Member of this House, or endeavoured so to be, by Bribery, or any other corrupt practices, this House will proceed with the utmost severity against all such persons as shall have been wilfully concerned in such Bribery or other corrupt practices.

WITNESSES.
Resolved, That if it shall appear that any person hath been tampering with any Witness, in respect of his evidence to be given to this House, or any Committee thereof, or directly or indirectly hath endeavoured to deter or hinder any person from appearing or giving evidence, the same is declared to be a high crime or misdemeanor; and this House will proceed with the utmost severity against such offender.
Resolved, That if it shall appear that any person hath given false evidence in any case before this House, or any Committee thereof, this House will proceed with the utmost severity against such offender.

METROPOLITAN POLICE.
Ordered, That the Commissioners of the Police of the Metropolis do take care that, during the Session of Parliament, the passages through the streets leading to this House be kept free and open, and that no obstruction be permitted to hinder the passage of Members to and from this House, and that no disorder be allowed in Westminster Hall, or in the passages leading to this House, during the Sitting of Parliament, and that there be no annoyance therein or thereabouts; and that the Serjeant at Arms attending this House do communicate this Order to the Commissioners aforesaid.
VOTES AND PROCEEDINGS.
Ordered, That the Votes and Proceedings of this House be printed, being first perused by Mr. Speaker; and that he do appoint the printing thereof; and that no person, but such as he shall appoint, do presume to print the same.
Ordered, That a Committee of Privileges be appointed.
OUTLAWRIES HILL.
"For the more effectual preventing Clandestine Outlawries," read the first time; to be read a second time.

JOURNAL.
Ordered, That the Journal of this House, from the end of the last Session to the end of the present Session, with an Index thereto, be printed.
Ordered, That the said Journal and Index be printed by the appointment and under the direction of Sir Courtenay' Peregrine Ilbert, K.C.S.I., C.I.E., the Clerk of this House.
Ordered, That the said Journal and Index be printed by such person as shall be licensed by Mr. Speaker, and that no other person do presume to print the same.

PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS (RECESS).
The following Papers, presented by His Majesty's Command during the Recess, were delivered to the Librarian of the House of Commons during the Recess, pursuant to the Standing Order of the 14th August 1896:—

1. Trade Reports (Annual Series).—Copies of Diplomatic and Consular Re ports, Annual Series, Nos. 3739 to 3743.

2. Trade Reports (Miscellaneous Series).—Copy of Diplomatic and Consular Reports, Miscellaneous Series, No. 656.

3. Africa (No. 2, 1906).—Copy of Despatch from His Majesty's Minister at Brussels, transmitting Convention respecting Liquors in Africa. Signed at Brussels, 3rd November, 1906.

4. International Sugar Commission (Commercial, No. 1, 1907).—Copy of Report of Proceedings of the International Sugar Commission, Autumn Session, 1906.

5. Treaty Series (No. 1, 1907).—Copy of Agreement between the United Kingdom, France, and Italy respecting Abyssinia. Signed at London, 13th December 1906.

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6. Treaty Series (No. 2, 1907).—Copy of Agreement between the United Kingdom, France, and Italy respecting the Importation of Arms and Ammunition into Abyssinia. Signed at London, 13th December 1906.

7. Treaty Series (No. 3, 1907).—Copyof Convention between the United Kingdom and France concerning the New Hebrides. Signed at London, 20th October 1906, Ratifications exchanged at London, 9th January 1907.

8. Treaty Series (No. 4, 1907).—Copy of General Act of the International Conference at Algeciras relating to the Affairs of Morocco. 7th April 1906. Ratifications deposited at Madrid, 31st December 1906.

9. Treaty Series (No. 5, 1907).—Copy of Agreement between the United Kingdom and France relative to the Frontier between the British and French Possessions from the Gulf of Guinea to the Niger. 19th October 1906.

10. Colonial Reports (Annual).—Copies of Reports Nos. 513 (Basutoland, Report for 1905–6), 514 (British Guiana, Report for 1905–6), 515 (British Honduras, Annual Report for 1905), 516 (Northern Nigeria, Report for 1905–6), 517 (Bechuanaland Protectorate, Report for 1905–6).

11. Colonial Reports (Miscellaneous).—Copy of Report No. 39 (Jamaica (Cayman Islands), Report on the Cayman Islands).

12. Tropical Diseases Research Fund.—Copy of Report of the Advisory Committee for the Tropical Diseases Research Fund for the year 1906.

13. Australasia.—Copy of Correspondence relating to the Convention with France, dated 20th October 1906, respecting the New Hebrides.

14. Straits Settlements.—Copy of Return of the Amount of Opium consumed and the Revenue derived there from in the Straits Settlements and the Federated Malay States during the years 1896 to 1905.

15. Western Pacific.—Copy of Report on the Trade of the New Hebrides for 1905.

16. Malta.—Copy of Further Correspondence relating to the holding of Protestant Mission Services at the Theatre Royal, Malta.

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17. Factories and Workshops.—Copy of Supplement to the Annual Report of the Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops for the year 1905. Return of Persons employed in 1904 in Work shops and Laundries.

18. Factory and Workshops Acts (Industrial Poisoning and Fatal Accidents).—Copy of preliminary Tables (subject to correction) of cases of Industrial Poisoning and Fatal Accidents in Factories, Workshops, etc., during the year 1906.

19. Tuberculosis (Human and Bovine) (Royal Commission).—Copy of Second Interim Report of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the relations of Human and Animal Tuberculosis.

20. Trinity College, Dublin, and the University of Dublin (Royal Commission).—Copy of Final Report of the Commissioners, with Appendix (Report, Minutes of Evidence, and Documents).

21. Vivisection (Royal Commission).—Copy of First Report of the Commissioners and Minutes of Evidence. October to December 1906.

22. Congestion in Ireland (Royal Commission).—Copy of Second Report of the Commissioners, with Appendix (Report, Minutes of Evidence, and Documents relating thereto).

23. Judicial Statistics (England and Wales).—Copy of Judicial Statistics, Part I., relating to Criminal Proceedings, Police, Coroners, Prisons, Reformatory and Industrial Schools, and Criminal Lunatics for England and Wales for 1905.

24. Aliens Act, 1905.—Copy of Return of Alien Passengers brought to the United Kingdom from Ports in Europe or within the Mediterranean Sea during the three months ending 31st December 1906, together with the number of Expulsion Orders made during that period requiring Aliens to leave the United Kingdom.

25. Naval Manœuvres.—Copy of Report of the Naval Manœuvres of 1906.

26. Navy (Battle Practice).—Copy of Result of Battle Practice in His Majesty's Fleet, 1906.

27. Board of Agriculture and Fisheries (Distribution of Giants).—Copy of Annual Report on the Distribution of Grants for Agricultural Education and Research in the year 1905–6, etc.

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28. Statistical Abstract (British Empire),—Copy of Statistical Abstract for the British Empire in each year from 1891 to 1905. Third Number.

29. Railway Servants (Hours of Labour),—Copy of Return, in pursuance of Section 4 of the Regulation of Railways Act,1889, of Railway Servants of certain classes who were on one or more occasions during the month of July 1906 on duty on the Railways of the United Kingdom for more than twelve hours at a time; or who, after being on duty more than twelve hours, were allowed to resume work with less than nine hours rest.

30. Railway Accidents,—Copy of Returns of Accidents and Casualties as reported to the Board of Trade by the several Railway Companies in the United Kingdom during the three months ended 30th September 1906, together with Reports of the Inspecting Officers of the Railway Department to the Board of Trade upon certain Accidents which were inquired into.

31. Board of Education,—Copy of List of Evening Schools under the administration of the Board of Education for the school year ending 31st July 1905.

32. Board of Education,—Copy of Report of Public Inquiry (Section 23 (10), Education Act, 1902) in respect of the proposed provision of a new Public Elementary School in the Parish of Llanasa, Administrative County of Flint.

33. Education Rates,—Copy of Report of the Departmental Committee on Education Rates, together with Appendices.

34. Royal Irish Constabulary (Pensions),—Copy of Return showing the names of all Constabulary Officers now in receipt of Pensions, of all Head Constables, Sergeants, and Constables, and of all Widows and children to whom pensions have been granted since the Constabulary Estimate for 1906–7 was prepared, with the amount and date of Pension in each case.

35. Fisheries (Ireland),—Copy of Report on the Sea and Inland Fisheries of Ireland for 1904. Part II. Scientific Investigations.

36. Irish Land Commission (Proceedings),—Copy of Return of Proceedings of the Irish Land Commission during the month of November 1906.

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37. Irish Land Commission,—Copy of Return of Advances made under The Irish Land Act, 1903, during the month of May 1906.

38. Royal University of Ireland,—Copy of Royal Warrant, dated 10th September 1906, amending the Statutes of the University.

39. Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1887 (Eviction Notices),—Copy of Return of Eviction Notices filed during the quarter ended 31st December 1906.

40. Evictions (Ireland),—Copy of Return of Evictions in Ireland for the quarter ended 31st December 1906.

Ordered, That the said Papers do lie upon the Table.

RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  INEBRIATES ACT, 1898.
  Copy presented, of Regulations for transfers of Inebriates from one Reformatory to another in Ireland [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  UNEMPLOYED WORKMEN ACT, 1905.
  Copy presented, of Amending Regulations made by the Local Government Board for Ireland (Organisation for Unemployed (Ireland), 1906) [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  SUPERANNUATION ACT, 1884.
  Copies presented, of Treasury Minutes declaring that the under-mentioned persons were appointed to the offices set against their names without a Civil Service Certificate through inadvertence on the part of the Heads of their Departments, viz.:—Edward Harbutt, Artificer, Royal Small Arms Factory, Enfield; John Mowans Lawrenson, Fitter Lad,. Royal Gun Factory, War Office; [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  SUPERANNUATION ACT, 1887.
  Copies presented, of Treasury Minutes granting a retired allowance to each of the following, viz.: Charles Arthur Gulliver, late Chief Clerk, Reading, Post Office; Alfred Fred Thomas Doubtfire, Telegraphist, Central Telegraph Office, Post Office [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  IMPERIAL OTTOMAN GUARANTEED LOAN OF 1855.
  Copy presented, of Account for the year 1906 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  TREASURY CHEST.
  Account presented, for the year 1905–6, together with the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General thereon [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 1.]
  FERTILISERS AND FEEDING STUFFS ACT, 1906.
  Copies presented, of Statutory Rules and Orders, entitled (1) The Fertilisers and Feeding Stuffs (General) Regulations of 1906; (2) The Fertilisers and Feeding Stuffs (Sampling, &c.) Regulations of 1906; (3) The Fertilisers and Feeding Stuffs (Limits of Error) Regulations of 1906 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table
  PENAL SERVITUDE ACTS (CONDITIONAL LICENCE).
  Copy presented, of a Licence granted to Annie Skinner, permitting her to be at large on condition that she enter the London Female Preventive and Reformatory Institution, London, N.W. [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  PENAL SERVITUDE ACTS (CONDITIONAL LICENCE).
  Copy presented, of a Licence granted to Kate Ellen Hanton, a convict under detention in Aylesbury Prison, permitting her to be at large on condition that she enter the Home of Compassion, London, S. W. [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  POLLING DISTRICTS (COUNTY OF ESSEX).
  Copy presented, of Order made by the County Council of the county of Essex, altering the name of the Harlow Churchgate Street Polling District to that of the Harlow Polling District [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.

  SHOP HOURS ACT, 1904.
  Copies presented, of Orders made by the Councils of the Boroughs of Boverley, Bacup, and Wallsend, of the County Borough of West Hartlepool, of the Councils of the counties of Glamorgan, Lancaster, and of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and confirmed by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, fixing the Hours of Closing for certain
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  Classes of Shops [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.

  FRIENDLY SOCIETIES.
  Copy presented, of Regulation, dated 31st December, 1906, made by the Treasury, under the Friendly Societies Act, 1896 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  INDUSTRIAL AND PROVIDENT SOCIETIES (FEES).
  Copy presented, of Regulation, dated 31st December, 1906, made by the Treasury, under the Industrial and Provident Societies Act, 1893 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  FOREIGN JURISDICTION ACT, 1890.
  Copy presented, of Order in Council of the 21st December, 1906, entitled the Zanzibar Order in Council, 1906 (No. 2) [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  FOREIGN JURISDICTION ACT, 1890, CONSULAR SALARIES AND FEES ACT, 1891, AND FOREIGN MARRIAGE ACT, 1892.
  Copy presented, of Orders in Council of the 21st December, 1906, entitled (1)The Consular Fees (General) Order in Council, 1906; (2) The Japan (Consular and Marriage Fees) Order in Council, 1906; (3) The China and Corea (Consular and Marriage Fees) Order in Council, 1906 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  SHOP HOURS ACT, 1904.
  Copy presented, of Order made by the Secretary for Scotland providing for the early closing of certain Shops in the burgh of Rutherglen [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  LOCOMOTIVES ON HIGHWAYS ACT, 1896, AND MOTOR CAR ACT. 1903.
  Copy presented, of Order by the Secretary for Scotland prohibiting Motor Car traffic on certain Highways in the county of Stirling [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  LOCAL TAXATION (SCOTLAND).
  Copy presented, of the Annual Local Taxation Returns for Scotland for the year 1904–5 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 2.]

  UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW.
  Copy presented, of Annual Statistical Report by the University Court of the

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  University of Glasgow for 1905–6 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 3.]

  BUENOS AYRES.
  Copy presented, of Correspondence with the Treasury respecting the raising of Buenos Ayres to the rank of a First Class Mission [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  TRANSVAAL.
  Copy presented, of Correspondence relating to legislation affecting Asiatics in the Transvaal [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  COOLIE LABOUR.
  Supplementary Return presented, relative thereto [Address 26th March, 1906; Mr. Nield]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 4.]
  GRENADA.
  Copy presented, of Rules for the government of the Colonial Prisons [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.

  PAPERS LAID UPON THE TABLE BY THE CLERK OF THE HOUSE.
  Inquiry into Charities (County of Devon).—Further Return relative thereto [ordered 26th July, 1905; Mr. Griffith-Boscawen]; to be printed. [No. 5.]
  Bank of England.—Accounts of Exchequer Bills and other Government Securities purchased, and Amount of Balances of Sums issued for the Payment of Dividends, etc., for the year ending 5th January, 1907 [by Act]; to be printed. [No. 6.]
  Lunacy.—Copy of Return to the Lord Chancellor of the number of Visits made and the number of Patients seen by the several Commissioners in Lunacy during the six months ending on the 31st December, 1906 [by Act].
  Supreme Court (Rules).—Copy of Rules of the Supreme Court, dated December, 1906 [by Act].
  Public Records (King's Bench (Crown Side)).—Copy of Schedule containing a list and particulars of Classes of Documents belonging to the Crown Side of the late Court of King's Bench, and the present King's Bench Division of the High Court of Justice, which are not considered of sufficient public value to
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  justify their preservation in the Public Record Office [by Act].
  Lunacy—Copy of Return of all sums received by the Visitors of Lunatics for travelling expenses, or upon any other account, from 1st January to 31st December, 1906 [by Act].

  TRADE AND NAVIGATION.
  Return ordered, "of Accounts relating to Trade and Navigation of the United Kingdom for each month during the year 1907."—(Mr. Lloyd-George.)
  Return, in part, presented accordingly; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed, [No. 7.]

  NOTICES OF MOTION—GOVERNMENT BILLS.
  MR. JOHN BURNS: A Bill to amend the Housing of the Working Classes Acts, 1890 to 1903, and of a Bill to amend the law relating to valuation.
  MR. HALDANE: A Bill to provide for the reorganisation of certain forces of the Crown, and for the raising and maintenance of the territorial forces.
  MR. GLADSTONE: A Bill to amend the Licensing Acts, 1828 to 1896.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: A Bill to amend the law relating to patents.
  SIR JOHN WALTON: A Bill to amend the law respecting appeals in criminal cases.

KING'S SPEECH.
Mr. SPEAKER reported His Majesty's Speech, and read it to the House.

KING'S SPEECH (MOTION FOR AN ADDRESS).
*MR. TOMKINSONin moving an Address in reply to the gracious Speech from the Throne, said: I must first express my appreciation of the honour conferred upon myself, my constituency and my county, by the selection of myself to perform this office. It is a subject of universal congratulation that the opening of this new session finds the Empire, and indeed the whole civilised world, in a

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state of peace. His Majesty's people know full well how much the King himself has contributed to that happy condition of affairs in which he is able to assure the House that his relations with foreign powers are completely satisfactory, thanks to His Majesty's personal influence so wisely used, by his good offices, and by his untiring devotion to the cause of international peace and goodwill. The House will associate itself most warmly with the expressions of sorrow at the recent calamity in Jamaica. As to the outlook for the session, the list of Bills to be presented is an unusually long one, but so was that of last year, which was practically accomplished with the addition of more than one private Member's Bill of considerable importance. What the fate of the Bills enumerated in the King's Speech may be must be subject to one qualification—a re-arrangement of the respective powers of the two Houses which will prevent measures carried through this House, with infinite labour and industry, being rendered futile by the other House, and which will ensure that the will of the people, as clearly expressed by their representatives in the House of Commons, shall prevail. It is to be hoped that such an arrangement may be carried through effectually and with as little friction as the nature of the controversy will allow. Licensing reform is likely to be hailed with satisfaction by a large number of people in this country, because although the steady diminution in the national drink bill is gladly recognised, we still spend something like £160,000,000 a year in this way—money spent very largely by the poorer classes of the community, and entailing an enormous national waste, with grievous consequences to the general physical, social, and moral qualities of the community. Hardly less important is the announcement that the land question will again be dealt with. Last year Parliament passed an important Bill to amend the system of land tenure, but that measure affected only one class. The new Bill will deal with a far more numerous and certainly a not less worthy class—the peasantry. For the most part, the peasantry of this country are landless, debarred and divorced from the soil they cultivate for others, and with the overcrowded population of our urban and suburban districts, it is high time some measure was passed by which those who are capable and willing
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may settle on the soil, on fair terms, and with due security of tenure. There was never a time in which the words of Goldsmith were truer than they are now:
"Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay."
That hardy annual known as the Eight Hours Bill, so often affirmed in principle by this House, has been taken up by the Government, and it is to be hoped that the mining community will give it general support. I cannot be expected to touch upon all the measures, but there is one which is of peculiar interest to me, and I must ask leave to say a few words upon it. It is the matter of Irish local government. For 106 years the Irish question has been before this House and has been pleaded eloquently by its Members, but it still remains unsolved. Fifty years ago the late Lord Salisbury, in asking why Ireland lagged so much behind England in prosperity, came to the conclusion that the one thing peculiar to Ireland was the government of England. For thirty-five years Parliament has been engaged almost every session upon Irish legislation. The great land question has been largely solved, thanks to the Act of the right hon. Member for Dover, although, perhaps, the working of that Act needs some acceleration. The time is propitious for a change, for Ireland is peaceful and crimeless. If the present proposals of the Government do not satisfy the aspirations of the Nationalist Party, I hope they will not look on them coldly, or, at any rate, oppose them. They are at least a step to something better. The experience of new powers, well and wisely used, will be our best credential with the British electorate with whom the casting vote must always rest. All that is wanted is a better union of classes and creeds in Ireland, and of that there are encouraging symptoms. I beg to move.
MR. RAINY: In rising to second the Motion of my hon. and gallant friend, may I ask the kindly indulgence of the House in circumstances as unlooked for as they are complimentary, but also, to a certain extent, embarrassing? With regard to our foreign relations, it has been said "that happy is the country which has no history:" let me add, and happy is this country in its foreign relations when all

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that needs to be said can be summed up in the few words of reference contained in His Majesty's Speech. No news in this department is good news. May I humbly on behalf of the whole House, associate myself with what the mover has said in expressing our loyal gratitude to His Majesty. I am sure we all join heartily in sympathy with those in Jamaica who have suffered such a terrible disaster at Kingston, a calamity which came upon thorn with such awful suddenness and was so appalling in its extent of loss of life and property. We are glad to know that the catastrophe has been faced with courage and vigour, and we are grateful for the expressions of sympathy received, and the help given, from all parts of the world, especially from the United States. I should like also to congratulate our fellow Members of the House who happened to be in Kingston at the time, but who, we are glad to see, are safe. We are in hearty sympathy with all action on the part of the Government of India that makes for a wider basis of peace, order, and good government, and are glad to be informed that the visit of the Amir has proved agreeable alike to the visitor and the visited. With regard to the working of our Parliamentary system, all that I would say is this: that so much depends upon it that the question is of first importance and is one in which both sides of the House have a common interest. The honourable traditions of this House, the Mother of Parliaments, is a matter of such grave importance that we ought all of us to approach the subject, not only with a sense of gravity and responsibility, but with an earnest desire to preserve untarnished and unimpaired that wonderful living voice of the British people which has existed for centuries in the British Houses of Parliament. I will not say anything about the temperance movement. Speaking as a Scottish Member I am glad to notice that we are to have for Scotland measures dealing with valuation and small holdings. They will be most gratefully welcomed by the people of that country. I wish to say with regard to Ireland, that if in any way the conceptions and aspirations of any part of our people can be brought into action under such conditions as would make them effective in the national life, it will be a great gain to the House and the Empire at large, for that principle
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lies at the very foundation of the British Empire. Any measure to extend the application of that principle should at least claim the respectful consideration of the House. I may say for myself, that I have never despaired of a solution of the Irish question, and I do not to-day. With regard to the remaining matters I only want to add this: I am glad to see that recognition is being made of the useful part that women can play in the public bodies of the country. I have never been able to understand the reason why they were originally excluded from these bodies, and I am glad to see that they are now to get their proper place. I think there is hardly any subject which could more usefully and more honourably occupy the attention of a democratic Parliament like this than the better housing of the working classes. I trust the result of the passing of a measure dealing with this question will be to bring happiness and comfort to many homes in this country. I take it as a great compliment to myself that I have been asked to address the House at this time. I do not conceal from myself that there were other reasons than personal ones for asking me to undertake this task, and I wish to express my most sincere and earnest thanks for the kindly thought that promoted it. I thank the House for the kindness with which they have listened to my remarks.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty, as followeth:—
"Most Gracious Sovereigu,
"We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, in Parliament assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to Your Majesty for the Gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament"—(Mr. Tomkinson.)
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I desire to begin, as my predecessors have always begun, in the observations I have to make on this, the opening scene of the session, by offering my congratulations to the two hon. Gentlemen who have just addressed us. There have been occasions upon which that congratulation partook somewhat of

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a formal and perfunctory character; but I think I shall have the whole House with me when I say that never, as I think, has the difficult task been undertaken and carried through with better taste, more considerately, and in more strict conformity with the best traditions of this Assembly. The hon. Member who moved the Address is an old friend of a large number of us, on whichever side we sit. He has been long a Member of this Assembly. He is well acquainted with its traditions and its methods, and it certainly was no matter of surprise to me, though I wish it to be a matter of congratulation to him, that he so admirably discharged his task. With regard to the hon. Gentleman who seconded the Address, he is a newer Member of this House, but he has already shown how quickly he can absorb all that is best in our methods and how happily he can catch the tone of this Assembly. The hon. Gentleman, in the concluding words of his speech, made a reference which certainly every Scottish Member, and I, think, everybody in the House, would understand. It was made with admirable taste and propriety, if he will allow me to say so. He comes of a stock which has borne a great part in some of the most important domestic affairs of Scotland for two generations. The abilities of his father have been shown, indeed, upon a smaller field than is offered by this House, but all who had the opportunity of watching the late Dr. Rainy's actions, whether they agreed with him or whether they did not—and I was sometimes in the one position and sometimes in the other—uniformly admitted that had his lot been cast in the political sphere instead of in the not less stormy sphere of Scottish ecclesiastical politics, he would have made, not only upon his own country but on every citizen of the Empire, that impression which we, who have had the opportunity of judging, have carried away of his great powers and abilities. I have only one other observation to make upon the two speeches to which we have just listened. It is that they have followed precedent in approaching the programme of the Government in a spirit of happy optimism. I gather that both hon. Gentlemen are under the belief, the cheerful illusion, that the many excellent things promised in the King's Speech—excellent at all events in their
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opinion—are really going to be carried through in the course of the session. I think it possible, but I think it highly improbable. I do not say the Government were wrong to catalogue their aspirations in the concluding and other paragraphs of the King's Speech; but I am greatly mistaken if, in the course of the session, which will probably not be quite so long as the last one—[Cry of "Why not?"]—well, it does not rest with me, I am only venturing on a prophecy—I doubt whether all these aspirations will be embodied in law, or will even go up to that other place to which we have heard references in the speeches of the hon. Gentlemen opposite—delicate graceful references—and which we have had discussed in other speeches not so graceful from hon. Gentlemen on the Treasury Bench, and which is alluded to in the King's Speech. But before I come to what is in the Speech, I must say one word with regard to an amazing omission from the Speech.
The Speech deals with a great many subjects, of varying importance, but there is one subject of the greatest importance to which His Majesty's Ministers have not thought fit to advise His Majesty that reference should be made. I mean the Colonial Conference. These periodic Colonial Conferences are necessarily almost the most important, if not the most important, incident that can befall the Empire. They bring together, in a manner in which nothing else can bring them together, the different parts of the Empire. They have to discuss questions of vital importance, both for the United Kingdom and for the Colonies, which together make up our Empire. And, Sir, all these things have increased importance, I think, from the many controversies which have arisen lately around our relations with the Colonies. They have increased importance from the fact that the Colonies themselves are profoundly impressed with the importance of coming to arrangements with the Mother Country on subjects vital to the whole Empire. And how His Majesty's Government can look forward to meeting with the Prime Ministers of those Colonies within the next few weeks, how they can take into account the vast importance of the subjects which will come before the Conference, and yet make no reference to them in the Speech passes my understanding.

