Sitting of 13 June 1907

Preamble
The House met at a quarter before Three of the Clock.
PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.

  MR. SPEAKER'S ABSENCE.
  The House being met, the Clerk at the Table informed the House of the unavoidable absence of Mr. SPEAKER from this day's sitting.
  Whereupon Mr. EMMOTT, the Chairman of Ways and Means, proceeded to the Table, and, after Prayers, took the Chair as Deputy-Speaker, pursuant to the Standing Order.

  PRIVATE BILLS [LORDS] (STANDING ORDER 64 COMPLIED WITH).
  Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in
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  the case of the following Bill, referred on the First Reading thereof, Standing Order 64 has been complied with, viz.: — Midland Railway Bill [Lords].

  PRIVATE BILLS [LORDS] (STANDING ORDERS NOT PREVIOUSLY INQUIRED INTO NOT COMPLIED WITH).
  Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bill, originating in the Lords, and referred on the First Reading thereof, the Standing Orders not previously inquired into, and which are applicable thereto, have not been complied with, viz.: —Midland Railway Bill [Lords].
  Ordered, That the Report be referred to the Select Committee on Standing Orders.
  Simon-Carves Bye-Product Coke Oven Construction and Working Company, Limited, Bill [Lords]. —As amended, considered; to be read the third time.
  Lower Thames Tunnel Railways Bill (by Order). —Read a second time, and committed.
  United Methodist Church Bill [Lords]. —Order for Committal [12th June] read and discharged.
  Ordered, That the Bill be committed to a Select Committee of Nine Members, Five to be nominated by the House, and Four by the Committee of Selection.
  Ordered, That all Petitions against the Bill presented Five clear days before the meeting of the Committee be referred to the Committee; that the Petitioners praying to be heard by themselves, their Counsel, or Agents be heard against the Bill, and Counsel be heard in support of the Bill.
  Ordered, That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers, and records.
  Ordered, That Five be the quorum. — (The Deputy-Chairman.)
  Clyde Navigation Order Confirmation Bill. —Read the third time and passed.
  Local Government (Ireland) Provisional Orders (No. 2) Bill. —Reported, without Amendment [Provisional Orders confirmed]: Report to lie upon the Table.
  Bill to be read the third time Tomorrow.
  St. Neot's Urban District Council Bill [Lords]. —Reported, with Amendments; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
  King Edward's Hospital Fund Bill [Lords]; Sutton Coldfield Rectory Bill [Lords]. —Reported, with Amendments; Reports to lie upon the Table.
  Alexandra (Newport and South Wales) Docks and Railway (Additional Capital, etc.) Bill [Lords]. —Reported, with Amendments; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

PETITIONS.
  LIQUOR TRAFFIC (LOCAL OPTION) (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petition from Rotherhithe, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  MARRIAGE WITH A DECEASED WIFE'S SISTER BILL.
  Petitions against: From Bucknall; Cleeton Saint Mary; and, London and other places; to lie upon the Table.
  WEEKLY REST DAY BILL.
  Petition from London, in favour; to lie upon the Table.

  MERCHANT SHIPPING (TONNAGE DEDUCTION FOR PROPELLING POWER) BILL.
  Petitions against, praying to be heard by counsel: From Alexandra (Newport and South Wales) Docks and Railway Company; Barry Pilotage Board and Pilots; Cardiff Railway Company; Commissioners for the Port and Harbour of Galway; Cunard Steamship Company, Limited; Furness Railway Company; Irish Steamship Association; Limerick Harbour Commissioners; Llanelly Harbour Trust; Newport Harbour Commissioners; North British Railway Company; North Eastern Railway Company;
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  Sharpness New Docks and Gloucester and Birmingham Navigation Company; and, Swansea Harbour Trustees; referred to the Select Committee on the Bill.

RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  EAST INDIA (SANITARY MEASURES).
  Copy presented, of Report on Sanitary Measures in India in 1905 –6 (Vol. XXXIX.) [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  UNIVERSAL POSTAL UNION.
  Copy presented, of Agreement for the Exchange of Insured Letters and Boxes, 26th May, 1906 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  BRITISH AND FOREIGN TRADE AND INDUSTRY.
  Return presented, relative thereto [ordered 29th April; Mr. Murray Macdonald]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 190.]
  TRADE REPORTS (ANNUAL SERIES).
  Copies presented, of Diplomatic and Consular Reports, Annual Series, Nos. 3822 to 3827 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CIRCULATED WITH THE VOTES.

  Elementary Schools —Hygiene and Temperance.
  MR. HARMOOD-BANNER: To ask the President of the Board of Education if his attention has been called to the demand for the compulsory introduction of the teaching of hygiene and temperance into the curriculum of elementary schools; and whether he intends, by legislation or administrative action, to carry through a scheme in reference thereto with as little delay as possible.
  (Answered by Mr. McKenna.) I have received numerous representations urging the necessity of extending the teaching of hygiene in elementary schools. The Code at present lays down that physical training should be included in

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  the curriculum for scholars other than infants, and should be accompanied by instruction in the elementary rules of personal health in respect of food, drink, cleanliness, and fresh air, and the volume of "Suggestions for the Consideration of Teachers," which was issued by the Board a few years ago, included an outline scheme for the teaching of hygiene and temperance. I am considering how the numerous difficulties connected with the teaching of this subject can be surmounted, and I hope to derive considerable assistance in this from the International Congress upon School Hygiene which meets in London in August.

  Soldiers' Training for Civil Life.
  MR. CLYNES: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether the statements sent to his Department by commanding officers respecting the proposed training of soldiers for employment in civil life contain complaints against trade unions, and will be issued as a Parliamentary document; whether he can state the extent to which officers have attempted to carry out the suggestions made to them on this subject; and whether he can take steps to provide that ex-soldiers shall not be used for forms of civil employment at less than the recognised rates and conditions established by the various workmen's organisations.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) In accordance with the promise given in another place on the 29th May a Paper will very shortly be laid upon the Table of the House containing a Report on the steps being taken to provide technical instruction to soldiers. These Papers will give the information asked for in the former part of the Question. As regards the latter part of the Question, the employment of soldiers after their return to civil life is subject to the ordinary conditions of labour over which the War Office has no control.

  Volunteer Decorations.
  VISCOUNT CASTLEREAGH: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether he proposes to make any, and if so, what, provisions in the case of members of the existing Volunteer
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  forces with many years service, who, being unable to comply with the terms of enlistment in the proposed Territorial Army, or who may be ineligible for such enlistment under any new conditions about to be imposed, are thereby, and without any fault of their own, deprived of the opportunity hitherto held out to them of obtaining in the case of officers the long service decoration, and in the case of men a long service medal.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) This matter is not being lost sight of, and, while I am not at present in a position to make any definite statement on the subject, I can assure the noble Lord that every consideration will be shown to the cases to which he refers.

  Navy and Army Tinned Rations.
  MR. HUNT: To ask the Secretary of State for War why, in view of the fact that most of the tinned meat for the Navy is bought from Australia and New Zealand, it is found necessary to buy most of the tinned meat for the Army from the United States of America.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) The contracts for the supply of tinned moat for the Army are placed after competition without regard to the country of origin. But in order to extend, if possible, the area of supply, an officer has been sent out by the War Office to Australia, New Zealand, and South America, to report as to the capacity of establishments in these countries entering into the field of competition to supply our needs.

  Cadet Corps.
  MR. WEIR: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether any moneys voted for Volunteer purposes have been or will be paid over to public schools for the support of cadet corps or instruction of cadets in shooting.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) No moneys voted for Volunteer purposes have been or will be paid over to public schools for the support of cadet corps or instruction of cadets in shooting.

  Naval Expenditure.
  MR. VERNEY: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty what was the increase on Naval expenditure in 1904 compared with that in 1894.

  1904–5.

  1894–5

  £

  £

  Net expenditure

  36,859,681

  17,642,424

  Annuity under the Naval Works Acts

  634,238

  —

  36,225,443

  17,642,424

  Expenditure under Naval Works Acts

  3,402,575

  —

  39,628,018

  17,642,424

  Increase

  £ 21,985,594

  MR. VERNEY:To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty what has been the increase or decrease on Naval expenditure in the years 1905 and 1906 as compared with that in 1904.
  (Answered by Mr. Edmund Robertson.) The decrease in the net expenditure

  1903–6

  1904–5

  1906–7 (Estimated).

  £

  £

  £

  Net expenditure

  33,151,841

  36,859,681

  31,567,000

  Abate: Annuity under the Naval Works Acts

  1,015,812

  634,238

  1,094,309

  32,136,029

  36,225,443

  30,472,691

  Expenditure under Naval Works Acts

  3,313,604

  3,402,575

  2,410,307

  35,449,633

  39,628,018

  32,882,998

  Decrease in 1905–6 as compared with 1904–5

  £4,178,385

  Estimated decrease in 1906–7 as compared with 1904–5

  £6,745,020

  Shoreham Foreshore.
  MR. BRANCH: To ask the hon. Member for South
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  (Answered by Mr. Edmund Robertson.)The increase in the net expenditure on Naval Services in 1904–5 as compared with that in 1894–5 amounted to £21,985,594 as follows; —
  on Naval Services in 1905-6 as compared with that in 1904–5 amounted to £4,178,385 and the corresponding decrease in 1906–7 as compared with 1904–5 is estimated at £6,745,020 as follows—
  Somerset, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, if his attention has been called to the proposed sale of the foreshore at Shoreham, Sussex, as freehold land to a building company, thus excluding the public from access to the sea; and if he can take any steps to prevent this.
  (Answered by Mr. Kearley.) The attention of ray right hon. friend has not been railed officially to this matter, though the Board of Trade have seen paragraphs in the newspapers on the subject. Whatever be the exact circumstances of the property, the purchaser will take it subject to any rights of the public which now exist, and no buildings can be erected on the foreshore without the consent of the Board of Trade.

  Irish Licensing Laws.
  MR. FETHERSTONHAUGH; N.): To ask the Prime Minister whether it is intended in the forthcoming licensing legislation promised for next session to deal with the paramount claim of Ireland to a reform of her licensing laws; is he aware that the licensing laws of Ireland are less favourable to the promotion of temperance than those of England; that the number of licensed houses is excessive; and that there is no power, as there is in England, to reduce the number.
  (Answered by Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman.) His Majesty's Government have no intention of including Ireland in the licensing legislation promised for next session. I am aware of the differences between the licensing system of England and that of Ireland.

  St. Helena Barracks.
  MR. HICKS BEACH: To ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies what arrangements have been made, in the absence of a garrison, for looking after the guns, barracks, and fortifications in the island of St. Helena.
  (Answered by Mr. Churchill.) An officer of the Royal Engineers with a small staff are being temporarily detained in St. Helena for the service in question until more permanent arrangements can be made.

  Metropolitan Police Holidays.
  MR. C. J. O'DONNELL: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what would be the extra cost of giving the metropolitan police twenty-one days' annual holiday leave instead of the ten days now allowed; and whether, if the grant of one day off duty in a week
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  is at present impossible for financial reasons, he will consider the granting of a longer annual holiday this year.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Gladstone.) To increase the annual leave of the metropolitan police would throw a charge of more than £50,000 a year on the Metropolitan Police Fund besides increasing the charge for police employed at the cost of the Treasury. The income of the metropolitan police force is barely sufficient to meet the present expenditure, and it would be quite impossible to undertake an additional charge of £50,000 a year without exceeding the ninepenny rate limit.

  Belfast Buttonhole Workers' Case.
  MR. J. DEVLIN: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to a speech delivered by the Rev. David Purvis at a meeting of the general assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, held in Belfast on 5th June, in which he stated that a buttonhole worker, whose eyesight was beginning to fail, earned only 5s. or 6s. a week; also that a smoother was paid at the rate of one penny per hour and that women earned only 6s. a week by finishing boys' ready-made clothes; and furthermore that the wages of women workers in the city ranged from 7s. to 10s per week of fifty-six or fifty-nine hours; whether the labour of women and girls is worse paid in Belfast than in any other city in the United Kingdom; and whether he will order a special inquiry into the subject, or will arrange for the Commission on Sweating, recently appointed to investigate it thoroughly on the spot.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Gladstone.) My attention has not been called to the speech referred to in the Question So far as home work is concerned, the question of the conditions of labour in those trades in which it is prevalent is as the hon. Member is aware, to be investigated by a Select Committee of this House, and I would suggest that he should bring any information he may have in his possession, which bears on the subject of the injury, to the notice of the Committee.

  Post Office Savings Bank Clerks.
  MR. FIELD (Dublin, St. Patrick): To ask the Postmaster-General whether, seeing that many Post Office Savings Bank clerks were asked, some time before the present Government came into office, whether they would serve in Dublin in case the Irish work was transferred from London to Dublin, he will say how many of such clerks were so asked, and what was the reason for thus asking them.
  (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) The hon. Member would appear to be under a misapprehension in supposing that such an inquiry was addressed to any clerks in the Post Office Savings Bank.

  Irish Post Office Savings Bank Deposits.
  MR. FIELD: To ask the Postmaster General whether, seeing that the percentages, or figures immediately leading thereto, of Irish deposits and withdrawals made through British deposit books, and vice versa, have been actually worked out in the Post Office Savings Bank for the year 1906, or for a certain quarter or quarters of 1906, he will now order the Controller of the Savings Bank to furnish these percentages for the last available year or quarter; and, if not, will he explain why.
  (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) The hon. Member is mistaken in sup posing that the percentages of Irish Savings Bank deposits and withdrawals made through British deposit books and vice versa, or any figures immediately leading to those percentages, have been worked out for the year 1906 or for any other period. As I have stated in reply to previous Questions addressed to me by the hon. Member, to ascertain these percentages would involve an expenditure of time and labour that does not seem warranted.

  South Eastern District Office—Revision of Duties.
  MR. WILES: To ask the Postmaster General whether the revision of duties at the South Eastern District Office, which has been in course of preparation for the past twelve months, is approaching completion, and if an opportunity for making suggestions both with regard to the hours
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  of attendance as well as the efficient handling of the work will be given to the staff before the revision is finally settled.
  (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) The revision proposals have been completed; but, as they will require to be carefully examined, some time may elapse before the revision is carried into effect. The proposals have been framed with due regard to the hours of attendance of the staff and to the efficient handling of the work; but I am, of course, prepared to receive any representation from the staff on these points which they may desire to make.