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I do not dwell further upon it now. I doubt not that before these proceedings on the Address have come to a conclusion we shall hear a good deal more upon this point.
When I turn from what is not in the Speech to what is in the Speech, I find that the place of honour is given to a paragraph connected with the relations between the two Houses. The Government are apparently much distressed at the differences of opinion which have arisen in the last session, and which may, no doubt, again arise in future sessions, between the two Houses, and, according to the words in the Speech from the Throne, they are going to reflect on the situation. Well, I have no objection. In fact, if I may say so with all respect to the distinguished Gentlemen whom I see opposite me upon the front Bench, if they would think more and talk rather less upon this great constitutional issue, it would be better for all of us, and would certainly be better for them; because one result of that unlicensed freedom of speech upon these grave constitutional issues is that we have had two or throe absolutely inconsistent views put forward by Members of the present Cabinet upon the proper way to deal with the House of Lords. There is, for example, the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade, who is the most prolific and one of the most fiery orators upon this subject. His view is that this House is only wasting its time in dealing with any remedial measure or any important legislation until they have crushed the House of Lords. That is his view; but the view of the Home Secretary is quite different. His view is that this House cannot be better occupied than in passing measure after measure—excellent, good, popular measures—which will bring behind the present Government a measure of popular support, and that when these have, one after another, been rejected in another place, the Government should go to an indignant country and ask that so atrocious a state of things should be brought to an end. This is known as the policy of "filling up the cup." I do not pronounce—it is not for me really to offer—an opinion between these two quite inconsistent views of the proper method, outside quiet reflection and meditation, which the Government hive got for dealing with the problem.
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I would only point out, with regard to the "filling up of the cup" remedy, that it has this inherent disadvantage. There can be no doubt, I think, that, judging by the past, as Parliaments grow older, as Bills are passed or not passed, cups are filled up. They are filled up, and they sometimes overflow, but the question is—Whose cup? I do not know that the answer to that question is quite as clear as the Secretary for Home Affairs would have us believe. I suppose that, when all the cups are filled up, the cup that will overflow first is the cup of unpopularity of the Government who have brought in all these wonderful Bills, and that not another House but this House is the one whose character the people will most desire to change. But, in the meanwhile, I am sure the Government cannot be better occupied than in reflecting on the situation, as they say they are doing, though, I confess, I do not think the only specimen we have of their reflections is very reassuring. By a happy accident we have been introduced into the inmost thoughts of one Member of the Government, not, I should have thought, the most violent of His Majesty's advisers, who, by accident, let the public into his confidence, and told how he meditated privately upon the situation, in the happy and unrestrained intercourse between friends. And this Gentleman, apparently, looks forward to a series of dissolutions, and, indeed, revolutions, before the constitutional issue is really to be settled. Now, I confess, this comes upon me rather as a shock. I never supposed that in the learned Attorney-General there was a Robespierre in disguise. I have always regarded him, rightly or wrongly, as one of the most reasonable, one of the most moderate, one of the most careful and constitutional Members of the present Administration. And when I find that this careful and moderate friend of the Constitution is talking of successive dissolutions, ending with a revolution—and I suppose the guillotine—in Parliament-square, I ask myself what the less moderate Members are thinking. What says the fiery spirit of the President of the Board of Trade? What says the Prime Minister, who, rightly or wrongly, is credited with vehement opinions on this matter? I hope that, in the meditations which are going on on the Treasury Bench, they will take a somewhat less lurid hue than

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I gather from the surprise speech—the accidental utterances, the unpremeditated meditations—of the Attorney-General they seem likely to do. There is one point which I would very sincerely lay before Members of this House to whatever Party they belong, whether they are friends of my own, or hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway, or hon. Gentlemen opposite. All of them profess to be, and all of them, I believe, are, desirous of seeing a serious attempt made by the Government to carry out those schemes of social reform, which have been vaguely, though vehemently, adumbrated by them on the hustings and in this House. I know what I am going to say is controversial, but I think it is historically true. If hon. Gentlemen will study the Statute-book, and divide off the Bills which do deal with social reforms from those which do not, they will find that the majority of those which deal with social reform have been passed by Unionist and Conservative Governments, and not by Radicals. I do not at all suggest—and what is more, I do not believe—that that is because there is any lukewarmness on the other side with regard to social reform. Then why is it? I will tell the House why it is—and they know perfectly well. The reason is that as soon as the Radical Party get into power they divert their energies and their attention from social to political questions. They cannot resist the perpetual temptation of trying to modify the Constitution in some direction which they think favourable to their own interests. It has happened over and over again, and apparently it is going to happen again. You have as the first paragraph in this Speech dealing with domestic affairs a paragraph on the House of Lords. It is in the last sentence of the Speech that you have a reference to the housing of the working classes. And that does not mean that hon. Gentlemen opposite are indifferent—I am sure they are not indifferent—to the question of the housing of the working classes; but it does mean that they have always postponed—that they cannot resist the temptation of postponing—dealing with these social questions until they have framed the Constitution in such a manner that they think they can do anything that they desire. Sir, they cannot do that. It is not in their power to do it. And the idea that any modification of the
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Second Chamber is going to prevent that Second Chamber occasionally interfering with the views of the First Chamber is preposterous. And no amount of meditation, however able, by the philosophers who are meditating will result in framing a constitution of the two Chambers in which there will not be some conflict between the two. All that we can provide—and that ought to be provided, I quite agree—is that in the long run the people of this country—the people of this country—should decide what are to be the laws under which they live, as this House already decides what is to be the administration which is to conduct their affairs. The dilemma never can be got over as long as we choose to have a Second Chamber, meditate how we like upon the problem. And if your object is to make the Second Chamber the impeccable body which some theorists desire, the only result will be that you will strengthen it, and that in the collisions, if they should unhappily occur, as they must occasionally occur in every bi-cameral constitution, this House will find itself at a disadvantage. However, I have got other things to say to the House before I sit down, and I do not want to defer the reply of the right hon. Gentleman.
It would be absurd for me to avoid some reference to Irish matters in dealing with the Speech. Ireland is happy—specially happy—in having three Cabinet Ministers or ex-Cabinet Ministers, all occupied at the same time in dealing with her affairs. There is the Ambassador at Washington: there is the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Hoard of Trade: and there is the Minister who has recently undertaken the difficult and responsible duty of governing Ireland. They have all spoken except the last. We have had speeches on Irish affairs from the outgoing Minister, we have had one speech at least from the Minister who has not yet got any official connection with Ireland; but the Minister who is responsible for Ireland has maintained a discreet silence. I am therefore driven to the first two for such views as I have been able to collect of the intentions of the Government. The President of the Board of Trade went to Belfast the other day and made a speech. He was perfectly entitled to go to Belfast, he was perfectly entitled to make a speech. I understand from the newspapers that his

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colleague thought it necessary to take very great precautions that that speech should be delivered with that security which I think should be the birthright of every citizen. I object to interference with speech wherever it takes place, and I belong to a Party which has probably suffered a good deal more from interruptions than any other. However, it appears that the right hon. Gentleman went to Belfast, and that the police were called out, and that a regiment or a company was armed with ball cartridge, and all the rest of it—I hope and believe it was a quite unnecessary precaution, but I dare say it was wise to be on the safe side. The President of the Board of Trade went in order to replant, to reafforest Liberalism, as I understand it, in the north of Ireland. It had to be reborn, and the infant so reborn, under the auspices of the right hon. Gentleman, was recradled with all these military honours. Having studied such reports as I could of his speech, I am quite unable to gather from it that he has in the least faced the difficulty which the Government must deal with, and which nascent Liberalism in Belfast will have to deal with, in attempting to solve that Irish problem which, I agree with the mover and seconder, is not insoluble, which I believe has been in the last five and twenty years in process of solution, which may not be solved in the lifetime of any here present, though my faith remains quite unchanged that solved it will ultimately be. But that it will be solved, or can be solved, by such manipulations of the administrative machinery of Ireland as is foreshadowed in the gracious Speech from the Throne, and in the speeches of Ministers, I do not believe; and I do not believe it for this reason, among others, that the President of the Board of Trade evidently has not seen where the true difficulty lies. If this manipulation of Irish administration is really to leave this House, not in technical supremacy, but in substantial and real supremacy over the affairs of Ireland, it will not content, and it cannot content, those Irishmen who regard an independent Parliament in Dublin, under the Crown, as the minimum of Irish demands, and who in large numbers go further, and not only regard Irish separation as being thinkable—which the right hon. Gentleman says it is not—but actually look forward to it with hope, with belief, and with undying aspiration.
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That is the first horn of the dilemma. The other horn is this, that if your manipulation of Irish administration is really going to be what the Prime Minister said it ought to be, viz., a step in the direction of an independent Parliament in Dublin—
THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN, Stirling Burghs): No, no!
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The right hon. Gentleman is quite right, I was not quoting him textually, I was quoting what I honestly believed to be the meaning of his speech. What he actually said was—and my right hon. friend behind me has given me the precise words—that he would advise hon. Members below the gangway to take anything which was consistent with, and which would lead up to, the larger policy. It never occurred to me until this moment that, when the Prime Minister talked of the larger policy, he did not mean that which we have been accustomed to call Home Rule ever since Mr. Gladstone brought forward his first Home Rule Bill, viz., an independent Parliament in Dublin—but that he meant something short of that, and that with that halfway House, leading to nowhere, the Irish Members and those whom they represent are going to be content. It is perfectly vain for this House to try to find something which is both Home Rule and not Home Rule. If it is either Home Rule or a step towards Home Rule, then I believe—I do not know what the President of the Board of Trade meant by the supremacy of this Parliament—that it is absolutely destructive of the supremacy of this Parliament in any substantial sense. It may leave it in a technical sense, in the sense in which we possess it over the Parliament of the Australian Commonwealth or of Canada, but it will not leave us any substantial control over Irish affairs. If, on the other hand, you mean to set up, either in one stage or two, anything which is to give the whole control of Irish affairs practically and substantially to an Irish Assembly, then, I say, you run directly counter to that great body of opinion in this country which is determined that no such interference with our Constitution is to be tolerated.

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It is not only upon devolution that we have had utterances from Ministers, nor is it only upon devolution that the Gracious Speech from the Throne touches in connection with Ireland. I really am astounded at the course that the Government, or members of the Government, or ex-members of the Government have taken. The House is aware that I am one of those who desire to see University education extended to the non-Protestant and Catholic population of Ireland. I have always held that view; it is not held by all my friends; it is not held by all my friends on this Bench; but it has always been hold by me, and it is held by me to this day. But everybody is also aware that the difficulties attending the solution of this question are of the most formidable character. Why should the inherent difficulties of this situation be doubled, trebled, quadrupled, by dragging in the fate and fortunes of Trinity College, Dublin? I cannot understand anything so mad as such a course. We should know nothing about the particular plans of the Government if it was not that Mr. Bryce, after he had accepted the Embassy at Washington, but while still, I suppose, technically Chief Secretary for Ireland, not only told us what the policy of the Government was, but told us that it was that policy or nothing. He put a pistol at the head of everybody interested in this question—at the head of the Nationalist Members, at the head of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in Ireland, at the head of Trinity College, Dublin, and at the head of everybody in this House interested in this question, and said:—"This is the plan of the Government; take this or get nothing." I do not think that that is a proper course to have adopted, and it becomes really a scandal if you consider the relation in which the speech made by Mr. Bryce stands to the Report of the Commission which he appointed. That Commission reported on a Monday. On the Friday after, and before the evidence had appeared, Mr. Bryce, in the name of his colleagues, announced the unalterable determination of the Government, I think, and he had the courage to quote the Report of the Commission. That shows that he had not had time to look at the Report of the Commission, which was natural enough. The Government, whose name he took, I will not say in vain, but
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the Government in whose name he ventured to speak, could not have read that Report, and certainly had had no meeting of the Cabinet to discuss it. The majority of those who signed that Report were not in favour of the procedure of the Government, although Mr. Bryce suggested that they were. It is quite true that five out of the nine said that some day or other—four of them said "now," the fifth said "at some indefinite future"—a scheme resembling that which the Government; proposes ought to be adopted. But there was not a majority of that Commission in favour of the course the Government are now adopting. Is it fair to the nine distinguished gentlemen, upon whom you have put all the ungrateful labour of sifting evidence on this side of the Channel and the other, to treat their Report in that way? Is it fair to treat the new Chief Secretary for Ireland in that way? I suppose the transition from the Board of Education to Ireland is promotion, and if it is, no man has deserved it more than the right hon. Gentleman. No man, in my experience at all events, has made greater strides in the favour of this House than did the right hon. Gentleman in his conduct of the very intricate measure which was entrusted to his charge last session. I do not know whether he cheerfully exchanges the problem of bringing in an Education Bill, with the doubtful support of the Nonconformist, for the other task of bringing in a Devolution Bill, with the doubtful support of the Nationalists. There is a certain resemblance between the two proceedings. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman will be more fortunate in the second than he was in the first. But I am confident that, whether fortunate in the issue or unfortunate, either from his point of view or mine, he will do nothing but gain fresh laurels so far as he is personally concerned, and will increase the reputation which he has already made in this House. But I think it is rather hard that the right hon. Gentleman should start on these difficult duties pledged by his predecessor. I think it was a cruel fate that he should suddenly become the heir to this irreducible minimum, to this unchangeable policy. As regards Mr. Bryce, I do not know that I do not rather admire his procedure. He retires to other duties from the fighting line, he shouts "No surrender" at the top of his voice, and he nails his flag to somebody else's

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mast—a most felicitous picture of courage and discretion. I should not have troubled the House with these observations upon the Government Bill for Irish University education if we had not had a First Reading speech upon it from an ex-Minister.
We have had another First Reading speech upon another Bill from another Minister. I allude to the ubiquitous President of the Board of Trade. He also has given his explanation and his account of a Bill which he proposes to introduce upon the Patent Laws. I only allude to that now because it has an interesting bearing upon a Resolution brought forward last session, but which the exigencies of public business prevented us from discussing with the fulness which I had hoped for. I mean the free trade Resolution. The Prime Minister will remember that his contributions to that debate were rather in the nature of ejaculations than arguments, and that in the end we never quite clearly made out what his view of free trade was. I have been forced to try and make out from the speeches of his colleagues his meaning, and they fill me with grave misgivings. I thought he held that particular form of free trade doctrine which has been constantly preached by the Cobden Club, and that his view was that you ought to consider nobody but the consumer, that as regards either the capitalist on the one hand or the wage-earner on the other their interests were best consulted by always thinking how commodities, services, and goods could be cheapest obtained by the consumer. I thought that was the right hon. Gentleman's view; but when I notice the legislation which the Government actually propose, I really do not know where I am. There is the President of the Board of Trade, who is going to bring in a Bill dealing with shipping which unquestionably throws the consumer, I will not say overboard, but certainly ignores the consumer altogether, and says that what you have to consider is the fair competition to which British shipowners are subjected; and, whether freights rise or do not rise, by seeing that this fair competition is preserved, his business is to see that there is no undue favouritism on the part of the foreign shipowner. I do not object to that, but how is it consistent with Cobden Club views about free trade? The right hon.
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Gentleman is going to propose that you should by legislation make it practically impossible for the foreign producer to produce where he wants to produce—namely, in his own country; you are going to compel him to bring over his capital and plant here to produce here, and that in order to prevent want of employment to our working men. An excellent object, but how is that consistent with the extreme and, as I think, extravagant doctrines of the Cobden Club, which I thought were those of the Prime Minister, although he has never given us an opportunity of actually learning it from his own lips. These are not the only perils. The Secretary of State for War made a speech to the foreign economists the other day which must have filled the right hon. Gentleman with disgust, if not dismay, because the Secretary of State for War told the foreign economists that free trade was not that absolute doctrine which the Cobden Club have always told us it was; it was not a doctrine independent of latitude and longitude, of climate or country; that free trade is good here and bad there. This country may properly adopt it, and another country reject it; it is all a question of consideration of the balance of motives, political considerations and fiscal considerations, and when you have balanced all these, then you may come no doubt to a conclusion which will not be the same in Germany as in England, in America as in Canada, but which will at all events suit the particular country. That is not free trade as we used to know it. But the cruellest cut of all was from the Under-Secretary for the Colonies, because in a recent speech at Manchester he told us that he looked with favour upon fiscal union between the Colonies and fiscal union obtained by preferential treatment between the Colonies. Those were, I thought, in the vocabulary of the Radical Party, "the sordid bonds of Empire," and it was with no small surprise that I read the hon. Gentleman's oration, which cannot, I think, have been agreeable to his official chiefs.
But the mention of the hon. Gentleman's name reminds me of another matter which I think more important than any I I have touched upon, although I do not think it has received any attention in the public Press or on the platform; and it is not referred to in the Speech from the

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Throne. I refer to the Blue-book on the New Hebrides, which the Government have laid on the Table of the House. It is a most singular document. I will relate very briefly what happened. Just as we went out of office my right hon. friend the late Secretary for the Colonies had concurred in a suggestion that there should be a discussion between us and the French Government in regard to the New Hebrides, to consider whether some form of joint sovereignty might not be established in these islands, which have long been a source of difficulty between us and our Colonies on the one hand, and with the Government of France on the other. The Foreign Office under the present Government supported this inquiry. They carried it on for some time, and embodied the results in a very elaborate document. This document was sent out to New Zealand and Australia, the two Colonies concerned, who were informed that although the Imperial Government would not finally ratify the Convention without their consent, they did not think the Convention could really be altered, and it was to be either taken or left. The people of Australia and New Zealand were extremely indignant at that treatment, and I am not surprised. I say nothing about the contents of the agreement; but when you remember that both New Zealand and Australia pointed out to the home Government that this was a matter vitally affecting them, that they were never officially told it was under consideration, that they had never been consulted as to the details of the negotiations, and never asked for information about matters in regard to which they knew necessarily a great deal more than the home Government could possibly do—I think everybody will understand their feeling aggrieved. It seems to me that that was, to say the least, a most tactless performance on the part of the Government. They know well enough that the difficulties of dealings between Downing-street and the self-governing Colonies are always considerable, and that the utmost good will and tact and mutual consideration are required on both sides if things are to go smoothly. Yet here this Government just escaped a quarrel with Natal through want of tact; and they have quarrelled with Australia and New Zealand equally through want of tact. [An HON. MEMBER: And with New-
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foundland.] That is a very difficult point and I am not going to meddle with it; but with regard to the other two matters my opinion is quite clear, and I do not think it will be differed from by any one who has studied the facts. But there is a more startling revelation, as I think, of Governmental procedure to be found in this Blue-book even than the want of tact, judgment, and consideration which it exhibits upon every page. Anybody glancing through the book at the objections taken by Australia to the Convention will be startled to find—at least, I was—that among other things Australia objects to certain terms with regard to indentured labour which are contained in the Convention. They say with regard to certain provisions that, they are not sufficiently favourable to the labourer and are too favourable to the employer of indentured labour. I do not know that the provisions are wrong; I am not criticising their substance; I only say that the idea of the Government, over the heads of the Colonies, signing such a Convention with the French Government is the most amazing incident in modern politics. Then there is this sort of provision, that children may be indentured, but they must not be too small when indentured, and that the Commissioner is to be the judge of the proper size at which children of either sex may be taken as indentured labourers. Unmarried females may be taken, of course, by arrangement, with the consent of the head, not of the family, but of the tribe. Then you have to consider the terms of remuneration. It appears that there is the possibility of free contract, an arrangement natural enough between those who take the indentured labour and the indentured labourer, but in the event of there being no arrangement the wages are to be assumed to be 10s. a month. I suppose the wages may be less or more, but if there is no actual contract, then 10s. a month is what the Government think ought to be the proper wage for these indentured labourers. Then male and female, adult and child, are to work between sunrise and sunset, with an hour for their dinner. If they do not work between sunrise and sunset, or if they leave their employer, they are liable to various penalties, one of which is the obligatory extension of the term of their employment, and another is imprisonment for not more than a month. [An HON.

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MEMBER: Slavery.] To make the whole thing complete, moreover, these indentured labourers, at the end of their term, whether it be the original three years, or whether it be the three years increased as a penalty for non-conformation to the contract, are to be repatriated at the expense of their employers. Now, I want to know what we are to think of this amazing transaction. Here is a Government, which in 1895 gave its great authority to the system of indentured labour in British Guiana. Ten years later they won a general election by representing indentured labour as slavery, or forced labour; but a year has not passed over them before they set their seal again to a system of indentured labour which has all the attributes of the system in British Guiana, with the addition of compulsory repatriation. I have never been able to understand the compulsory repatriation argument. I have never been able to see why that which was not slavery in British Guiana because there was no compulsory repatriation became slavery in South Africa because there was to be compulsory repatriation. Let us hear no more, at least, of this compulsory repatriation as the mark and sign of servile labour now that you have carried it against the will of your Colonies. Without consulting them, you have yourselves signed a treaty with France which embodies indentured labour and attaches to it all the harsh conditions, or the conditions which are alleged to be harsh, which you have attacked in other cases, and which, to make the case complete, involves the compulsory repatriation of the indentured labourer. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman is going to condescend to give me any explanation of his views on free trade or on the Transvaal, but I hope, at all events, he will give me his views on this aspect of slavery, or of labour under servile conditions. This is no departmental subject, no question which can escape the notice of the Prime Minister in the general rush of important business and under the heavy load of responsibility under which he labours. He must have known all about this. Two of his great offices—the Colonial and Foreign Offices—are concerned in it, and there must have been involved a controversy between these great offices and the Colonies of New Zealand and Australia. The Cabinet must have been aware of the fact that
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the Australian Colonies would not take the responsibility of assenting to this Convention, and the right hon. Gentleman must have looked at the reasons received for objecting in detail. He must have seen many of those reasons urged in respect of indentured labour, and if he did, then he and his colleagues in the Government are now responsible for that very policy against which they have won elections, against which they placarded every constituency in the kingdom, which they misrepresented in every constituency thoughout the land; and if there is a Government which sandwiches a successful election based on a "slavery cry" between two elaborate measures establishing indentured labour in different quarters of the globe under the shelter of the British flag, then that Government must stand disgraced and condemned.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: The right hon. Gentleman began by making the usual references to the speeches of the mover and seconder of the Address. They were the usual references, but they were made with unusual cordiality, with a grace and appositeness and a perfect truth which make me very reluctant to add anything in case I should take from the effect of the tribute which the right hon. Gentleman made to my hon. friends. My hon. friend the Member for Crowe is now an old Parliamentary, experienced hand; and we knew that we should have from him a speech not likely to give offence. We knew that it would be well pitched in tone, well knit in its structure, and expressive of the general feeling of the House. My hon. friend who followed him and seconded the Motion requires more introduction to the House; but I am entirely in accord with the right hon. Gentleman in the opinion he expressed that we had the probability and the prospect of an addition to the intellectual and debating power of the House in my hon. friend if he was, as we believe him to be, the worthy son of his father. His father, who was perhaps personally but little known to the bulk of the Members of this Assembly, was a man who was a statesman in a degree which is very seldom reached by those who are passing their lives on the Parliamentary field. I always fight shy of the word "statesman" and of the fashion which sometimes prevails of

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taking a statesmanlike view of a matter. But certainly, if there ever was a man who was calculated by tact, by ingenuity, by straightforwardness of character, by high talents, and by patriotic motives to deserve the name of statesman, it was the late Principal Rainy. I congratulate my hon. friend on the favourable impression he has made on the House, and I congratulate the House also on the proof that my hon. friends have given of the part they are able to take in our discussions.
The right hon. Gentleman has spoken with great good humour, with great acumen, and also with a good deal of penetration in finding out the weak points of our armour; and I see no fault to find with what he has said, except I think he makes me responsible for answering a good deal for which I have really little personal concern. I will, however, take the matters in detail which he has brought before the House. He began by speaking of that which was not in the Speech, leaving for after consideration the things that are in the Speech. He said, "Is not this monstrous? Here is a Government at the head of a great Empire, and all the Premiers of the Empire are coming to a grand Conference in the course of a month or two, and no reference is made to it in the Speech; how can they be looking forward in a proper spirit to the advent of those representatives of the great Colonies when they do not breathe so much as a word about it in the Speech?" There have been two occasions before when the Colonial Premiers have come among us. There was the year 1897 and again in 1902; and if my memory serves me rightly, the right hon. Gentleman was responsible for the government of the country in both those years—at any rate, he had a large share of responsibility. But on neither of those occasions was any reference made in the Speech from the Throne. We are a conservative people on this side of the House. We give every consideration to precedent. The right hon. Gentleman is surrounded by Gentlemen who speak of themselves and their Party as if they had invented the Colonies, and they always speak of us, especially in public, when they are using their loudest tones, as men who have no community of feeling, sympathy, or interest with the
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Colonies; but when we found that he thought it proper to make no reference to the Colonies, of course we did not like to obtrude our shabby little share of interest in the matter when he had thought it proper to be silent. I think that the right hon. Gentleman will be satisfied with that explanation.
Putting aside for a moment the badinage and the banter in which the right hon. Gentleman so amiably indulged on many subjects, perhaps it will be more respectful to the House, and more in accordance with my duty to the House, if I enlarge a little, in as serious a tone as I can in the atmosphere to which we have been introduced—if I explain a little more fully than the paragraph in the Speech does, what we really mean by the reference to the differences between the two Houses. The right hon. Gentleman took hold of the word "consideration" and said that we were thinking, and apparently doing nothing else; and he said that we did very well because it was more useful for us to think than to speak. I quite agree with him, and I for my part endeavour to act on that counsel. I admit that this is the most important part of the Speech. I fully recognise the serious nature of the task to which we are not only addressing ourselves, but to which we shall, of course, in due time invite this House to address itself. What I ask the House to believe—and I think they will believe it—is that it is from no feeling of wounded vanity or irritation at being thwarted, even from no chagrin at losing the labours of so many weeks and months, or at the loss of what we thought excellent opportunities which will not in so full and adequate a manner recur with the same advantage—it is not on those grounds that we bring forward this great question. We are not unaccustomed to this kind of disappointment. We of the Liberal Party have been inured through long years to delays, rebuffs, and disappointments in the quarter from which these disappointments came. But we never lost heart. The Liberal Partial ways stood to its cause; and, apart from any other reason for doing so, there was this—that we have long since recognised in the Party opposite a certain plastic and elastic character of principle, and a certain adaptability of policy, which always leaves us the hope that they may themselves be found on the same side of a question as ourselves. But why,

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then, is this question raised now—this question of the relations of the two Houses, for that is the question which we wish to raise, and not the question of the constitution of the other House? That is another matter altogether. I shall endeavour to put the matter calmly and reasonably, always, no doubt, with a certain little salt of controversy, because we cannot, I daresay, dissociate ourselves from that. I believe it can be put in a way that will be agreed to by the great majority of men in all quarters of the House and of the country. What is it that has happened? Two months ago two great measures were destroyed—measures which had been demanded by the country and elaborated with infinite pains in this House. [OPPOSITION Cries of "No!" and MINISTERIAl cheers.] Two important measures were destroyed by the House of Lords, one of them by being so altered as to fail altogether to accomplish the main purpose for which it was introduced a purpose which had the approval of the electors of this country. [OPPOSITION cries of "No!" and MINISTERIAL cheers]; and the other by the more summary process of contemptuous rejection. And these events did not lose anything in significance by the fact that they coincided with the acceptance by the other House of another measure which had also been demanded and largely supported in the country, though certainly not more than the other two, and which had been denounced in unequivocal terms by the Leaders of the Opposition in both Houses as containing subversive and iniquitous provisions. I cannot pretend that that came upon us entirely as a surprise, because of our past experience; but it did come as a novelty last year, because for twenty years back, during the main portion of that time, the House of Lords had been in a perfectly quiescent and acquiescent mood, ready, with the scantiest allowance of consideration—against which a certain feeble complaint was occasionally made, but without affecting the result—to accept and endorse whatever was offered to them by the Government of the day. Now the House of Lords is sometimes thought of—and if the theory was properly carried out it might act—as a sort of watch-dog, guarding the Statute-book from the intrusion of mischievous, or at any rate undesirable, measures.
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There is a certain well-known exclamation, not in itself a very wise one, "Thank God there is a House of Lords!" That really means, "Thank God the decision rests with people who are of my political opinions." But when the prolonged somnolence of this watch-dog is succeeded by a sudden access of bitter ferocity, one looks about for the cause. I really do not know which is the better ground of complaint—the somnolence or the ferocity. The answer will be according to the temperament and opinion of the individual. But the combination of the two, one coming after the other, is surely perfectly intolerable, and shows that there is some fatal vice in the working of the constitutional system. What is the cause of this sudden change? There is no mystery whatever about it. It all lies in Party feelings and Party considerations. When the King's Government is of a certain complexion, the House of Lords holds its hand, abdicates its powers and its use as a revising body, and ceases to operate in that capacity. But when the King's Government is of the opposite complexion, it becomes aggressive and unblushing in its aggressiveness; and this explains the political phenomena of last December. Is there any man listening to me in any part of the House who thinks that that is a satisfactory state of things? Am I not right in thinking that if we look at it calmly we shall all agree that, if we can do something to readjust the machinery in this respect, we shall be doing a service to our country? We have been so long accustomed to this state of things that we have got to consider it as the natural and inevitable condition of affairs. But it has been brought home to the country in the flagrant experience of this recent Session.
I can well understand that the right hon. Gentleman is eminently satisfied with the present arrangement. Where would the right hon. Gentleman be without the House of Lords? Where, after all, does he place his main dependence and his hopes? Not on the men who are elected to support him, but on the men who are born to support him. Here he is in a minority; and while I am ready to believe that the allegiance of those who sit round him and behind him is all that could be desired, still it is a great disadvantage to be in a minority; and he looks for and

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finds his compensation elsewhere. We know well what it is to be in a minority, and we looked elsewhere for our compensation. We looked to the mass of our supporters in the country, to whose staunchness and zeal we trusted, and not in vain. But the right hon. Gentleman need not go so far. He looks to the other end of the corridor, and there he finds in abundant measure exactly what he most misses here. He finds a permanent, large majority ready to follow him whithersoever he leads them, ready to obey his instructions, as we have seen, in the letter, and as far as they can in the spirit also. Sometimes also, with perfectly blunt candour, the state of the case as it really is is disclosed to us. Hon. Members will remember some strange words used by Lord Lansdowne in the House of Lords. What a naif disclosure it was! He spoke of being careful to join issue on ground which was "as favourable as possible to themselves." Not to the country; not to the cause which was fostered or favoured by this particular legislation, but to themselves. Trade might suffer from a measure, employers might be restricted in the use of their capital, the workmen could be led on to some slippery slope that might do them more harm than good and they might lose work, the law might be twisted and the assumption of equality before the law might be broken down—all these were very monstrous things, but their first duty was to see that their position was as favourable as possible to themselves. I do not know whether "themselves" meant the House of Lords or the Unionist Party. It is very much the same thing, but whichever it is, it expresses what was intended, but I did not expect that we should be told it so plainly. This must be a state of things which the right hon. Gentleman looks upon as not being without its advantages for a Party leader, fresh as he was last session from an unexampled catastrophe. It must be a source of satisfaction that for every legislator among his supporters who has been rejected he can lay his hands upon half a dozen just as good—whether hereditary or nominated, whether lay or ecclesiastical—to fill the thin ranks. A Constitution which allows him these solid comforts must commend itself to him. In dealing with this question—because we are now opening an enormous question—I do not underrate the magni-
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tude and seriousness of the question—we ought to take care that we are not led into a labyrinth of constitutional fallacies, pedantries, or niceties; and in order to avoid that there is one truth which I would recommend every one to take hold of and to hold on to, and that will take him out of the maze. It is simply that I would have him remember what is the essential and inherent nature of the Constitution of this country. It is that it is representative. The representative body here is not, as it is in a country not so far away, looked upon as a safety valve, or at any rate as an outhouse, a succursale of the Constitution. The representative system and the representative Chamber here are the foundations of the Constitution, and I am not sure that I would not rather have a Constitution where the representative body was very much at the disposal or under the control of the Sovereign himself directly, than a Constitution so-called under which it was under the control of another Chamber. But ours ceases to be a representative system if the leader of a Party who has been overwhelmingly defeated by the popular voice at the polls is to remain, directly or indirectly, in supreme control of the legislation of the country. Let me say this. There is no need and no desire on my part to attribute to the House of Lords any unworthy or sinister motive or intention in the matter at all. They acted according to use and wont, the habits and practice of the past. But the events of last December raise this question in such a form that we cannot put it aside; we cannot escape it, and they raised it by bringing into juxtaposition and into glaring contrast the constitutional rights of the electors on the one side and the asserted privileges of the Peers on the other. Sir, the Government does not shrink from this problem, and I am not sure whether, when we get to close quarters, it may not turn out to be easier of solution than at first sight it appears to be. But at all events settled it must be. The present state of things is discreditable; it is dangerous; it is demoralising. It is demoralising to this House. You have had Bills passed in the subservient period, when the proper people are in power, which show an incapacity for the moment, or a want of desire, on the part of the other Chamber to perform its proper functions

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as a court for the review and revision of legislation; on the other hand you have the summary rejection or mutilation or perversion of Bills on the ground of promoting Party interest. I do not think it can be denied. Both of these policies have their inception in Party interest, otherwise why does this course of rejection and mutilation only occur when one Party is in power? Then you have of necessity a natural tendency even in this House to alter and pare down effective provisions on the legislation which we pass, in order to save measures from the certainty of being wrecked in the interest of the same Party. Again this is what we say, that this state of things cannot be allowed to go on, and we must have such a readjustment of the relations of the two Houses as will enable us to carry out with reasonable harmony the wishes of the people. There are all sorts of schemes afloat for reconstituting the second Chamber of the Legislature—by introducing new elements, by the expurgation of evil elements, and by the alteration and revision of the terms of tenure, and so on. All such questions we set aside. What we are concerned with is that the relations between the House of Commons and the other Chamber, however composed, should be improved, and it is to this to which in due time the attention of the House will be directed.
The right hon. Gentleman went on to speak of the Irish paragraph in the Speech, and he gave us a good deal of the old and obsolete thunder of the Home Rule controversy which I thought had died out, but of which we hear an occasional re-echo in the distance. However, my view has been made as clear as day again and again in this House and out of it, and the whole point is this: Are you prepared to deny that the Irish people are entitled to manage their own domestic affairs so long as they do not interfere with ours, and so long as nothing is done to infringe the supremacy of Parliament and therefore the integrity of the connection between the two countries? It does not make any difference whatever, in the proper sense of the word, in the solidity of the Empire that the Irish people should have what every self-governing colony has, the power to manage their own affairs; that is the
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larger policy that I am supporting, but we cannot all at once attempt that. It may not be feasible, and it may not in some senses be desirable to do it all at once. But let us remove the more obvious objections to the present system, and let us do it in such a way as to be consistent with the adoption of the larger policy. I do not think I need say anything more, there is no ambiguity whatever about it. It might be possible to improve the administration of Dublin Castle by sending over one or two chosen administrators; I do not think you can find abler men than there are in Dublin Castle at present, but it might be so. But that would be concentration of administration, and what we want is to enlist the Irish people—and for my part I should not be too fastidious as to the particular manner in which that was done so long as it was an effective scheme for bringing the Irish people into play in the management of their own affairs.
Then there is the question of University education. The right hon. Gentleman is very much shocked that Mr. Bryce, as we may call him now, unfortunately for the House of Commons, made a speech in which he described the scheme which he and we propose, for dealing with this great question. What I say about that is simply this. We all know that there are great and deep difficulties in this matter. We all know how attempts have been made to solve this problem. We know that all this time the Irish people are destitute of that higher education. And, in Heaven's name, if there is a feasible and probable prospect of solving it, let us embrace that method. Here we have a scheme, which, I believe, has the approval of large bodies opposed to each other in general politics in Ireland; but unfortunately, it interferes with the prerogative and exclusiveposition—well, exclusive is not the kind of word, because it is in one sense not exclusive—but the particular position of Trinity College, Dublin. I speak of Trinity College, Dublin, with the utmost respect and admiration, but we cannot allow the interests and the prejudices of any particular place of learning to stand in the way of a great scheme if it is likely to benefit the whole people. If the right hon. Gentleman joins his forces with the forces which are merely

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maintaining those particular prerogatives, I do not think that he will be embarking in a very good cause or a cause that is likely to succeed. And as to my friend Mr. Bryce making a speech on the subject, I do not know, but I imagine the position is this—that he was so full of the subject; but I do not think there was any impropriety in it at all. I have heard of things being said after a resignation of office—more important things. But to the best of my belief I do not think Mr. Bryce had resigned. But I know this much—that he was anxious to put this matter forward as a sort of legacy after he left, a legacy of peace. [Opposition Cries of "Oh."] Well, he may have been entirely wrong. The right hon. Gentleman no doubt has it very much in his power to prevent his wishes being fulfilled or to delay them. But Mr. Bryce thought the people had been brought together on the subject as they had never been before, and that the public statement of these proposals would have the effect of crystallising them, or at anyrate of bringing them into action.
Then the right hon. Gentleman turned to free trade, and he asked me to give my views. I have never been very voluble on free trade, because I am, as he says, one of the old school of free traders. He said one thing; I suppose it was a sort of outburst—I do not know where it came in in his speech exactly—but it seemed as if it was a sort of thing he had been in the habit of saying to himself in his sleep. He said "I do not know where I am." I have never known a case of a complaint being made of conduct on someone else's part of which the complainer himself is universally agreed to have been guilty. What we want to know is, not my views, which are simple and ordinary, but the right hon. Gentleman's views. If he would only take one of those opportunities on private Members' nights, which are so freely given by a generous body of rules in the House of Commons to private Members in the earlier part of the session, and bring forward the question of fiscal policy and state his views upon it, I am sure we should all be deeply interested—and a good many besides us.
Then the right hon. Gentleman went away to the other end of the world, to the New Hebrides. I cannot say
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that I have read all the details of the Blue-book with the completeness that he has been able to bring to its perusal; but if he implies that this was a thing sprung upon the Colonies by us since we came into power, and some new policy invented by ourselves, as to which the Australian Colonies had never been consulted, he is entirely mistaken.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I did not say that.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: Well, but it was rather implied.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: What I said was this. I simply repeated what the Australian Colonies themselves said. It was that during the months' discussion at home with regard to the proposed Convention they were not consulted at all, nor were they allowed to give their opinion. After everything was over they were told they might either take the treaty, or have no treaty.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: Well, the fact is this—that this has been discussed, and rediscussed, and rediscussed, with the Colonies, and the views of the Colonies have been expressed again and again and again, and that the controversy has been going on for years—for five years.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: You have not read the Blue-book.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: No, I do not profess to have read the Blue-book. I am told by those who I have that it had been going on for five years. And, of course, we were engaged in a negotiation with a foreign Power, and at last we knew everything perfectly, being saturated with the views of the Colonies. We had to make the best fight that we could with this foreign friendly Power in order to arrive at a conclusion. And what was said to the Colonies was, "We are afraid that we have carried it as far as we can in your interests, and that we have come to a point when you will have to take what you can get." That is a very different thing from what the right hon. Gentleman said—that we never consulted them, and then, having left some time—an interval in the consultation—we threw them the curt information that they must

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be content to take it or leave it. Well, I am sure there was no discourtesy intended. Then the right hon. Gentleman goes on to give the details of a new system of indentured labour. This is another of the series of old election cries. But what was the case here? We were making the best bargain we could, really for the protection of these savage tribes—cannibals, and many other charming types of that sort—and, what is regarded as the terms we inflicted upon them is really the best terms that we could get for the protection of these people.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Is that the answer?
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: My hon. friend will give a much fuller answer by-and-by, and I trust that his explanation will be entirely satisfactory. I do not think that I need detain the House any longer. There is one subject which I think it is desirable that I should name, because it is not mentioned in the King's Speech—it was not necessary, but, if I did not say anything about it, it might take the House by surprise—and that was an old familiar friend, but a new form of an old familiar friend—namely, the procedure of the House of Commons. We intend to go forward immediately with the proposals with regard to Standing Committees, which were considered by the committee appointed last session, and as to which we placed a certain project on the Table in the autumn. I thank the House for their kindness in listening to a speech made in somewhat difficult circumstances, as I have a violent cold, and I hope the right hon. Gentleman will agree that my desire has been to imitate as fully as I could the very good-natured and kindly mariner in which he dealt with the questions with which he had to deal.
MR. JOHN REDMOND: The references to Ireland in the speech from the Throne and the certainty that this will be largely an Irish session, and that the Government are about to deal with the Irish question, make it, I think, desirable that I should intervene at an early stage in this debate. First, I desire to say what I understand to be the position of the Government with regard to this Irish question. We regard them as being pledged to deal with it this
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session, and to deal with it on lines which will lead to what I may call complete self-government. I do not want at this moment to go into any question as to the method they are going to adopt. No doubt their plan is still under consideration, and I do not know what form that plan will ultimately attain; but it is desirable that I should repeat, although some hon. Members may be tired of the repetition, that we on these benches stand in exactly the same position as we have stood in for the last twenty-five years. We believe nothing can settle this question and we believe nothing can bring comparative peace, prosperity, and content to Ireland short of the concession of a Parliament to Ireland with executive responsibility, and I gather with the greatest pleasure from the right hon. Gentleman himself—I never doubted it—that he is I still of the opinion that he has always maintained, and that his view of the ultimate solution of this question is the same as mine. I pass, therefore, from the question of method, which I do not think I could usefully discuss at the present moment, by saying that the whole of the present Government are absolutely pledged to deal with this question, that they have unanimously condemned, root and branch, the present system of government in Ireland, and that they have pledged themselves to deal with the subject. In the session of 1905 every member of the present Government then in the House of Commons, and the entire Liberal Party voted in favour of a Motion that—
"The present system of government in Ireland is in opposition to the will of the Irish people, and gives them no voice in the management of their own affairs; that the system is consequently inefficient and extravagantly costly; that it does not enjoy the confidence of any section of the population; that it is productive of universal discontent and unrest, and is incapable of satisfactorily promoting the material and intellectual progress of the people."
That then is the problem that the Government have announced they are about to deal with this session, and inasmuch as the proposed method is still under consideration, it may be advisable for me, even if I do make some demands upon its patience, to ask the House to look a little more closely into the main facts of this problem. All those who voted for my resolution in 1905 start from the position that English rule in Ireland for hundreds of

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years has been a failure. That is true, but I would like to emphasise it. Let us get to some of the facts. In the last sixty-five years the population of Ireland has fallen from 8,000,000 to a little over 4,000,000, and in the Inst twenty years it has fallen by nearly 1,000,000. Now that is an extraordinary state of things. There is nothing like it to be found in the rest of the world. These sixty-five years have been for the rest of Europe years of great prosperity. There has been an impetus of trade, wealth has increased, population has increased, and trade and commerce have prospered—have greatly prospered. To this Ireland is the sole exception. Ireland to-day is without manufactures. Wages are miserable in the extreme. Let the House have the figures. The average rate of wages for able-bodied male adults employed in agriculture in the year 1902 is stated to have been 17s. 5d. in England, 17s. 7d. in Wales, 19s. 5d. in Scotland, and 10s. 9d. in Ireland. Again, the highest average weekly earnings in England were (in the county of Durham) 22s.2d., in Wales (in Glamorgan) 21s. 3d., in Scotland (in Renfrew and Lanark) 22s. 2d., in Ireland (in Down) 13s. Once more, the lowest average weekly earrings in England were (in Oxfordshire) 14s. 6d., in Wales (in Cardiganshire) 15s. 8d., in Scotland (in Shetlands, Orkney and Caithness) 13s. 7d., in Ireland (in Mayo) 8s. 9d.; and the same malign influences have ever since been operating. The people, who would be the most useful, and whom it would be most desirable to keep at home, are still fleeing from the country; so that the situation is one which obviously ought to engage the most serious attention of English statesmanship. During all these years Ireland has had no effective voice whatever in the management of Irish affairs. In the House of Commons, Ireland has had about one sixth of the representation. We all know that during the greater portion of the century the representatives of the Irish nation were overborne by the English and Scottish Members. In the House of Lords we have no representation at all, and, therefore, the whole responsibility for the present condition of affairs rests upon Great Britain. Great Britain has had complete power. Great Britain has done just as she pleased with the government of
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Ireland; and as a result you have before you the ghastly failure and tragedy of today. Now what does it mean? What is the real cause of this? I do not—I never have attributed it to any malice on the part of the English people. There was a time, I know, when there was a great deal of prejudice against Ireland: but, so far as the masses of the English people are concerned, I do not say that the misgovernment of Ireland has been due to malice. It is due to the perfectly natural ignorance of the people of this country on Irish affairs: it is due to the perfectly natural, in the circumstances, inattention to Irish matters of a people who have more than enough in their own affairs to engage all their energies and their attentions; it is due largely to the want of time on the part of this Assembly, which has been vainly trying for over a hundred years to transact in one Chamber a work which ought to be divided amongst half-a-dozen Assemblies. It was due to selfishness, to that kind of selfishness which induced England, when she found that free trade was an admirable thing for her, not to hesitate to consider whether it was a good thing for Ireland; of that kind which induced her, when in 1853 there was a rearrangement of liquor duties, not to stop for one instant to think what it meant to Ireland. As a matter of fact, coming on Ireland immediately after she was exhausted by the great famine, it was a staggering blow, and inflicted upon her £2,000,000 a year of additional taxation. The system which you have maintained, and which you are now pleased to abolish, has been an impossible one from the first.
I am amused when I read so-called Unionist orators discussing the idea of creating what is called a separate Government for Ireland. There is, and there has been for hundreds of years, a separate Government for Ireland, but it has been a separate Government of so monstrous, inefficient, irresponsible, and costly a character us to be without parallel in the whole history of the nations of the world. This Government consists of a series of bureaus, each independent of the others, and most of them absolutely irresponsible. Lord Dunraven declared a couple of years ago that there were forty-one of these boards, and he was challenged to produce his evidence. I have here

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in my hand, a list of sixty-seven of them. It would be a monstrous thing if I were to weary the House by reading this long list, but I really think that it ought to be published, and if this controversy goes on it will have to be published. In the civil Government of Ireland there are sixty-seven boards, offices, and departments. Some of these boards are responsible solely to the British Government; some are local branches of English, boards and English departments, responsible to the head officials on this side of the water; some are responsible in theory to the Chief Secretary. I think I can imagine what the feelings of the right hon. Gentleman the new Chief Secretary must have been for the first week or two he was in office, on finding every morning he woke that he was president of a new department, a new board which he had never heard of before, whose officials he had never met, whose work he had no conception of, and for whom he is supposed in theory to be responsible in this House as Chief Secretary. I think there are about a score of these boards. No man living could in reality make himself responsible for their work. These boards are worked by permanent officials, and when the Chief Secretary comes here all he can do is to read to the House the document sent to him by the Government officials. That has been the practice of every Chief Secretary, and with all the desire in the world to do the best he can—and I may say that I wish to attribute to the right hon. Gentleman every desire to do what is good and best for Ireland—he will not be an exception; he will find that he is theoretically responsible for these boards in this House, and that they are really irresponsible altogether. There are some others of these boards like the Board of Primary Education in Ireland, which is actually irresponsible, and which boasts of the fact. It is not responsible to Dublin Castle, nor to the Government in this House, and the Chief Secretary who represents the Government has no authority over it. Not one of the whole of these sixty-seven departments is responsible to the people of Ireland, or to Irish public opinion, Now, these sixty-seven departments and offices employ very nearly 100,000 officials, and they have handed over to them £7,500,000 of money for the govern-
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ment of the country; that is to say, the whole civil government of Ireland per head of the population is more costly than the similar government of any other nation in Europe. It is far more costly than the government of England or Scotland. Scotland is a good case in point, because the population is nearly the same as that of Ireland. The civil government of Scotland to-day costs five and a-half millions; the same government in Ireland costs seven and a-half millions. That is immeasureably more costly than the government of other small nations of Europe, such as Norway, Holland, Denmark, and so forth. In looking over the figures I was interested to find that the same civil government of Ireland, whose machinery I have sketched, costs considerably more than the whole cost of the Government, home and foreign, Army and Navy, Royal family and so forth, of Roumania, Bulgaria, Servia, and Greece. The Imperial Government raises a large sum of money in Ireland, and that sum has been rapidly increasing of late. Let English representatives mark this fact, that the amount raised from Ireland has increased, while what is called the Imperial contribution has diminished. The Imperial contribution has gone on diminishing; but nevertheless the total amount raised in Ireland has increased within the last ten years by two millions of money. That is to say that those boards are having a good time and are increasing the cost of government right, left, and centre. This £7,500,000 is supposed to be spent for the welfare and good government of Ireland, but no one asks and nobody has any real power to inquire how that money is spent. I may be told that estimates are presented, and so they are. Those who are familiar with the procedure in Committee of Supply know what that means. Three sittings every year are devoted to Irish Supply, and as these are the only occasions upon which we can raise great questions of policy often the whole of the three days are taken up with big debates, and they are not devoted to the details of Irish Supply at all. But even if those opportunities were used in the most business-like way, what an utter absurdity it is to think that three sittings of this House are sufficient to exercise any real supervision and control over the expenditure of £7,500,000 by sixty-seven different authorities in Ireland. Therefore, the expenditure of this

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vast sum of money goes on practically unchallenged. Of the total of £7,500,000 £3,000,000 goes in the shape of salaries and wages, and this goes into the pockets of officials and policemen in Ireland. Whilst this monstrous and unchecked extravagance is going on, every real need of the country is being starved and neglected.
What sort of government are we getting in Ireland with these sixty-seven boards spending£7,500,000? What is being done for education? This is a matter upon which there is admittedly no controversy, because both Conservative and Liberal Ministers agree that education in Ireland is in a deplorable condition. I will not allude now to the University question except to congratulate the Government upon having announced their intention of dealing with the question, and when they come to close quarters with it they will find those who represent the Catholic laity of Ireland perfectly reasonable men, who do not ask and never have asked for anything except real equality of treatment with their Protestant brethren. By the admission of every Education Minister for the last twenty-five years, primary education is in a lamentable condition in Ireland. As compared with England and Scotland on this question, Ireland is starved. I will give the House one or two figures. In the last four years, from 1902 to 1906, the Education Vote in England has been increased by £3,374,600. In Scotland during the same period the increase has been £619,128; but in Ireland over the same period the Education Vote has been increased by only £92,000. An equivalent grant is due to Ireland in connection with the Education Bill of 1902, but it has been grabbed for other purposes and practically none of it has been devoted to primary education in Ireland. I remember very well the declarations made upon this subject by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover when in office. This was one of the subjects in which he was in full sympathy, I believe, with the demands we were making. He certainly made no disguise of the fact that he believed the condition of primary education in Ireland to be lamentable. In one speech which he made in 1904 he said that in order to put the Irish school-houses in a sanitary condition or to bring them anything like up to the standard that
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prevailed in England, to supply heating apparatus and so forth, would cost something like £100,000, and that to meet the immediate necessities of education, primary and secondary, a sum of £200,000 should be provided. He had not the means to provide it, and it has not been provided since. The Attorney General for Ireland, speaking in August last, said that primary education had been neglected in Ireland in a shameful manner in the past, and that it called for attention as soon as the House could deal with it. If the position of primary education, he said, was to be properly improved, the schools properly equipped and teachers properly' paid, and the children given a proper education, it would involve the expenditure of a large sum of money. During the recess there has been a most remarkable movement going on all over Ireland in this matter. Great meetings were held in every part of the country, and they were distinguished in this sense from any ordinary meetings, inasmuch as they were attended by all sections and creeds in politics. They were not political meetings at all; they all demanded that money' should at once be forthcoming to enable teachers to be properly provided for, and to enable Irish schools to be properly provided and equipped. I ask the Chief Secretary to note this point. It is not yet too late for him to see that justice is done; still I do not ask him to make any definite pledge upon the question to-night, but I ask him seriously to look into this matter, and, when he finds that, as compared with England and Scotland, Irish education is starved, that it is in a lamentable condition, that the Irish teachers are paid miserable wages, less very often than the local policeman, and that Irish schools are not properly equipped, to use his influence with the Treasury and insist this year, as the matter will not brook delay, on some generous terms being given to education in Ireland.
It is not only education that is neglected. Take any of our great industries; take, for instance, the question of transit. The Irish railway rates are prohibitive, and there are whole sections of the country that are absolutely cut off from the outer world. The other day, just before I left Dublin, a deputation of gentlemen, headed by two western Bishops, came to see me about a

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proposal to build a line of railway from Blacksod Bay to connect the country there with the west of Ireland. That railway would run through a district about forty miles in diameter without any railway communication whatever, and without any market for their commodities open to the public. It was about as neglected as if it had been a savage island in some distant ocean. Then there is the question of arterial drainage. And here I will carry Irish Unionist Members with me, because it hits thorn as well as us. Some of the most magnificent tracts are ruined by annual flooding, and yet while in every civilised country in Europe these things are remedied, and at small cost, not one thing is done or one hand lifted to remedy these things in Ireland, although those sixty-seven boards are actually spending this £7,500,000. The same with housing and the reclamation of waste lands. One of the most irritating things an Irishman can do is to read how in small countries like Holland, Belgium, and Denmark the government costs less than in Ireland, and yet they are able to spend millions on the reclamation of waste lands. Not one single sixpence is spent in this way in Ireland. I came across the other day what I think is an interesting example of the spirit of Irish Government. I suppose very few English Members take the trouble to read Irish blue-books, but there was one issued recently which I think is intensely interesting. I allude to the Report of the Commission appointed by Lord Dudley to inquire into the state of the Poor Law in Ireland. That Commission reported just before the House rose. They trace back the history of the Poor Law in Ireland, and show that in the year 1836—seventy years ago—a Royal Commission was appointed, composed of some of the most eminently capable men in Ireland, to consider the question whether the English Poor Law system was suitable to Ireland and ought to be extended to that country, and that Commission reported unanimously that it was unsuitable and ought not to be extended to Ireland, I think Lord John Russell was Home Secretary at the time; he was not satisfied, and he asked a member of the Poor Law Commission in England who was an Englishman, who had never been in Ireland in his life, to pay a short visit to that country, and form his own impressions. This stranger who had never
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been in the country before, spent three weeks in Ireland, and he came back with the recommendation to Lord John Russell that the unanimous Report of the Royal Commission should be thrown on one side, and that the Government should extend the English Poor Law system to Ireland. Lord John Russell tore up the Report of the Royal Commission, and acted upon the report of this English gentleman. And now seventy years after, the Commission appointed by Lord Dudley has unanimously reported that from the commencement the English Poor Law system was quite unsuitable, that it has been a ghastly failure, and they have recommended the Government to abolish it. No wonder that the people are still emigrating from Ireland when we have at one and the same time the most costly, extravagant, and inefficient Government in the whole world. As far as the people of Ireland are concerned, let me again repeat what I have said before, namely, that those who remain in Ireland are thoroughly and intensely disaffected to your rule, and they will never be satisfied—and their representatives will never be satisfied—until they have got complete control of all those great interests which England has muddled and ruined during centuries that have passed. That is the problem with which the Government are about to deal. That is the problem that they are pledged to deal with on lines leading to complete self-government. Upon its solution, in my humble belief, depends not merely the well-being of Ireland, but the well-being and honour of your Empire.
What are the difficulties in the way of the Government? I believe that no Government ever had a fairer opportunity of dealing with that great problem than that possessed by the Government at this moment. Ireland, as you have been told by the sympathetic speech of the mover of the Address, an old and tried friend of Ireland who has been our friend all through our days of adversity in this House and out of it, and whom I congratulate on the honour paid to him by the Prime Minister and his Party to-day—as has been pointed out by him in his speech, Ireland is to-day not only peaceful in the ordinary sense of the word, but is more crimeless than any other part of the United Kingdom, and there is, practically

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speaking, no political turmoil or agitation in the country. The whole country is expectant, waiting anxiously, looking to the Government for the redemption of their pledges. It would be an awful thing for the future of this country as well as of Ireland if the fact that we are peaceful were made a reason for being slow or half-hearted in dealing with this question. Do not, I beg you, once again tell the Irish people that peaceful and quiet they get nothing and that it is only by turmoil and disorder they can wring measures from this House. Not only is Ireland peaceful, but you have got another great advantage. You are strong. You are so strong that you can afford to despise any suggestion that you are legislating for us because you want Irish votes and Irish support. You have the sympathy of the whole Empire behind you. I read with interest the other day a speech made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Dublin. In dealing with the possibility of a Home Rule measure's being proposed, what was his argument?
"Is it conceivable,"—he said,—"that at the very moment when we are all anxious to draw the Empire closer together, to draw the Colonies closer to the Mother country, that you should embark on what I would call the separation of Ireland?"
What an utterly absurd question. What has drawn the Empire together? What has united the Colonies to the Empire and made them loyal and contented component parts of the Empire? It is the concession of that very thing the refusal of which to the Colonies caused rebellion, and the refusal of which in one colony lost the colony altogether, and the refusal of which has been the cause of all your Irish troubles for the last century. What did Sir Wilfred Laurier say the other day? I presume you will listen with respect to the words of the Premier of Canada. He said—
"To-day England has an Empire which is second to none, and which has only been equalled once in the course of history. Now the question is asked many a time by friends and foes, how will the fabric be maintained? How can it be kept together, and how can so many elements be kept under the sway of the Empire of Great Britain? That, however, is a question no longer to be asked. It is a question answered sixty years ago when the principle of local autonomy and legislative independence was introduced in all parts of the British Empire. The Empire of Rome fell under the weight of concentration, but the Empire of
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England exists by freedom, by local autonomy, by legislative independence, and the Empire of England is a galaxy of living nations with England as the loving mother."
Therefore in legislating on this question of Ireland the Government will have at their back the sympathy of every self-governing portion of the whole Empire. Only within the last few months you had declarations in Canada and Australia of a most remarkable character contained in a petition sent to the King asking that in the interests of the Empire the same measure of freedom should be given to Ireland as had made those countries contented and prosperous. The other day you made a concession to the Boers. This is the second occasion now in my experience in which in this House I and my colleagues have taken part, gladly and with all our hearts, in helping to confer self-government on other portions of the British Empire. Every case was justified by the result, and we ask now that you should deal unto us the same remedy for the discontent and want of prosperity that you have applied to your own Colonies. You have, further, the sympathy of the world. If you want to look for sympathy outside your Colonies, I suppose the country you would like to turn to would be America. You are never tired of talking of America as the blood relation of England. At any rate you look to America on all occasions. I tell you—and there is not a man in this House can contradict it—that the entire public opinion of America of all political parties, of all classes and creeds, from the great presiding officer, President Roosevelt, down to the great departments, of Government in that country, is in favour of Home Rule for Ireland; and when Mr. Bryce lands in America, the magnificent reception he will get there from the American people will be enhanced by the knowledge that they possess that he has been, all through his political life, a consistent advocate of Home Rule for Ireland.
What other advantage have you? I speak somewhat diffidently about this, because I cannot speak from personal knowledge, but I believe that you have the sympathy of the great mass of the English people. And, lastly, let me say I do believe that there is a considerable change of opinion in that particular corner of Ulster, which has been the home of the bitterest opposition

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to our movement, which you will find is of enormous advantage to you when you proceed with this question. I have been often attacked myself, with reference to Ulster, but unjustly. My idea and ambition and hope has ever been that Ulster should throw in her lot with us, I speak not of the Province, because the majority of the Province is in favour of Home Rule, but I speak now of that corner of Ulster which is hostile. I was pained in reading the other day a speech of the Member for North Derry, in which he seemed to accuse me of having said at a meeting I addressed at Coal-island last October that the opposition to Home Rule in Ulster would be put down by us with a strong hand, from which he seemed to infer that I was anxious to ride rough-shod over opinion in Ulster. Now, inasmuch as I desire to put my view with reference to Ulster before the House, I cannot do better than read an extract from that speech which will show how completely, though unintentionally, I am sure, my views were misrepresented. Speaking on that occasion, I said—
"And, fellow-countrymen, let me say, so far as what fill to-day the minority in Ulster is concerned, that it should be our greatest and most sacred duty to go to any length short of the surrender of principle to disarm their hostility and to remove their suspicions. I admit fully that the minority in Ulster is rich and influential; I admit that it has been powerful enough in the past to stand between Ireland and Home Rule, but its power is waning….But, fellow-countrymen, while I am convinced that we can, if we are put to it, win Home Rule in spite of this minority, I confers to you that I do not want Home Rule for Ireland to come in the garb of a bitter hostility and political defeat for any intelligent and honest section of my countrymen. I know, of course,"
and this is the sentence that is taken from the context—
"that there is one section of the minority opposed to us that has no title to the name of honesty or intelligence—"
I know I used rather strong language on the occasion, but of course my hon. friend above the gangway will see at once that that cannot refer to the section he is connected with—
"a section that it is impossible and hopeless to conciliate or placate; a section that will, I believe, to the bitter end, continue their policy of hatred and ascendancy. I am not speaking of them. After all, in reality, they are only a handful even of the Protestants of Ulster, and I fear that they I must be overborne by the strong hand. But I am speaking of the overwhelming majority
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of those who are ranked to-day as our opponents in Ulster. For my part, I say here that, of the overwhelming majority of these men I believe that they are honest, and, according to their own sense of the word, patriotic. I believe that they are in large numbers honestly afraid to trust their property and their religious interests to their fellow-countrymen. Now, over these men, I say to-day, that, if I can avoid it, I want no Party triumph. But if I want to influence their intelligence I want to dissipate also their suspicions, and I want, to soften their hearts; and therefore, so long a sit is possible for me to do so, even against hope, I will preach to them the doctrine of conciliation….I say here today that that there are no lengths, short of the abandonment of the principles which you and I hold, to which I would not go to win the confidence of these men, and not to have them lost to Ireland. There are no safeguards which I would object to in a Home Rule Hill to-morrow to satisfy the fears which these men entertain about their religious interests; and I say he is the best Irishman who does his best to-day by preaching toleration and conciliation to these men to bring all the sons of gallant Ulster into line in the battle for Ireland."
There are my views about Ulster, and it is a little hard when I have spoken in a manner such as that about my opponents in Ulster, that one sentence should be picked out, that I should be represented as saying that my only policy for my opponents in Ulster was to overbear them with a strong hand. For all these reasons, because Ireland is peaceful, because you are strong, because you have the sympathy of the Empire and the sympathy of the world, because the English masses are friends of Ireland, and because there is a change as I believe, a movement of opinion going on in Ulster, for all these reasons I honestly believe this is a propitious moment for settling this problem. I remember in 1886, Mr. Gladstone, in one of his great and inspiring speeches on this Irish question, spoke of that time as—
"One of the golden moments in our history; one of those opportunities which may come and which may go, but which rarely return, and it they do return at long intervals they do under circumstances which no man can forecast. There have been such golden moments even in the tragic history of Ireland—along periodic term which once more runs our, and the star has again mounted in the heavens."
Well, twenty years ago Ireland's cup of hope and comfort was rudely dashed from her lips. Now, I believe, in the the words of Mr. Gladstone, that the star has again risen in the heavens, and I that, again, a golden opportunity has arisen for English statesmen; and I beg of you not to palter with a question of