  South Eastern District Office—Sorting Office.
  MR. WILES: To ask the Postmaster General whether the sorting-office accommodation and the retiring rooms at the South-Eastern district office are inadequate for the efficient performance of postal duties as well as for the requirements of the staff; and, if so, when he intends to commence building new offices on the neighbouring premises, which were acquired by the Department two years ago, and are now unused except as a cloak room and standing place for cycles.
  (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) It is recognised that the accommodation at the South-Eastern District Office calls for improvement. More relief, however, is being obtained by the use of the adjoining premises than appears to be understood by the hon. Member, and I am considering whether still further use cannot be made of them with advantage. Plans for the permanent enlargement of the office have already been prepared, but they will require a good deal of consideration, and I can hardly say at present when building operations are likely to be begun.

  Central Telegraph Office
  Sir J. BET HELL: To ask the Postmaster-General whether, in view of the fact that it has been officially stated that the class of senior telegraphists and overseers at the Central Telegraph Office is a supervising class, he will say if it was recently decided that only those seniors who had passed the

  1569
  technical examination necessary for promotion to the rank of assistant superintendent were to perform supervising duties; whether the men involved supervise others of the same rank who are older in the service; and whether he will state the reasons that have caused this change to be made pending the issue of the Report on Post Office wages.
  (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) Supervising duties are proper to the class of overseers and senior telegraphists in the Central Telegraph Office, and therefore no decision to the effect suggested in the first sentence of the Question has been or could be given. In regard to the second part of the Question, the object of the arrangements in question is to ascertain which are the officers best qualified for promotion, and no more interference takes place with the order of seniority than is necessary to determine this question. I see nothing in this matter that makes it necessary to await the Report of the Select Committee.

  Cuban Parcels Post.
  MR. AGNEW: To ask the Postmaster-General why Great Britain, with its large West Indian trade, and its unequalled shipping facilities, should be compelled to send sample post parcels consigned to Cuba by parcels post, via Germany; and why samples, consigned by parcel post to Venezuela, Peru, and Ecuador, must go via France, or Germany, or Holland.
  (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) In consequence of the difficulties which have been experienced in negotiating agreements with the countries named, without which parcel posts cannot be established, as there would be no arrangements for the delivery of parcels sent from this country, it has been necessary to forward parcels to them by such other means as were available. But arrangements have lately been concluded for a direct parcel post between this country and Peru, and it is proposed to institute the new service on the 1st of next month. Negotiations are in progress for the establishment of similar services with Ecuador and Cuba, and it is hoped to arrange for a direct service to Venezuela.

  Audit of Irish Accounts.
  MR. FIELD: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he will furnish a statement showing the number of men employed by the Comptroller and Auditor-General on the local audit of each of the Irish accounts in the financial year 1906–7, the time thus occupied on each account, the total cost of travelling and subsistence allowance for each account, and the corresponding particulars of the proposed Estimate in 1907–8.
  (Answered by Mr. Runciman.) As regards the first part of the Question I beg to refer the hon. Member to the Answer given on 16th April last on this subject. † The total cost of travelling and subsistence in connection with the local audit of Irish accounts in 1906–7 amounted to about £815, and it is anticipated that about the same amount will be spent in 1907–8.
  MR. FIELD: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he will grant a statement showing the respective numbers of Irish and English accounts audited by the Comptroller and Auditor-General; the respective numbers of Irish and English accounts audited locally throughout the whole year both in London and at the out-stations, and the respective numbers of the men employed on these permanent local audits; the respective numbers of Irish and English accounts, for which duplicate records of payments and other items are kept at the headquarters of the Audit Office on the Victoria Embankment, the respective numbers of men employed on such accounts, and the respective approximate proportions of time devoted to keeping these duplicate records of payments and other items and to auditing these accounts.
  (Answered by Mr. Runciman.) The total number of accounts (the Army, Navy, Post Office, etc., each counting as one) audited by the Comptroller and Auditor-General is 197, of which forty-four are exclusively Irish. The relative magnitude may be measured by the fact that in the Estimates for 1907–8 the total voted accounts for all services (in-
  † See (4) Debates, clxxii., 740.

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  eluding those common to Great Britain and Ireland) amount to £110,062,000, of which the purely Irish accounts amount to £4,459,000. The stations at which a permanent local audit is carried out and the number of staff employed are given in the Answer to a Question from the hon. Member of 26th February last† Duplicate records are not kept except in the case of the accounts of the Chancery Suitors Fund (England) in accordance with the directions of the Lord Chancellor and the Treasury.

  Bank of England Balances.
  MR. GINNELL: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury if he will state the sums, whether as current balances or otherwise, of £1,000 or more which have rested for one month or more in the Bank of England in connection

  Date of Receipt at Bank of England.

  Date of Withdrawal.

  Amount.

  Interest at 2¾ per cent.

  1904,25th August

  1904, 27th September

  1,289

  3

  1904, 22nd December

  1905, 24th January

  1,802

  5

  1905,8th April

  1905, 9th to 16th May

  287,632

  699

  1905, 14th April

  1905, 16th May

  6,369

  15

  1905, 15th April

  1905, 16th May

  2,963

  7

  1905, 12th August

  1905, 10th October

  301,047

  1,720

  1905, 14th November

  1905, 26th August

  1905, 14th November

  240,842

  1,619

  1905, 5th December

  1905, 21st September

  1905, 5th December

  1,066

  6

  1905, 5th October

  1905, 5th to 12th Dec.

  144,078

  528

  1905, 9th November

  1905, 12th December

  1,007

  3

  1906, 2nd January

  1906, 2nd to 6th Feb.

  168,013

  442

  1906, 6th April

  1906, 8th May

  79,336

  191

  £5,238

  † See(4) Debates. clxix, 1406
  with the financing of the Irish Land Act of 1903, with the amounts of interest which those respective sums would yield at 2¾ per cent. per annum, and the total interest, similarly calculated, from 1st November, 1903, to the present time.
  (Answered by Mr. Runciman.) The following statement shows, for the period between 1st November, 1903, and the present date, the sums of £1,000 or more which have rested for one month or more in the Irish Land Purchase Fund in the Bank of England, together with the interest which those sums would yield at 2 ¾ per cent., and the total amount of such interest. In determining the amount remaining in the fund for one month or more, it has been assumed that the withdrawals are taken from the balance which has remained longest on the account.

  Brixton Land Tax Commissioners.
  MR. SEAVERNS: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury if his attention has been called to the fact that a considerable number of Land Tax Commissioners in the Brixton Division of Lambeth received no summons to attend the meetings of 8th and 9th April last; if he can reconcile this fact with the information previously supplied to him that summonses had been sent to all the Commissioners in the division; will he state by whom this information was supplied; and will he call the attention of the clerks to the Commissioners in the Brixton Division to the provisions of the Act of 1906, and request them to observe these provisions in the future.
  (Answered by Mr. Runciman.) The Answer to the first part of the Question is in the affirmative. I am informed

  Statement showing the average quantity and value of refined and
  unrefined sugar imported into the United Kingdom annually during the under mentioned
  periods—

  Period, etc.

  Quantity.

  Value.

  Cwts.

  £

  Imports of refined sugar:

  Annual average, 1901–3

  19,403,601

  10,809,461

  Annual average, 1904–6

  16,799,156

  10,721,014

  Imports of unrefined sugar:

  Annual averages, 1901–3

  13,085,771

  5,637,407

  Annual averages, 1904–6

  14,866,158

  7,618,612

  Australian Wool Imports.
  SIR GEORGE DOUGHTY: To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he can state what was the quantity and value of Australian wool imported into the United Kingdom and subsequently
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  that the clerk to the Commissioners for the Third East Brixton Division was under a misapprehension as to the duties imposed upon him by the Act of last session. The steps recommended by my hon. friend in the last part of the Question have now been taken. I regret the inaccuracy of my previous information. It was supplied by the clerk's assistant, who states that he misunderstood the inquiry put to him.

  Sugar Imports.
  SIR GEORGE DOUGHTY: To ask the President of the Board of Trade what was the average importation into the United Kingdom of refined and unrefined sugar, respectively, during the three years ending 1903 and 1900, respectively.
  (Answered by Mr. Kearley.) —
  re-exported to foreign countries in 1890, 1895, 1900, and 1905–6 respectively.
  (Answered by Mr. Kearley.) The information asked for is only available for the years 1904, 1905, and 1906,

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  since before 1904 the country of origin of re-exported goods was not recorded.

  Statement stowing the registered quantity and value of Australian Sheep and Lambs Wool imported into the United Kingdom and subsequently re-exported to foreign countries and British Possessions, respectively, during each of the years 1904,1905, and 1906—

  Re-exports.

  1904.

  1905.

  1906.

  Quantity.

  Value.

  Quantity.

  Value.

  Quantity.

  Value.

  Lbs.

  £

  Lbs.

  £

  Lbs.

  £

  To Foreign Countries

  144,372,010

  5,841,820

  148,600,450

  6,138,156

  1,46,022,140

  6,495,163

  To British Possessions

  320,700

  12,758

  63,000

  3,474

  32,900

  1,807

  Total

  144,692,710

  5,854,578

  148,663,450

  6,141,630

  146,055,040

  6,496,970

  British Commercial Agents.
  SIR GEORGE DOUGHTY: To ask the President of the Board of Trade how many commercial agents for the United Kingdom have been appointed to the various Colonies and British Possessions; and whether these appointments are made after consultation with, or with the approval of, the Colonial Governments interested.
  (Answered by Mr. Kearley.) Twenty-one commercial correspondents have been appointed in South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. Some of these are officers of the Colonial Governments and nominated by them on representations made to the Governments by the Colonial Office. Others have been appointed by the Board of Trade on the nomination of special Commissioners sent by them to these Colonies on the recommendation of the Advisory Committee on Commercial Intelligence. In all cases these Commissioners have been instructed to confer with the Colonial Governments concerned. I may add that, as a consequence of discussions at the recent Imperial Conference, the question of the best means of extending and improving the means of obtaining commercial information with respect to the self-governing Colonies for the benefit of traders in the United Kingdom is now under the consideration
  The following table gives the particulars for these years —
  of the Board of Trade and their Advisory Committee, which includes representatives of these Colonies.

  Training Colleges Grants.
  MR. W. HOPE: To ask the President of the Board of Education whether he is yet in a position to make any statement with regard to the payment of grants in aid of the cost of the provision of hostels in connection with training colleges.
  (Answered by Mr. McKenna.) Building grants will be payable in respect of hostels provided by local authorities in connection with a recognised training college, which is either provided by some local education authority or is a department of a University or University college, or is free from denominational restrictions, in manner to be set out in the regulations.

  West Riding Education Dispute.
  MR. GEORGE GIBBS: To ask the President of the Board of Education whether any portion of the legal expense incurred by the West Riding County Council in their litigation in connection with the non-payment of teachers' salaries in non-provided schools has been paid from the Imperial Exchequer; and, if so, what has been the amount of the payment made.

  1577
  (Answered by Mr. McKenna.) The costs of the solicitors to the West Riding County Council in connection with the appeal to the House of Lords were taxed at £483 8s. and were paid from the Vote for Law Charges.

  Kynoch, Limited.
  MR. FIELD: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he can arrange that the questions in dispute in regard to the use of perchloride of mercury be referred to arbitration, and that the whole of the explosives, the property of Kynoch, Limited, be released.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Gladstone.) The Answer is in the negative, for reasons which I have already explained very fully in reply to numerous Questions on the subject. I will only add that the delay in bringing this matter to a conclusion is due to Messrs. Kynoch themselves.

  Colonel Donaldson's Crassgar Estate
  CAPTAIN CRAIG: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the estate of Colonel G. M. Donaldson, near Crassgar, county Down, bought in 1904 by the tenants within the zones of the Land Act of 1903, is yet cleared as to title, etc.; or if he can state what position the transaction is now in.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The purchase agreements in this case were lodged with the Estates Commissioners in May, 1905. The title has been lodged, and will be read as soon as the case reaches its turn to be dealt with in order of priority.

  Castle Archdale Evicted Tenant.
  MR. FETHERSTONHAUGH: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Estates Commissioners have received an application for a holding from Archibald M'Farland, who was evicted, for non-payment of rent, from a holding on the Castle Archdale estate, in the county Fermanagh; have the Commissioners inquired into the application or reported thereon; and have they acquired any lands in county Fermanagh suitable for provision of new holdings for evicted tenants.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Estates Commissioners have inquired into the application for reinstatement received from Archibald M'Farland, whose former holding has been purchased under the Land Acts by the occupying tenant. The Commissioners have placed M'Farland's name on their list as that of a person suitable to receive an allotment of land. The Commissioners, however, have not yet acquired any untenanted lands in county Fermanagh for the purpose of providing new holdings for such persons.

  Irish Land Stock.
  MR. O'MARA: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether purchasers under the Land Act of 1903 are entitled to pay their annuities as to three-quarters in cash and one-quarter in Land Stock; whether regulations have been made to enable purchasers to buy Land Stock through the Post Office Savings Bank; and, if not, when it is intended to issue such regulations.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The provision referred to in the first part of the Question (s. 2, Act of 1891) applies to all tenant purchasers under the Land Acts. As to the remainder of the Question, I would refer to the Answer given by my hon. friend the Secretary to the Treasury, from which it appears that the Treasury are in communication with the Departments concerned in reference to the question of making regulations.

  Army Recruits.
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether, when the new arrangements are completed whereby recruits for the Line will be sent direct to their battalions instead of being retained at the depot, these recruits will be included in the regimental establishment or will be supernumerary to it; and whether the rank and file establishment of 720 for battalions at Home will include the recruits now at the depots.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) All recruits enlisted for Home battalions, whether drilling first of all at the depot or otherwise, are borne on the establishment of the battalion. It is not proposed to make any change in this respect.

QUESTIONS IN THE HOUSE.