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life and death or to trifle with a desperate case. I ask you to cease to deal with those long past grievances with palliatives. What is the use of palliatives? Every remedy except the right one has been tried. You have tried force in all its forms on the scaffold and in prison cells. You have had the twenty years of resolute government for which the late Lord Salisbury asked. You have tried conciliation too. Yes! You have tried conciliation and reform. But conciliation has always been ignorant and blundering; and reform has always been too late. Further than that: take the very best men you have; take the list of statesmen who have gone to Ireland as governors during the last hundred years, and you find that they have come back and told you that they had failed, and most of them have told you also that their task was hopeless and that the only chance of good government for Ireland was in some measure or other to trust the people. At last I beg of you to take heart of grace and fully trust the people. My belief is that the only hope for Ireland lies in the education of her children, by which I mean the drawing out of all that is best in the Irish race. This can only be achieved by throwing responsibility upon thorn. You hive done that in small matters. Even a Conservative Government passed a local government measure; and what has been the result in those little concerns? Responsibility has brought with it sobriety of thought and conduct and good government in those matters. Throw responsibility on them in larger matters, in national matters, and incidentally you will teach them lessons of self-control, of self-respect, of sustained effort, of confidence in themselves, and of hope in the future. The apathy and listlessness that to-day hangs like a pall over Ireland will instantly be lifted, and those great qualities which have enabled men of our race to be prove the wisest administrators and best governors of your Colonial Empire and to rise to eminence in the government of every land to which their fortune led them, will be set free for the benefit of their own country, to cure her ills of centuries, and to transform her into the home of tranquillity and content. Believe me, and this is the last word which I shall utter, nothing short of full trust in the people can work that seeming miracle; and I do beg of this powerful Government and of this friendly Parliament,
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when they come to deal with this Irish question in a few weeks time, to have the full courage of their convictions.
MR. KEIR HARDIEsaid that he quite disagreed with the view which had been expressed in regard to the possibility of concluding this session the programme of reforms set forth in the King's Speech. He was pleased to learn from the Prime Minister, and he thought the House would agree with him, that the omission of any reference in the King's Speech to procedure was an oversight, and that it was intended to push forward vigorously—and he hoped at a very early date—the reform of the procedure of the House, which would relieve the House itself from a large amount of detailed work which could be better done in a small Committee, and which would enlarge the working power of the House. It was gratifying to find that the relations of His Majesty's Government with all foreign Powers were satisfactory; but there was one aspect of this foreign question to which he would ask leave to refer in a single sentence. He believed in maintaining peaceful relations with all other nations; but surely if they were to be on friendly terms with any great Power there should be some understanding as to decency on the part of that Power in the treatment of its people. The case he had in his mind more particularly was that of Russia. Inhumanities and atrocities were being committed by that Power against its people to a great degree which had never been excelled even by the Turkish Government, of which they had heard so much. The crime of the Russian people was that they were struggling to obtain a voice in the management of their own country; and therefore he thought that the House of Commons would stand loyally behind the Foreign Office if a hint were conveyed to that great Northern Power that it was expected that they should, in their treatment of their subjects, conform more to methods of Western civilisation than to those of the barbarism of the bygone past. The King's Speech was interesting for what it contained, but also for what was omitted from it. They, on the Labour Benches, found themselves in substantial agreement with most of the proposals outlined or hinted at in that Speech In regard to Ireland the eloquent

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and powerful plea to which they had just listened was one more proof of the intensity of the feeling with which our Irish fellow-subjects looked forward to the time when they would be able honourably to accept an honest position in the self-government of their country. He echoed the hope of the hon. and learned Gentleman that this question would be approached in no niggardly spirit. The hon. Gentleman who moved the Address spoke of Ireland having suffered from injustice for a hundred years; but the wrongs of Ireland dated back at least for a thousand years of the history of that country. The injustice had been continuous, and it was now the business of this Parliament not only to act justly and prudently towards the Irish people, but by being generous to them to endeavour to at one for the injustice done to them in the past. They waited expectantly for the proposals of the Government in regard to temperance reform; and they hoped that the proposed reform would confer upon the people full and complete powers for dealing with this admittedly great social evil. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Crewe pleaded that they should trust the people in Ireland. He ventured to make a similar claim for the people of England, Scotland, and Wales in regard to temperance reform, and that the Government by their measure would confer upon the people powers to deal with this question in the way that seemed to thorn best. It had often been said that the people were the victims of conditions which made them fall an easy prey to the temptations of the public-house. Had the people had the power to deal with this matter the temptations of the public-house would not be the same as they were to-day. In regard to the Bill to regulate the hours of labour in mines, a Committee had been taking evidence with which they were all familiar. Similar evidence had been given before, and there was not a single instance in which the forebodings of the experts had not been falsified by the facts. The universal demand was that there should be eight hours from bank to bank, without any exception save when accidents arose which called for the employment of the men beyond the specified time. He rejoiced that women were to receive a small instalment of justice in the matter of
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becoming eligible to serve on local bodies dealing with education, poor law reform, and sanitation, in which it would be all the better if there were a strong infusion of the wifely and motherly element. He would not say anything at that moment upon the question of the political enfranchisement of women, but he hoped before the debate closed there would be an opportunity of putting that question before the House in a more concrete form than he could at present do. With regard to the Bills dealing with small holdings in England and Wales, and with the housing of the people, they were gratified to find those measures included. He had said that the Speech was almost as remarkable for its omissions as for what it contained, and it struck him that there was no reference in it to several promises and pledges given on behalf of the Government last session. There was one with regard to insurance under the Workmen's Compensation Act. The Postmaster-General led them to understand that if the matter was not pressed at the stage of the Bill at which it was raised he would, before the Bill came into operation in July of this year, make some proposal to enable people to insure with private companies, and also hinted that he might make it possible for them to insure through the Post Office. That matter was not mentioned in the King's Speech, and he hoped that it did not indicate that it had been dropped, as it was regarded as of great importance for the proper administration of the Act. Then in regard to the Meals for Children Bill, the provision applying it to Scotland was struck out in another place, and the Government asked those interested in the Bill not to prevent its becoming law by attempting to have the clause reinserted, but rather to trust the Government. The Prime Minister, in reply to a Question by himself, although he did not make any definite promise, certainly conveyed the impression that if the matter was not pressed, a small Bill applying the measure to Scotland would be introduced this session. If the Government did not introduce a Bill, he hoped they would give facilities to those interested in the measure, when he hoped the proposal would meet with a different fate in the House of Lords from that of the provision of last year. There was another ominous omission from the Speech, and that was old age

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pensions. The Speech said that the Estimates for the forthcoming financial year had been framed with the object of effecting economies consistent with the efficient maintenance of the public service. They were all for economy, but he believed that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would have a surplus of £4,500,000, or £5,000,000, or, at all events, a considerable surplus, and the first claim upon it was that of the aged poor who had been decent, hard working folk, and had striven all their lives to bring up a family respectably. They ought not in their old age to have no choice but the indignity of the poor law or the workhouse. The sum required did not exceed £15,000,000, which was, he said advisedly, a mere bagatelle. If the sum of fifteen millions was required for war purposes it would be found, and what would be done for war purposes must be done for the aged poor. They must therefore do their utmost to see that any surplus should not be applied to the reduction of taxation, but should form the nucleus of a fund to provide old age pensions. One other serious omission was any reference to the unemployed. In December, 1905, the Returns of the Board of Trade showed the figure to be 4·9 per cent., and in December, 1906, it was exactly the same in spite of a year of great prosperity and wealth. This was a serious matter and one which could not be slurred over. Whether the 4·9 per cent. represented 250,000 or 500,000 men it was difficult to say, but in every town and city there were hundreds and in every great city thousands of unemployed. They were sometimes told that drunkenness was the cause of unemployment, but it was not true, although it was a cause of unemployment. Although the President of the Local Government Board had lent his authority to the statement that drunkenness was the cause of unemployment, there was no truth in the statement. Drunkenness might be responsible for some particular individual not being employed—he did not dispute that—but oven then, if the drunken man was unemployed the sober man was employed in his place, and there was not a, job vacant because the drunken man was not employed. Therefore they had to acknowledge that there was a permanent surplus in the labour market, and some means must be found to empty the labour market of that surplus. The
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President of the Local Government Board said the other day that technical instruction would do much to remedy the existing unemployment. But that must have been due to some lapse of memory or lapse of intelligence on the part of the right hon. Gentleman. Technical instruction they wanted. The more education the better; but here, as in the case of the drinking workman, all the result we should get would be that a highly trained technical and skilful workman might displace one less highly skilled and trained. Therefore technical instruction did not increase the means for reducing unemployment. Of course hon. Gentlemen might argue, and he admitted the force of the argument, that by educating a highly trained and skilled class of workmen they were bettering the style of work and rendering this country better able to compete with other countries, and would thus increase the amount of work. But he would point out that we could not have in this country a monopoly of highly trained workmen, and the same observation applied to Germany, America, and other places. Therefore they had to acknowledge that these things were not a remedy for unemployment. As a matter of fact, those who had practical acquaintance with this subject knew that it often happened that it was the most highly trained and most skilled workman who had the greatest difficulty in finding employment. A young friend of his in London, a bookbinder, held the highest qualifications in his trade, but he was idle one-third of his time, while the man who worked the machine was kept in constant work. He wished to point out that in the skilled trades unemployment largely prevailed. If hon. Members looked at the Board of Trade Gazette, they would find that in the engineering trade last month the unemployment was 4·1 per cent. as against 3·5 a month ago and 3·7 a year ago. The right hon. Gentleman's own trade showed an increase of unemployment. The percentage of unemployment had gone up from 3·7 to 4·l. In the shipping trade the proportion was 11·3 per cent. at the end of the month. In the boot and shoe trade the wages dropped 4·9 per cent. and the percentage of unemployment was 7 per cent. last month as against 6 per cent in December 1905. The number of labourers employed in the docks was 12,210 or a decrease of 6·5

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per cent. as compared with those employed a month ago, and 5·5 per cent as compared with a year ago. Those figures showed that both in the skilled and unskilled trades unemployment was a growing evil. The question now was what was to be done? Though the intention of those who passed the Unemployment Act of two years ago was good, that Act had been a failure. He was convinced that the then President of the Local Government Board, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Dublin, was in deadly earnest in this matter, and was determined to do something to prevent this evil, but his colleagues were against him; he had very lukewarm support from the House, and the Labour Party was not in the House to strengthen his position. The Bill went through, and what had been the result? The Central Board for Unemployment in London formed under that Act had registered 22,121 applicants for work. That was not the whole number that applied, but the number that succeeded in being registered after passing many tests which were quite beside the mark. Of that number 13,610 were labourers, the remainder being skilled workmen. Of the 22,121 this Central Board found work for 735 only. The real trouble about the unemployed was the fact that our present industrial system resembled too much an inverted current. Instead of the commercial and manufacturing system being dependent on and subsidiary to the agricultural system it was the exact reverse. The population working on the land was a declining quantity, whilst that congesting our industrial centres was an increasing one. He disputed the proposition that a certain amount of unemployment must exist in order to give fluidity to our industrial system. If our industrial system could only be carried on by such demoralising means it must be so reconstructed that everybody should be given work, and poverty should be driven from our shores. Such a reconstruction could only take place by bringing the people back to the land, and a beginning in that direction could be made by following the example set in Ireland and in the highlands of Scotland—by the institution of some scheme of small holdings analogous to those created by the Congested Districts Boards of Ireland and Scotland, and the creation of a department with practically a free hand to go out and find the means
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whereby the land of our country could again be brought under profitable cultivation. A Committee of this House had some time ago reported that there were 20,000,000 acres of land in this country suitable for growing trees. Not a single penny had been spent by the Government in planting a tree upon the land. The same might be said with regard to the vacant lands. There was plenty to be done, and he asked for the creation of such a department as that to which he had referred, with large powers to find out what required to be done, and how it was to be done, and to set about the doing of it. The powers of the county councils were too limited, nor were the county councils the proper bodies to deal with the land question. Let power be given to the parish councils and to the labourers to acquire land, and at once they would begin to reconstruct England and to drain the marshy swamp from which this horrible miasma of unemployment arose. The Unemployed Act was chiefly used to emigrate our people to other countries. He protested against such a thing and said we were committing a fatal mistake in allowing it. The men who were being emigrated with their families were the best that could be selected. Our colonies did not want the others and would see that they did not take them. What was being done now was that we were sending away the very men who would one day be required if the greatness of England was to be maintained. The State instead of spending money to send our unemployed abroad and leaving our own land worthless and derelict, should spend that money in putting our men on our own soil that there might arise in England peasants and yeomen worthy of our past. There was no reference this year in the Speech from the Throne to amend the Unemployed Act. They were sometimes called impatient, but the Labour Party had waited a year for the fulfilment of the distinct pledge given in the King's Speech last year that a Bill would be submitted to amend that Act. That Bill was not introduced, but the right hon. Gentleman said a grant of £200,000 would be given for this purpose. That grant was made but was so hedged round with restrictions as to make it practically useless. Applications had been made for money and refused on technical grounds.

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The promise of last year had not been kept; the money voted by this House had not been spent; and the Labour Party wanted to know what was going to be done this year. That day, between 2,000 and 3,000 of the poor of London had been marching through our streets to parade their misery, and some thing would have to be done. He had listened to the remarkable and comprehensive speech of the Prime Minister, especially to the part dealing with the House of Lords. He had listened with a sinking heart to the sympathetic cheers from the Ministerial benches at the prospect of a tussle with another place. He sympathised with those cheers, but on this, the occasion of his first speaking in this House this session, he desired to appeal to hon. Members opposite and to the Government, before proceeding with highly controversial and contentious legislation, to call a truce of God in regard to all social reform touching the common people. They would go on with their fight with the House of Lords, they would enjoy it, and in the end they would triumph, but let them not forget those who had no share in that fight. Let them think of the suffering children, the aged poor, and the strong men out of work, and see to it that the claims of our common humanity were met before they entered into a conflict of this kind, which must be dealt with, and in a way which he hoped would settle the question once and for all. But that question was not going to be settled in one session. It was no light task that this House was entering upon. It would be many years before that reform could be accomplished. He asked that this session, before they entered upon the conflict, they should do everything possible, everything that, humanly speaking, could be done, for those who suffered in sorrow and silence, by seeing; that conditions were applied to their lives worthy of human beings.
*MR. VIVIANsaid he felt sure that many on the Ministerial side of the House would agree with the suggestion that old age pensions should, if possible, have been included in the King's Speech. Many of them felt that the provision of old age pensions was probably one of the best pieces of work to which the Government could turn their hands, and he was still hopeful that they might have a word of
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hope from the Chancellor of the Exchequer with regard to this matter. At any rate, it would be their duty continually to press the claim that even if they did not get it this session they would have it dealt with at an early date But he had risen not merely to support that argument, but to say a word or two in reference to some observations which had fallen from the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil. The hon. Member had used the extraordinary argument—at least, it appeared extraordinary to him—that excessive drinking was not the cause, to any degree, of the unemployed problem, though he apparently contradicted himself when he stated that there might be individuals who through drink were unemployed. He confessed that appeared to him unsatisfactory, though it might be that he had not properly understood the hon. Member. It was an argument, however, which he ventured to say was unsound. Excessive drinking was to a large extent the cause of unemployment. While he was not wanting in sympathy with social ideals, while he was not wanting in sympathy with the unfortunate, yet he would suggest that for any man who put himself in the position of a leader of the working classes of this country, to say that drinking was not on a large scale the cause of unemployment, was to take from that man's position as a leader of the working classes much of its value. [A LABOUR MEMBER: Who says so?] He had listened with patience to the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil, and he hoped that hon. Members opposite would not interrupt him. He would say that to make such a statement in that House, on the platform or elsewhere, was not giving the best advice to large numbers of our working people. From the economic side, how did the matter stand? The argument of those who declaimed against excessive drinking was that in too many cases the workman wasted his reserve power, both physical and financial, by spending on drink the money which would, if invested in some permanent form, enable him to tide over a difficult time. Did the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil suggest that those great organisations such as the industrial and provident societies of this country, with their huge funds, their accumulated millions put by for a rainy day, had no bearing upon the unemployed problem, so far as they were concerned? Did

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those reserve funds not increase the recuperative power of the workpeople of this country? What was their position from the standpoint of employment? What would have been the effect had all those millions been spent in the beer-house instead of being invested in the building of houses or in other beneficial ways? He was sure that the hon. Member did not mean all that one might reasonably gather from his arguments, listening to him, and he was merely entering a protest against expressing a view, even if right, in a way that would give a wrong impression to a great many workpeople in this country. The hon. Member had also suggested that there was no connection between technical education and the unemployed. The hon. Member, he ventured to think, had had little experience in dealing with the employment of working people, or he would realise that there were large numbers of people unemployed because of their want of adaptability to changed conditions. In large industries to-day there were less people really than the trade required. It was in part the changes in methods, and the want of adaptability on the part of the workpeople to those changes which caused unemployment in many cases. He was not suggesting that there were not other and great causes of unemployment, such as the late war, which involved an expenditure of £250,000,000. The economic effect of such an expenditure was practically the same as that of excessive expenditure on drink. He insisted, therefore, that excessive drinking was one of the causes of unemployment in this country. Of course it was by no means the only cause. [AN HON. MEMBER: How does it affect the rich?] He was not there to protect the interests of the rich; he was not one of the rich; he was endeavouring to reply to the arguments of the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil. If making the great mass of our fellow countrymen more sober and giving them a better education would not have an effect on the unemployed problem, he was at a loss to know what would. If the people were sober and better educated they would not have a land problem; they would see that it was settled. But he would pass to one or two other points. With regard to the unemployed funds and the use of them, he had for some time endeavoured to gather from those who held the
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opinions of the hon. Gentleman what it was they suggested would solve this unemployed problem. He gathered that the collection of taxes from a number of people all over the country, pooling them in London and handing them over to some incompetent body, to spend in some extraordinary way, would solve the unemployment problem. He ventured to suggest that if they took the case of a miner in the hon. Member's own constituency, and got a pound in taxes from him to be sent to a committee in London to help the solution of the unemployment problem, from that pound would have to be deducted 2s. or 3s. or more for administrative expenses, and ultimately some 13s. or 14s. of it would be spent in some out of the way place in Essex in the production of some commodity that no one wanted. Frankly, he thought that the pound would be better used were the miner left to spend it on himself and his family, and it would have provided quite as much employment. It was, of course, necessary at times to adopt extreme measures to deal with certain extreme cases of poverty, but it was important to recognise that their exceptional measures would not effect a permanent solution of the problem. Violent medicine was sometimes necessary for urgent cases, but we should not rely on this permanently. The hon. Member had suggested that in order to solve the problem, we should reconstruct our industrial system from top to bottom. For himself, he was in favour of a gradual change The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil, in a speech a short time ago, referred to the number of unemployed in the boot and shoe trade, and said they would only get a solution of that problem by Socialism—by that, he understood the hon. Member to mean that he would nationalise the boot and shoe trade. Why did not the hon. Member, and those who thought with him, bring in a Bill to nationalise the boot and shoo industry in order to solve the unemployed problem? Why? Because they knew that it would not bear five minutes examination. Imagine throwing this additional duty, say on the President of the Board of Trade. He would have to become an expert on boots and shoes. The whole thing was absurd. He believed it would mean a decrease in production, an enormous increase of administrative expenses, or a lowering of

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the standard of the article itself, and, in the long run, it would be the poorest who would have to pay the enormous cost of that wasteful system. The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil should not go down to his constituency and talk about socialising the boot and shoe industry, but he ought to come to this House and table his Bill and let them know the precise authority that was going to administer the boot and shoe industry on socialistic lines. That was the only honest way to proceed. The hon. Member had declaimed against the King's Speech because it did not contain any reference to the unemployed question, and then went on to suggest that the people should be replaced upon the land, and encouraged to cultivate it with an interest in the result. Was that not already in the King's Speech? It was true that the King's Speech did not contain any specific reference to the unemployed problem, but there were references in it to measures which would do more to solve the unemployed question in a permanent sense than all the tinkering of incompetent committees who were to be allowed to collect taxes and waste them in an extraordinary way. [AN HON. MEMBER: Including the Local Government Board.] He could not understand the logic of some hon. Members sitting on the Labour Benches. They argued that the only solution was to nationalise or municipalise everything, and yet they declaimed against the official departments which were to give them this paradise. He thought that even the President of the Local Government Board would admit that Government offices were not the most efficient instruments for carrying on industries. The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil had justified the King's Speech up to the hilt so far as the unemployed problem was concerned. He (Mr. Vivian) hoped that the proposed measures would be brought in dealing with the land problem and the valuation of land so that they would know what was due to monopoly and what was due to industrial activity. He trusted that there would be a good Bill introduced dealing with small holdings, making it possible for all people willing to do so to remain on the land with the hope of independence and improvement in their position. In the Bill dealing with housing there ought to be some opportunity for the people having a greater
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interest in property. He agreed with those sitting on the Labour Benches that the wealth of the country was not equitably distributed, and it was not divided in such a way as to give the soundest basis to our Constitution. [A LABOUR MEMBER: Why not bring in a Bill?] The Bills he was referring to would tend in that direction. He agreed with hon. Members opposite in protesting against the evils around them and the enormous inequality in wealth, but could anyone conclude from the speech of the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil that he had suggested any solution of the problem with which he dealt? Not a bit of it, for he had to go back to the King's Speech to find suggested solutions of the problem he was declaiming on. He hoped the Government and the heads of the Departments concerned would deal with these problems—land and housing—in a radical fashion, more particularly in regard to rural districts. To try and stop the drifting of people from the country districts to the big towns was one of the most important problems they could put their hands to, and they could not accomplish that without tackling the land problem in the rural districts. He was not without some experience on the land himself, and he was recently informed by a fanner that he could take him into his own cornfield and show him 300 pheasants at a time feeding on his corn, and yet he dare not touch a feather of them. They must give the cultivator of the soil an interest in getting the most he could out of the soil, and they wanted security of tenure. It was on these lines that in his opinion we could check the flow of the rural population to the towns and do something towards solving some of our social problems in town and country.
SIR EDWARD SASSOONsaid he did not think the House as a whole would have failed to appreciate the very sensible and matter-of-fact observations made by the hon. Member for Birkenhead. He referred with great rejoicing to the action taken by His Majesty's Government last year in endeavouring to improve the condition of agriculture. He did not think there was likely to be improvement in the condition of agriculture until facts were recognised. Sooner or later this country

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would have to consider whether some tolls or dues should be imposed on the products and manufactures of foreigners now enjoying free access to this country, and with more or less legitimate manipulation sold at prices that did not represent the cost of production. The extent of want of employment in this country as compared with Germany and America showed something radically wrong in our commercial system. The question of Colonial preference should be considered at the forthcoming conference in a serious, practical spirit. The Prime Minister had reminded the House that although there were two Colonial Conferences not many years ago, on neither occasion was any reference made to them in the King's Speech. Evidently the Prime Minister was oblivious of the fact that upon neither of those occasions had the question of the preferential treatment of the colonies been raised by any statesman to the level of a real and burning issue which had drawn it into the vortex and region of practical politics. His Majesty's Government knew very well that Colonial Governments were keenly anxious upon this mattter of preferential treatment, and the question should be taken in hand by the mother country and disposed of one way or the other. He based this contention upon the speech made by the Under-Secretary for the Colonies last week, when the hon. Gentleman gave his benediction to the inter-colonial preferential arrangement. What was sauce for the goose was sauce for the gander. If inter-colonial arrangements were good for the Colonies, he could not see why some sort of arrangement between the mother country and the Colonies should not be considered in a serious and practical spirit. With regard to the housing of the poor it should be borne in mind that local authorities had every power to put machinery in motion, and could deal with the subject if they cared to exercise such power. He would respectfully press hon. Members to ponder over and assimilate the views of the Member for Preston on the policy with regard to social matters enunciated by the Radical Members of the House. These views were admirably set forth in a pamphlet which he received the other day, and he hoped they would convince the Radical Members that the solution of labour and social problems, if carried out on the lines suggested by extreme
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Members of the House, must inevitably lead to the crushing out of individual energy and enterprise, with the consequence that the State would become a: huge universal provider and employer of labour. He wondered whether that was a course that appealed to the shrewd and well-balanced minds of the gentlemen who represented the interests of labour in the House. At any rate, many of them would very soon during the coming Armageddon be able to pronounce a verdict on that burning and crucial issue. He and his friends on those benches would be very much surprised if the result of the popular elections did not prove that the people of London had had more than enough of the extreme and unconscionable length to which municipal enterprise and owner-ship had been pushed, and of the wasteful and prodigal administration of the ratepayers' affairs by what was known as the Progressive and Liberal Members of the London County Council. With regard to the question of economy, the Government had now been in office a year, and the country was in a position to gauge to what extent the promises made had been carried out. He believed that the mass of the people of the country were beginning to see that this was a Government not of performance, but merely of promise. At the general election the whole country resounded with cries of economy. Let them take a retrospective glance at the character of the Resolutions which were passed in this House last session, and they would find that while the Government were willing to retrench in certain directions, they were eager to dip into the public purse in order to serve their political ends. Last year Resolutions were passed in favour of the payment of election expenses and the payment of Members, which if carried into effect would involve a charge of £270,000 per annum on the Exchequer. He did not wish to imply, however, that he regarded as undesirable legislation making access to the House easier to Labour Members; indeed he himself had backed a Bill with the object of relieving Members of the expense of travelling to and fro between the House of Commons and their constituencies. He considered at the time that that Bill rather exceeded the necessities of the case, but so anxious was he that Labour Members should not be barred from any

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of the advantages which the passage of a Bill of that sort would confer, that he yielded to the solicitations of those who were instrumental in drawing up the measure when he was requested to back it. If his hon. friend the Member for Woolwich were present, he would bear out that statement. He was convinced that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, now that he had received so many millions into his coffers by the demise of millionaires, would not look askance at a more moderate measure limited to the strict necessities of the case, and entailing a very moderate charge on the public exchequer. He meant some measure embodying the principle on which pensions were paid to ex-Cabinet Ministers. If a Member could prove to the satisfaction of the Treasury that a railway pass would be useful to him, he thought a small measure providing for its being granted might with advantage be enacted. They used to be told that Unionist administration maintained bloated armaments which constituted a menace to our peaceful relations abroad and a heavy charge on the public exchequer at home. What were the Government proposing to do in order to carry out the promises given at the election? It was known that they were contemplating considerable reductions which, in the opinion of those who were qualified to judge, would lead to a serious crippling of our Naval armaments, The fruits of that policy had been singularly borne in upon the people of this country during the recent appalling catastrophe at Jamaica, when there was not a single cruiser of our Navy available at Kingston harbour to see whether assistance was required. He was glad to see the passage in the Speech recognising the prompt assistance given by the American Government; and yet the work done by the American cruisers, whatever the necessity, was work which should have devolved upon the ships of our own Navy. Was that a sample of the economy which the Government were contemplating? They had not heard very much about the contemplated changes in the Army. The Secretary of State for War had made reductions in some of the battalions. He regretted very much that the right hon. Gentleman had foreshadowed other reductions without waiting to see the effect of his schemes which were to create a new heaven and a new earth at the War Office,
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and to render the Militia and the Volunteers more fit in certain emergencies to be sent abroad. The Prime Minister in very mysterious tones had said that His Majesty's Government intended to deal with the constitutional difficulty that had been created by the action of the House of Lords. In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the impression created by the Education Bill of last year, the House of Lords were, in his humble opinion, perfectly justified in throwing out that Bill. It did not satisfy the Church people, because it involved confiscation of their property and the proscription of the inalienable right of the parents to see that their children received instruction recording to the dictates of their conscience. The Roman Catholics were not satisfied with the Bill; and even the extreme Nonconformists, in spite of the fact that they had a million of money dangling before their eyes, refused to accept the Bill. He admitted that the Irish Secretary intended to do something for denominational instruction, but the right hon. Gentleman was a little too chary of granting denominational education in the Church of England schools. Personally, he should be very churlish and ungracious if he failed to recognise the liberality of the Government in regard to the excellent intentions towards the denominational schools in urban areas, but he had yet to learn that the intentions of a Government or of a Minister could have the force or vigour of law. His own belief was that if the Government had accepted the suggestion made by Lord Balfour of Burleigh, that the parents should bear the cost of denominational instruction, the passive resister would have become as extinct as the dodo, and a great peace would have fallen on the land. The Government had no alternative but to recognise the existence of different creeds and different schools of thought an the country. In the Bill there was an attempt made to propitiate the denominationalists, but it was a spurious and not a genuine attempt. The Government in trying to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds had lost its quarry, and he believed that the House of Lords were perfectly justified in amending the Bill. They on the I Conservative Benches were perfectly prepared to meet with equanimity the weapons that were being forged against the Constitution of the other House, and

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they were willing to join issue with the Government on various social and political questions, because they were perfectly convinced that the Government was helpless to achieve any advance satisfactory to the people of this country on matters of vital importance.
*MR. CROMBIEsaid he wished to say a word or two on behalf of that part of the United Kingdom which was small and modest, but was still represented in the House by hon. Members, who, though few, were fit. He meant Scotland. They were gratified that the Leader of the House had selected the hon. Member for Kilmarnock Burghs to second the Address; and in doing so, the right hon. Gentleman had done honour to the son of a great Scotsman and to a devoted supporter. The measures affecting Scotland promised in the King's Speech dealt with the holding and the valuation of land in that country. A measure dealing with small holdings was not altogether new; it was introduced last session. Its existence was, however, very fleeting, but what they saw of it they liked, and they hoped to have a final acquaintance with it before the close of the session. There was also a measure for the valuation and taxation of land in Scotland. He thought that that was a very small instalment of legislation for Scotland, and Members for Scottish constituencies would be very much disappointed indeed if the Government did not contemplate the introduction of other measures dealing with Scottish questions, such as education, which had been too long postponed by the late and the present Government, and the provision of meals for school children, which the House of Lords threw out last session. The Scottish Members were all gratified by a promise in the speech of the Prime Minister that the Government were going to take up the question of procedure, and the appointment of a Scottish Grand Committee. They felt that until some measure of that kind were passed they would not see the fruition of their hopes for reforms in matters affecting Scotland. They had a distinct Scottish grievance—a practical, not a sentimental, grievance, although he did not say it was such an acute national grievance as existed in Ireland. To some extent the grievance from which they suffered was shared by every
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Member of the House. The House of Commons had more work to do than it could undertake or efficiently discharge. It was simply marvellous that they had the same Parliamentary machinery as fifty years ago, when communications were much loss perfect than now, when every question affecting the Empire was brought to our door the moment it came to the front. That was the reason why every Government found a plethora of measures with which it was desirous to deal, but the question invariably arose, not what measures the Government should try to pass, but what they must reject. Unfortunately some of the most important legislation in regard to local government, education, temperance, and religion had to be dealt with in separate Bills for England and Scotland. There were only seventy-two Scottish whereas there were 495 English Members. Therefore, while all measures were liable to be crowded out, Scottish Bills were seven times more liable to be crowded out than English Bills. For this they asked a very modest remedy. They were not asking for Home Rule for Scotland, but for a Grand Committee which should deal with the Committee stage of Scottish measures. Moreover, they would insist that the Grand Committee should be permanent—that was, it must not need to be set up every new Parliament—and that it must consist of Scottish Members only. He thought he understood that the Prime Minister was willing to give them that this session, and they looked forward with great eagerness to the time when he would be able to proceed with the consideration of his procedure Resolutions, because they believed that until that was done no Scottish measure foreshadowed in the King's Speech was likely to pass.
*MR. SUMMERBELLdesired to say a word or two as to the arguments of those hon. Members who had criticised what his hon. friend the Member for Merthyr Tydvil had said on the question of unemployment. They had had some extraordinary statements on that side of the House above the gangway so far as the unemployed were concerned, the accuracy of which he disputed, and which he thought were most unfair. He begged to state, and he defied contradiction, that in practically every ease where a municipality had organised a

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system of work in the United Kingdom the employees had received far better wages than they would have had under a private company, that their hours were considerably less, their conditions of labour better, and the public had been better served than they would have been by private companies. Although that argument had been used the results were in an entirely opposite way to what his hon. friend intended, and he thought it was a contention in favour of the position that they took up, that under such a system there would be improved industrial conditions. A great deal had been made as to the effect of drink upon employment, but he wanted to say that, although probably there was no hon. Member on that side of the House above the gangway who would not assert that drink was the cause of unemployment, where they differed from their hon. friends was this, that some of the hon. Gentlemen asserted that it was the cause of unemployment, whereas they on their part said that it was a cause. That was their position; that they were prepared to agree that it was a cause but not the cause. A committee in his district had investigated 1,500 odd cases of unemployment and they found that out of all the cases only two men were permanently unemployed on account of drink, twelve were of a doubtful character, while twenty-four had not been fully investigated. If, therefore, all these cases were put together, they would not establish the argument that drink was the cause of unemployment. He thought that figures of that kind showed that hon. Members were wrong who thought that if they solved the drink question the unemployed problem would he settled. They must recognise that in every grade of life labour-saving machinery had been introduced, and unless they were prepared to organise the industry of the country the unemployed problem was bound to increase and could not get less. Therefore they were in favour of a reorganisation of industry whereby the industry would be run in the interest of the people instead of in the interest of the few. He ventured to say, moreover, that there would not be any settlement of the land question until they took the land into their own hands and made the people up and down the country their tenants. They had recently had an attempt to deal with the land question in the interest of the tenant farmers, and there
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they had the unexampled spectacle of both Liberal and Tory land-owners opposing that particular Bill, and he was ready to assert that he saw no settlement until we had nationalisation of land in this country. They had the fullest sympathy with many of the reforms indicated in the Speech, but could not but regret that they had not had the unemployed problem mentioned in it as it was last year. The same might be said in regard to old age pensions.
*MR. LEIF JONESremarked that there were no fewer than fourteen Bills offered in the King's Speech for their consumption, and he would like to say, as a private Member, that they were grateful to the Government for the large demands they were going to make on their voting power, and for the confidence the Government showed in them when they suggested passing fourteen Bills in a single session. He believed the Party was willing to support the Government in any demands they made upon their supporters for hard work. He rose specially for the purpose of thanking, the Government on behalf of the organised temperance workers of the country for the prompt fulfilment of the promise made by the Prime Minister last year that a licensing measure should be among the principal measures of the session. At every temperance meeting he had attended during the recess universal satisfaction had been expressed at the promise of the Prime Minister. The country recognised in the right hon. Gentleman one who had always voted in favour of temperance reform, and they had looked forward with eager anticipation to the King's Speech. The note which had been struck at the many meetings which he had attended up and down the country listening to temperance workers had been threefold—satisfaction with the promise of the Prime Minister, gratification that the House of Commons had shown itself on the local option division last April, ready to declare by so large a majority in favour of the policy of trusting the people on this question, and an eager anxiety that the promised Bill should be one which would bring about something in the nature of a settlement for many years to come. The common form of the resolution at the meetings was that the more thoroughly the Government dealt with this question the greater would be the satisfaction of

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those who were gathered there, and he believed he spoke for the Temperance Party in the House of Commons when he said that the more thoroughly and the more drastically the Government dealt with the question the greater would be the satisfaction with which Members would support them during the present session. The Leader of the Opposition had taunted the Government that, in spite of their professions, they had little care for social reform. He thought the fact that the Government had placed in the forefront of their programme a great measure of social reform which went to the very roots of the life of the people of the country was an answer to that taunt which came so ill from the late Prime Minister. He did not claim that it would solve all the problems of poverty in the country, but he said that there was not a single problem or evil troubling social reformers at this moment which would not be made easier by the solution of this question. They had been discussing whether drink caused poverty or poverty caused drink, and he thought both propositions were true—that poverty produced drink and that drink produced poverty. It was a vicious circle when once a man got into the grip of either poverty or drink. It had been claimed by several speakers that drink was only one of the causes of unemployment. Poverty and want of employment came from one cause—waste in some form or other; and there was no waste in the country comparable to the waste on strong drink. The mover of the Address had stated that £160,000,000 was spent on strong drink last year and of that at least £100,000,000 came from the wage-earning classes of the country. But that was not all. At least another £100,000,000, if not more, was wasted through the loss of efficiency which drink caused, through the maintenance of a whole army of non-producers to protect society against the results of drink; and all together he thought the burden on the wage-earning community was certainly not less than £250,000,000 a year caused by waste on drink, and the Government could do nothing better for unemployment and social reform than carry a great and drastic temperance measure. He had read in a Socialist pamphlet that it was useless for workers to drink less because if they did so the iron
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law of wages would force wages down and the men would be worse off than before. There was some mistaken notion that wages were paid out of capital, and some passages from Ricardo and Mill seemed to support this view. He denied the proposition absolutely. Wages were not paid out of capital. They were advanced out of capital but paid from the wealth produced by the workers, and anything which injured the efficiency of the worker struck directly at his wages. The waste of efficiency on the part of the workers owing to drink had been estimated at not less than one-sixth of their productive power; and if they produced that one-sixth more there would be so much more wealth created from which their wages would be paid, and the possibility of an increase of wages. He said a possibility and not a certainty, for the workers did not always get the wealth they produced. On what did that depend? For one thing on the standard of living, and nothing did more to lower the standard of living among the working classes of this country than the intemperance which many of them indulged in. Again, there must be increased power of combination in order that a demand for higher wages might be effective, and the great obstacle to combination was the army of blacklegs drawn from the public house wastrels—the people who squandered what they earned by honourable work, and when a strike occurred took advantage of the difficulties of their fellow workmen. It was proved as clearly as a mathematical proposition that the result of such a reform as that proposed by the Government must be an immense increase in the wages earned by the workers of the country. He therefore congratulated the Government on placing this question in the forefront of their programme of social reform. It was a workers question, and he hoped the Government would give to the workers of the country the power to protect themselves against the evils of drink. He trusted they would make the Bill thorough, and would use all the powers of their Party to carry it through the House of Commons, and to convince another place that this was not favourable ground on which to fight the House of Commons and the country. By so doing they would earn the lasting gratitude of all who cared for the welfare of their country.
*MR. BARRIEsaid he sympathised with the views of the last speaker, but he could not forget how the Government last year outraged the temperance sentiment of Ireland, and the manner in which they deserted Irish temperance workers in the very modest measure then brought before the House It would be in the recollection of Members that that measure only asked for the shortening of the hours of sale of intoxicating liquors on Saturday nights by one hour, for total closing on Sunday, and for the extension of the limits for bona-fide travellers from three miles to seven. In the Committee upstairs, largely through the instrumentality of the hon. Member for South Tyrone, a very great betrayal of the temperance sentiment of Ireland took place; and the measure was so weakened that many doubted whether it was worth having at all, yet at the last moment when the measure came finally before the House they had a second betrayal and the limit for the bona-fide traveller was reduced to three miles except for the area round the five exempted cities where it was fixed at five miles. He thought in view of these facts they might very well doubt the sincerity of the temperance spirit which was supposed to be so abundant on the Government Benches. He did know, and he spoke with absolute sincerity on this question, that Irish temperance reformers were greatly disappointed with the shape in which the measure finally parsed the House of Commons. Of course they knew there was wire-pulling behind the scenes. They knew that the liquor interest was largely represented on the Nationalist Benches, and it was largely because of the combination among them and the action of the Member for South Tyrone that the surrender was made and the much mutilated measure passed into law. He could not believe that the Government was sincere in its temperance aspirations unless the promised Bill when introduced was found to apply to Ireland. He had chiefly risen, however, to say a few words with regard to the eloquent speech of the hon. and learned Member for Waterford. The hon. and learned Member had suggested that he (Mr. Barrie) had misrepresented him in a speech made outside the House. He had listened carefully to the correction of the hon. and learned Member, and he submitted that the
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slightest misquotation of the speech of the hon. and learned Member had not been proved. It was true he (Mr. Barrie) did not quote the whole of the speech of the hon. and learned Member. It was no part of his argument to do so. Hon. Members below the gangway laughed, but he would remind them that the hon. And learned Member for Waterford in quoting that speech himself left out several very pertinent sentences for exactly the same s reason—because they were not germane to the argument he was addressing to the House. He had no apology to offer to the hon. and learned Member for Waterford for what he had said in his speech. He had just re-read what he said and found he quoted the purport of the hon. and learned Member's remarks as exactly and truly as any reasonable Member would interpret them. His view was borne out, too, by a letter addressed to The Times, by their late revered leader, Col. Saunderson, within a week of his death. These were the last, and he thought not ineffective, words of one who had done brave service to the loyalists of Ireland for many years, and their great regret was that he was not with them to continue the fight, because he believed that it was never more necessary than now that the public of England should be educated afresh as to what was the real Nationalist demand that was made upon the House of Commons. He had listened to a very eloquent speech from the hon. and learned Member for Waterford, but he was bound to admit, that, while he was charmed to hear it that afternoon, he recollected having heard at least throe quarters of it some twelve months ago. He was little surprised, perhaps also a little disappointed, that at the entrance upon a new session, which was largely to be an Irish session, the hon. and learned Member could not have brought forward some new arguments to prove the righteousness of this great demand which was being made upon the House of Commons. He had, however, to thank him for again declaring, in words that could not be minimised or misunderstood, that he realised that nothing promised in the King's Speech would be adequate as regarded the Nationalist demand unless it conceded full and complete government by a Parliament sitting in Dublin. He did not think that it was fully realised by the Treasury Bench how far this demand would carry

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the Government if they acceded to it. They had heard nothing that day, even from the Prime Minister, which would warrant them in thinking that he seriously intended to concede it, but they would take every opportunity of saying that, in this matter, Ulster still stood where she had stood—that Ulster had not seen any reason to alter her strong objection to having her government handed over to the forces that controlled the South and West of Ireland. He noticed that when the hon. and learned Member made his references to the full measure of the Nationalist demand they were received with a marked and eloquent silence on the Benches opposite, and he could not help thinking that their Liberal friends were not prepared to go all the way with the Nationalist demand, as again renewed in unmistakable language by the hon. and learned Member that afternoon. He had noticed that an introductory phrase, to which he had been accustomed in the hon. and learned Member's speeches, was absent from his utterance of that day. It had been the custom of the hon. and learned Member to proclaim that he spoke in that House for the people of Ireland. During the recess the hon. and learned Member received a deputation, which was making a demand upon him, and the hon. and learned Member said something like this:—"Time was when the Irish Parliamentary Party had the people of Ireland behind it, but we cannot say that at present." That was some months ago, and during the interval he thought that the truth of this had become increasingly apparent. He was sure that it had been noticed in England and Scotland that there were growing dissensions among their Nationalist friends below the gangway. He was not aware when he last spoke in that House regarding the evicted tenants in Ireland, that it that time the question had become so acute with the Irish Parliamentary Party. During the recess, it was a matter of public knowledge that these differences of opinion had borne fruit in the resignation of one Member, who refused to bow to the dictation of the Leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, when he forbade him to say that some portion of the large funds recently collected in America and Australia should go to the soldiers of the old land war, the old evicted tenants. That Member had the courage of his opinions. His salary
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was withdrawn. He refused even then to be silent. He went back to his constituents, and the Irish Parliamentary Party had not the courage to put up a candidate in opposition to him. And so he was returned unopposed. He was there that day, and not alone, because there were other Members from that part of the country who were of exactly the same opinion in regard to the evicted tenants. The hon. and learned Member for Waterford, therefore, had no right to speak of him and these others as Members of his Party. So much for that aspect of the matter. He wished now to submit to the House the later position as regards these evicted tenants. It was a matter of public knowledge that very large sums of money were collected in Australia and in America during last autumn on behalf of the Irish Party cause. And no wonder, after the eloquent descriptions of the sufferings of the evicted tenants. The hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool when in his best form was absolutely irresistible in his eloquence, and no wonder he succeeded in getting the people who listened to him in America to give their money freely. They knew that a sum of about £40,000 had been collected. The evicted tenants were making demands for help from this large fund, but what did the Irish Parliamentary Party do? They had a meeting. They debated the question as to how much money could be spared out of this £40,000 for these poor evicted tenants, who had suffered so long and so severely, and the large sum of £300 was given to them to try to tide them over.
MR. HUGH LAW (: I am sorry to say that the statement the hon. Member has made is absolutely I untrue.
*MR. BARRIEsaid he must accept the correction of the hon. Member, but he had read of the sum of £300 being voted by the Party during the last two or three weeks. He, of course, accepted the correction, but he would look up the reference for future use. The hon. and learned Member for Waterford had deplored the increase of poverty and lunacy in Ireland, and in both these matters Unionist Members joined absolutely with him;

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but they looked for the explanation in a different direction from the hon. and learned Member. They were aware that economically the industry by which the major portion of the people lived was a decaying one, and if any reasonable thing could be done to better the condition of the people of Ireland generally Unionist Members were prepared to join hands with Nationalist Members in doing it. What they desired to make clear was that they did not realise that Ireland at present was suffering any more than Scotland and England, in respect of the absence of larger local control. A reference had been made that afternoon to the measure of local control given by the Unionist Party. He was not disposed seriously to disagree with the hon. and learned Member when he said that that measure of local government had been fairly used throughout Ireland, and if Ireland were left alone to work it out she could make a success of it. He thought it would be within the recollection of the House that, where an appointment had to be made to a well-paid office by the Board of Guardians of Claremorris, that body could only make the appointment with the approval of the local Roman Catholic priest. He could assure hon. Members that this was the real crux of the difficulty in Ireland. The people were not allowed to think for themselves. With reference to the position of Ulster, they had had suggestions, during the last session, that there had been a great alteration of public opinion there, and that the Orange and Green were being mingled in a new combination. But they had had a very striking by-election in recent months, in which the people declared more unmistakeably than they had ever done before that they would have nothing to do with an extension of local government by devolution, or with any instalment leading up to the larger policy. That to-day was the opinion of Ulster throughout. There had been no change of the balance of parties which warranted or justified for a single moment any allegation to the contrary. They felt that they had many things for which they had to thank their connection with Great Britain, or England. They were thankful that Ulster never was more prosperous
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than at the present moment. They had passed through a record year of prosperity, and the new year on which they had entered promised to be even more prosperous. That had been attained despite the fact that Ulster was the least fertile of the provinces of Ireland. All they asked was to be left alone and that they should have their laws administered without fear or favour; and so long as that was done, Ulster would still wish to say, with unanimity, that she was not in favour of Devolution or Home Rule, call it by any name they liked.
THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. CHURCHILL, Manchester, N.W.): The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition referred in the course of his speech to one or two matters which concern the Colonial Office, and on one of these I think the House would wish that some immediate reply should be given. But before I come to the question of the New Hebrides Convention and the points which arise thereupon, I would like to say a word upon a reference which the right hon. Gentleman made to an utterance in relation to Colonial preference for which I made myself responsible during the recess. The right hon. Gentleman suggested that I had committed myself in some way to a statement which recognized the principle of Colonial preference, as that principle had always hitherto been considered in our controversial discussions. The question of inter-Colonial preference stands in an entirely different position from the great controversy upon the main question of Colonial preference. It has always been open to tariff States, and it frequently occurs that tariff States do make reciprocal arrangements one with another, and when these arrangements involve, as they do in almost every case, a net reduction of the duties on both sides no one can deny that from a free trade point of view the world as a whole is benefited. The reciprocal arrangements which may be made by the different self-governing Colonies in the British Empire are of course beyond our control; they are self-governing Colonies and they are free to make what fiscal arrangements they choose. We

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could not prevent them from making such arrangements if we wished to do so. But is there any reason why we should wish to interfere? I think distinctly not. Taking the simple position of the orthodox Cobdenite Free Trader, I am of opinion that taxes are an evil, a necessary evil, but still an evil, and the fewer we have of them the better. Therefore every arrangement between protectionist States which takes the form of a reduction in the tariff barriers of the world is a distinct advantage to the world in general, and when it takes place within the circle of the British Empire it is a distinct advance towards that general system of free trade within the Empire which protectionists and free traders alike desire, although free traders are not prepared to purchase free trade within the British Empire at the cost of erecting a protective tariff round the shores of the United Kingdom. I should have thought those considerations, which are really elementary, would have readily occurred to the mind of the right hon. Gentleman, and would have prevented him from fastening on me a charge of fiscal heresy, and from suggesting, what I can assure him has no foundation fact, that any remarks I made on this subject have caused embarrassment to my right hon. friends in the Government, to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or to my noble friend Lord Elgin.
But now I come to the more serious question which the right hon. Gentleman has raised on the character and history of the New Hebrides Convention. The New Hebrides is a group of islands over which no Power has exercised any authority. It has been a sort of no man's land—I mean no man has had any authority over it except the men who live there, and, as the Prime Minister has already said, owing to the habits of cannibalism and other savage customs, a state of grave disorder has always prevailed. For the last twenty years order has been maintained to some extent through the agency of a joint Naval Commission. British and French ships have patrolled these unclaimed islands and have administered a sort of summary justice whenever some peculiarly atrocious outrage has been committed on any white men who may have incautiously landed upon them. Under this rough and ready police protec-
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tion, a considerable white population, with very complicated interests, has gradually grown up, and for the last ten years everyone interested in any degree in the affairs of the New Hebrides has felt the need of a more regularised and organised system of government in these islands. By the Anglo-French declaration of 1904 it was arranged that Great Britain and France should come to an agreement, if such could be reached, as to the government and control of the New Hebrides. The arrangements for this were well advanced before the late Government left office; but we asked tae Colonies whether they would authorise us to find out what were the terms upon which the French would like to establish some sort of joint control with us over the islands.
MR. LYTTELTON: Australia asked us.
MR. CHURCHILL: Yes, Australia asked us, and we acceded to their request. How were we to ascertain the term upon which it was possible to conclude such an arrangement with France? There is only one practicable way, and that is by concluding a draft Convention—by formulating in a complete form the whole arrangement upon which both Powers could agree to divide their authorities and exercise a general control over the island. In the first month of last year, when we returned after the general election, the delegates from France were in the Foreign Office discussing the details of this draft Convention with the official representatives of the Colonial and Foreign Offices. It is quite true that during the progress of those negotiations, which lasted a month, we did not telegraph daily bulletins of our progress to the Colonies. We were drafting a Convention which was admitted to be subject to their pleasure when concluded, and we thought it better to submit the whole arrangement when it was complete. Up to a late period in the negotiations we were in doubt as to whether we should reach any agreement at all, because on several points a deadlock was reached, and it was not until after some time that we were certain that any fruitful result

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would be achieved. I am quite certain that the bargain made was the best that could possibly have been made; and I am quite certain that Colonial interests suffered in no way. It is not to be supposed that the Colonial Office lacked information on this subject. We have been corresponding with the Colonies on the subject for twenty years. The Colonial Office knew what were the difficulties in the New Hebrides, what were the circumstances that prevailed, and what the Australians desired; and we had only to find out what arrangements could be come to with France. Therefore I have no hesitation in saying that the arrangement made was the best that could be made, and it has not suffered from any lack of information or knowledge on the part of those engaged in concluding it. When the draft Convention was concluded it was sent out to the Colonies; and the right hon. Gentleman has drawn attention to the phrase that it must be accepted or rejected practically as it stood. That phrase has been misunderstood, and misrepresented even more widely than it has been misunderstood. Nothing was further from the intention of His Majesty's Government than to present a sort of ultimatum to these Colonies, and say, "You must accept or reject this arrangement." All we desired to convey by that phrase was that, having wrestled for a month with the French delegates, we were of opinion that no arrangement more favourable to Australian interests was likely to be concluded, and that, if it were not satisfactory, it would be vain to attempt to obtain further concessions from the Government of France. That appears from the sentence previous to the one quoted—
"His Majesty's Government do not think that on the main question of principle involved there is any prospect of coming to an agreement with the French Government which would be in general more acceptable."
Quoted alone, that sentence conveys an impression which the Government did not mean to convey. Quoted with the previous sentence, that sentence does not convey the same impression. What is the gravamen of the charge of the Leader of the Opposition? He made a serious charge, not only against individuals in
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this House responsible for expounding the Colonial policy of the Government, but against a, political Party. He accused us of a great inconsistency in the labour regulations included in this Convention—an inconsistency that amounted to a gross insincerity on the part of the Liberal Party generally, having regard to their speeches on Chinese labour. I think I can show the House that even if there were an inconsistency in the standards of labour we set up in the New Hebrides with those we are endeavouring to set up in South Africa this would involve no insincerity. [Mr. BONAR LAW (Dulwich) laughed.] Let me beg my hon. friend with the nimble mind not to laugh too soon. For the Chinese Labour Ordinance this country and the Government in power are alone responsible; but with regard to whatever has been included in the New Hebrides Convention we are dealing not only for ourselves but with a foreign Power.
MR. LYTTELTON: It was the model.
MR. CHURCHILL: That is only the first stage of the argument I am going to submit to the right hon. Gentleman. Even if there were an inconsistency, we were not free agents in regard to the details of the Convention, but were compelled to proceed through a bargain with an outside Power for whom we entertained the greatest respect, and whom we desired largely to meet. What is the Convention? I ask the House to cast back its mind to the speech of the Leader of the Opposition. The impression left on the mind of every Member who heard the speech of the Leader of the Opposition was that the Government had become directly responsible for some disreputable labour arrangement, for some marked and notable derogation from the standard of labour which we were endeavouring to uphold in other parts of the British Empire; and that we had been parties to a Convention which, from our point of view was wholly objectionable and inhumane. Let me read one or two passages from the so-called disreputable labour clause—
"Engagement of Women and Children."

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That is the heading of Article 33.
"Women shall only be engaged, if they are married, with the consent of their husbands; if they are unmarried, with the consent of the head of the tribe."
Until that Article came into force they might be engaged without the governing authority of these two important restrictions. Article 36 is headed—
"Sickness of Labourer on Landing."
It says—
"Every native recruited who, on landing, is found to be in such a state of health as to incapacitate him for the work for which he was engaged shall be cared for at the expense of the recruiter, and the time spent in hospital and the time during which he is unable to work shall be included in the term of engagement."
That is not on the face of it an improper Article. Then, there is Article 43—
"Transfer of Engagement."
"No transfer of a contract of engagement shall be permitted unless freely accepted by the labourer and authorised by the Resident Commissioner entitled to receive the notification of engagement or by the person appointed for the purpose."
Under the Chinese Labour Ordinance there could be transfer from one mine to another without restriction.
MR. LYTTELTON: That is not so.
MR. CHURCHILL: Within a group of mines, certainly.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: May I ask the hon. Gentleman whether there is not a power of transfer in the British Guiana regulations?
MR. CHURCHILL: It is quite true that in some respects the British Guiana Ordinance differs from the Chinese Ordinance, not in an evil direction; but what I am endeavouring to show is that these regulations which we have put forward are better than the Chinese Ordinance which the right hon. Gentleman was endeavouring in his speech
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to justify and even to extol. Let me read to the House Article 44—
"Employers must treat their labourers with kindness."
Let me draw the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to this—
"They shall refrain from all violence towards them."
Not an improper Article; and I think I remember advice of a different character having been issued by a high officer of State responsible under the late Government for the working of this very Labour Ordinance the right hon. Gentleman is so much concerned to defend.
"Employers must further provide their labourers with adequate shelter, the necessary clothing, and medical care in case of illness."
Article 45—
"Labourers shall not be obliged to work except between sunrise and sunset. They shall have daily, at the time of their midday meal, at least one clear hour of rest. Except for domestic duties and the care of animals—"
an important point by the way—
"labourers shall not be obliged to work on Sundays."
Article 40—
"Wages shall be paid exclusively in cash."
And let me point out to the House that these are not provisions which are being made for administering a Labour Ordinance in a highly developed, highly civilised State. They are provisions which are being made in islands in which nothing but anarchy prevailed, in which no regulation has ever previously been enforced; and I say without hesitation that these regulations are in themselves excellent and defensible from every point of view. I say that, by contrast with the system of anarchy that they replace, they constitute a great and undeniable advance towards a humane system of labour and control throughout the islands in question.
It is quite true that in one important respect we have differed from the view which the Colonies took in regard to these

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labour regulations. Let me tell the House that the whole of these regulations deal with the system of indentured labour which prevails within the group of the New Hebrides. There are many islands, and the labourers very often work in a different island from the one in which they were born and in which they live, but all the islands are part of one well-marked group, and have one well defined geographical classification. The Australian Government in their despatch indicated that they would have preferred that we should have not allowed the regulation which we imposed on the system of indentured labour to include any permission to natives of the New Hebrides to engage in labour outside the group. We took the opposite view. We thought it ought to be open to them, if they chose to engage themselves, under proper conditions, to work in other portions of the islands. We may have been right or we may have been wrong, but we had two reasons. First of all we had to consider the other party to the agreement, France. The employment of these natives has not hitherto been very large outside the particular group; and, now that Queensland, objecting to this class of labour, objecting to the introduction of tropical labour of this kind into countries where white men can do the work and where there is a possibility of establishing a high standard of labour, has refused to receive any more Kanakas, the question of the employment of these natives outside the group is not one of very much importance. But there are the interests of France and New Caledonia to consider, and we have had to move in this matter step by step with France. But what is the avowed reason which we have given for having refused to limit the employment of these indentured labourers to their own particular group? I will give it in the very words of my noble friend—
"His Majesty's Government see no reason why recruiters should be prevented, subject to proper restrictions, from giving to natives work outside the group if they desire to do so.
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Settlers in the New Hebrides being free from the expense of recruiting can offer wages as high as any outside employer. His Majesty's Government are under no obligation to assist local proprietors to secure labourers at less than the current rate in the Pacific."
Now, I am bound to say I am not conscious of any reason for compunction or regret in reading that to the House of Commons. The right hon. Gentleman accuses us of gross inconsistency in that there is a regulation for the repatriation of the labourer such as was in the Ordinance for Chinese labour. The House will be pleased to learn that it was on this point that the right hon. Gentleman displayed the largest measure of inaccuracy. I am going to point out where the right hon. Gentleman is mistaken as to what the existing facts are. I am sure it would be a very damaging point if it could be sustained. I will read to the House the Repatriation Articles in the draft Convention—
"Every labourer who has completed his term of engagement shall be returned to his home at the first convenient opportunity by and at the expense of his employer. (2) Such labourer shall be taken back to the place where he was recruited, or if this is impossible, to the nearest place thereto, from which the labourer can, without danger, join his tribe. (3) In the case of unjustifiable delay exceeding one month in returning a labourer, the Resident Commissioner concerned, or the person appointed for the purpose, shall provide, at the expense of the employer, for the return of the labourer to his home at the earliest opportunity. (4) In the case of persistent ill-treatment of a labourer, the Resident Commissioner concerned shall have the right, after two written warnings addressed to the employer, to cancel the contract and provide for the return home of the labourer at the employer's expense."
Now in all this there is an obligation on the employer to repatriate the labourer at the conclusion of his contract, but there is not an obligation upon the labourer to return unless he wishes to do so. The right hon. Gentleman has fallen into a mistake; there is no compulsion upon the labourer to return against his will to the New Hebrides, from New Caledonia, Fiji, or Queensland. But I say, without