  Lower Hooe Road, Plymouth.
  MR. MILDMAY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he is aware that the roadway loading from Turnchapel to Lower Hooe, over which the Admiralty claim control, is in a bad condition and almost impassable in wet weather by reason of the mud; whether he is aware that this road is the sole means of access to the railway station enjoyed by the inhabitants of Turnchapel; and whether the Admiralty will put it in order, or whether they have an intention of giving to the inhabitants other means of access to the station.
  THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. EDMUND ROBERTSON, DUNDEE): The Admiralty have never admitted any right of way over that portion of the road which they control, and I understand that, though the most direct, it is not the only means of access to the station. Orders have been given for the repair of the Admiralty portion of the road, and negotiations on the subject generally will be opened with the local authority.

  Warships in the Persian Gulf.
  *MR. REES: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether, under the present distribution of the Fleet, any warship of any description patrols the Persian Gulf.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: Under present arrangements the Gunboats "Redbreast" and "Lapwing" and the special-service vessel "Sphinx" are told off for special service in Indian waters, and their principal duties are in the Persian Gulf. Visits to the Gulf are also made by other ships of the East Indies squadron from time to time. At present the "Sphinx" and "Lapwing" are in the Persian Gulf.

  China Squadron.
  *MR. REES: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether any battleship is included in the China squadron at the present time; and whether, if the Answer be in the negative, the American, French, and German Eastern fleets are in like
  1580
  manner composed exclusively of cruisers, destroyers, and smaller vessels.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: There is no battleship in the China squadron at the present time; and, except the "Redoubtable," a third class battleship of the French Navy, launched in 1876, in commission at Saigon, and two armoured coast-defence ships of the United States Navy in reserve in the Philippines, the ships composing the French, American, and German squadrons in the Eastern seas are of the classes referred to in the Question.

  Chatham Dockyard Discharges.
  MR. FELL: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty how many men were discharged from the dockyard at Chatham during the year 1906, and how many have been discharged during the present year; and whether any representations have been received on this subject.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: The net decrease in numbers in Chatham yard in 1906, taking into account reductions, natural wastage, adjustment of trades and other causes, was 398. Up to the 1st of June of the present year there has been a corresponding net increase of 251. Representations in regard to the work to be allotted to this yard have been made to me by a large and representative deputation introduced by my hon. friend the Member for Rochester, to whom I hope to be able to give an early Answer.
  MR. MYER: Can the right hon. Gentleman say how many men were discharged immediately after the South African War?
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: I cannot.
  MR. JENKINS: Can the right hon. Gentleman give the number of discharges in 1904 –5 under the late administration?
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: I have not the figures here.
  MR. FELL: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty if there is any ship-building going on at the present time

  1581
  at Chatham Dockyard, or any work being done there beyond repairs; and what are the intentions of the Admiralty with regard to the building of battleships and cruisers there in the future.
  *MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: Ship building is going on at the present time at Chatham Dockyard as well as repairs, the armoured cruiser "Shannon" being in course of completion, while several submarines are under construction. The question of what work will be given to this yard will be considered in the preparation of the Estimates for the next financial year.
  MR. FELL: Is it proposed to deepen the channel to enable ships of greater draught to get to the dockyard?
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSONasked for notice.
  MR. JENKINSasked if the "Shannon" was the only armoured vessel under construction.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: Yes, but then four submarines and a number of smaller craft.

  The Coastguard.
  MR. MAJOR SEELY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty if he can state the names of the three coastguard stations which have been closed this year, and the dates on which they were closed.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: The three stations are: Downderry, closed 25th March, 1907; Cahore, closed 1st May, 1907; Catterline, closed 15th May, 1907. The necessary orders had in all cases been given some months earlier.
  MR. MAJOR SEELY: May I ask my right hon. friend whether these dates are not all subsequent to the pledge he gave me that no coastguard stations would be closed till the subject had been discussed in the House?
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: The pledge which I gave to the House was that no further orders would be issued till the House had an opportunity of considering the Question. The orders
  1582
  to close those stations were all given long before I gave that pledge.
  MR. MAJOR SEELY: Can my right hon. friend say how many orders there are now outstanding?
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: I will give my hon. and gallant friend an Answer if he will put his Question on the Paper.
  MR. MAJOR SEELY: Is the number large or small?
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: I should not like to give a definite number, but I do not think they are many. I will find out and give the hon. Member the number privately this afternoon.
  MR. SLOAN: Do any of these orders refer to Ireland?
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: They all refer to Ireland, I think.

  Accident in a Submarine.
  MR. STANGER: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he is in a position to give the House any information with regard to the reported accident on a submarine at Portsmouth this morning.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: I regret to say there has been an accident, and I hold in my hand a telegram received this afternoon from the Commander-in-Chief at Portsmouth. The telegram is as follows: —"Regret to report slight explosion this morning on board submarine C 8, whereby Lieutenant Guy Hart was very dangerously injured, and has since died; Thomas O'Connor, E.R.A., and James R. Foster, stoker of the first class, slightly injured. Both of the latter are doing well. Inquiry will be held as soon as possible. Boat was charging batteries at the time."

  Naval Summer Cruises.
  MR. SMEATON: On behalf of the hon. Member for Ross and Cromarty I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether arrangements will be made for His Majesty's Fleet to visit not only Invergordon but Stornoway and Lochbroom this summer.
  MR. E. ROBERTSON: Arrangements for the summer cruises of the various squadrons have been completed, and they cannot be altered without inconvenience. The programmes include a visit to Invergordon, but do not include visits to Stornoway and Lochbroom.

  Woolwich Discharges.
  MR. FELL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if any record has been kept of the names and addresses of those artisans recently discharged from Woolwich who have found work in Continental factories, so that in case of emergency their services may be promptly recovered for the nation.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (MR. HALDANE, Haddingtonshire): No record has been kept of the nature mentioned. As far as can be ascertained very few men have gone to Continental factories.

  Military Courts-Martial and Sentences.
  MR. FENWICK: On behalf of the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War how many soldiers were under sentence of courts-martial and detained in His Majesty's prisons on 31st December, 1906; and whether any of such detentions were by order of field courts-martial in the South African War.
  MR. HALDANE: Two hundred and thirty-nine soldiers were in prison on 31st December, 1906, under sentence of court-martial. Of those there were six imprisoned by order of field courts-martial in the South African War.
  MR. FENWICK: On behalf of the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War how many soldiers In the Regular Army were tried by courts-martial in 1906; how many trials ended in acquittal; how many men were convicted; and the average term of imprisonment inflicted.
  MR. HALDANE: The figures are as follows:—

  Tried.

  Acquitted.

  Convicted.

  General courts-martial

  7

  2

  5

  District courts-martial

  5,343

  175

  5,168

  Of this last number forty were not confirmed or were quashed by the General Officer Commanding and fifty-two were quashed by the Judge Advocate General. The average term of imprisonment inflicted was as follows:—

  Penal servitude

  3·33 years.

  Imprisonment with hard labour:—

  General court-martial

  18 months.

  District court-martial

  87 days.

  The cases in which detention was inflicted after trial by district court-martial gave an average of forty-nine days.
  MR. LUPTON: Do these figures disclose a terrible state of criminality in the Army, or that the sentences of courts-martial are very terrible?
  MR. HALDANE: No, Sir; considering the enormous number of British soldiers under military law in all parts of the world I do not think they are excessive.

  Soldiers as Railway Firemen.
  MR. WARDLE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he is aware that a number of Royal Engineers are being employed on the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway as firemen for the purpose of training, at the minimum rate of pay on all classes of work performed by them, and that ordinary firemen are being displaced and promotion checked, and a burden placed on those drivers who have the responsibility of training them; and whether he will arrange with railway companies that such be placed on engines in addition to the ordinary firemen and not in place of them.
  MR. HALDANE: Eleven men have been sent for a short course of training as firemen on the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, and are being paid by the company at the rate of 3s. 6d. a. day, that being the rate which it was understood would be paid to other stokers employed in the same work. I am not aware that ordinary firemen are thereby being displaced, or that their promotion is being checked, nor that any additional burden is placed upon the drivers in the matter of training the military fireman which is not usual and common to the training of all firemen on all railways. The arrangements as to the number of men on engines rest entirely with the company, and the

  1585
  War Department is not in a position to interfere in the matter.

  Victoria Memorial Hall; Calcutta
  MR. SMEATON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India what is the total sum collected up to date from the people of India for the erection of the Victoria Memorial Hall, in Calcutta; whether he has noticed the remarks made by the Maharaja of Darbhanga, during the Budget debate on 27th March last (page 178 of Blue-book), to the effect that a sum of nearly:£70,000 had already been spent on the foundations alone, that there had been a subsidence of the foundations which would endanger the superstructure proposed by Lord Curzon, that there is a growing public opinion in favour of abandoning the original design of a huge hall, and of using the balance of the sum subscribed in providing each province with memorials which, in the Maharaja's own words, shall be fountains of benevolence to the diseased and distressed amongst the poor of the people; whether, in view of this expression of opinion by a well-known representative of the people, he can see his way to postpone further prosecution of the original design pending a plebiscite of the subscribers as to the disposal of the funds in hand; and whether in the event of the Maharaja's proposal being accepted by the subscribers, he will take steps to give effect to it, if necessary, by legislation.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (MR. MORLEY, Montrose Burghs): The exact sum subscribed to the Victoria Memorial Hall up to date is not known here. It was reported in 1903 to be about fifty lakhs of rupees (£333,333). The money is not held by Government, nor are the works on the Memorial being carried on by Government establishments. By an Act passed in 1903 the funds collected are vested in a body of trustees, who are charged with the erection, maintenance, and management of the Memorial. I have read the remarks of the Maharaja of Darbhanga referred to in the Question. They will doubtless receive the consideration of the trustees of the Memorial.
  MR. SMEATON: Can the right hon. Gentleman induce the Viceroy to give
  1586
  any indication that the Maharaja's representations shall receive attention?
  MR. MORLEY: No; I must leave this matter to the Viceroy.

  Lala Lajpat Rai.
  SIR H. COTTON: I bog to ask the Secretary of State for India whether there is any source of information which directly connects Lala Lajpat Rai with allegations imputing the poisoning of wells and streams to the Government.
  MR. MORLEY: I am not aware of any such information, nor has the statement, so far as I know, been made that Lajpat Rai is connected with the allegations referred to.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: For what crime has this gentleman been arrested and deported?
  MR. MORLEY: I cannot say.
  SIR H. COTTON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether he can specify any of the speeches of Lala Lajpat Rai which are greatly dominated by sedition and were published broadcast, even on the floor of this House.
  MR. MORLEY: The hon. Member's Question is based on an inaccurate report of what I said. As reported by the Morning Post, my words were:—
  "I will not publish broadcast on the floor of this House language of the kind used by Ajit Singh, which can be reproduced afterwards with perfect impunity and scattered all over India. These malicious incitements to revolt I do not think I can be an instrument in disseminating."
  This undoubtedly correctly represents the sense of what I said.
  SIR H. COTTON: May I assume that the right hon. Gentleman did not state, as reported in The Times, that the speeches of Lala Lajpat Rai were greatly dominated by sedition, and were published broadcast, even on the floor of this House?
  MR. MORLEY: I wish the right hon. Gentleman to understand that these are the words that I used. I will not go beyond that.
  MR. WILLIAM REDMONDasked whether the right hon. Gentleman could now give the House a full list of those arrested in this summary way, and state their places of detention and the manner in which they were being treated. Were they being treated as first-class misdemeanants?
  MR. MORLEY: I think the hon. Member will see that that long and intricate Question requires notice.
  MR. WILLIAM REDMONDsaid he had asked the same Question some time ago.
  MR. MORLEY: I do not see how the Question arises out of the Question on the Paper, and I decline respectfully to answer it.
  MR. WILLIAM REDMONDasked whether the right hon. Gentleman could say whether these gentlemen were treated in the ordinary way as political prisoners or not.
  MR. LUPTONasked whether they were to understand that Lala Lajpat Rai had not uttered any seditious speeches, nor suggested that the Government poisoned wells.
  MR. MORLEY: I have stated my view of these transactions. I do not quarrel with these Questions, but they do not arise out of the Question on the Paper.

  Ajit Singh.
  SIR H. COTTON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether Ajit Singh, who is a very young man of only twenty-three years of age, and has repeatedly made seditious speeches in Lahore and elsewhere without interference, received any warning from the authorities before it was decided to arrest him under the provisions of Regulation 3 of 1818.
  MR. MORLEY: I am not aware whether Ajit Singh had received any warning. But every man of the age of twenty-three must know that he makes seditious speeches at his peril.

  New Hebrides Convention.
  MR. MAJOR ANSTRUTHER-GRAY (St. Andrews Burghs): I beg to ask the
  1588
  Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, in view of MR. Deakin's statement, the Commonwealth was neither invited to submit proposals to the Conference, nor even informed of its nature or progress, or enabled to make an effective suggestion to its conclusions, or in fact was consulted in respect to it in any particular, it is proposed to review the New Hebrides Convention after consultation with the Governments of Australia and New Zealand.
  THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (MR. CHURCHILL, Manchester, N.W.): The New Hebrides Convention was discussed with MR. Deakin and Sir J. Ward during the Colonial Conference. With regard to the conduct of the negotiations which led up to the Convention of the 20th October last, I have to refer the hon. and gallant Member to the Secretary of State's despatches of the 16th November and 7th March last.
  MR. MAJOR ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: May I ask if, in the face of MR. Deakin's words quoted in the Question, the right hon. Gentleman is prepared to qualify his statement that the Colonial Governments were fully consulted?
  MR. CHURCHILL: I do not think that is the exact expression I used. I should like an opportunity of looking them up, but so far as my recollection serves me I think there is no reason to modify what I said.

  Opium Trade in Ceylon.
  DR. RUTHERFORD: I beg to ask the Undersecretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that those members of the Legislative Council of Ceylon who represent nearly four millions of the inhabitants of the island are opposed to the present method of selling opium through shops licensed for that purpose, whilst the planting interest and the official members of the Council, who only represent 50,000 of the people, are in favour of the existing policy; and whether he will ask the representative of the Crown in Ceylon to take steps to suppress the sale of opium in that Colony.
  MR. CHURCHILL: The Secretary of State is in communication with the

  1589
  Governor of Ceylon as to the consumption of opium in that Colony and he is not in a position to make any statement at present. The subject matter of the hon. Member's Question shall be submitted to the Governor.