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any hesitation, that nothing in this Convention prevents the Kanaka who has moved from one island in the New Hebrides to another to earn his living under indentures from going on working in that very island, or from bringing his wife and children with him to settle in that island, and remaining there for the rest of his life. Well then, what becomes of this great act of Party hypocrisy of which we have been guilty. What becomes of the charge which the right hon. Gentleman has made against us of having vitiated, by neglect or by deliberate hypocrisy, the whole argumentative position which we have assumed and adopted upon the question of Chinese labour in South Africa? I am sorry to detain the House so long upon such a snail point, but I think it is a matter which ought to have a prompt answer. The foreign relations of the Colonies, as transacted by the Mother Country, involve questions of great complexity and great difficulty, and I am certainly not one of those who think that our machinery for dealing with these matters has at the present time reached its final form, but I am quite certain of this, that the practice of selecting those difficult and delicate negotiations involving Foreign Powers and involving the Colonies of the British Empire for the purpose of making Party scores, is not likely to be conducive to either international or Imperial advantage. As a Government I think we are entitled to congratulate ourselves that, when such a very large programme of legislation and so many important subjects of debate have been raised on the meeting of Parliament in the King's Speech, the light hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition, looking for subjects to attack the Government upon, can find scarcely any to occupy an hour's speech within all the wide range of the subjects which were at his disposal, but has to ramble off to Antipodean archipelagoes, and even when he journeyed so far a field, and toiled so long, is able to
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bring home nothing more fruitful or more advantageous than a homely mare's nest.
*MR. LYTTELTONsaid that they had just heard a remarkable speech from the Under-Secretary for the Colonies, who had accused the Leader of the Opposition of having gone to remote corners of the world in order to obtain a Party score. That was a somewhat remarkable statement by the hon. Gentleman, whose Party engaged themselves in the discussion of Chinese labour for nearly three years before the late Government left office. Fortunately the two points with which they had to deal that evening were questions of fact; they appeared in the Blue-book, and were really beyond all controversy. He would try without indulging in any flights of rhetoric to remind the House of what these issues were. His right hon. friend the Leader of the Opposition, after alluding in his speech to other Colonies in which similar tactless caprice had been displayed by the present Government, dealt with the negotiations concerning the New Hebrides. It was not very probable that any of the self-governing Colonies—either Newfoundland, or Australia or the Cape—would be in a mood which was other than sensitive when the Under-Secretary had informed Natal that self-government had been granted too soon. He maintained that his right hon. friend was justified in saying that the Colonial Office had been tactless in regard to the New Hebrides. The facts were that for some considerable time there had been disputes and controversies in regard to the land claims of the French and the English in the New Hebrides, and a single French Commissioner was about to discuss the matter with a single representative of the Colonial Office. At that time the Australian Government wrote stating that while they had always been in favour of the annexation of the New Hebrides, they were willing, in view

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of the long delays inherent in the settlement of this question, to have a joint Protectorate of England and France over the islands considered, and for that purpose the Australian Government said that they would be glad to know what were the views of the Home Government, and on what terms the Protectorate could be established. In view of that request, after telegraphing to New Zealand for their consent, the Colonial Office, with the sanction of Lord Lansdowne at the Foreign Office, said that without any official sanctity they were willing to examine the question with France. The French Government themselves put it in this way: that it would be a simple exchange of views not having any official character; and Lord Elgin himself, when dealing with the point, had described it as a wish expressed by New Zealand and Australia that the French Government should be sounded on the matter. Then the present Government came into power, and what did they do? They immediately transformed the character of the inquiry which had been agreed to and asked for by Australia and New Zealand, into one of the most formal and official that could be imagined, terminating in a signed and sealed Convention subject only to the ratification of the Colonial Governments. The inquiry which led to this Convention lasted a month, and during that period not a single question on the subject was addressed to Australia or New Zealand. The Prime Minister had said that the Colonial Office knew all about the views of the Colonies, but the Colonies did not hold that opinion. It was tactless and foolish on the part of the Government, if they did not know the opinion of the Colonies, not to telegraph to them to obtain it. Instead of that the hon.
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Gentleman who represented the Colonial Office in this House, wrapping himself up in the great wisdom and great knowledge he had of these transactions—
MR. CHURCHILL: I carefully excluded myself.
*MR. LYTTELTON: Then two responsible Ministers—the Prime Minister and the hon. Member for North West Manchester—knew nothing about the matter. These transactions took place in January and February, 1906, and it was absolutely impossible for them to go at length into these matters, and ludicrous to assert that they knew the views of the Australian Colonies. In those circumstances, what was more natural than that a complaint couched in extremely warm terms should come from Australia' The Under-Secretary had denied what had been stated by the Leader of the Opposition, that this elaborate Convention with seventy or eighty clauses was presented to the Colonies to take or leave. He was astonished at the hon. Gentleman's hardihood. These were the words—
"His Majesty's Government do not think that on the main question of the principles involved there is any prospect of coming to an agreement with the French Government, which would be in general more acceptable, and that the Draft Convention must be accepted or rejected as it stood."
What his right hon. friend had said was, that they must either take it or leave it, and he therefore thought that his right hon. friend was justified absolutely in saying that the Government had omitted to take those precautions and those measures which would have secured the assent of the Governments of Australia and New Zealand and that local information which might have been perfectly easily obtained, and the Government

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had omitted to give the Governments of New Zealand and Australia any information during the course of this elaborate inquiry. Accordingly the Government had blundered into this Convention, many parts of which he dared say were good, giving the maximum of offence to the Colonies, and the minimum of information. There was a second point. Broadly speaking the Under-Secretary appeared to justify the making of this Convention with respect to indentured labour by His Majesty's Government, by saying that they were dealing with savages who were and had been in a state of disorder. Let it be perfectly understood. He did not for a moment say that indentured labour was wrong, or was to be condemned, with respect to these savages in the New Hebrides. He was perfectly certain that the gentlemen who drew this Convention, believed, as they believed, that indentured labour was legitimate; but what did hon. Gentlemen opposite think of that? What was their position, or rather what ought to be their position about it? He saw opposite the hon. Member for North Camberwell, whose promotion they were all glad to see. He thought the hon. Member won his spurs almost entirely over Chinese labour. Then the hon. Gentleman who now represented the Home Office dealt with it, day after day, upon questions as to minimum wages, compulsory service, and identification marks, and by these means the late Government were held up to obloquy in this House and throughout the country. Did the Government think that their reputation as sincere men would be enhanced when, at the very time that they and their followers were defaming the late Government throughout the country, and libelling
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them by displaying scurrilous pictures dealing with Chinese labour, they were in January of that year actually confirming this Convention, with full notice of its contents, and without the slightest urgency or economic necessity? The hon. Gentleman said that that was inconsistent but not insincere.
MR. CHURCHILL: No, I carefully said it was not inconsistent, but that even if it had been inconsistent it would not necessarily have been insincere.
*MR. LYTTELTONsaid he would put it to the hon. Gentleman's supporters, some of whom were very sincere in this matter, whether it was sincere Under this Convention to which the Government had given, without the slightest heed, without the slightest economic necessity, their imprimatur, a little girl of twelve, provided she were a suitable height, might be recruited in the New Hebrides, and taken hundreds of miles from that group, for a period of three years. The group itself was 300 or 400 miles long and she might be taken to Fiji. Her wages might be 10s. a month, about a quarter of the minimum wage of the Chinese labourers, and she might be compelled to work in the tropics with an hour's interval from sunrise to sunset. These savages, or as the High Commissioner called them, sylvages or men of the woods were entitled to more protection from the Government than the Chinese who were perfectly well able to take care of themselves. This girl would be bound to remain in the employment of her employer for three years, and there were no holidays except Sundays prescribed. She might be kept at work beyond the three years if she had left her employer or neglected her work.

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There was a penalty on her if she deserted her employment, and on anybody who harboured her. Was that the treatment which hon. Gentlemen opposite of humane tendencies desired to see meted out to children in the tropics? Lastly, there was a repatriation clause which, notwithstanding the quibbles of the Under-Secretary, would compel the employer to repatriate the girl at the end of her period of service, a provision, reasonable, as he thought, but which, in the case of the Chinese Ordinance was interpreted by hon. Gentlemen opposite as the badge of slavery. There was, he repeated, a repatriation clause which made it compellable upon the employer to repatriate that girl at the end of the period of service. He would read the clause. He was sure the Under-Secretary, though he was not a lawyer, knew what the meaning of the word "shall" was and that it was imperative. The article provided—
"That every labourer who has completed the term of his engagement shall be returned to his home at the first convenient opportunity at the expense of the employer."
MR. CHURCHILL: If the labourer declined to go, there is nothing in this Convention to put any compulsion upon him.
*MR. LYTTELTONsaid the only provision in this Convention which was binding as between ourselves and France was that every labourer who had finished his engagement should be repatriated. That was a positive obligation on the contracting party, which was Great Britain, and that clause might be insisted upon by anybody who was so disposed. ["Oh."] Apparently he had not
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convinced hon. Gentlemen opposite, but he had tried to convince them on many occasions that the repatriation clause of the Chinese Convention had nothing to do with slavery and failed, but it was provided by the present Government that the New Hebrides native "shall" be repatriated.
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. ASQUITH, Fifeshire, E.): Does the right hon. Gentlemen say that that means that the labourer cannot remain?
*MR. LYTTELTONcontended it meant that. It was provided that if the labourer was not returned he should be returnable. He thought the House knew perfectly well his views as to indentured labour, and there were certain terms even in the Transvaal Ordinance which he never pretended to like, but there was no term in the Transvaal Ordinance which approached in its hardship and rigour to this clause which enabled a little child of either sex to become the subject of indentured labour. After all they had said about the Transvaal Ordinance, Members opposite, and certainly neither the hon. Member for Newbury nor the hon. and gallant Member for the Isle of Wight, dared defend this provision. Neither could they defend the wage of 10s. per month. Pages of abuse were levelled at the Unionist Government for injuring the cause of labour because the Chinaman on the average had a wage of about 1s. 6d. a day. This could not be said to have been done carelessly. The Under-Secretary must have known of the protest of the Australian Government. The late Government was blamed for

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not following the advice of the Australians in Colonies in which they were not interested. In this case the Australians intervened in a matter in which they were concerned. That fact ought to have arrested serious and special interest. The Australian Government protested in the first place against these unfortunate savages being sent beyond the tribal region. His Majesty's Government neglected that protest, and said they should be allowed to go to Fiji and New Caledonia. He presumed that the Australians protested because they thought the importation of these men into Fiji or New Caledonia would lower the standard of wages, and disturb the labour market. But the Government which had been wafted into power on the tide of that very objection against Chinese labour would not listen. The Australians also protested that too great leniency was shown to the employers, and that it was only after a third offence that the contract might be cancelled; and they suggested that the range of penalties should be increased. The Government had given a pledge that they would veto any ordinance in South Africa which contained a repatriation clause similar to this. What sort of case would they have for action of that kind? He believed all Parties in the Transvaal had insisted in their election addresses that these ordinances in the Transvaal should be re-enacted until native labour should be substituted for Chinese labour. He thought he was accurate in saying that was the position General Both a had taken up. The Government had taken it upon themselves to say they would veto that which was going to be unanimously sought by the Colony to which they had given self-government. That
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would be a serious thing to do—to veto an ordinance which had anything like the unanimous assent of a self-governing Colony. But what would be the Government's position when the Colony came to them and said, "Veto this? Why you yourselves, without the slightest necessity, without any economic pressure, any war, or desolation of the country, without a single petition in its favour have instituted a system of indentured labour which contains a repatriation clause, a clause for a minimum wage of 10s. a month, and an obligation to work between sunrise and sunset."
COLONEL SEELY: Did the right hon. Gentleman say obligation?
*MR. LYTTELTON: If the employer desiredit—and the employer in the Fijis was very like the employer in the Transvaal—he was at liberty, if he gave an hour's rest for dinner, to exact labour between the hours of sunrise and sunset. If there was that right on the part of the employer, then the hon. and gallant Member would admit there was a corresponding obligation to work on the part of the employed. What was the position in which the Government was going to place itself? They had promised to veto the Transvaal Ordinance, even if it was returned to them by an immense majority of that self-governing Colony. He contended that any such action would expose the Government in the eyes of the whole civilised world to the charge of hypocrisy and imposture. He maintained that the case of the late Government, strong though it was, was infinitely stronger now, because it was now shown that

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honourable men like Lord Elgin and other members of the Cabinet who had made this Convention, when their minds were not bent upon Party obloquy, or in heaping abuse on the late Government and Lord Milner, were substantially doing here that which they formerly denounced.
SIR GILBERT PARKER: said the complaint of English interference with the New Hebrides was, he believed, familiar to everybody, but the original interference in connection with these islands came at the suggestion of the Australian and New Zealand Governments. As far back as 1887 we assumed a certain jurisdiction over the New Hebrides. In that year we, with France, assumed a joint protectorate over them, with power to interfere in case of any disorder, and to retain a constant surveillance and scrutiny of everything that happened in the New Hebrides. The action of the Government in passing this Convention over the head of the Australian and New Zealand Governments was not only inconsistent and improper, but an action which twenty years ago, when the views of Australia and New Zealand were not so favourable to this country as they were now, would have induced them to protest as sharply and as antagonistically as was the case with regard to New Guinea and New Caledonia. We should have had no locus standi in the Polynesian Islands to-day had it not been that Queensland first insisted on annexing them on behalf of that Colony, and then turning to the Home Government and saying, "We have done this in our interest in the Pacific." The same thing was done with New Caledonia. Then in 1887 came the question of the New Hebrides.
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From 1887 to the present day France and England had had a protectorate over the New Hebrides, and were ready to regulate any case of injustice by what might be called Marshall Acts. Under these circumstances, and having regard to the fact that for twenty years the Australian and New Zealand Colonies had agitated for a greater and more definite control over the New Hebrides, in his opinion the action of the Government in entering into this Convention was imperious, and not Imperial. Of the sixty-eight articles in this Convention, the Australian and New Zealand Government criticised thirty in a most elaborate and definite manner, as was shown by a great many pages of the Blue-book. Mr. Alfred Deakin, the Prime Minister of Australia, pointed out that the inquiry lasted a month, and not a single communication was made to the Australian Government during that time, nor were they consulted on the matter. The Prime Minister of New Zealand also said that he would not take the responsibility of advising the Secretary of State to accept the draft prepared in London, at all events in its present form. In spite of the criticism, extending over thirty articles of the Convention, only two or three unimportant amendments were made in it, after the protests of the New Zealand and Australian Governments; yet this was done by a Government which claimed to desire that the Colonies might be considered in every way.
And, it being Eleven of the clock, the debate stood adjourned. Debate to be resumed to-morrow.
Adjourned at one minute after Eleven o'clock.

THE KING'S SPEECH.
The KING, being seated on the Throne, and the Commons being at the Bar with their SPEAKER, His Majesty was pleased to make a most gracious Speech to both Houses of Parliament, and then retired.
His Majesty's Speech was as follows:
"My Lords, and Gentlemen:
"I am happy to say that my relations with foreign Powers continue to be friendly, and I have no occasion to add to the full statement which was laid before you in December reciting a number of satisfactory Agreements recently concluded.
"The earthquake at Kingston adds one more to the series of calamities which Jamaica and my other Colonies in the West Indies have experienced. I regret the deplorable loss of life and destruction of property in an important city, and I
2
have seen with satisfaction that the emergency has been met by the Governor and his officers with courage and devotion, and by the people with self-control.
"The occasion has called forth many proofs of practical goodwill from all parts of my Empire; and I recognise with sincere gratitude the sympathy shown by the people of the United States of America, and the assistance promptly offered by their naval authorities.
"The first visit of an Amir of Afghanistan to my Indian dominions for more than twenty years, and his active survey of leading features in Indian life, have been to me, and, as I understand, to the Amir himself, a source of much gratification, as tending to promote that right feeling which is even more important than formal compacts.
"In India, while firmly guarding the strength and unity of executive power unimpaired, I look forward to a steadfast effort to provide means of widening the base of peace, order, and good government among the vast populations committed to my charge.
"Gentlemen of the House of Commons:
"Estimates of the National Expenditure for the forthcoming financial year will in due course be laid before you. They have been framed with the object of effecting economies consistent with the efficient maintenance of the public service.
"My Lords, and Gentlemen:
"Serious questions affecting the working of our Parliamentary system have arisen from unfortunate differences between the two Houses. My Ministers have this important subject under consideration with a view to a solution of the difficulty
"A measure of licensing reform will be introduced, with the object of effectively diminishing the evils which result from the sale and use of intoxicating liquors under present conditions.
"Proposals will be laid before you for more clearly defining the functions of the military forces of the Crown, both regular and auxiliary, and for the improvement of their organisation.
"Bills will be introduced dealing with the Holding and Valuation of land in Scotland.
"Your attention will be called to measures for further associating the people of Ireland with the management of their domestic affairs, and for otherwise improving the system of government in its administrative and financial aspects. Proposals will also be submitted for effecting a reform of University education in Ireland, whereby I trust that the difficulties which have so long retarded the development of higher education in that country may be removed.
"You will also be invited to consider proposals for the establishment of a Court of Criminal Appeal, for Regulating the Hours of Labour in Mines, for the Amendment of the Patent Laws, for improving the Law relating to the Valuation of Property in England and Wales, for enabling Women to serve on Local Bodies, for amending the Law affecting Small Holdings in England and Wales, and for the better Housing of the People.
"I commend all your arduous labours to the continued blessing of Almighty God."

The Viscount Hampden sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.
ROLL OF THE LORDS.
Garter King of Arms attending, delivered at the Table (in the usual manner) a List of the Lords Temporal in the Second Session of the Twenty-ninth Parliament of the United Kingdom. The same was ordered to lie on the Table.
SELECT VESTRIES.
Bill, pro forma, read 1a.

ADDRESS IN REPLY TO HIS MAJESTY'S MOST GRACIOUS SPEECH.
*LORD CASTLETOWN: My Lords, I beg to move that an humble Address be presented to His Majesty in reply to the gracious Speech from the Throne. I am sure that I shall be giving expression to the feeling of the Whole House when I say how much we rejoice that Her Most Gracious Majesty has been able to accompany the King on this occasion, and that the recovery of the Princess Royal is making such progress that, unlike last year, we may trust that no sorrow in the Royal Family is present to darken the Opening of Parliament.
Your Lordships will note that the satisfactory state of affairs abroad is still maintained, and though such conditions may be duo to the able management of Foreign Affairs by the present Secretary of State, I feel that I may, with all due deference and submission, say that the Empire is being guided and preserved in ways of peace and prosperity by the careful thought and wisdom of His Most Gracious Majesty, whose pacific sway in the councils of the world is now fully recognised. The Speech from the Throne last year referred to the Algeciras Conference, and Lord Northampton, the Mover of the Address, spoke of the confidence reposed in Sir Arthur Nicolson's conduct of those negotiations. The trust reposed in that able Minister has, I think, been fully justified, and the outcome of that Conference will, I hope, result in the amelioration of affairs in Morocco, while maintaining the concert of those Powers, Spain, France, and

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Great Britain, as most interested in the question, and at the same time helping the Emperor of Morocco to improve the status and condition of the people under his rule.
With regard to the regulations adopted for the New Hebrides, one feels that it was necessary to evolve order out of the conditions obtaining in those Islands, and the Agreement with France, though perhaps not all that both countries would have desired, undoubtedly will be useful in its effects, and leaves future issues unimpaired. Several Boundary Commissions and Agreements have been ratified and carried to a successful issue between this country and Germany and between this country and France, while Agreements have been concluded with the French and Italian Governments for the maintenance of status quo in the Dominions of the Emperor Menelik in Abyssinia. All these diplomatic arrangements augur well for the future pacific progress of the Empire and the nations with whom we are in closest contact, and the fact that so many questions long out-standing have been settled is a proof and indication that foreign affairs are going on well and satisfactorily.
The terrible calamity in Jamaica has caused, as we are all aware, a deep feeling of horror and sorrow in these islands. The suddenness of the catastrophe and the loss of so many lives among our fellow subjects have filled this country with consternation and grief, while the fact that many prominent scientists, travellers and politicians were actually in Jamaica at the time, discussing the possibility of future developments for the benefit of the island, some of whom were killed, has rendered the earthquake at Kingston peculiarly deplorable. The calm and brave demeanour displayed by the whole population was noteworthy, while the authorities deserve the greatest praise for their efforts to save life and property under the most trying ordeal to which human nature can be subjected. Jamaica and this country are deeply indebted to the United States for the prompt and active assistance rendered at this awful moment. Such kindly thoughts and acts must accentuate in the long run the feeling of true relationship which exists, to my mind,
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between the great Republic of the West and this Empire.
The visit of the Ruler of Afghanistan to India is referred to in the Gracious Speech as having been most successful, and one that was likely to cement the friendship already existing between His Most Gracious Majesty and the Amir. In reading the report of that visit it is easy to see that His Majesty's representative, Lord Minto, an able Member of your Lordships' House, has done everything to make the sojourn of the Amir in India pleasant, interesting, and of value to both nations. One may venture to hope that the insight obtained by the Amir into the system of British Government in India, and his perception of the desire of all the authorities in that country, and notably of the Viceroy, for the welfare of our fellow countrymen of all races in that great Dependency, will indicate to him the higher motives of our Rule, while the intercourse he has held with Native Princes will imbue him with the knowledge and feeling that His Majesty and his advisers in this country desire more the well-being of India, the true liberty of her Princes, races, and creeds, ordered and arranged in accordance with civilisation, thought, and progress, than the greatest military conquests that were ever gained in the Asiatic world.
The profound care and forethought for the welfare of India and her people which is, I rejoice to say, now the keynote of our policy, is receiving the greatest attention from the Governor-General, and though there may have been local difficulties whore so many interests—religious, financial, racial—must come into conflict, the steady sympathy of the authorities in India with native idiosnycrasies, and the strong support and careful guidance from home, have facilitated successful issue and are leading to the true and proper solution of the difficulties in question.
The next paragraph in the Most Gracious Speech from the Throne I approach with a feeling of grave responsibility. How long it has taken to build up the present Constitution we all know, the working of the Constitution we are thoroughly acquainted with, and yet we all realise that there are times when some change is necessary in its machinery, with the object of adjusting some one or

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other of its peculiarities. I use this word advisedly. It is a peculiarity that in the Second Chamber of this country—it does not obtain, so far as I am aware, in any other Second Chamber—a certain number, a large number, in fact, of hereditary legislators, who do not present themselves with regularity, or who attend very rarely through the session of Parliament, can come to this House, and, belonging as they do to one particular Party, can invalidate or destroy by their votes the legislation which may be desired by the majority of the electors of the country. Such, however, are the circumstances of the case. These difficulties or peculiarities were referred to in the Speech from the Throne when Parliament was prorogued, and it is undoubtedly the duty of His Majesty's Government to try and discover some means of relieving the deadlock caused in such cases, and thus permit the Constitution to work out its issues on the lines on which it was originally based.
My Lords, with regard to the next matter referred to in His Majesty's Speech, I am sure all the Members of your Lordships' House will agree with me in hoping that the proposal of the Minister for War which will be placed before you will be of the wide and useful character it portends to be The Army has been, if I may say so, too long the shuttlecock of parties, and the despair of politicians. Perhaps if politicians had despaired more and thought less about them the forces of the Crown would have done better. But, be that as it may, we all know the position of affairs now, and any man who wishes well to his country will be only too glad to welcome a scheme well thought out, well arranged, and, we hope, eventually well administered. What I believe the country requires is a Regular Army, able to go anywhere at a moment's notice, fully equipped and prepared. The country also demands that the defences of these islands shall be fully maintained. For this power of offence and this means of defence the country will have to pay but may not one ask that the thousands of young men who are neither soldiers nor sailors, who are not in either the Militia, Yeomanry or Volunteers, may be induced or urged to come forward and give their services for a short period of their existence to their native land? I
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believe the scheme to be produced will deal with these points in a broad and liberal-minded manner, and will organise the military forces now at the disposal of the country on comprehensive lines.
I will now pass, with your Lordships' permission, from the more general topics of the Speech from the Throne to the particular matters which, in the shape of Bills, will be brought before Parliament, and I will take them in the order in. which they appear. The first measure is one which, I think, will appeal to your Lordships' consideration, and is in the nature of an extension of the original Crofters' Act, which, as I understand, has already worked well in Scotland. I confess that my own sympathies are very strongly in favour of any measure which will give the crofters and other small agriculturists and labourers a real stake in the land of their birth. The Report presented to Parliament in September, 1906, on the decline of agriculture in Great Britain bears eloquent testimony to the necessity of Parliamentary intervention, especially in Scotland. The map which accompanies it shows clearly where the life blood of the country is being drained, by emigration and migration, and the Report indicates where, and how the styptics which are necessary may be applied. Every day we are told there is a greater difficulty in getting agricultural labour, and every day fewer recruits of the healthy agricultural type enlist in our Army. What are the reasons for this? Emigration to the Colonies may be one. We cannot stop that, however, unless we make home life in the country as certain and lucrative as it is in far-off lands. Migration to the larger towns may be another reason. That we can only prevent by the same means, and by giving other inducements to happiness in rural social life. Both of these issues may be difficult to deal with, but all the witnesses in this Report advocate the necessity of giving the agricultural class, who are still, to my mind, the backbone of the country, the possibility of becoming, not only occupiers, but owners of the land they till.
I now come to the next measure, and it is, if I may say so, to myself and many of your Lordships who come from Ireland, the most important legislative

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proposal we have before us. I quote the words of His Majesty's Gracious Speech in dealing with this proposal, and I do not think any more comprehensive or clear statement could have been used—
"Your attention will be called to measures for further associating the people of Ireland with the management of their domestic affairs, and for otherwise improving the system of government in its administrative and financial aspects."
For some years past we have heard talk in Ireland of "devolution." I cannot help thinking that this word has given rise to much difficulty, and I rejoice at last to see a lucid interpretation of what is required and what is proposed. If any long word were needed to explain the advisability of some change one might call it "evolution" from chaos, and not "devolution" from constitutional government.
Whenever an Irish problem crops up those who desire to examine it must first of all study the history of that country, and they will find the germ of the problem in some old form of maladministration. That the misgovernment of 400 years cannot be remedied in forty is a true saying. The Union which took place little more than a hundred years ago had, or should have had, as its corollary, a scheme of domestic administration in Irish affairs. Like most things in the history of Ireland, the corollary has been kept back till almost too late. It is proposed now, 100 years after the Union, to improve the system of government in Ireland in its administrative and financial aspect. I welcome those words, and would implore noble Lords from Ireland to think what value would have attached to those words had they been used and rendered effective in any Speech from the Throne some forty or fifty years ago, when they and their political classes were the dominant power in that country.
Under this proposal the administration may be regulated by the votes of the whole people of Ireland. Even if this be so, I am willing and prepared to accept their governance. For the last thirty or forty years one may safely say that both parties in this country have tried, and, I believe, tried honestly, to do justice to Ireland. But I think both parties had forgotten that Ireland, owing to circumstances I need not refer to, was no
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longer a pawn in the game of politics; that Ireland had slowly but surely grown up under the Union into a Nationality once more, though still an integral portion of the Empire. As a nation, and I say it without fear, Ireland is entitled to the administration of her domestic affairs and to a bettor system of such administration. As to her finances, we are told that the system of government in that aspect is also to be improved. I spoke in this House some years ago on the financial relations between Great Britain and Ireland. At that time men of all classes and creeds in Ireland had joined a movement, of which I was a member, to ask the Imperial Parliament to investigate and deal in a liberal spirit with the financial losses which Ireland had incurred. Our pleadings for justice were, if I may say so, sneered at, and our arguments, though based on the Report and evidence of one of the ablest Commissions that has sat on this topic, were ignored. Under the circumstances I need hardly say how much I welcome this paragraph, and I only hope that when the time comes for that financial assistance to be given it will be rendered handsomely and generously, and at the same time equitably.
Before leaving this grave and serious question, may I appeal to the patriotism of my noble friends from Ireland who may distrust this measure, and ask them to be slow in rejecting it when it reaches this House? May I beg them to be jealous of the good name of their countrymen, and therefore confident in the honesty of their intentions to administer their domestic affairs for the good of all classes and creeds? I would ask them also to bear in mind that we have been told quite lately by a responsible Minister that "separation is unthinkable;" and I say that until and unless the whole aspect of the world is changed by some gigantic war, or by some cataclysm of nature, the separation of England and Ireland is politically and geographically impossible.
The proposal for effecting reform in University education in Ireland will, I trust, be carried into effect. As His Majesty's gracious Speech says, the difficulties which have so long retarded the development of higher education are at least capable of being removed, and though there may be some divergence of opinion

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as to the scheme which will give the line of least resistance—and I would ask His Majesty's Government to consider most carefully this point—I am convinced that all sections in Ireland will now join to obtain some settlement. I have taken a deep interest in this question, and though I speak as Chancellor of a University which may be shortly placed in the crucible, I still can say with confidence and certainty that it is essential to Ireland that a National University should be created, to minister in the most efficient manner to the wants of the laity, irrespective of creed, and especially to the majority in Ireland who are Catholics, and who are entitled to that system of higher education which is consistent with their religious views.
The remaining legislation for the session will, I hope, commend itself strongly to your Lordships. The different Bills proposed are not so much of a sensational character, but rather conduce to the social and economic advantage of all classes in the community. I am glad to see that it is proposed to ask women to give us the benefit of their advice and assistance on other local bodies besides those to which they are already accredited. The great success that they have achieved to my personal knowledge on boards of guardians, and the fine work they are doing among their poorer sisters in the workhouses and factories, make one sanguine that if they are given a still wider field of action the result will be equally valuable to the whole community.
My noble friend who follows me will go more into detail on the various measures enumerated, but I should like to touch upon two other Bills to which much importance must be attached—the Small Holdings Bill for England and Wales and the Bill for the better housing of the people. The Report of the very able and expert Committee presided over by my noble friend Lord Onslow has laid down the wisdom of further experiments in this direction. To carry out those experiments legislation is necessary. As I have for many years carefully studied the question in Ireland I am quite certain that an appreciable amount of benefit will be conferred on the rural and agricultural population by enlarging the power of obtaining land for small holdings and allotments. But I would most strongly urge that when those powers are
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sought they should be made as elastic as possible. A scheme that may suit one district may be impracticable or impossible in another. If the population of the country requires this enfranchisement, which is, I think, the case, do not tie it up with red tape and sealing wax and thus render it inoperative. It works admirably abroad, especially in relation to the improved communal system that obtains in Belgium, France, and Denmark, and also by the assistance of well-regulated people's banks. I am carrying out this scheme in my own county in Ireland, and up to now with complete success. I venture, therefore, to recommend the scheme most heartily to your Lordships. The housing of the people has a similar remedial aspect, and I do not think that political feeling should enter into this question at all, though it may be an inviting issue for the economist.
My Lords, I must apologise for the length of my speech, but the gravity of the legislative programme precluded my dealing with it more rapidly or perfunctorily. May I, before I sit down, say how deeply I deplore the loss to this House of one who has just passed away, Lord Goschen? I could not add anything to what has been said of him in the public Press. But I may say I have lost a kind and helpful friend in days gone by; this House has lost an able statesman and debater, and the State a tried and faithful servant to Crown and country. I have the honour to move.
THE EARL OF CHICHESTER: My Lords, in rising to second the Address I am very conscious of the disadvantages which must attend such an undertaking by one so inexperienced as myself—inexperienced not only in your Lordships' House, but also in any other Assembly which, though probably less considerate, would certainly be less formidable than your Lordships'. It is, therefore, not in any formal sense, but with all sincerity, that I ask your Lordships to extend to me a very liberal share of your forbearance and consideration.
I have been but a short time a Member of your Lordships' House, but long enough to realise to some extent the great loss this House has sustained by the death of Viscount Goschen. Others far better qualified to speak of him will do so tonight, but neither the sorrow caused by

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his death nor the pride taken in his great career can be confined to his contemporaries or those who had the privilege of his acquaintance.
My Lords, reference has been made in the gracious Speech to the terrible disaster which has recently occurred in Jamaica. Jamaica is one of our oldest colonies and united to us by no common ties—ties which I cannot help thinking are now drawn even closer than before, on our side at any rate, by our sympathy with sufferings which, however anxious we may be to alleviate by financial or other assistance, we were yet so powerless to avert. The past year has been notable for disasters on an unparalleled scale in the Western Hemisphere, both in North and South America, by which the towns of San Francisco and Valparaiso have been demolished; but in the case of Kingston another element was present, that of a coloured race living side by side with Europeans. We were proud to note the unselfish devotion with which the "white man's burden" was taken up, and the unflinching courage with which the responsibilities of Empire were borne by the authorities of Kingston. It is a pleasant task to try to express to that great friendly nation, the United States, our heart-felt thanks for the generous manner in which their naval forces came to the assistance of the inhabitants of Kingston in their need, a generosity made doubly precious by that characteristic which belongs pre-eminently to America, that of promptness.
Licensing reform is foreshadowed in the gracious Speech. Your Lordships will admit that this is a very difficult question, but I think the Act of two I years ago could only be expected to lead to further legislation on the subject. I feel convinced that the Government will approach the matter with a broad-mindedness that will enable them to deal with it to the best public advantage without pressing unduly on a certain section of the community.
My Lords, with regard to the paragraph in the gracious Speech relating to the new Army Scheme, I do not think it is necessary for me to add anything to what Lord Castletown has already said, except to express the hope—I might almost say conviction—that when Mr. Haldane's scheme is made known in detail, we shall see that much has been
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done for the Volunteer force, and that at last they may have the satisfaction of feeling that they are an integral part of a great scheme for the defence of the country. With the increased facilities for rapid transit at sea we are deprived to a certain extent to-day of the protection which that bulwark provided in the past through what I may call the unkindly elements. To day, in an age of steamships which can accommodate 5,000 men, of guns whose range is half the width of the Channel, there may be no time for hasty preparation and no use for improvised forces. It is, therefore, most necessary that every unit of our Volunteer force should be allotted its share in defence and be maintained in a condition to repel a raid at short notice.
The first Bill mentioned in the gracious Speech is one to establish a Court of Criminal Appeal. This Bill is already well known to your Lordships. Although we pride ourselves in this country, and, we believe, with reason, on our administration of justice, it is yet a regrettable fact that on a few occasions in the past innocent persons have been convicted of grave criminal offences and unjust sentences served by the guiltless. One cannot help feeling that it is a curious state of affairs which allows a man to appeal against a decision involving the loss of £100, but does not allow him that appeal against a decision involving the loss of his liberty or even his life. The intense repugnance in the minds of all Englishmen to the possibility that any man should suffer punishment for a crime that he has not committed, has awakened a demand for the creation of a Court in which a reconsideration of a conviction, on a serious criminal charge, can take place.
We then turn to the Bill for regulating the hours of work in mines. Your Lordships are doubtless aware that a Bill to provide for an eight hours day in mines was read a second time in the House of Commons last May. That Bill proposed that the hours for labour in mines during 1907 should be nine, eight and a half in 1908, and eight hours in 1909. Considering the very arduous character of the work and the very depressing circumstances under which it is carried on, I do not think that this is an unreasonable proposal. It is held that the physical strength of the miner would be so much

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improved by the shorter hours and the longer period that he would spend in the light of day, that the output of coal would either remain the same or even increase, notwithstanding the shorter hours of work.
I believe, my Lords, that there is room for great improvement in the present Patent Laws. It is complained that the machinery of the present law is complicated and costly, and also that a large proportion of patents taken out in the United Kingdom are merely obstructive and are not worked in this country. If this Bill is successful in simplifying the working of these laws and giving greater facilities and encouragement to genuine invention, I feel sure it will be warmly welcomed in your Lordships' House.
I turn next to the Bill for extending the system of cheap trains for workmen. In connection with the London housing problem, the Royal Commission on Locomotion in their Report advise that in order to relieve overcrowding it is absolutely necessary that cheap workmen's trains should be extended in all directions instead of only in a few, as now obtains, and the Government—
*THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (The Earl of CREWE): No. That Bill is not included.
THE EARL OF CHICHESTER: I believe, my Lords, that at the last moment that Bill was not included. The next Bill mentioned in the gracious Speech is one to amend the law relating to the valuation of land in England and Wales. I do not think anyone who is an owner of land will feel inclined to quarrel with a Bill which has as its object the equalisation of rateable values. The burdens borne by land owe half their vexatiousness to their variety, land in one part of the country bearing burdens unheard of in another. I cannot help expressing the pious hope that it may be found possible to relieve agricultural land of some of its present very heavy burden.
I do not think anyone who has worked on local bodies, such as boards of guardians, with women, and knows what excellent work they are capable of doing, will be sorry to hear that the Government intends to bring in a Bill to widen their sphere of usefulness.
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There is much work to be done by various local bodies which can only, from its very nature, be suitably performed by women. I cannot help feeling that the county councils and district councils will gain both in experience and in efficiency by the inclusion of women among their members.
My Lords, I think that very great satisfaction will be felt that a Small Holdings Bill is included in the gracious Speech. That satisfaction will, I believe, be two-fold: first, on account of the benefit to agriculture; and, secondly, on account of the benefit to the rural community. So much capital until recently engaged in agriculture has been either totally lost or else diverted into other channels that it is increasingly difficult to find tenants with sufficient capital to take the big farms as they were originally laid out. The consequence is, at any rate in certain parts of the country, that land which used to support several farmers, now only supports a very much smaller number, who work several farms together and adopt a mode of culture requiring the minimum of labour; or else the land is occupied entirely for pleasure purposes with no idea of getting a living out of it, and probably under those circumstances the occupier uses even still less labour.
But with regard to the rural community, one cannot help hoping that the effect of a Bill of the kind foreshadowed in the gracious Speech will be still more marked. Something must be done not only to check the rural depopulation, but what is perhaps more important still, to check the steady flow of all that is intelligent and full of life from the villages. Why is it, my Lords, that agricultures no longer attracts the best of our rural population? The answer always given is that they cannot resist the attraction of the great cities, the charm of varied amusements, the life and stir of the streets. That may be true, but I do not believe it is the whole truth. My Lords, if education has achieved anything it is this. It does implant in certain natures the desire to rise, and it is this desire to get on which drives the keener spirits out of agriculture, not necessarily into the towns, but into other pursuits where there is a chance of merit and energy getting to the top of the tree. In the part of England I know best such

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young men go on to the railway or into the police; but these are the men that we want to keep on the land, and it appears to me that a Bill making it possible for a man to acquire or lease a small amount of land to work himself is, in certain districts, at any rate, the way to bring this about.
The possibility of possessing land, however little, is dear to the heart of most Englishmen, and such possibility would make village life more full of hope and interest than it is to-day. There is much truth in the saying, "Give a man the freehold of a barren rock and he will turn it into a garden; grant a man the seven years' lease of a garden and he will turn it into a desert." Experiments have already been made in the direction of small holdings, and the success that these experiments have met with has led the Departmental Committee, of which Lord Onslow was the chairman, to recommend that further experiments of the same nature be made over a larger area.
The next Bill mentioned in the gracious Speech is one respecting the housing of the people. There is little doubt that fresh legislation is wanted on the subject. Much has been done in London, but the work of clearing away slums is very slow. Moreover, houses are continually being built under such conditions of overcrowding that, in the future, municipal authorities will be faced by the same problem unless strong measures are taken now. It is estimated that there are still over 250,000 people in London who are one-room dwellers, and what is true of London applies to most of our great cities. With regard to the housing question in rural neighbourhoods, the impossibility of building cottages to pay a reasonable return on the outlay will, without further legislation on the matter, make the difficulty of settling people in any number on the land an insuperable one. Considerable sums of money have been lent by the Treasury through the Public Works Loan Commissioners from time to time for the purpose of erecting workmen's dwellings; but your Lordships' will recognise the difficulty there is at present in lending public money for the erection of cottages in new districts where the demand for labour may not be constant. The question of security in these cases becomes a serious one.
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The entire absence of one topic from the gracious Speech is to be noted with the greatest satisfaction. There is happily, no need for any reference to war in any part of the world. I cannot help contrasting the topics discussed to-day with those in the speech made by my grandfather just seventy-nine years I ago in moving the Address. That speech contained regrets for battles in the past, accounts of wars that were then raging, and suggestions for warlike alliances in the future, and no mention of domestic legislation whatever. Under the present happier auspices perhaps it is not unreasonable to hope that much of the legislation foreshadowed in the gracious Speech may pass into law. My Lords, it only remains for me to thank you most warmly for your patience and forbearance, and formally to second the Address.
Moved, "That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty in reply to the gracious Speech from the Throne."—(Lord Castletown.)
*THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I am sure that noble Lords who sit on this side will permit me to express the satisfaction with which we listened to the well-chosen words in which both the noble Lords who have just addressed us referred to the loss which this House has sustained by the lamented death of Viscount Goschen. Lord Goschen brought to this House a rich fund of knowledge and experience of the most varied character. As a financier, as a political economist, his reputation stood high. He had a distinguished record as an administrator charged with the management of great public departments. He was not unknown in the field of diplomacy. If I might venture to single out one of his distinguishing characteristics, I should say that we respected him above all on account of the fearlessness and sincerity of his character—a fearlessness and sincerity which he never failed to display, whether he was fighting on the winning or on the losing side. We can ill afford to lose such a man. Only those who had the good fortune to know him as a friend and a colleague can say how wise a colleague or how true a friend they have lost.
My Lords, our veterans pass away from us one by one, and their places are

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taken by younger men, and on these occasions it is usual for the Government of the day to give an opportunity to those who have, so to speak, still to win their spurs in our debates. But we can scarcely regard my noble friend the mover of the Address in the light of a novice, for he has been for some years a Member of this House. Indeed, I think ten years have passed since the occasion to which he referred in his observations, when he endeavoured to persuade Parliament to effect a radical alteration in the financial relations between Great Britain and Ireland, and to establish an Irish Consolidated Fund to provide for Irish agriculture, Irish railways, and Irish industries. I am afraid he was not successful in softening the hard heart of my noble friend who was then Chancellor of the Exchequer. But I may, perhaps, congratulate him on having, at last, stumbled upon a softer spot. My noble friend and the noble Lord who followed him addressed your Lordships with much ability, and we listened with interest and pleasure to their speeches.
I come now to the gracious Speech. The references it contains to foreign affairs are extremely brief. We learn that the relations of his Majesty's Government with foreign Powers continue to be friendly. That is a refrain to which we cannot listen too often, and I congratulate the Government upon being able to find a place for it. In other respects the Speech is singularly meagre in its references to foreign affairs. That is to some extent no doubt explained by the reference which is made to the Speech delivered by His Majesty at the close of the last session of Parliament. In that Speech, it is quite true, we find a considerable catalogue of important international arrangements, to some of which my noble friend referred. I, for one, regard the conclusion of these international arrangements with feelings of the greatest satisfaction. They seem to me to enforce a principle which we cannot too constantly bear in mind. I mean the principle that, when great civilised Powers have, or conceive that they have, conflicting interests in remote parts of the world, they should endeavour to adjust those interests by a reasonable and above-board settlement rather than by resort to the
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old expedient of intriguing against one another and instigating third parties to make mischief for their supposed advantage. The Abyssinian agreement is one which seems to me to come within the category of such desirable conventions.
I may also say, as regards the agreement between Great Britain and France as to the New Hebrides, that I had always hoped to see such an agreement concluded, and that to my mind it was inevitable in present circumstances that it should be based upon the admission of a joint French and British protectorate over the islands. I do not believe that any of the other solutions proposed were within our reach. We have lately had a Blue-book upon this subject presented to us; and I cannot help observing that whatever we may think of the terms of the Convention, it is a matter for regret that it should have been concluded under circumstances which loft the Australian and New Zealand Governments under the impression that they had not been adequately consulted in the matter. They are under the impression that the Convention was, so to speak, carried over their heads, and they say that virtually they were not aware of its terms until they were announced in the newspapers. My Lords, that is unfortunate, and I cannot help being sorry that more pains, were not taken to avoid such a misunderstanding.
The Blue-book is an interesting one, and it is particularly interesting to me, because I find in the Anglo-French Convention an elaborate scheme of indentured labour for these islanders bearing a strong family resemblance to the much vilipended conventions and agreements which regulated Chinese labour in South Africa. The people of the New Hebrides certainly require all the protection we can give them. They are a very primitive people. I find in the Blue-book a description of their mode of life. They are so primitive that each little tribe lives in its own island or group of islands, and is described as having scarcely any dealings with their neighbours except when they require a neighbour as an article of food. It is quite clear that an untutored people of this description stand in need of a good deal of protection; and therefore it was

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with some surprise that I found the Australian and New Zealand Governments objecting to the terms of the Convention sent to them by His Majesty's Government upon the ground that its provisions were not an adequate deterrent to the unscrupulous methods of the recruiters. That is a striking resurrection of the old Chinese grievance in another locality.
Well, my Lords, if the gracious Speech says very little about foreign affairs, it says also very little about Colonial affairs. There is one Colonial subject which I confess I should have thought worthy of mention in the gracious Speech; I mean the fourth Colonial Conference which is to be held this year, and which certainly will not be the least important of the series. That is a somewhat remarkable omission, and I am inclined to say that we should have been rather glad to know a little more of the frame of mind in which His Majesty's Ministers are about to approach this Conference. We know that these Colonial Ministers are coming here with the hope of doing something to draw the different parts of the Empire more closely together. We know that the method which finds most favour with them is the encouragement of Imperial trade. Within the last few days some light has been thrown upon the manner in which this subject is regarded by His Majesty's Government. The Under-Secretary for the Colonies told his audience the other day that at the discussions of the Conference there was to be no restraint—I should have been very much surprised if there had been any restraint—and that it was to be open to the Colonial delegates most freely to put their case with all the force of argument they could command. He went on to say that he was in favour of this free discussion because it was calculated to bring about inter-Colonial free trade. But, my Lords, I do not know that it is necessary for the Colonial Ministers to meet here to make arrangements for inter-Colonial free trade, and I should have been rather glad to know whether all proposals for the establishment of freer trade within the Empire were to be ruled out of order when this Conference meets.
The Speech contains a reference to the great calamity which lately overtook Kingston, in Jamaica. The news of that disaster was received here with
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feelings of the deepest consternation and sympathy. There were incidents which for a moment threatened to be the cause of friction. Those incidents, I am glad to say, are now forgotten, and we think only of the self-control exhibited by the population, of the generous impulse which led the American naval authorities to offer their assistance, and of the devotion and energy exhibited by Sir Alexander Swettenham and the officers under him.
I pass for a moment to the reference to India. We look certainly in these days with no diminution of pride upon our Indian Empire. It may have lost something of the splendour and picturesqueness which used to make it so attractive, but we reflect with pleasure that there never was a time when the Indian Empire was based upon a more solid foundation of prosperity, or when the peoples included within it regarded our rule with a greater measure of acquiescence. But the gracious Speech contains a paragraph which is rather remarkably worded and perhaps a little enigmatical upon this subject. We are told that His Majesty, while firmly guarding the strength and unity of executive power unimpaired, looks forward to a steadfast effort to provide means of widening the base of peace, order and good government among the vast populations committed to his charge. Perhaps the noble Marques will be able to tell us whether that is merely the expression of a general sentiment, or whether we are to regard the paragraph as portending now legislation of a far-reaching description and affecting, the foundations of government in India.
Upon the visit of the Amir of Afghanistan to India we can sincerely congratulate His Majesty's Government. I am sure the noble Marquess will agree with me when I say I am very far indeed from regarding that visit as being a mere parade movement. On the contrary, I believe it to be a very significant visit, and I trust that what it does mean is that the Indian Government have succeeded at last in dispelling that feeling of suspicion with which undoubtedly for many years, the ruler of Afghanistan regarded the Government of India. May I be permitted to add my congratulations to Lord Minto? Many of us who know him well have long recognised that he possesses qualities which we may be

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quite sure had a great deal to do with bringing about this successful visit and the good results which, I feel confident, that visit is likely to produce.
I now pass to that part of the Speech which deals with the work lying before Parliament during the session which we are beginning to-day; and I find, in the first place, words indicating plainly that His Majesty's Ministers have in view measures profoundly affecting the relations of this House with the other House of Parliament. The wording of the paragraph is grave, and I may perhaps add oracular—
"My Ministers have this important subject under consideration with a view to a solution of the difficulty."
We are left in entire ignorance of the direction in which that solution is to be sought. One thing I will say, which is, that the tone of this sentence is in agreeable contrast to some of the references which have lately been made to the subject by Ministers and their friends. We have read speeches referring to this House in which the whole gamut of denunciation has been run through. Even the noble Earl opposite, the President of the Council, whom we usually regard as a model of correct Parliamentary deportment, has been affected by the contagion of some of those with whom he acts, and delivered the other day a speech in which, although the metaphor was a little confused, he suggested that somehow or other in the conduct of our business the House of Lords had been in the habit of using loaded dice and marked cards.
Even the late Chief Secretary for Ireland, an Ambassador designate, was unable to resist the temptation, and thought it necessary to fire a parting shot at this House of Parliament. My Lords, that was "the unkindest cut of all." I happened to stumble the other day upon a passage from a speech delivered by Mr. Bryce in the House of Commons not so many years ago, in which he pointed out that—
"The object of having two Chambers is to secure, not that things shall always work smoothly between them, but that they shall frequently differ and provide the means of correcting such errors as either may commit."
We differed, and we tried our hands at correcting. Is it not hard that the Ambassador-elect, who, as we all know,
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is a high authority on constitutional subjects, should visit us with the chastisement of his indignation?
We are told that this revision of the Constitution is necessary because there have been "unfortunate differences between the two Houses." I do not think that it requires very much ingenuity to discover that the reference is to the rejection of the Plural Voting Bill last year, and to the fact that this House insisted upon its Amendments to the Education Bill, and that thereupon His Majesty's Government dropped that measure. I say that is a fair inference, because, to the best of my belief, when His Majesty's Ministers were making their appeal to the country at the time of the general election, authority to deal with the House of Lords did not form any part of the mandate for which they asked. Therefore, if it is now necessary to revise the Constitution in this manner, it must be because of something that has happened since the general election. Now, my Lords, all I have to say upon that, is that, if noble Lords opposite intend to found their indictment of the House of Lords upon our conduct in the last session of Parliament, we are perfectly ready to meet them in this House or outside of this House, upon that charge.
If noble Lords will look at the speech put into His Majesty's mouth at the end of last session, they will see that His Majesty's Ministers took credit for having passed in the course of the session ten or a dozen measures, to which they attached the greatest importance. How is it possible to represent the House of Lords as having obstructed the progress of business if that was the case? What were the two measures that did come to an untimely end? There was the Plural Voting Bill. Who has shed tears over the Plural Voting Bill? I am not aware of any mourning or lamentation over its fate. The people of this country understood perfectly well the reasons for which the House of Lords declined to pass the Plural Voting Bill. We threw it out because we regarded it as a cynical attempt to manipulate the Constitution for Party purposes. We were asked to deal with an anomaly which gave extra representation to members of the great Universities or to persons having a residence in one place and business premises in another. We were asked to

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deal with that so-called anomaly and to leave far greater and more flagrant anomalies, with which our representative system abounds, entirely untouched. I believe, if the House of Lords had passed that Bill, the feeling in the country would have been that we were unworthy of our place as a Chamber of revision.
I am not going to re-debate the Education Bill, but here, again, will your Lordships consider what would be the position at this moment if that Bill had become law? It is suggested that this House has stood between the people of the country and a settlement of the education question. The Bill afforded no settlement of the education controversy. Why, my Lords, if that Bill had became law every one of the 14,000 voluntary schools of this country would at this moment be fighting with its back to the wall. And not without reason, because the Minister for Education, ill an unguarded moment, when he was discussing what this House had done in the way of providing for appeals against the action of the local authorities or of the Education Department, admitted that there would have probably been 7,000 appeals if that Bill had become law. That is to say, out of the 14,000 voluntary schools no less than half would have been threatened with extinction under a Bill which we were told was of a "live and lot live" description, and likely to leave things very much as they were in the well-managed and well equipped denominational schools.
Who was going to accept that Bill as a settlement of the education question? Not the Church of England! Not the Roman Catholics! Were the Nonconformists going to accept it as a settlement of the education question? Listen to the words of Mr. Hirst Hollowell spoken not long ago—
"The Bill as amended by Lord Crewe would have broken down in the working."
Here again is Dr. Clifford. The Bill, he said, would have certainly broken up the Liberal Party, and repeated the disaster of 1870. Why, my Lords, noble Lords opposite ought to be grateful to us. And besides all this, by this time the British taxpayer would have found out that that apocryphal £1,000,000 which figured in the Bill was no better than a fraud, and would have been getting restless at the prospects of further imposts in order to provide for the expenses of the measure.
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I cannot accept these post mortem testimonials to the merits of the Education Bill, and I say again if this House deserves censure and criticism it is not because of the two Bills it was instrumental in rejecting in the last session of Parliament. What I venture to say is, if we are to revise our Constitution, if we are to revise our Parliamentary procedure, let us do it upon broader grounds than that. We have no desire to shirk the discussion of this question. It has been raised in this House by some of its most brilliant and distinguished: Members in past years. Your Lordships will not have forgotten the speeches delivered by Lord Rosebery on the subject. The late Lord Salisbury addressed himself to it on more than one occasion, and I believe it is an open secret that a noble friend of mine now in the House, Lord Newton, is ready to come forward with proposals of his own connected with an alteration in the procedure of the House of Lords. I say by all means let us discuss these questions, but I do venture to say this to noble Lords opposite—let them clear their minds, and let them determine what it is that they really want. Do they want to make this House more efficient, and therefore stronger? Or do they want, on the contrary, to degrade it, and to reduce it to the level, as has sometimes been said, of a mere debating society? It is because that question has not been fully looked in the face that, I believe, in past years, these well-meant attempts to improve the machinery of the House of Lords have not succeeded, for there are two distinct currents of thought bearing on the subject. There is the current of thought which favours what I may call a constructive policy—which desires that this House should, as Lord Rosebery used to put it, be made as efficient as possible. That current runs counter to the assailants of the House of Lords who desire anything rather than that the House should be made stronger and more efficient than it is at this moment. On the other hand the destructive critics—those who would like to see the privileges and authority of this House effaced and obliterated, are, I believe, destined to fail for one reason of the simplest character—because the people of this country know perfectly well that, whatever danger is to be apprehended from an unreformed House of Lords, it is nothing like the

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danger to be apprehended from an uncontrolled House of Commons. There was never, I believe, a moment when that feeling was more deeply rooted in the minds of the people of this country.
I turn for a moment to the legislative programme. The list of measures is a generous, if not a plethoric, list. One is tempted to compare it with the programme of last year. I think in the Speech of last year twelve or fourteen Rills were announced. But Parliament was not only invited to deal with those Bills: as the session went on, other measures, not originally put forward by His Majesty's Government, but put forward by private Members, were appropriated and added to the programme, with the result that during the short session in the autumn of last year this House was called upon to discuss in a very few weeks a number of first-rate measures which we had really no time to examine as fully as we might have desired. I should like to know whether the procedure of this year is to follow what I conceive to be the bad example of the procedure of last year. Noble Lords opposite complain of the manner in which we do our business. Then I say, give us a chance of doing our business as we would wish to do it, and do not, at the end of the session, thrust these undigested measures down our throats and then complain of us because we cannot swallow them all at once.
I know quite well that the noble Marquess opposite (the Marquess of Ripon) has got a rejoinder which he always produces when I make these entreaties to him. It is the old tu quoque argument. The tu quoque argument is never a convincing one, and in our school days it used to be summarily punished. The noble Marquess will tell me that we also were sinners in that respect. So we were. But there was this difference. In the first place, I do not think we had autumn sessions; and, in the second place, the congestion of business at the end of the session, if there was any, was due to the fact that we desired to pass Bills which we had our selves introduced, which had been constantly before Parliament, and not Bills, so to speak, picked up, as the flotsam and the jetsam of the legislative tide, and appropriated by Ministers as a sort of afterthought.
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We are promised a Bill dealing with the question of temperance; and it would be interesting to know, if His Majesty's Ministers will tell us, whether the law as it now stands is working badly, whether there has been any increase in drunkenness, or whether the liquor trade has been carried on in a discreditable manner. One hope I will express, that, whatever His Majesty's Ministers may determine to do, they will not place the conduct of the liquor trade of the country in the hands of local authorities. We have heard a good deal lately about municipal trading, and all I can say is that I should view with the utmost consternation any change which might have the effect of transferring the trade from those who at present conduct it to the local authorities.
With regard to the Army we are promised a Bill which can scarcely fail to be one of great importance. It was welcomed with enthusiasm by the noble Lord who spoke just now. We must defer our observations till we know what the proposals are. All I will venture to say is, that the Secretary of State for War has had, what every Minister newly entrusted with the charge of a Department has a right to claim, a sufficient amount of time to study the great problem. A year is a reasonable allowance; and I almost wish the new Chief Secretary for Ireland had been given a little longer time to study the two immensely important measures of which he has to accept the paternity. We shall be glad when we come to discuss the Army proposals to know something of the question of organisation, and we should like to know whether we have got an Army to organise, whether we have got or are getting the men, and whether we are providing for an adequate Reserve, because the Reserve must be the backbone of a short service Army; but I will not anticipate the discussion of these questions.
Then, after the House of Lords has been dealt with, after temperance has been dealt with, after Army reform has been dealt with, after two Scottish Bills, which promise to be extremely contentious, have been dealt with, then, at last, we come to Ireland. Well, there are two Bills dealing with Ireland, the Irish University Bill and another Bill, to which I will not venture to assign a title,