  Defence of European Settlement in Shanghai.
  *MR. REES: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what force, naval, military, and police, is available at Shanghai for the defence of British merchants and of British trade.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (SIR EDWARD GREY, Northumberland, Berwick)On December 31st last the force available for the defence of the European community in the international settlement at Shanghai was as follows:—Volunteers, forty-four officers and 930 non-commissioned officers and men. Police, European, 130; Indian, 201; Chinese, 753. In addition foreign warships of small draught can ascend the river as far as Shanghai, and larger ships can get to within fifteen miles of Shanghai. It frequently happens that one or more foreign warships are lying in the river.
  MAJOR ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: Is there any artillery there?
  SIR EDWARD GREY: I cannot say.

  Great Britain and Russia
  MR. ARTHUR HENDERSON: On behalf of the hon. Member for Leicester, I bog to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether his negotiations with Russia relate to matters other than boundaries, and are concerned with general political relationships.
  SIR EDWARD GREY: The direct object of the negotiations is to prevent conflict and difficulties between the two Powers in the part of Asia which affects the Indian frontier and the Russian frontiers in that region. If these negotiations result in an agreement, it will deal only with those questions. What the indirect result will be as regards general political relationships must depend upon how such an agreement works in practice, and what effect it has upon public opinion in both countries.

  Chinese Government and Mr. Eadie.
  *MR. REES: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware that Mr. Edward Eadie, who was assaulted by Chinese on 18th June, 1906, is still without the compensation which was asked from the Chinese Government for him as an act of grace; and whether the said Mr. Eadie, who is still sick and in need of medical treatment, should accept the offer he has had from the Taotai of Amoy of payment of his medical expenses, or whether he should wait a further interval for such compensation as may be paid by the Chinese Government.
  SIR EDWARD GREY: The Chinese authorities have agreed, as an act of grace, to pay a sum of 11,000 dollars in compensation for the injuries inflicted upon MR. Eadie and his companion, Dr. Home. Of this sum it is proposed that Dr. Home, who was much more seriously injured, should receive 10,000 dollars. Mr. Eadie will therefore receive a sum of 1,000 dollars.

  Brussels Sugar Convention.
  MR. HAROLD COX: I bog to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, if this country, while declining to enforce a penal clause against bounty-fed sugar, still adheres to the Brussels Convention, it will still be necessary for all sugar imported into this country to be accompanied by a certificate of origin; and whether it is proposed to ask this House to continue to provide part of the expenses of the Permanent Commission sitting in Brussels.
  SIR EDWARD GREY: In the event of the other contracting States agreeing to exempt this country by supplementary protocol from the obligation to enforce the penal clause of the Sugar Convention, the question how far it would still be necessary or expedient to require imported sugar to be accompanied by a certificate of origin would receive careful consideration. So long as this country continued to take part in the modified Convention, it would naturally contribute its share of the expenses of the Permanent Commission, which are not considerable.
  MR. HAROLD COX: I bog to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether His Majesty's Government proposes to ask Parliament to

  1591
  repeal the Sugar Convention Act, 1903, and, failing such repeal, whether it will not be competent for His Majesty's present or future advisers at any time during the continuance of the Brussels Convention to prohibit by Order in Council the importation into this country of sugar which the Permanent Commission sitting in Brussels declares to be bounty-fed.
  SIR EDWARD GREY: It is premature at present to consider the question of amending or repealing the Sugar Convention Act, and I therefore cannot deal with the legal point raised in the last part of the Question, which depends upon it.
  SIR EDWARD SASSOON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware that the production of cane sugar in the West Indies and other parts of the world is appreciably increasing, and that our exports of confectionery in 1906 wore approximately 25 percent. higher than those of 1904 and 1905; and whether, under these circumstances, His Majesty's Government propose to risk the break up of the Sugar Convention and a reversal to the system of bounties and cartels.
  SIR EDWARD GREY: I am aware that the total production of cane sugar has considerably increased in recent years (although this can scarcely be said of the production of the British West Indies taken as a whole) and that our exports of confectionery have also increased approximately as stated. As regards the last part of the Question, I have nothing to add to the statement I made to the House on the 6th instant† The risk involved in the course taken by His Majesty's Government is a matter of opinion.
  MR. R. DUNCAN: Is the right hon. Gentleman also aware that the manufacture of sugar in our Colonies leads to a large demand for the manufacture of machinery in this country for the industry in beet producing countries?
  † See (4) Debates, clxxv., 838.
  *THE DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The hon. Member must give notice of the Question.
  MR. STEWART: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has information of any change of attitude to the Brussels Convention on the part of those foreign States who are favourable to it as it now stands consequent upon the modifications of the terms of the British adherence thereto; and whether in the interests of the sugar-refining industry and its allied and dependent trades, which wore adversely affected by the foreign bounty system and which are suffering by the prevailing uncertainty whether there will be a return to it, he will give the House, at the earliest moment, any information of which ho is or may become possessed of any impending change of position on the part of any of the signatory Powers.
  SIR EDWARD GREY: The Answer to the first part of the Question is in the negative. I will boar in mind the hon. Member's suggestion, and shall be glad to give definite information when there is any, but I would remind him that no change will in any case take place before September, 1908."

  Missing Camel Corps.
  MR. KETTLE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will state the circumstances under which certain members of a Camel Corps, which left Bir Natron Government post some six weeks ago, lost their way and perished in the desert; what were the numbers and composition of the corps; how many men are known to have lost their lives and how many are missing; and what steps were taken by the responsible authorities to succour and rescue them, and to notify the Egyptian public of their fate.
  SIR EDWARD GREY: The latest information in my possession respecting this matter is that No. 2 Company Camel Corps, under Bimbashi Whittingham, left for Bir Natron during February, one section being intended to be stationed there and another at a post then not yet selected. It was anticipated that their presence there would serve as a deterrent to any future raiding and counter-raiding.

  1593
  I will make inquiries as to the points raised by the hon. Member.

  France and Siam.
  MR. VERNEY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is now in a position to communicate to the House the terms of the recent treaty between France and Siam.
  SIR EDWARD GREY: I hope to lay the text of the Treaty at an early date.

  Unclaimed Funds and Old Age Pensions.
  MR. PARKER: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether his attention has been called to the funds among the bankers of England representing unclaimed moneys; what is the approximate amount of such funds; and whether, as such moneys cannot be legally claimed by the bankers, he will consider the advisability of appropriating them on behalf of the State, and, after allowing a sufficient sum to meet any possible liabilities to possible claimants, to set aside the available balances for old-age pensions.
  THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. RUNCIMAN, Dewsbury, for Mr. ASQUITH): I have no statistics of the amount of unclaimed moneys in the hands of bankers or of other persons or institutions other than Government Departments. The question of appropriating such funds for public purposes has often been considered, but such investigation as has been possible has tended to show that the total amount in question is probably much smaller than is popularly supposed; and, in view of this fact and of the practical difficulties connected with the necessity which would arise for indemnifying those at present responsible to possible claimants against future claims, it has not been thought desirable to attempt to deal with the matter by legislation.

  Unclaimed Dividends and Old Age Pensions.
  MR. PARKER: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the approximate amount of the sums in the hands of the Government arising from unclaimed dividends and other unclaimed moneys in the Bank of England; and
  1594
  whether he will consider the possibility of appropriating all or part of such unclaimed money for the purpose of old-age pensions.
  MR. RUNCIMAN: The total nominal value of stock and cash in the hands of the National Debt Commissioners to the credit of the unclaimed stock and dividends account on the 31st March last was £1,841,986. This amount is not, in my opinion, in excess of a reasonable reserve against the liabilities to claimants.

  Chancery Funds and Old Age Pensions.
  MR. PARKER: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he can state the amount of the unclaimed money now held in the Court of Chancery; and whether he has considered the advisability of utilising such unclaimed moneys for the purpose of adding to the sum provided in the Budget for providing pensions for the aged poor.
  MR. RUNCIMAN: The aggregate amount of dormant or unclaimed funds in Court (including the Court of Chancery) is stated in the last triennial list published as a supplement to the London Gazette of 1st March, 1905, to have been on that date less than £1,000,000, distributed over more than 3,300 separate accounts; and I do not think any appreciable contribution could be obtained from this source for the purpose which the hon. Member has in view.

  Royal Patriotic Fund.
  MR. BYLES: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he has received from the Royal Patriotic Fund Corporation any application for a Treasury grant of money in aid of the funds of the said corporation; and what answer has been returned.
  MR. RUNCIMAN: An application was received in March last, and the reply of the Treasury was to the effect that, after considering the question in consultation with the War Office, they did not feel able to depart from a previous decision that they would not be justified in asking Parliament to provide by Vote any sum to supplement the present available resources of the fund.

  Income Tax on Literary Prizes.
  MR. WATT: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether income tax is at present charged on monetary prizes gained for literary work or otherwise; and whether the same rule will apply under the new Finance Bill if it becomes law.
  MR. RUNCIMAN: The question is one of assessment, which has to be determined by the Commissioners of Income Tax with respect to the circumstances of particular cases, but a monetary prize in the form of a single payment would not, as a rule, be chargeable, unless the circumstances were such as to render it part of the profits of the profession or vocation of the winner. The rules in this matter will not be affected by the Finance Bill, except when a chargeable receipt may fall within the definition of earned income.
  MR. WATT: How is it prizes of a similar nature have boon taxed?
  MR. RUNCIMAN: That is a matter for the Income Tax Commissioners. Each case is decided on its merits.

  Consolidated Stock.
  MR. PIKE PEASE: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the £44,288 given in Return No. 155, just issued, is the total sum employed by the Treasury for the purchase of 2½ per cent. Consolidated Stock in the past financial year; and, if so, why a larger proportion of the sum available for the cancellation of the National Debt was not devoted to the purchase of this class of stock.
  MR. RUNCIMAN: The sum of £44,288 given in the Return was the total sum applied out of the old and new Sinking Fund moneys to the cancellation of Consols in the last financial year. In the circumstances of the time, it was considered preferable to apply these funds mainly to the extinction of Unfunded Debt. Accordingly, Treasury Bills to the amount of £3,500,000 were paid off, and Exchequer Bonds to the amount of over £4,400,000 were bought and cancelled, in addition to the £1,000,000 of Exchequer Bonds drawn and redeemed under the scheme inaugurated by the right hon. Member for East Worcestershire. There were, however,
  1596
  other funds available for the reduction of Funded Debt during the year besides the old and new Sinking Funds, namely, the receipts in respect of Life Annuities, Redemption of Land Tax, the China Indemnity, and other miscellaneous items. Consols were cancelled with these receipts to the amount of £1,819,258, making the total reduction in the amount of Consols outstanding £1,871,165.

  Pwllheli Land Tax Commissioners.
  MR. ELLIS DAVIES: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether a meeting of the Land Tax Commissioners for South Carnarvonshire, Pwllheli District, has been called; if so, why none of the recently appointed Commissioners received notice of the meeting; and, if the meeting did take place under the circumstances related, whether it is proposed to call another meeting to do the work entrusted to the Commissioners as a body.
  MR. RUNCIMAN: I understand that the clerk to the Commissioners was unaware of his duties under the Act. A notification of them, which was sent to him as to all other clerks to Land Tax Commissioners, apparently failed to reach him, but this regrettable accident has now been rectified, and I have little doubt that the provisions of the Act will be complied with in future The last part of the Question is a matter for the decision of the Land Tax Commissioners themselves.

  Secretary to the Board of Customs.
  MAJOR SEELY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury if he can state on what grounds the service of the Secretary of the Board of Customs has been extended beyond the usual period.
  MR. RUNCIMAN: The officer in question has been entrusted with the execution of a particular duty which is approaching completion, and it has been found that the transfer of the work to another officer who is necessarily less familiar with it would be attended with inconvenience.

  The Government and Messrs. Kynoch.
  MR. MOONEY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he can now state how many firms, and give their names, other

  1597
  than Messrs. Kynoch were found to be using a percentage of mercury in the manufacture of explosives; if he can state on what date these manufacturers ceased to manufacture these explosives; if he can state the number of pounds, if any, of such explosive these manufacturers had in their possession on such date; if he can state whether, in the public interest or in the interest of public safety, he has seized these explosives, or, if not, has he allowed them to go into use in the ordinary way.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. GLADSTONE, Leeds, W.): One other firm—the National Explosives Company, not Messrs. Eley, as I was erroneously reported to have said the other day—is known to have used mercuric chloride in their explosives. I believe they ceased to do so towards the end of last year. I have no knowledge of the quantity of explosive which was then in their possession. At the present time a large quantity of explosive containing mercury, belonging to this firm, is under seizure.
  MR. MOONEY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if the magazine at Cardiff belonging to Messrs. Kynoch, licensed for 30,0001bs. of explosives, held 23,000lbs. when seized; if of this 23,0001bs. only very little contains the ingredient complained of; whether under the terms of the seizure the magazine is and has been since the date of the seizure devoted to the use of the Secretary of State, and cannot be utilised by Messrs. Kynoch for storage purposes; and whether, in view of the dislocation of trade caused by the Home Office action, he can see his way to allow the explosives in this magazine, other than the particular explosives complained of, to be put into use in the ordinary way.
  MR. GLADSTONE: 23,000lbs. of explosive were seized in the magazine mentioned. Mercuric chloride was found by His Majesty's Inspectors in several samples taken from this magazine, but they are unable to say in what proportion of the whole the ingredient is present, as necessarily only samples were examined. Messrs. Kynoch are not prohibited from using the magazine up to the limit of quantity allowed by the licence; and
  1598
  there remains therefore a surplus of licensed capacity at their disposal. The inconvenience, if any, to Messrs. Kynoch's trade is not due to the action of my Department, inasmuch as the case in connection with this magazine would have been disposed of several months ago but for the postponements which Messrs. Kynoch have themselves obtained. In these circumstances, the whole of the explosive must, I fear, remain under seizure until the matter is settled.
  MR. MOONEYasked the right hon. Gentleman whether he would consider the advisability either of taking Messrs. Kynoch's assurances as regarded the explosives which were in this magazine or of having the matter tested so that the explosive which did not contain the unauthorised ingredient could be used.
  MR. GLADSTONE: I do not know what Messrs. Kynoch's assurances are.
  MR. MOONEY: Has the right hon. Gentleman not read the letter forwarded to his Department as far back as 13th May by Messrs. Kynoch's solicitors?
  MR. GLADSTONE: The correspondence is becoming voluminous, but I do not quite see how Messrs. Kynoch's assurances that this explosive, or part of it, may be safe bears on the point of the action taken by my Department, which is that samples taken from this particular magazine showed that a large part of the explosive in the magazine contained mercury, and, in my judgment, it is clearly impossible to allow that explosive to be taken from that magazine.
  SIR E. CARSONasked the right hon. Gentleman whether he could say when this matter would be settled one way or the other.
  MR. GLADSTONE: I should be very glad to settle it at once, but Messrs. Kynoch have resorted to the law, and I am not in a position to settle it.
  MR. MOONEYasked whether it was not a fact that, in the letter to which he had referred, Messrs. Kynoch stated that there was a certain amount of the explosive in this magazine containing the ingredient which the Home Office complained of, but that there was also in the

  1599
  magazine a very large amount of explosive which, they assured the Home Office, had not been treated in the same way, and whether they asked the Home Office to allow them to use that portion and not to lock up the explosive which was manufactured in accordance with the licence of the Home Office.
  MR. GLADSTONE: I think the hon. Member is correct, but the whole case is still under the consideration of the Court, and by the judgment of the Court, as far as it has gone, all this cordite is liable to seizure. The question cannot be determined until the legal proceedings are concluded.
  MR. MOONEY: Is it not the fact that the whole case before the Court at the present time is whether or not Messrs. Kynoch used in the manufacture of certain cordite an unauthorised ingredient; and what I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman is whether, while the appeal of Messrs. Kynoch as regards the unauthorised cordite is pending, they are to be made to suffer by having the cordite which does not contain any unauthorised ingredient also seized by the Home Office?
  MR. GLADSTONE: I do not think the hon. Member has stated the case quite accurately. Messrs. Kynoch admit, as I understand, that there was a certain amount of mercuric chloride in this explosive. Their point now is that the amount of mercury is so small as to be innocuous. Our contention is that any mercury put into this explosive is against the law and renders the explosive dangerous.
  MR. MOOREasked whether the 23,000lbs. which the Government were now impounding was safe while it was there.
  MR. GLADSTONE: As the hon. Member is aware, magazines are only authorised under certain conditions, and, though it is not very pleasant to have an explosion in a magazine, if it does occur it is reasonably safe, and the prescribed distance practically secures safety to life and limb.
  MR. JOHN REDMONDasked whether, in view of the fact that
  1600
  the complaint only referred to a certain portion of the explosive in this magazine, the Home Office had authority to remove that portion of the explosive, and thereby free the magazines for the general business of the company.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid he could not add anything to the Answer he had given to the supplementary Question of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dublin University.
  MR. MOORErose to put a further Question.
  *Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: Order, order. Notice must be given of any further Questions.

  Workmen's Compensation Act—Women Referees.
  MR. H. J. WILSON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has taken, or will take, into consideration the propriety of appointing some women medical referees under the Workmen's Compensation Act which comes into force on the 1st July, especially in cases or districts where women are largely employed.
  MR. GLADSTONE: I am not aware that any necessity for such appointments has been found to exist under the Act of 1897, which applied to a large number of women employed in factories, but I shall be glad to take the matter into consideration.

  London Police Best Day
  MR. PICKERSGILL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he has now prepared the detailed statement and estimate to which he referred on the 26th November last, showing the effect of granting one day's rest in seven to the Metropolitan Police; and, if so, will he lay it upon the Table.
  MR. GLADSTONE: I think it will be most convenient if I give these details in the form of a printed answer, and this I shall be happy to do if my hon. friend will put down an unstarred question for one day next week.

  Edalji Trial.
  SIR GILBERT PARKER: On behalf of the hon. Member for the Walton Division of Liverpool, I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the Edalji Committee were informed that notes of the trial had been taken by the deputy chairman, and that the Home Office had thought it worth while to require such notes for inspection; whether such notes contain the most authentic and reliable account of the proceedings which is in existence; and whether in fact they were found useful by the Home Office.
  MR. GLADSTONE: Sir Arthur Wilson and his colleagues were aware that the deputy chairman's notes has been sent to the Home Office and that they had been returned to him. The notes were of course authentic and reliable: but they were abbreviated and somewhat fragmentary, and though most useful to anyone who had heard the evidence for the purpose of refreshing his memory, were not in my opinion of great use to anyone who had to master the facts of the case for the first time.
  MR. HARMOOD-BANNER: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department on what principle compensation has been given in previous instances to persons to whom a free pardon has not been given, whereas in the case of Edalji a free pardon has been given, but compensation has been withheld.
  MR. GLADSTONE: Each case has been considered on its merits. In a few instances small sums have been given by my predecessors by way of compassionate grant where the circumstances of the case did not appear to justify the grant of a free pardon. Such cases have, however, been wholly exceptional and do not establish any principle on which a claim for compensation could be based.

  Grimsby Immigration Case.
  MAJOR SEELY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware that the husband of Monita Czeplowski, a woman who was rejected last March by the Grimsby Immigration Board on the ground, amongst Others, that her husband could
  1602
  not be found, is residing at New Ortiston, Scotland, is anxious to have his wife restored to him, and able to support her; and whether he can undertake that if Monita Czeplowski, while not suffering from any dangerous infectious disease, again attempts to rejoin her husband she shall not be denied admittance under the Aliens Act.
  MR. GLADSTONE: I have no information to the effect of the first part of the Question, and in no case could I give any such undertaking as that which is suggested in the latter part. The admission or rejection of alien immigrants does not rest with me but with the immigration authorities at the ports. I may remind my hon. and gallant friend that the woman was found in March to be suffering from trachoma in an advanced and dangerous stage, and I am unable to agree with the view which he then expressed that aliens suffering from dangerous and contagious diseases ought to be admitted to this country.
  MAJOR SEELY: If I furnish the right hon. Gentleman with evidence as to the whereabouts of the man and showing that the woman is not suffering from a dangerous infectious disease, will the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance she shall be enabled to join her husband?
  MR. GLADSTONE: The hon. and gallant Member is, I think, as well acquainted with the Aliens Act as I am, and he must know that the decision rests not with me, but with the Immigration Board.

  Tobacco Stripping Industry.
  MR. LEVERTON HARRIS: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if he can give any information which will show approximately the number of persons employed in stripping tobacco leaves in manufactories in the United Kingdom in March, 1906, and in March, 1907.
  I beg also to ask the President of the Board of Trade what are the respective values and quantities of stripped and unstripped tobacco leaves imported into the United Kingdom during the year ending 31st March, 1906, and for the year ending 31st March, 1907.
  THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY TO THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. KEARLEY, Devonport): The Board of Trade are unable to give the information asked for in the hon. Member's first

  Statement showing the quantity and value of unmanufactured tobacco imported into the United Kingdom during each of the years ended 31st March, 1906 and 1907, distinguishing between stemmed and unstemmed tobacco.

  Tobacco, Unmanufactured.

  Quantity Imported.

  Value of Imports.

  1905–6.

  1906–7.

  1905–6.

  1900–7.

  lbs.

  lbs.

  £

  £

  Stemmed

  12,170,000

  26,392,000

  355,000

  823,000

  Unstemmed

  75,837,000

  87,563,000

  1,971,000

  2,312,000

  Note.—The value is stated exclusive of duty.

  Registration of Steamships.
  MR. FELL: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether, in view of the fact that the International Mercantile Marine Company, which has its head office at Hoboken, New Jersey, U. S A., owns or controls the following steamship lines, the White Star, Red Star, American, Leyland, Atlantic Transport, and Dominion, he will explain why the Board of Trade Shipping Returns include the White Star among the British ships without any note or explanation.
  MR. KEARLEY: As explained to the hon. Member in an Answer which my right hon. friend gave to a Question by him on the 27th May, all vessels registered as British are classed as such in the compilation of the official Shipping Returns. This is the general practice of all maritime countries. The vessels of the White Star Line are registered British vessels. Possibly the hon. Member would profit by a careful perusal of the agreement embodied in the Parliamentary Paper Cd. 1704.
  AN HON. MEMBERasked if it were not the fact that the International Mercantile Marine and the White Star Line were entirely controlled by British subjects living in this country.
  [No Answer was returned.]
  Question. I will have the particulars asked for in the second Question printed in the Votes.
  The particulars referred to were as follows:—

  Cost of Sugar Production.
  MR. PIKE PEASE: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if he has any information relative to the cost of production of sugar in Germany, France, and other Continental countries; and, if so, will he lay such information before the House.
  MR. KEARLEY: The Board of Trade are not able to give any official figures on this subject. The cost of production of sugar or any other commodity in different countries varies according to methods and sale of production, and other considerations.

  Colonial Chambers of Commerce and the Sugar Convention.
  MR. MITCHELL-THOMSON: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether any representations have been received by His Majesty's Government in favour of the continuance of the Sugar Convention from chambers of commerce in different parts of the Empire; and, if so, from what chambers of commerce?
  MR. KEARLEY: No representations in favour of the continuance of the Sugar Convention have been received by the Board of Trade from any chamber of commerce in the United Kingdom, but I am informed by the Colonial Office

  1605
  that such representations have reached them from various chambers of commerce in the Colonies, a list of which they can give if desired.

  Cowper-Temple Clause.
  MR. MASSIE: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Education whether he will make compliance with the Cowper-Temple clause (Section 14 of the Education Act, 1870) one of the conditions to be fulfilled by all public elementary council schools in order to obtain a Parliamentary grant, or whether he will at once take some other steps to obtain the power of enforcing strict obedience to this clause on the part of all local education authorities.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Mr. McKENNA, Monmouthshire, N.): On my reading of the Code the Board already have power to make compliance with the Cowper-Temple clause a condition for the receipt of Parliamentary grants.

  Great Crosby Halsall Girls' School.
  MR. HARMOOD-BANNER: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Education, on what grounds he refuses permission to the trustees of the Great Crosby Halsall Girls' School to utilise their funds in extending the girls' and infants' school on plans which have been approved by the Lancashire education authority; and what scheme is now under his consideration for utilising the funds to a better purpose than the extension of the schools.
  MR. McKENNA: The Board informed the trustees of the Great Crosby Halsall Girls' School on the 25th May that as at present advised they were not prepared to entertain proposals for an expenditure of the capital funds of the endowment upon the extension of the premises of the elementary school of the foundation. A scheme for the reorganisation of this endowment is now in course of preparation, and I hope very shortly to be in a position to give directions for a draft to be communicated for the information of the trustees of the foundation and the local education authority with a view to its subsequent publication in the locality under the provisions of the Charitable Trusts Acts. It will be the duty of the Board to consider any objec-
  1606
  tions or suggestions that may be made to them by any parties interested. I consider that at the present stage of the proceedings it would be premature to make any further statement in the matter.

  Registration of British Trawlers.
  MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, in view of the fact that it is the practice of British owned trawlers to register their vessels under a foreign flag for the purpose of evading British laws, will the question of rendering such action illegal be considered by the delegates attending the International North Sea Conference which is about to be opened.
  THE TREASURER OF THE HOUSEHOLD (Sir EDWARD STRACHEY, Somersetshire, S.): The work of the International Council for the exploration of the sea, which is now meeting in London, is purely scientific in character, and the question to which my hon. friend refers is not likely, therefore, to come forward for consideration.

  Teachers' Superannuation.
  SIR HENRY CRAIK: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland whether the Report of the actuary upon the operation of the Teachers' Superannuation Act will be ready before the Education (Scotland) Bill is proceeded with; and whether it will deal separately with the funds for England and Scotland, respectively.
  THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL, Yorkshire, Cleveland): My right hon. friend has asked me to answer his Question for him. There is some doubt as to whether this Report will be ready as is suggested; and, so far as his information goes, it is not in a state sufficiently advanced to enable him to reply to the hon. Gentleman's latter Question.

  Island of Lewis Cottars.
  MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland if he will consider the expediency of asking the Lewis District Committee to submit a list of cottars and others resident in the townships in the Island of Lewis who would be willing to migrate to the mainland if the Congested

  1607
  Districts Board arranged reasonable aid for their settlement.
  MR. HERBERT SAMUEL (for Mr. SINCLAIR): As my right hon. friend has already informed my hon. friend on previous occasions, any proposals made to the Congested Districts Board will receive their careful consideration.

  Dwellings in Congested Districts.
  MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland, in view of the fact that under Clause 6 of the Small Landowners (Scotland) Bill, now before Parliament, it is proposed to enable the Congested Districts Board to improve or rebuild dwelling-houses and other buildings in congested districts, will he consider the expediency of arranging for the Board to be provided with additional funds so as to enable the Board to put into effect any such new powers.
  MR. HERBERT SAMUEL (for Mr. SINCLAIR): If it is found by experience that the monies provided are not sufficient for their purpose and should be increased, the matter shall certainly be considered.

  Irish Agricultural Department.
  MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Committee appointed to inquire into the working of the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction has yet made its Report to the Lord-Lieutenant; and, if so, what is the reason for the delay in laying it upon the Table of the House, as was promised would be done when the Report was received.
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. BIRREILL, Bristol, N.): The Report of the majority of the Commissioners has now been received, but, as I have already informed the House, a minority Report is also to be presented. It seems desirable that the two Reports should be laid before the House at the same time. I am assured that the minority Report will be submitted in the course of next week, and I will then have both Reports presented to Parliament without delay.

  Lord Ventry's Estate.
  CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-
  1608
  Lieutenant of Ireland if he is aware that at a meeting of Lord Ventry's tenants on his county Kerry estates a resolution was passed on the advice of Mr. William O'Brien, rural district councillor, pledging themselves to pay no rent until Lord Ventry had agreed to sell to them; and if the Government will support Lord Ventry against such intimidation.
  MR. BIRRELL: I am informed that a meeting of Lord Ventry's tenants was held on 19th May, but that no resolution of the nature indicated in the Question was passed. Mr. O'Brien, however, is reported to have said that if Lord Ventry should not sell the tenants need not pay. If any protection to Lord Ventry in the exercise of his legal rights should hereafter become necessary, the police will, of course, afford such protection, as they do in all cases.
  MR. FLAVIN: Why cannot this noble Lord sell his estates to the tenants under the best Land Act ever passed by the House of Commons in the interests of the Irish landlords?
  [No Answer was returned.]