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but which is described in a somewhat enigmatical sentence to which I shall presently refer. As to the Irish University, I take on myself to say that we, all of us, agree with His Majesty's Ministers in desiring that, if possible, something should be done to improve the opportunities now afforded to His Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects in Ireland for obtaining higher education. We know how much they desire that education, and we all know that for one cause or another the opportunities offered have not been satisfactory to them in the past. I should rejoice to see a satisfactory solution of this difficult question; but I am not satisfied that the particular solution recommended by His Majesty's Ministers can be regarded as in all respects a desirable one.
I am bound to add that, like many other people, I was very much surprised by the manner in which the new measure was announced to the public by the outgoing Chief Secretary. My right hon. friend Mr. Bryce was at that time Ambassador-designate, and he made what I may call a second-reading speech within four days of the publication of the Report of the Commission, before the evidence could be made public, and long before his successor could have had sufficient time to study the question as it deserved to be studied. I think there are extenuating circumstances. I think the only explanation is this, that my right hon. friend, feeling that he was about to begin a long period during which he would be bound by the strict shackles of diplomatic propriety, could not resist the temptation to have one last fling and showing that he had not lived a year in Ireland for nothing. The scheme itself has, I am afraid, been received with something like dismay by the friends of Dublin University, and I cannot gather that it has been received with any great enthusiasm by those whom it was most designed to propitiate. I wish I could believe that it will receive that general amount of goodwill and support without which I do not think there is much chance of carrying a measure which will be really satisfactory and acceptable to the people of Ireland.
There remains a reference to a measure—I suppose I must call it of local government—which His Majesty's Ministers intend to introduce. Now, my Noble
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friend who moved the Address told your Lordships, in reference to this particular sentence in the Speech, that he could not conceive any more comprehensive or clear statement of the policy of His Majesty's Government than was contained in the four lines which deal with this important question. I am afraid I must admit that this was not the impression which these four lines left on my mind or on the minds of those who sit near me; and I am afraid I must add my noble friend who moved the Address left us in just as vague and nebulous a state of mind as we were in before he addressed the House. This sentence may mean almost anything; it may mean very little, or it may mean a great deal. It is desired further to associate the people of Ireland with the management of their domestic affairs, and otherwise to improve the system of government in its administrative and financial aspects. Well, we are all in favour of improving local administration in Ireland, but I have been watching, and I dare say so have many others, with interest, the laborious efforts lately made by His Majesty's Ministers to reassure, on the one hand, those of their supporters who regard with the utmost aversion any project savouring of what is commonly described as Home Rule, and, on the other hand, their Irish supporters who have intimated with almost brutal frankness that nothing will content them but an Irish Parliament and an Irish executive responsible to that Parliament. Well, there is room for all these things within this vague and nebulous formula, and therefore I will not attempt at this stage to conjecture what is really intended by his Majesty's Ministers; but I take leave to say this. Our duty in the matter is plain; we must wait for the production of the measure, and we must see whether it is one which leaves the authority of the Imperial Parliament absolutely, both in theory and in practice, solid and unimpaired. That is the test by which we shall judge the measure of the Government, that is the test I hope we shall apply to it.
I have addressed your Lordships for an unusual length of time, and I will not take up more time by referring to the long list of measures with which the Speech concludes. An interesting sidelight was thrown upon that list by an observation of the noble seconder, who appears to have been rather hardly used

31
by those who supplied him with the materials for his speech. It is quite clear, from that chance admission, that the list, long as it is, was at one moment a good deal longer. It is particularly noticeable in the programme of legislation proposed by a Government deeply committed to measures of social improvement and reform, that the measures which merit this description, notably the Bills on small holdings and housing of the working classes, are at the extreme tail of the procession. What chances there are of such measures being reached within the limits of any session known to Parliament I leave to your Lordships to conjecture. All I will say in regard to these Bills is that if, as we may assume, they are likely to be introduced, I hope that some of them at all events will be introduced in this House, and that they will be laid before us under conditions which will allow us a decent opportunity of giving to them the consideration and attention which measures of such importance deserve.
*THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (The Marquess of RIPON): My Lords, I desire in the first place heartily to associate myself with my noble friend behind me and the noble Marquess in deploring the great loss this House has sustained by the death of Lord Goschen. My noble friend spoke of him as colleague and friend, and with my noble friend's account of the high qualities displayed in both respects I am in entire agreement. I served with Lord Goschen in Government, and I have watched him in Opposition, and heartily and entirely I desire to associate myself in an expression of the deep sense of the loss the House has sustained.
It is my pleasant duty to congratulate my noble friends behind me upon the able manner in which they discharged their task in moving and seconding the Address. My noble friend opposite was rather inclined, if I may use a common word, to chaff my noble friend Lord Castletown on account of his experience; he was not sufficiently inexperienced to satisfy the requirements of the noble Marquess, and no doubt any one who listened to my noble friend to-night would know he was not an inexperienced speaker. He, in an admirable manner, discharged the task entrusted to him. Of the seconder of the Motion it cannot
32
be complained that he has had too much experience. This is the first time he has addressed the House, or any Assembly of the kind, and I am sure your Lordships will agree with me in acknowledging the able manner in which he had acquitted himself. The hope has often been expressed on these occasions by those who have followed the mover and seconder that those noble Lords having done so well on this occasion would often be heard again in our debates, but I am bound to say that my experience has been that that request has not often been complied with. I have known many noble Lords who have made excellent speeches in moving and seconding the Address and have rested on those laurels. I hope my noble friend Lord Chichester will not do anything of the kind, but will give us the advantage of hearing him again frequently during the course of our debates.
My noble friend complained of the paragraph in the Kings Speech relating to foreign affairs as being meagre. There is a saying that happy is the people whose annals are dull, and I may say that happy is the position of the country when it is not necessary to enter into a long discussion as to its relations with other nations. We have only to say that our relations with foreign countries are highly satisfactory. I may say that a great deal of the meagreness complained of by the noble Marquess in the paragraph on the subject is due to my noble friend opposite himself for his conduct of foreign affairs.
*THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: I made no complaint.
*THE MARQUESS OF RIPON: And I do not think the noble Marquess will deny that in Sir Edward Grey he has a very able and competent successor. Then my noble friend touched on the New Hebrides, and he thought he had discovered some means by which he might return for a moment to the controversies upon Chinese labour. I do not think my noble friend or noble Lords opposite have ever really apprehended what was our true objection to the system of Chinese labour in South Africa. It was mainly against those parts of the Ordinance established for that purpose which related to the condition of the Chinese coolies outside the places where they worked; it was to the restrictions which were laid upon their

33
general relations with the community that we chiefly objected. I do not think anything of that description will be found in the Ordinance to which my noble friend alluded just now.
As to the omission of a reference to the Colonial Conference in the King's Speech, the Government do not in the smallest degree underrate the importance of that Conference. It will discuss any relevant question that may come before it; and I am sure my noble friend behind me, the Secretary for the Colonies, is looking forward with the deepest interest to the assembling of the Conference and hopes to derive great benefits from it. My noble friend opposite also said something about the discussion by the Conference of free trade between all parts of the Empire. No doubt a real Zollverein would have an attraction. But that idea is not one that has ever been put forward in regard to our commercial relations with our Colonies by the Colonies. We know that a Zollverein, which means real free trade between all parts of the Empire, is the last thing which many of the Colonies would think of establishing.
I need not dwell upon the lamentable occurrence at Kingston. That port has the sympathy of everyone. But I cannot help expressing the deep regret with which I have learned that one of the victims of the disaster was Sir James Fergusson. By his death we have sustained the loss of one who for a long period of years and in many capacities served his Sovereign and his country well. We have heard with the keenest satisfaction of the manner in which the people of the United States came to our assistance at Kingston. That action has done much to bind still closer the ties which connect us with our kin across the Atlantic, and to them and their officers we owe deep gratitude.
My noble friend opposite naturally referred to the Indian paragraph in the Speech. It is one which we must all regard with very deep interest. In my judgment it is a great thing that the Amir of Afghanistan should not only have made a prolonged visit to India, but that he should have had opportunities of making himself thoroughly acquainted I with the nature of our government, our I relations with the chiefs, and the policy which we impartially pursue between all races and religions in that land.
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There is an expression in the Speech which points to what seems to me to be one of the most important features of that visit—it records that the Amir has made an active survey of leading features in Indian life. I believe that what has occurred will tend to cement more closely our relations with the ruler of Afghanistan, and to produce those right feelings which, as the Speech says, are of even more importance than formal compacts. The arrangements made for the reception of the Amir by Lord Minto and the Government of India have been most satisfactory. Lord Minto has so conducted all those arrangements that I believe that in no single instance has any contretemps occurred.
As to the second paragraph of the Speech relating to India, the noble Marquess spoke of it as somewhat enigmatical. But in saying that he cannot have altogether recollected the important speech made by my right hon. friend Mr. Morley on the Indian Budget last year. My right hon. friend laid down, in language with which I desire to associate myself, the main principles of his Indian policy. He said that the Government quite as strongly in India as here were alive to the necessity of taking some steps to meet the almost universal desire for political advance. Now, what has been done? The Governor General has entrusted to a Committee of his Executive Council the consideration of whether steps could be taken in the direction I have indicated. They have reported, and their conclusions were submitted to the Governor-General in full Council, and a despatch from Lord Minto submitting these conclusions to the Secretary of State is expected to reach Mr. Morley by the end of the present month or the beginning of next.
Now I come to the most important part of the Speech, the paragraph dealing with the relations between the two Houses. My noble friend took exception to that paragraph, considering that it implied an unfair attack on this House. We are also told that we have no mandate on this subject. I do not believe in mandates. Therefore I am not prepared to say to what extent the subject was discussed at the general election. But I assure my noble friend opposite that within the last twenty years there has been no period without constant criticism

35
of this House. My noble friend quoted Mr. Bryce as having said that it was the business of the two Houses frequently to differ. That may be so. But one of the complaints that I hear very commonly made in regard to the relations of this House with the other House of Parliament is this—that when there is a Liberal Government in office they do very frequently differ, but when there is a Conservative Government in office they never differ at all. Whether that is exactly the function of a revising Chamber I will not undertake to say, but at all events it shows that Mr. Bryce's dictum is not always carried out by this House.
I do not know whether I need deal with the two questions which my noble friend spoke of, the Plural Voting Bill and the Education Bill. I do not think your Lordships did wisely or rightly in rejecting the Plural Voting Bill; I think it was a matter connected with the election of Members of the other House of Parliament, a matter which might have been dealt with by itself. I do not think it was wise on your Lordships' part to reject that measure. Still less do I think that what happened in regard to the Education Bill is a subject on which your Lordships can justly congratulate yourselves. I believe it would have been perfectly possible to come to a compromise on that Bill. The Education Bill was in itself from the first moment of its introduction a compromise; it became, to my great satisfaction, a more complete and full compromise in its final stage by the concessions which the Government were prepared to make; I but your Lordships rejected it and would not accept those concessions, and the Bill failed. Now, is it unnatural, I when that Bill had occupied so large a portion of the discussions of the other House, when on both sides of the education question there had been mutual concessions, and when there was a fair and reasonable prospect of a settlement, that that House should complain that; the Bill was rejected as it was by this House? I will not go into details on the question. What I do say is this—this House does require reform. You do not deny it, you have declared to-night, quite in accordance with opinions many of you have entertained, that you are ready to consider proposals for its reform.
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My noble friend Lord Newton, I understand, intends to raise that question?
LORD NEWTON: Yes.
*THE MARQUESS OF RIPON: Then I reserve anything I may have to say upon it until my noble friend brings forward his proposal. But the reform of this House does not settle the whole difficulty. There are two things required. There is the reform of this House as a second Chamber, which I as an advocate of a second Chamber strongly desire to see; and there is the question how, when a difference arises between the two Houses, that difference is to be brought to a conclusion. That is the question with which, in the opinion of the Government, it is necessary now to deal, and in considering this question you must forgive me if I say quite plainly what is the difficulty.
The difficulty is this—that this House with its present Members and under its present constitution contains an overwhelming majority of one political Party. I do not care which Party it is; if it were the Liberal Party it would be just the same in my judgment. I daresay the Liberal Party, or any other Party, would do what you do if they had the power; I am not denying it, I am not casting any individual blame on your Lordships. But I do say this, that the broad circumstance of this House being in a large majority composed of the members of one Party is a great and dangerous evil; and it is that evil and its effects, with the check which it puts upon the legislation of the representatives of the people, it is that question which the Government proposes to consider.
The paragraph in the Speech tells you that the subject is under our consideration. I cannot enlighten my noble friend as to what the results of that consideration may be, but it is not a question to be dealt with hastily or without due consideration. It is a very grave and serious matter. These difficulties arose last Christmas. What would my noble friend have said if we had come down in the beginning of February with a cut and dried scheme? No, my Lords, we recognise the gravity of the question, and it is our duty to take the time that may be required in order to consider

37
what proposals we shall submit to Parliament in regard to it.
With respect to the licensing proposals, the noble Marquess thinks that question was settled by the last Act. I cannot say I thought the debates in this House on the Bill showed that it was very likely to be a final settlement of the question. I doubt whether the most rev. Primate is quite convinced that that measure was of a character such as he desires. I believe it to be intensely capable of improvement, and that improvement we propose to embody in our Bill.
As to the Army proposals of the Secretary of State for War, I cannot, of course, anticipate the statement which he will make, I believe before very long, in another place. But I can say this—that it is a wide and full and complete scheme, dealing with oar military forces in all their branches. I was a little surprised when my noble friend said there was a preliminary question which he would like to ask—namely: Have we an Army? My Lords, we have got the Army you left us.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: You made reductions.
*THE MARQUESS OF RIPON: It is in the hope of having a better Army that those proposals will be submitted. As to Ireland, I was, on the whole, pleasantly disappointed with the tone which my noble friend took. He says the paragraph is not clear. I am very sorry that the literary talent of the I present Government is not sufficient to make its ideas clear to my noble friend, But at least one thing is quite clear from that paragraph—that, whatever may be; the opinion of individual members of the Government, what is proposed is not an Irish Legislature with an Irish Government responsible to it, but measures for improving the system of administration and the financial regulations of Ireland. As to the University question, that has long been overdue for settlement. How long ago is it since Mr. Arthur Balfour went down to Manchester and told the people there that because the British Parliament would not settle this question he could hardly defend the principles of the Union? Mr. Balfour since then has been Prime Minister; he has not done anything in regard to this
38
subject at all. It is a very difficult subject, I quite agree; but we hope and believe that the proposals which we shall make upon it will be of a nature, not to please everybody, because I do not think that is likely to be possible—and particularly improbable in Ireland—but to receive general though not universal support.
With regard to the Bills at the end of the Speech, some of them are of great importance. There is no more difficult question in connection with local taxation in this country than that of valuation. It has been the intention of not a few Governments to bring in a Valuation Bill, but none have ever faced the question. I hope it may be given to the energy and devotion of my right hon. friend Mr. John Hums to settle this most important and difficult question, which lies at the very root of local taxation. Then I rejoice greatly that we are going to have a Bill allowing women to sit on district councils and bodies of that kind. I have voted for such Bills in this House before now—they have always been thrown out by your Lordships—but I hope that this proposal may receive a more favourable consideration from you, because I think you will find, if you ask I those who have had dealings with women on boards of guardians and other bodies on which women can sit, that their presence there is generally admitted to be of very great advantage.
As regards small holdings and the housing of the people, my noble friend seemed to think that because they happened to be named last they were regarded by the Government as of no importance. I myself regard them as of the very gravest importance. I think that, after the able Report of the Committee presided over by Lord Onslow, it would be impossible not to deal, and to deal, I hope, largely, with this question. I have seen it said that if a Bill of that sort—a real, honest, substantial Bill—is sent up to the House of Lords, this House will throw it out. I do not believe you will reject it. I believe that you will give to it a fair consideration, because nothing could be more advantageous to the happiness and welfare of the rural people of this country and also to the progress of agriculture than a wide measure of this kind.
On Question, Motion agreed to, nemine dissentiente, and ordered to be presented to His Majesty by the Lords with White Staves.
The Earl of Onslow—Appointed nemine dissentiente to take the Chair in all Committees of this House for the session.
Committee for Privileges—Appointed.
Committee for the Journals—Appointed.
Stoppages in the Streets—Order to prevent, renewed.
Appeal Committee—Appointed.
The LORD CHANCELLORacquainted the House that the following Papers, having been commanded to be presented to this House by His Majesty, had been so presented on the following dates by delivery to the Clerk of the Parliaments, pursuant to Standing Order No. CXI., viz.:

MALTA.
Further correspondence relating to the holding of Protestant Mission Services at the Theatre Royal, Malta (in continuation of [Cd. 3099.], September 1906). (22nd December.)
FISHERIES (IRELAND).
Report of the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for Ireland on the sea and inland fisheries of Ireland, for the year 1904. Part II. Scientific Investigations. (28th December.)

COLONIES—I. ANNUAL.
No. 513. Basutoland (Report for 1905–1906).
No. 514. British Guiana (Report for 1905–1906). (28th December.)
No. 515. British Honduras (Report for 1905).
No. 516. Northern Nigeria (Report for 1905–1906). (11th January.)
No. 517. Bechuanaland Protectorate (Report for 1905–1906). (5th February.)

II. (MISCELLANEOUS).
No. 39. Jamaica (Report on Cayman Islands). (29th January.)
AFRICA, No. 2 (1906).
Despatch from His Majesty's Minister at Brussels, transmitting convention respecting liquors in Africa; signed at Brussels, 3rd November, 1906. (28th December.)

TRADE REPORTS: I. ANNUAL SERIES.
No. 3739. Italy (Sardinia, 1904–1905.) (29th December.)
No. 3740. Regency of Tunis, 1905.
No. 3741. Finances of Denmark (1903–1904 and 1904–1905). (9th January.)
No. 3742. Ecuador (1905).
No. 3743. Portugal (Goa). (23rd January.)

II. MISCELLANEOUS SERIES.
No. 656. Belgium (Precautions taken to counteract ankylostomiasis). (7th February.)
STRAITS SETTLEMENTS.
Return of amount of opium consumed and the revenue derived therefrom in the Straits Settlements and the Federated Malay States during the years 1896 to 1905. (31st December.)

TREATY SERIES.
No. 1. (1907).—Agreement between the United Kingdom, France, and Italy respecting Abyssinia; signed at London, 13th December, 1906. (3rd January.)
No. 2. (1907).—Agreement between the United Kingdom, France, and Italy, respecting the importation of arms and ammunition into Abyssinia; signed at London, 13th December, 1906. (10th January.)
No. 3. (1907).—Convention between the United Kingdom and France concerning the New Hebrides; signed in London, 20th October, 1906. (Ratifications exchanged at London, 9th January, 1906.) (19th January.)
No. 4. (1907).—General Act of the International Conference at Algeciras relating to the affairs of Morocco, 7th April, 1906. (Ratifications deposited at Madrid, 31st December, 1906.)
No. 5. (1907).—Agreement between the United Kingdom and France relative to the frontier between the British and French Possessions from the Gulf of Guinea to the Niger, 19th October, 1906. (9th February.)

AUSTRALASIA.
Correspondence relating to the Convention with France, dated 20th October, 1906, respecting the New Hebrides. (4th January.)
WESTERN PACIFIC (NEW HEBRIDES).
Report on the Trade of the New Hebrides for 1905. (4th January.)

IRISH LAND COMMISSION.
I. (Proceedings).—Return for the month of November, 1906. (4th January.)
II. Return of Advances made under the Irish Land Act, 1903, during the month of May, 1906. (7th January.)

Report of the Advisory Committee for the Tropical Diseases Research Fund, for the year 1906. (9th January.)
Report of the Departmental Committee on Education Rates, with appendices. (15th January.)
TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN, AND THE UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN (ROYAL COMMISSION).
Final Report of the Commissioners, with appendix. (Report, minutes of evidence, and documents). (17th January.)
JUDICIAL STATISTICS (ENGLAND AND WALES, 1905. (PART I. CRIMINAL STATISTICS.)
Statistics relating to criminal proceedings, police, coroners, prisons, reformatory and industrial schools, and criminal lunatics, for the year 1905. (19th January.)
ALIENS ACT, 1905.
Return of alien passengers brought to the United Kingdom from ports in Europe or within the Mediterranean Sea during the three months ended 31st December, 1906; together with the number of expulsion orders made during that period requiring aliens to leave the United Kingdom. (22nd January.)

BOARD OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES.
I. Annual report on the distribution of grants for agricultural education and research in the year 1905–1906; with
42
statements respecting the several colleges and institutions aided, and a summary of the agricultural instruction provided by county councils in 1905–1906, together with the expenditure on the same.
II. Statutory Rules and Orders, 1906 (Adulteration) (Fertilisers and Feeding Stuffs). No. 944. Fertilisers and Feeding Stuffs (General) Regulations, 1906, dated 27th December, 1906. No. 945. Fertilisers and Feeding Stuffs (Sampling, etc.) Regulations, 1906, dated 27th December, 1906. No. 946. Fertilisers and Feeding Stuffs (Limits of Error) Regulations, 1906, dated 27th December, 1906. (22nd January.)

CONGESTION IN IRELAND (ROYAL COMMISSION).
Second Report of the Commissioners, with appendix. (Report, minutes of evidence, and documents relating thereto.) (23rd January.)

BOARD OF EDUCATION.
I. (Evening Schools). List of evening schools in England and Wales, for the school year ended 31st July, 1905. (17th January.)
II. Report of public inquiry (Section 23 (10), Education Act, 1902) in respect of the proposed provision of a new public elementary school in the parish of Llanasa (administrative county of Flint). (25th January.)

NAVY.
I. (Battle Practice). Result of battle practice in His Majesty's Fleet, 1906. (25th January.)
II. (Manœuvres). Report of 1906. (9th February.)

TUBERCULOSIS (HUMAN AND BOVINE (ROYAL COMMISSION)).
Second interim report of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the relations of human and animal tuberculosis. (25th January.)

FACTORY AND WORKSHOP.
I. Supplement to the annual report of the Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops for the year 1905. Return of persons employed in 1904 in workshops and laundries. (29th January.)

II. (Industrial Poisoning and Fatal Accidents). Preliminary tables (subject to correction) of cases of industrial

43
poisoning and fatal accidents in factories, workshops, etc., during the year 1906. (7th February.)

RAILWAY SERVANTS (HOURS OF LABOUR).
Return in pursuance of Section 4 of the Regulation of Railways Act, 1889, of railway servants of certain classes who were on one or more occasions during the month of July, 1906, on duty on the railways of the United Kingdom for more than twelve hours at a time, or who, after being on duty more than twelve hours, were allowed to resume work with less than nine hours rest. (31st January.)
VIVISECTION (ROYAL COMMISSION).
First report of the Commissioners, and minutes of evidence, October to December, 1906. (2nd February.)
INDIA (EXCISE).
Report of the Indian Excise Committee, 1905–1906. (2nd February.)
STATISTICS.
Statistical abstract for the British Empire in each year from 1891 to 1905. Third Number. (5th February.)
ROYAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND.
Royal warrant, bearing date 10th September, 1906, amending the statutes of the university. (6th February.)
LAND LAW (IRELAND) ACT, 1887.
Return of the number of eviction notices filed during the quarter ended 31st December, 1906. (6th February.)
EVICTIONS (IRELAND).
Return of evictions in Ireland for the quarter ended 31st December, 1906. (7th February.)
RAILWAY ACCIDENTS.
Returns of accidents and casualties as reported to the Board of Trade by the several railway companies in the United Kingdom during the three months ended 30th September, 1906, in pursuance of the Regulation of Railways Act (1871), with reports of the inspecting officers, I assistant inspecting officers, and sub-inspectors of the Railway Department to the Board of Trade, upon certain accidents which were inquired into. (7th February.)

COMMERCIAL, No. 1. (1907.)
International Sugar Commission, Autumn Session, 1906. Report of Proceedings (in continuation of "Commercial No. 5. (1906).") (9th February.)
The same were ordered to lie on the Table.

RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
Correspondence with the Treasury respecting the raising of Buenos Ayres to the rank of a First Class Mission, 1906. Presented (by Command), and ordered to lie on the Table.

LUNACY.
Return to the Lord Chancellor of number of visits made and number of patients seen by the several Commissioners in Lunacy during the six months ended 31st December, 1906.
Return to the Lord Chancellor of all sums received by the Visitors of Lunatics for travelling expenses or upon any other account from 1st January to 31st December, 1906.

SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE.
Rules of the Supreme Court (December) 1906.
FOREIGN JURISDICTION ACT, 1890; CONSULAR SALARIES AND FEES ACT, 1891; FOREIGN MARRIAGE ACT, 1892.
Orders in Council, dated 21st December, 1906, entitled "The Consular Fees (General) Order in Council, 1906"; "The Japan (Consular and Marriage Fees) Order in Council, 1906;" "The China and Corea (Consular and Marriage Fees) Order in Council, 1906."
FOREIGN JURISDICTION ACT, 1890.
Order in Council, dated 21st December, 1906, entitled "The Zanzibar Order in Council, 1906, No. 2."
POLLING DISTRICTS (COUNTY OF ESSEX).
Order made by the council of the county of Essex altering the name of the Harlow Churchgate Street Polling District to that of the Harlow Polling District.
PENAL SERVITUDE ACTS, 1853–1891 (CONDITIONAL LICENCE).
Licenses granted by His Majesty to Kate Ellen Hanton, a convict under detention in Aylesbury Prison, permitting her to be at large on condition that she enter the Home of Compassion, London, S.W.; Annie Skinner, permitting her to be at large on condition that she enter the London Female Preventive and Reformatory Institution, London, N.W.

SUPERANNUATION (TREASURY MINUTES).
Dated 8th January 1907, granting retired allowance to Alfred Fred. Thomas Doubtfire, telegraphist, Central Telegraph Office., Post Office, under Section 2 of Superannuation Act, 1887.
Dated 5th February, 1907, granting a retired allowance to Mr. Charles Arthur Gulliver, late Chief clerk, Reading Post Office, under Section 2 of Superannuation Act, 1887.
Dated 30th January, 1907, declaring that Eldred Harbutt, artificer, Royal Small Arms Factory, Enfield, was appointed without a civil service certificate through inadvertence on the part of the head of his department.
Dated 4th February, 1907, declaring that John Marcus Lawrenson, fitter lad, Royal Gun Factory, War Office, was appointed without a civil service certificate through inadvertence on the part of the head of his department.

IMPERIAL OTTOMAN GUARANTEED LOAN OF 1855.
Account for the year to 31st December, 1906, prepared under the Act, showing the sums issued and applied for interest, as guaranteed by Her late Majesty, and for management of the Imperial Ottoman Guaranteed Loan of 1855, and also of the repayment in respect of advances under the said Act.
Regulation dated 31st December, 1906, made by the Treasury under Friendly Societies Act, 1896.
INDUSTRIAL AND PROVIDENT SOCIETIES (FEES).
Regulation dated 31st December, 1906, made by the Treasury under the Industrial and Provident Societies Act, 1893.

SHOP HOURS ACT, 1904.
I. Order made by the Secretary for Scotland, dated 22nd December, 1906, providing for the early closing of certain shops in the burgh of Rutherglen.

II. Orders made by the following county councils, and confirmed by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, fixing the hours of closing for certain classes of shops within the following districts.

County council of Glamogan, Penarth and Briton Ferry Urban Districts.

County council of Lancaster, Rishton Urban District.

County council of West Riding of Yorkshire, Elland Urban District and Bingley Urban District.

III. Orders made by the following borough councils, and confirmed by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, fixing the hours of closing for certain classes of shops—

Borough council of Bacup.
Borough council of West Hartlepool.
Borough council of Beverley.
Borough council of Wallsend.

LOCAL TAXATION RETURNS (SCOTLAND) ACT, 1881.
Annual Local Taxation (Scotland) Returns, for the 1904–1905.
LOCOMOTIVES ON HIGHWAYS ACT, 1896; MOTOR-CAR, ACT, 1903.
Order by the Secretary for Scotland, dated 23rd January, 1907, prohibiting motor-car traffic on certain highways in the county of Stirling.
UNIVERSITIES (SCOTLAND) ACT, 1889.
Annual Statistical Report by the University Court of the University of Glasgow to the Secretary for Scotland under the provisions of Section 30 of the Act, for the year 1905–1906.
INEBRIATES ACT, 1898.
Regulations for transfers of inebriates from one reformatory to another in Ireland.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (IRELAND).
Amending regulations (organisation for unemployed) (Ireland), 1906.
PUBLIC RECORDS (KING'S BENCH, CROWN SIDE).
Schedule containing a list and particulars of classes of documents belonging to the Crown side of the late Court of King's Bench and present King's Bench Division of the High Court of Justice which are not considered of sufficient public value to justify their preservation in the Public Record Office.

BANK OF ENGLAND.
Account of the amount of all Exchequer Bills and other Government securities which have been purchased by the Governor and Company of the Bank of England, or on which any sum or sums have been lent and advanced for the Public Service by the Governor and Company of the said Bank in the year ended 5th January, 1907; showing what amount of such bills before the making up of this account has been paid off and discharged, and the amount of such Exchequer Bills or other Government securities which was in the hands of the Governor and Company of the said Bank on the 5th day of January, 1907, aforesaid.
Laid before the House (pursuant to Act), and ordered to lie on the Table.

MARGATE PIER AND HARBOUR COMPANY.
Report and statement of accounts for the year ended 5th April, 1906: Delivered (pursuant to Act), and ordered to lie on the Table.
House adjourned at a quarter before Seven o'clock to Thursday next, half-past Ten o'clock.