  Land Law (Ireland) Act Amendment Bill.
  *SIR FRANCIS POWELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he proposes to submit to the Standing Committee B any Amendments to the Land Law (Ireland) Act Amendment Bill; and whether he proposes to give notice of them at an early date, in order that Members of the Committee may have due opportunity of considering them.
  MR. BIRRELL: As the hon. Baronet is aware, the Bill referred to is not a Government measure. If the Government should decide to propose any Amendments due notice will be given, and hon. Members will have full opportunity of considering them.

  Unrest in Ireland.
  LORD R. CECIL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that certain powers contained in The Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) Act, 1887, such as the power to hold a preliminary inquiry, the summary

  1609
  jurisdiction powers, the power to enrol special jurors and to remove the venue of trial, have long formed part of the ordinary law of Scotland; and whether, in view of the present difficulty of maintaining order in Ireland, he will cause such parts of the Irish Act as are identical with Scottish law to be put in force immediately.
  MR. BIRRELL: The Government still have confidence in the ordinary law, properly and impartially administered. There are several prosecutions for offences connected with grazing lands pending for the Assizes which will be held next month. The Attorney-General intends to prosecute in person in at all events some of these cases; and in these circumstances the Government do not propose, as at present advised, to take the course suggested in the Question.
  MR. BOWLESasked whether the Government had confidence that the law would be properly and impartially administered.
  MR. BIRRELL: We still have confidence in the ordinary law, properly and impartially administered.
  MR. MOOREasked whether, if these prosecutions resulted in disagreement and miscarriage of justice, the Government would take further measures.
  MR. BIRRELL: The Government will act on events when they happen.
  Mr. FLAVIN: Will the right hon. Gentleman see that the panels for those trials are composed entirely of Hottentots?
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that when the Irish Coercion Act referred to by the noble Lord was under debate in this House the late Mr. J. B. Balfour stated that no similar power existed in Scotland, and that as an ex-Lord Advocate he did not think those who had taken part in the administrations of the criminal law would tolerate such a practice as that of examining on oath persons in respect of a crime for which no one was being charged.
  MR. BIRRELL: I have not had an opportunity of confirming that, but no doubt the statement is characterised by the usual accuracy of the hon. Member.[Ironical laughter.] Well, I think the hon. Member is usually very accurate.
  MR. CHARLES CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether a circular has been issued to Crown solicitors in certain disturbed districts in Ireland, instructing them not to press for punishment by imprisonment, but for a rule of bail only, in certain cases connected with agrarian offences.
  MR. BIRRELL: No, Sir.
  MR. PIKE PEASE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the Congested Districts Board and the Estates Commissioners are making overtures in the West of Ireland for the purchase of grass lands which the owners are unable to stock owing to the disturbed state of the country; whether it has come to his knowlege that, in consequence of the action of the United Irish League and similar agencies, these lands have considerably depreciated in value; and whether he will instruct the Estates Commissioners and the Congested Districts Board that they are to cease from taking advantage of the present agrarian disturbance by endeavouring to purchase from the embarrassed owners lands thus artificially reduced below their fair market value.
  MR. BIRRELL: The more of the grass lands in the West of Ireland that the Congested Districts Board and the Estates Commissioners are able to buy the better pleased I shall be. I have no information that any such lands have depreciated in value for the reasons alleged in the Question. In estimating the price which they may offer for a particular property, neither the Board nor the Commissioners are influenced by any such consideration as is mentioned in the concluding part of the Question. They offer what they consider to be the value of the land for the purposes entrusted to them by Parliament, and this is ascertained by inspection of the land itself.

  Mr. P. J. Kelly, J.P.
  MR. CHARLES CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that Mr. P. J. Kelly, a justice of the peace, at a meeting held at New Inn, county Galway, a few days ago, speaking of Lord Ashtown, who has incurred the displeasure of the United Irish League and is under constant and strict police protection, said that if he (Lord Ashtown) was living in the neighbourhood of Killenadeema or Loughrea they would have had him on a stretcher long ago, the same as John Blake (who was shot dead in Loughrea in 1883), but that the men of Woodlawn had not the courage or manliness to treat him as they should; whether Kelly will be prosecuted for this incitement to murder; and whether he will at once be removed from the magistracy.
  MR. BIRRELL: Mr. Kelly's speech is at present under the consideration of the Government.

  Lisburn Labourers' Cottage Rents.
  MR LIDDELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he is aware that the Lisburn Rural Council have raised the rent of labourers' cottages in the Hillsborough part of the Lisburn Rural District from Is. weekly to 2s. 6d., and have served notice to quit on all tenant labourers who have refused to pay this increased rent; if this course has been adopted to discourage further applications under the Labourers Acts, and if the Irish Local Government Board will intervene in the matter.
  MR. BIRRELL: According to the records of the Local Government Board, the Lisburn Rural District Council have resolved to raise the rents of labourers' cottages, but not to the extent stated in the Question. The council propose to raise rents of Is. 6d. a week to 2s. and rents of Is. 9d. to 2s. 6d. The Local Government Board have no information as to the reasons which may have influenced the council in adopting this course, but are about to communicate with the council on the subject.

  Toomebridge Petty Sessions Clerk.
  MR. KILBRIDE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-
  1612
  Lieutenant of Ireland whether be is aware that William Ellis, who is petty sessions clerk of Toomebridge, county Antrim, also holds the following positions: postmaster of Toomebridge, manager of Toome and Kilree eel fishery, manager of Killsegour Mines, Toome, land agent for Miss Jones, Moneyglass estate, land agent for Lady Spencer, Castledawson estate, and a contractor for sand; whether he is absent from Toome on Wednesdays in connection with the Kilree eel fishery, and on Saturday in each week in connection with others of his offices; and discharges some of his duties as petty sessions clerk by deputy; and whether he proposes to take any action in the matter.
  MR. BIRRELL: I find that a similar Question as to this petty sessions clerk was answered on 26th July last† by my predecessor, who had fully inquired into the matter. The facts are as stated in the Question, save that the clerk does not perform any of his duties by deputy. The petty sessions are held but once a month, and consequently the duties of the clerk are light and the salary proportionately small. The registrar of petty sessions clerks has satisfied himself by personal inspection that the clerk properly performs his duties, and no complaint to the contrary has been made by the public. In these circumstances no action appears to be called for.

Butson Estate Clonfert.
MR. JOHN ROCHE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Estates Commissioners intend to purchase the entire Butson estate at Clonfert, county Galway; and, if purchase is completed, will they enlarge all the small holdings upon the estate, and, in addition, give new holdings to those who require them in the district.
MR. BIRRELL: The Estates Commissioners are negotiating for the purchase of 2,084 acres of tenanted land, 1,100 acres of untenanted land, and 906 acres of bog land, comprised in the estate referred to in the Question. If the Commissioners should acquire the untenanted lands, they will duly consider the claims of the tenants on the estate and of other local applicants.
† See (4) Debates, clxi., 1442.
MR. T. L. CORBETT: In the meantime will the police protection be real and effective and not a mere adjunct?
MR. BIRRELL: The police protection is as real and effective as is possible under the circumstances.

Dublin Police Instructions.
MR. J. P. NANNETTI: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if the order issued by the Chief Commissioner of the Dublin Metropolitan Police, on the 19th December, 1902, instructing his men that where they observed a drunken person enter a licensed house it was their duty to follow him and call the attention of the proprietor or his assistants in charge to his condition, is still in force; and, if so, will he explain why Inspector Cushion stated on oath, during the hearing of a licensing persecution, on the 31st May, 1907, that the instructions contained in the order did not apply to ordinary police constables as distinguished from other members of the force of a higher grade.
MR. BIRRELL: The order referred to is still in force. The latter part of the Question appears to be put through a misapprehension of the facts. The Chief Commissioner informs me that the inspector did not give evidence to the effect stated, and did not in fact refer to the order at all.

Old Canal Banks, Banagher.
MR. REDDY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether it was with the authority of the Board of Public Works that the strip of ground, known as the Old Canal Banks, alongside the Shannon at Banagher, King's County, was closed against the public; and whether the ground in question had been used as a public park for over sixty years.
MR. RUNCIMAN: I understand that the piece of land in question is the Board's property, and is let for grazing to the Board's collector at Banagher. At no time has it been open to the public.

SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEES.
Sir WILLIAM BRAMPTON GURDONreported from the Committee of Selection;
1614
That they had discharged the following fourteen Members from Standing Committee B (added in respect of the Released Persons (Poor Law Relief) Bill):—Mr. Du Cros, Mr. Chaplin, Mr. Steadman, Mr. Bennett, Sir Edward Tennant, Mr. Montgomery, Mr. Thomas Corbett, Mr. Mackarness, Mr. Marnham, Mr. Duncan Schwann, Viscount Turnour, Mr. Lynch, Mr. William Pearce, and Mr. Whitwell Wilson; and had appointed in substitution the following fourteen Members (in respect of the Released Persons (Poor Law Relief) Bill):—Mr. Cave, Mr. Pickersgill, Mr. Maclean, Mr. Leif Jones, Mr. Arthur Dewar, Mr. Sloan, Mr. Hall, Mr. Hogan, Mr. Smyth, Mr. Mitchell-Thomson, Mr. Charles Corbett, Mr. Clough, Major Dunne, and Sir Howard Vincent.
Sir WILLIAM BRAMPTON GURDON: further reported from the Committee; That they had discharged the following Members from Standing Committee B (in respect of the Released Persons (Poor Law Relief) Bill):—Sir Thomas Whittaker, Mr. Bright, Mr. Duckworth, and Mr. Barnard; and had appointed in substitution (in respect of the Released Persons (Poor Law Relief) Bill): Mr. Charles Roberts, Mr. Tennant, Mr. Acland Allen, and Mr. Toulmin.
Sir WILLIAM BRAMPTON GURDON: further reported from the Committee; That they had discharged the following Member from Standing Committee B (in respect of the Criminal Appeal Bill): Mr. David Alfred Thomas; and had appointed in substitution (in respect to the Criminal Appeal Bill): Mr. Holt.
Reports to lie upon the Table.

NEW MEMBER SWORN.
John Gretton, esquire, for the County of Rutland.
MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to amend the Matrimonial Causes Acts, 1857 and 1866, by extending the powers of the Court in relation to Maintenance and Alimony, and leave to intervene." [Matrimonial Causes Acts Amendment Bill [Lords].
MATRIMONIAL CAUSES ACTS AMENDMENT BILL [LORDS]
Read the first time; to be read a second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 233.]
NEW BILLS.
  EDUCATION BILL.
  "To amend the Education (England and Wales) Act, 1902, and to provide for more effectual local public control in regard to Education in England and Wales," presented by Mr. Verney; supported by Sir Francis Channing, Mr. George White, Mr. Morrell, Mr. Bennett, and Mr. Whitbread; to be read a second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 234.]
  CREDIT BANKS BILL.
  "To facilitate the formation of Thrift and Credit Banks," presented by Sir John Brunner; supported by Sir William Anson, Mr. John Robertson, and Mr. Helme; to be read a second time upon Monday, 24th June, and to be printed. [Bill 235.]
  LUNACY (IRELAND) BILL.
  "To correct a verbal error in Section 6 of The Lunacy (Ireland) Act, 1901, presented by Mr. Attorney-General for Ireland; to be read a second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 236.]
  NAVIGATION WORKS (IRELAND) BILL.
  "To facilitate the execution of Navigation Works in Ireland, and for other purposes connected therewith," presented by Mr. Attorney-General for Ireland; to be read a second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 237.]
  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE (SUPPLY).
  Ordered, That the Proceedings on the Small Holdings and Allotments Bill have precedence this day of the Business of Supply.—(Mr. Secretary Morley.)

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE (SMALL HOLDINGS AND ALLOTMENTS BILL).
  Ordered, That the Proceedings on the Small Holdings and Allotments Bill, if
  1616
  under consideration at Eleven o'clock this night, be not interrupted under the Standing Order (Sittings of the House).—(Mr. Secretary Morley.)

  BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
  THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. CHURCHILL, Manchester, N.W.)asked leave to introduce a Bill to make further provision with respect to the sums to be paid by Canada to the several provinces of the Dominion. He would state very briefly the reasons for bringing in this Bill, which was in no sense a Party measure, which was not of great importance to the people of this country, but which had excited a great deal of interest in Canada. Under the British North America Act, 1867, the Dominion of Canada agreed to pay to the provincial Governments certain sums of money in aid of their local and provincial expenditure. The arrangement then made afterwards proved to be inadequate, and in 1887 a conference of all the provinces held at Quebec agreed to a revised scale of payment. The resolutions passed at that conference were re-affirmed by all the States in 1902, and the Federal Government called a conference in 1906 at Ottawa, where all the States were represented. At this conference there was unanimous agreement by all States in the adoption of the proposals embodied in this Bill, with the exception of British Columbia, which claimed to be entitled to special consideration and asked for a larger subvention than had been allocated to it. This claim was recognised by other members of the conference, and an additional sum of 100,000 dollars was granted for a period of ten years. The Government of British Columbia, however, was not satisfied, and on the 25th March, 1907, the Parliament of British Columbia passed a resolution protesting against the settlement being regarded as final and irrevocable. They also laid before His Majesty a petition asking that, in any legislation to give effect to the Ottawa resolutions, the arrangement should not be taken as of a final and irrevocable character. He did not pretend to go into the merits of the difference on a constitutional question between British Columbia and the Federal Government. We on this side did not know

  1617
  enough to decide upon the merits of the claim. On the other hand, he would be very sorry if it wore thought that the action which His Majesty's Government had decided to take meant that they had decided to establish as a precedent that whenever there was a difference on a constitutional question between the Federal Government and one of the provinces, the Imperial Government would always be prepared to accept the Federal point of view as against the provincial. In deference to the representations of British Columbia the words "final and unalterable" applying to the revised scale had been omitted from the Bill. He would like to add a word or two as to the urgency of the matter. He had received a letter from Mr. Fielding, the Finance Minister of the Dominion, saying he hoped that the Imperial Parliament would facilitate the passage of the Bill at the earliest possible moment, because when the agreement was reached some months ago, the provinces assumed there would be no difficulty in securing the assent of the Imperial Parliament. They took it for granted that the additional revenue contemplated by the arrangement would be available by the 3rd July of the present year, and if anything now occurred to postpone the passing of the Bill some of them might find themselves in a condition of considerable embarrassment. He therefore hoped the Bill would be passed at the earliest possible moment.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make further provision with respect to the sums to be paid by Canada to the several Provinces of the Dominion," put, and agreed to.
  Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Churchill and Mr. Runciman.

  BRITISH NORTH AMERICA BILL.
  "To make further provision with respect to the sums to be paid by Canada to the several Provinces of the Dominion," presented accordingly, and read the first time; to be read a second time upon Monday next, and to be printed [Bill 238.]

  SMALL HOLDINGS AND ALLOTMENTS BILL.
  Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Question [12th June], "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  Question again proposed.
  *MR. GEORGE ROBERTSexpressed his pleasure at being permitted to consider such an important problem as that of the land question. To whatever school of social reformers hon. Members might be attached they were all agreed that land legislation must form an integral part of any genuine scheme of social reform. His chief criticism of the Bill was that it was not sufficiently comprehensive and wide-reaching. He was of opinion that a great mistake was made in submitting small measures for the consideration of the House when they had large problems to deal with. It should be recognised that small measures caused as much opposition as large and comprehensive schemes. It was often said that the Government would alarm people by bringing forward broad proposals, but his experience was in the opposite direction. What the people complained of was that so little was done and so much time and effort wasted. He felt that if any of the parties in the State desired to secure an abiding hold on the attachment of the people they would have to set their hands to larger, bolder, and more heroic schemes than had hitherto characterised their policies. Social reform was undoubtedly the great question agitating the people throughout the length and breadth of the land. He welcomed this measure because he believed it to be established on right principles and that it would take them a small step in the right direction. He felt, however, that a Valuation Bill and a Bill for the registration of titles should have preceded it. He was apprehensive that the absence of a Valuation Bill might have the effect of causing the prices of land to be inflated with the result that the rate would have to be fixed at such a high figure as would place the economic working of allotments and small holdings at a great disadvantage. A great deal might be done towards the solution of social problems if the Government were to go thoroughly into the question of the ownership of land. It was an undoubted fact that large tracts of common land hitherto in the possession and use of the common people had at various periods in the history of the country been appropriated by private individuals without any right whatever, and he was desirous of seeing their title to that land investigated in order

  1619
  to ascertain whether there was any possibility of that land being passed back again to the people to whom it rightly belonged. He thought the attention of the Government should be particularly drawn to all these aspects of the question, and he could assure the House that references to the subject on any platform in the country always secured a good deal of consideration and attention, and people were being induced to inquire why it was that common land had been taken from them. During the 120 years from 1760 to 1880 10,000,000 acres of land were enclosed in Great Britain, and Enclosure Acts had been passed helping to legalise the appropriations thus committed. If in the past it was possible for a privileged class monopolising political power to pass this land to themselves from the common people, surely in a democratic Parliament it should be perfectly easy to pass that land back again to the people. He submitted to the Government that a thorough investigation into the Enclosure Acts was necessary and would bring to light some most important information on the matter. If it could be justly shown that this land ought to be restored to the common people it would help them a great deal in their desire to place the land of the country under the control of the people. The plea of the landlord class who appropriated the land was that it was not properly cultivated, and that therefore it was in the best interests of the nation that they should take control of it. All those who were aware of the condition of the land of the country at the present time knew that the interests of the people had simply been played with, because the land had not been effectively cultivated; in many places it had simply been used to extend the pleasure ground of the rich and the well-to-do classes, and the chief uses of the land to-day seemed to be to produce rabbits and game. He hoped that this measure was only a portion of a larger policy, and that the Government had set out to thoroughly reform the land system. He did not think a more practical step in that direction could be taken than that of attempting to restore to the people the land to which they had a just and equitable title. At the present time one of the great disadvantages of our
  1620
  land system was the maintenance of too large holdings, so large that it was impossible for people with small capital effectually to work them. When the price of wheat was £5 per quarter farmers found it profitable to cultivate the land, and that was when the farmer was able to make a profit, but even then the landlord managed to reap the greatest advantage. Naturally the landlords preferred the larger holdings. Under those conditions the farmer naturally desired to secure as large holdings as possible; but now the conditions of agriculture had changed and the price of wheat had fallen from 100s. to about 30s. per quarter. Notwithstanding that fact large holdings still obtained, with the inevitable result that the farmers had been very largely denuded of their capital. There were in some of the western portions of the country large farms extending to between 500 and 600 acres upon which not more than five or six labourers were employed. He believed that this Bill would have a tendency in the direction of bringing the people back to those large holdings which ought to be divided up into more reasonable proportions. In that way the Bill would assist the better cultivation of the land and help to promote the stability of the nation. He observed that one of the chief objections urged against the Bill was that it was based on an occupying tenancy rather than on ownership. Speaking on behalf of his colleagues he thought that principle was the most presentable and most acceptable feature of the measure, because he did not believe the people of the country were desirous of boasting that they held a small portion of land. What they desired, however, was free access to and the secured use of land in order that they might enjoy the fruits of their own labour, which unfortunately was so largely denied to them at the present time. The last fifteen years experience of small holdings showed that the tenants displayed no great ability to purchase and no strong desire to do so. In support of that fact he only needed to remind the House that the whole result of the last fifteen years operation of the Act of 1892 had been that ten county councils were induced to take advantage of the powers

  1621
  of that Bill, and only about 812 acres had been disposed of under those powers. They had been treated to quite a number of beautiful epigrams and they had been reminded about "the magic of ownership." He thought they were all able to appreciate the fact that the day of the principle of private ownership in industrial undertakings had largely become a thing of the past. The man who worked to-day under the control of a company or a trust could not claim that he had any private or personal portion of the property of that particular trust. They might as well argue that the printer could only exert himself to the utmost when he owned the machine to which he applied his labour. After all, what the people wanted was security for their livelihood, and that was secured quite as well under the principle established in this Bill as it could be under a system of private ownership. They had been told that the county council was liable to be capricious. He had yet to learn that the landlord class had been entirely free from that charge. At any rate, there had been painful experience that in some portions of the country landlords for political or theological reasons had arbitrarily exercised their power, and it did not become anybody to urge that a county council was liable to be more capricious than landlords had been in the past. Under the county council the occupying tenants would have security of tenure, for that body was elected on a wide electoral franchise; its members were always susceptible to public opinion, and if they were found wanting, public interest and civic spirit would always result in righting anything that might transpire. He was glad the Government had embodied in the Bill the principle of compulsion, and he trusted that the measure was but one step in a consistent policy of restoring the whole of the land of the country to the control of the people. There was one point on which he and his friends desired a little more information. He understood that it was the intention that land once purchased should never more be alienated. That was one of the most attractive and certainly one of the soundest features of the Bill. He would like the First Commissioner of Works to give an
  1622
  assurance that he was perfectly certain the provisions of the Bill would secure this as far as it was possible to do so. There was a measure of hope in the Bill for the agricultural population. They had been told that there was no great demand on the part of the agricultural population for more land. Although it might be that the demand had not been definitely articulate, nevertheless there was no denying the fact that land hunger was famishing the land, and the fact that there was not a more articulate demand was due to the crushing conditions which existed to-day; but if the agricultural labourer were given a sense of independence and liberty, perfect freedom to express his views and his hopes, in the course of a few years the nation would be astonished by the great progress which the agricultural population would make. It had been urged that it was an arbitrary provision to insist that the Commissioners appointed under the Bill should help in creating a demand for the land. He was one of those who regarded that as one of the best features of the Bill. The land problem was of vital import to the whole nation, and certainly they were all desirous of seeing the land better cultivated, not merely from the personal standpoint, but more particularly from the standpoint of the interest of the nation as a whole. Even if the people had not shown so great a desire for the land as some could have wished, they all knew nevertheless that in their own interest and in the interest of the nation as a whole they sadly needed it. The slum denizen did not always desire a better house, but if they could promote that desire, and if they could make him understand that it was better for him and those associated with him that he should have a better house, they did something not only for the benefit of the man and his family, but for the health of the nation as a whole. He could not subscribe to the feeling that the agricultural labourer would not work so well as an occupying tenant as he would do if he owned the land himself. The implication was a slander upon the agricultural population; because of all classes of the community, they might very well say that the agricultural labourer had almost to work his life out

  1623
  in order to keep a little life in. He himself was born in a small agricultural village, and he knew from his early experience the conditions of the agricultural labourer's life. Having realised that their conditions might be alleviated by political action, agricultural labourers were found at the last general election associating with the artisan section of the community in turning out of this House the territorial representatives and electing other men as a protest against their degrading toil and the subjection in which they had been kept. A new light illuminated their minds, and they were beginning to ask that some of the good things of life should be shared by them and those dear to them. He and his friends would, as he had said, have preferred a bolder scheme, but at the same time they heartily accepted this measure in the hope that it was part of the Government's larger policy. It was based on sound principles, and they were glad to know that progress was being made. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would make it perfectly clear whether there was any power for the alienation of the land once it was purchased. He hoped that the Board of Agriculture would be careful in the selection of the Commissioners, because he thought that with a sympathetic attitude on the part of the Board, and a thorough knowledge of agricultural conditions on the part of the Commissioners, a great deal of good might be accomplished, and that much could be done, perhaps not altogether in bringing people back to the land—although he was one of those who believed that it was still possible to return to the land some of our surplus population—but in arresting the flow of the rural population into the cities and towns. It was necessary that other measures should be enacted besides that now before the House. The housing question was an integral part of the problem of rural depopulation, and he would like the right hon. Gentleman to give an assurance that the Government intended to deal with that question. He had had several instances brought to his knowledge where agricultural labourers had displayed tenacity in clinging to the land, but had been compelled to leave it because of the impossibility of securing decent
  1624
  and suitable housing in their districts. He thought the Government might take into consideration the whole of the land problem. They knew that in the agricultural districts the price of land had fallen to a low figure. It was quite popular in some quarters to allege that that was all due to our fiscal policy, and to say also that, even if our system of free trade was good, the value of agricultural land had been depreciated in consequence of it. Let them not lose sight of the fact that under that system the value of urban land had enormously appreciated. He and his friends were not to be lured away from what they understood to be a sound principle and a logical objective, simply by the obtrusion of the fiscal policy into these matters. He was one of those who believed that in course of time even agricultural land would be in greater demand and that the price once more would rise. They found that in the world's development there were even among continental countries conditions not dissimilar to those existing here. The exporting nations would necessarily follow the example of other nations which imported produce. They would have to go into the world's markets to buy wheat, and the chances were that the prices of agricultural produce in this country would once more be so profitable as to induce the people to undertake wheat cultivation. Of course, he knew that it was quite the right thing to say that we should place profound reliance upon our Colonies. He had never yet learned that Colonial merchants were different from any other merchants. They would sell their produce where the largest profit was to be secured. It was popular to say "Blood is thicker than water," but he had yet to learn that blood was thicker than profit. The nation would be doing the right thing in taking the land into its own possession, so that it might be used for the interest of the nation as a whole. He was a land nationaliser, and he was glad to know that he was not alone in the House in that respect. He believed that there were thirty-seven hon. Members sitting on the Ministerial Benches who were also Vice-Presidents of the Land Nationalisation Society. He regarded any land measure from the

  1625
  standpoint of how far it would take them in the direction of the realisation of their aims. He knew that their complete realisation would not be easily attained, and that the object which they desired would only be gained by degrees But he saw in the provisions of this Bill the probability of a partial realisation of their aims. Therefore, in a general way they gave their approval to it. While he and his friends held themselves perfectly free to submit Amendments which they thought were calculated to strengthen and extend the provisions of the Bill, nevertheless the right hon. Gentleman might rely upon receiving no warmer-hearted support for the measure than that which would be given by those who sat on the Labour Benches. It was sometimes said that their opposition was unreasonable. He submitted that their opposition was never of a factious character. They never hesitated to oppose where they thought opposition was necessary, but in regard to the main provisions of this Bill the Government would receive from them warm approval, and they would give no assent to the wasting of time in the discussions on the measure. People in the country did not understand how difficult it was to get legislation through Parliament. It was no good telling them of the existence of a small and factious Opposition and that time was often wasted in their deliberations on Bills. The reply they received to that statement was that the Government had a large majority in the House, and that they expected their representatives to overcome the Opposition so that some tangible measures might be passed for the purpose of bringing about social reforms. On behalf of those with whom he sat he said that they would do all that they could to facilitate the passage of this Bill through the House, because they believed that it was founded on sound principles and would help to make the agricultural population better women and men; that it would promote their welfare and make this country truly free and great.
  *SIR WALTER FOSTERsaid that he agreed with the hon. Gentleman who had just spoken in estimating this Bill as a very moder-
  1626
  ate measure, but it carried out the principles they had fought for in the Select Committee of 1890. The right hon. Member for Wimbledon had said that the Bill might be made a remedy for a grave national evil—the depopulation of the rural districts. But the depopulation of the rural districts was closely connected with another grave evil—the physical deterioration of the population. If we wanted to maintain our position as a great, powerful—and what was so often in the mouths of hon. Gentlemen opposite—an Imperial race, it was essential to have a large resident agricultural population connected with the land. The old Greek fable said that the giant wrestler Ant æus received new strength from his mother earth as often as he touched the ground. That was true to-day of our rural population, and he hoped that this Bill would be the means of getting the people in close and permanent contact with the land so that they might renew their strength. The right hon. Member for Wimbledon had said that he could not understand why the Act of 1892 had been described as a failure. An Act which had only succeeded in obtaining 812 acres for small holdings in the course of fifteen years must necessarily be written down as a failure. It certainly had not succeeded to the extent which its promoters anticipated when it was introduced. It embodied a policy which the Liberal Party contested at the time, viz., that if there was a desire for small holdings it would be gratified voluntarily by the landowners. It had often been said that there was a great need for the more equal distribution of the wealth of the nation; but he believed that there was even a greater need for a more equal distribution of the land. It was only in this country that we kept hold to the old feudal laws which tied up the land and prevented its distribution. In every other great country in Europe an opposite course had been pursued. This Bill would alter all that. The Bill proceeded in the direction of the creation of tenancies instead of ownership of small holdings and it was on that account that the Bill had received the most pungent criticism from the Opposition Benches. But the principles of the Bill, which was to be allowed to go to a Second Reading,

  1627
  were no new principles. The plan of ownership under the Act of 1892 was encumbered by the provision that a man was to pay one-fourth of the value of his holding before entering into possession. Such a provision was enough to cripple him at the very outset of his ownership. Some means should be taken to modify that hardship even when a man wanted to purchase his holding. The returns presented to Parliament showed that the Act of 1892 had been a failure. The Return of 1895 showed that there had been made only thirty-seven owners of small holdings, and 115 tenants of land under the Act. In 1903 the owners still remained at thirty-seven while the tenants had increased to 166. These returns showing no increase in owners but an increase in tenants were an argument in favour of increasing tenancies. In the Local Government Act of 1894 certain clauses were included connected with the acquisition of land by parish councils either by compulsory purchase or leasing. The old Allotments Act of 1887 contained no such power, and consequently was also a failure. Returns showed that after seven years only 2,249 acres were obtained for allotments under the Act of 1887; but the Act of 1894 was a success because in two-and-a-half years 14,872 acres were obtained under it for allotments. The right hon. Member for Bordesley held that the allotments had been increased by voluntary effort, but he was speaking only of allotments obtained under the Acts of Parliament. The right hon. Member for Wimbledon said that the Act of 1894. spoiled his Act of 1892. Why was that? Because it contained two things—compulsion and leasing, which were also in the Bill now before the House. But there was a third Act from which they learned a lesson. The Sale of Glebe Lands Act of 1888 was introduced by Lord Salisbury's Government with the avowed intention of enabling agricultural labourers and others to get small holdings. Mr. Stanhope in commending the Bill to the House of Commons said—
  "The Government desired that these glebes should be sold in small plots, and he had no hesitation in saying that he believed the measure in many parts of the country would not only
  1628
  enable them to be sold as small plots, but would lead to their being acquired by labourers."
  What was the result? By 1891 fifty-seven glebes had been sold, and of these no fewer than forty-five were sold in single lots. There was no chance for the small holdings being created under those conditions, and not a single labourer was put on a small holding by the sale of all those glebes. As he was informed, there had been from 300 to 400 glebes sold up to the present. Of those none so far as he knew had gone to labouring people. After that, surely the course of the present Government was clear. They must create opportunities for men to go on the soil as tenants, with security of tenure, which he believed they would have from the local authority. After all, tenancy was often better than ownership, because under stress of circumstances the small holdings often became greatly burdened. The magic of property was after overcome by the misery of mortgage. As regards compulsion, Lord Onslow's Committee desired that compulsory powers should be granted, but they limited them to the central authority. He would rather see such powers operated by the local authorities. If localities would take up and carry out schemes with such powers it would be of great benefit, and would prevent much friction between them and the central authority. There had been a good deal of dread expressed as to the Commissioners' authority. He believed that the Commissioners would have very useful work to do, but he believed also that their advisory powers would be better than the compulsory. Compulsion, he was sure, would not often be exercised, and in any case it would much more often be exercised by the local than by the central authority. The fact, however, of there being compulsory powers in the background would enable both the local and the central authorities to bring land more easily into cultivation by the people who would otherwise never get it, and, moreover, it would enable that land to be secured under better conditions than would otherwise be the case. It was necessary to secure land for the purpose at a fair market price, and the powers contained in the measure would do much to effect that most [useful and beneficent

  1629
  object. He believed that the compulsory powers would be much more often exercised by the local authorities than by the central authority. At all events he hoped that would be the result of the working of the Act, but the very fact that they had in the background strong powers for the local, as well as for the central authority would bring land into the occupation of these landless serfs which would never otherwise be obtained. It would also enable the land to be acquired under better conditions. When there was no compulsion, allotment land had to be acquired sometimes at a cost of £90 an acre, in order that poor agricultural labourers might have a chance of growing a little food for themselves and their families. That was robbing the poor in a ruthless fashion, and they did not want such a condition of things repeated. Therefore they desired to have these compulsory powers in the background, and an opportunity afforded of obtaining the land at a fair price, without robbing either the rich or the poor. He believed that the compulsory powers would do much to effect that beneficial and useful reform, and they welcomed the Bill as carrying out what they had struggled to get placed on the Statute Book for nearly twenty years. By this measure they would enable the agricultural labourer to have more hope in his lot and more chance on the land. It would make the population of the country a more healthy race, and would prove a blessing to the whole nation by creating a stronger and a sturdier race.
  MR. ABEL SMITHsaid the right hon. Gentleman, as many of them were aware, had worked for many years to improve the conditions under which the rural population lived, but he thought that he was under a slight misapprehension as to the attitude which they on that side of the House took with regard to the question of ownership and occupation under this Bill. They did not at all say that every small holder who was created under the Bill was to be made a freeholder, but regarding the question as between the present owner and the local authority, they did say that if land was to be taken compulsorily for the purpose of the Bill or
  1630
  any other public purpose the owner ought to be paid a fair price for it. Therefore they said that if the county or the central authority put the compulsory power given by the Bill into force it ought to be used by way of purchase and not by way of compulsory leasing. He had listened with great interest to the whole of the debate and had paid especial attention to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill, and he thought he might fairly say that they need not take much exception to what he said, so long as he was talking about the Bill under discussion; but when he dived into the history of the Small Holdings Act of 1892 and the circumstances under which it was passed, and talked about bait for a general election, he could not help wondering whether in any possible combination of circumstances, even in the near future, the present Bill might not be used for a similar purpose. When, too, he referred to another measure before Parliament to which he (Mr. Smith), as a member of the Scottish Grand Committee, had paid very special attention, the right hon. Gentleman said it would be wise if he only made one remark and did not give any further explanation; and when he heard that one remark he confessed he fully agreed with him that he was wise in abstaining from any further discussion on that subject. He wished to deal as shortly as he could more with the general principles which were embodied in the Bill than with its details though there were a few of the details which he felt bound to criticise. He wished so far as he could, to look at the Bill from the point of view of one who had some practical experience of the agricultural matters with which this measure sought to deal. He was rather glad to hear the hon. Member for Norwich refer to the historical aspect of the question, and he wished to correct the impression, which he thought was entertained in some quarters, that the decrease of small holdings in the country, which they all deplored, had been due to autocratic or selfish action on the part of the present or past generations of landlords. He thought it was very easy to show that it had in the main been due to economic causes. As the hon. Member for Norwich had said,

  1631
  during any period up to about 130 years ago an enormous amount of land was occupied and cultivated under the open-field system, and it was a fact, which no one could deny, that under that system improved methods were perfectly impossible, and the policy of enclosure was adopted, under which, as the hon. Member had said, many millions of acres of land were enclosed. That, from the national point of view, was a wise policy; indeed it was an absolutely necessary policy. By those enclosures it had been estimated that something like 4,500,000 acres of land were added to the cultivated area of the country. He maintained that by that policy the landlords, farmers, and, indeed, the whole nation at the time, gained, with the exception of one particular class, and that was the small open-field farmer, who when enclosure came became, in many cases, a hired labourer at a very inadequate rate of wages. It would have been absolutely impossible, if the old open-field system had been allowed to continue, for this nation, in time of war, to get its food supply at all, and it was on that ground that that policy was thought to be absolutely necessary. As manufactures grew up, and as the population of the manufacturing cities increased by leaps and bounds, it became absolutely necessary, especially under the fiscal system which then prevailed, that the food of the people should be grown at home. The day of the self-sufficing farmer was over, and the farmer whose chief care hitherto had been to provide food and clothing for his family found that the populations of the great manufacturing cities were clamouring for food. At that time the small holdings on the open fields were broken up, and large corn-growing farms became the order of the day. During the nineteenth century agriculture had many ups and downs, but, on the whole, corn-growing remained a profitable industry up to the time when the great fall in prices took place, which began in 1877, and then corn-growing began to go down, and the agricultural interest passed through a very severe crisis. Since that time the crisis had gradually been passing away—things, so to speak, had been finding their level. The high
  1632
  rents of the old days had gone, probably for ever, and in some parts of the country, at any rate, land was readily let, and comparatively low rents were cheerfully paid. But there was one great evil which still remained, and that was the greatly decreased population in the rural districts. Low prices caused agricultural depression, and at the same time improved machinery came into vogue, and, together with the necessity that farmers were under to reduce the cost of production to the lowest possible level, helped to accentuate the tendency, which existed in all civilised countries, of the people to drift from the country districts towards the great centres of population. The consequence was that they had this great national evil to contend against. The evil was recognised by his right hon. friend who now represented Wimbledon, when he introduced his Small Holdings Bill of 1892. It had been said that that Act had been to a great extent a failure, and they must admit that it had not been made much use of. He thought its action was retarded to a very great extent and the local authorities were prevented from making use of it by the extremely low prices which prevailed for the few years after it passed into law, and also to a very great extent by the ignorance of the people whom it was sought to benefit—ignorance for which they were in no way to blame, because they had lost, in two or three generations, during the prosperity of the corn-growing industry, a knowledge of the lesser agricultural industries. Since the attention of the public had been directed to these special problems of depopulation in the rural districts and the pressure of population in the great cities and the want of employment there, their attention had also been directed to these minor agricultural industries, and a vast amount of fruit and dairy produce was now produced, and although those commodities were not so profitable as corn-growing they were still worth producing under favourable conditions, and rendered it possible for a man to support himself and his family comfortably. It had been sometimes said that it was impossible to get the people back upon the land because no land was available. He believed that to be a great mistake. It was almost impossible to look at the advertisement

  1633
  sheet of a provincial paper without finding agricultural land advertised for sale. From a return, which he had obtained from an auctioneer of his acquaintance, of the land put into his hands for sale in the year 1906, he found that the land put up for auction by that one firm amounted to 23,000 acres, and was situated in seven different counties. Of that land 13,500 acres were sold at prices varying from £7 to, in exceptional cases, £100 an acre, and 9,000 acres remained unsold, although in many cases the reserve put upon it was not large. A very large proportion of that land was put up in lots of less than fifty acres, and the conclusion at which he had arrived from that return, and from other facts which had come to his knowledge, was that there was a large amount of land on the market. What was wanted was some organisation to bring the buyer and seller together. Of course, a man who wanted to purchase or hire a small piece of land could not always expect to find it over the next hedge. If people wanted land, or anything else, they must go where it was for sale. It was not expected that they could always acquire it at the place where they lived. He quite admitted that further facilities than those given by the Act of 1892 were required, and though he objected to some of its details he was glad a Bill that encouraged small holdings had been introduced, and he would not offer any objection to its Second Reading. He also welcomed very cordially the encouragement given by the Bill to co-operative societies and organisations of that kind which would enable buyers and sellers to come together. Cheaper loans was a matter of great importance and one to which his attention had been directed when serving on the Housing Committee. That was also a portion of the Bill with which he cordially agreed, and he hoped the clause dealing with it would make these matters much easier than before. He was glad to see that the Government had elected to proceed by giving further powers to the local authorities. He had no objection to the county councils having compulsory powers, so long as they were powers for compulsory purchase, and not for compulsory leasing, and he welcomed the powers by which the central body would be able to under-
  1634
  take special schemes which it might not be wise for a local authority to undertake. It would also have the further advantage that if those schemes were of an experimental nature, and were not a success, the loss would fall upon the Exchequer, and not upon the district concerned. What he objected to most strongly was the power given to the central authority to override the wishes of the local authority. The local authority was a popularly elected body, and therefore it must be assumed that they would give proper consideration to a scheme, if an appeal was made to them for small holdings. If they deliberately considered the petition, and came to the conclusion that it was not desirable to interfere in the matter, it was, in his opinion, most outrageous and unconstitutional that their wishes should be overridden by the central authority. He believed the Government would find it impossible to put that clause into operation if the Bill were passed, as he hoped it would be. It should also be remembered that the greater part of the agricultural land of the country was already let to those who cultivated it, and in some counties it was almost impossible to get any large amount of land without displacing the present occupiers. That would be, perhaps, a little difficult to do in the face of the Agricultural Holdings Act of last year. One clause of that Act secured compensation to any agricultural occupier who was removed from his farm unreasonably, and, if the present occupiers were to be ejected to bring about small holdings, he would like to know how, and on what scale, compensation was to be provided for the present tenant. One technical objection to the Bill was that, as it stood, it contained no provision for making advances to the present owners of land. He knew in the present House there was some prejudice against such a thing as that, but as one who was earnestly and sincerely anxious to see the number of small holdings increased, he would like to say there were many cases in which it would be the easiest and most satisfactory way to carry out the object in view. There were many owners who would be very glad to cut up their farms and divide them into small holdings, but it was

  1635
  impossible for them to contemplate any such action owing to the expense involved. It would be the easiest and cheapest way to allow the landowners to carry out this scheme on their own account, and to have the necessary money at a reasonable rate of interest, The whole of the success of the Bill depended on good administration, and he rejoiced at the statement of the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill with reference to that. There must be no hurry and no pressure; but he really believed that if the organisation of the rural population was improved. and their education in these technical matters encouraged, as it had been during the past few years, a good work would be done in that direction.
  *MR. WEDGWOODsaid this Bill ran directly counter to the principle which they on that side were returned to maintain—he meant the principle of free trade. Most hon. Members on that side of the House had protested against the payment of shipping bounties to encourage trade with Canada, on the ground that the whole community would have to pay but only the privileged few would benefit. On that identical ground he protested against bolstering up one favoured industry, the small holdings industry, at the expense of the whole body of rate and taxpayers. Both were attempts, by squandering public money, to alter the natural economic development of trade and industry, and both were, therefore, contrary to free trade. It would be said, of course, that they were only spending £100,000 as the price of this protected industry. He should like to point out that that £100,000 was by no means the sum total of our public benevolence. We were also to lend cheap money on poor security. The State was to do that which no business firm would undertake at the price, and no landlord. All the risk of failures and some failures there must be—and their number would not be lessened by the artificial enhancing of the price of land—would fall upon the rates. The community might count itself lucky if it got off with four or five times that £100,000. He thought they
  1636
  were all apt, on a subject such as this, to legislate rather from the heart than from the head. They were all oppressed by seeing the obvious depopulation of the country-side and the hopeless position of the agricultural labourer. They felt that the community ought not to refuse any assistance which could help to put the agricultural labourer into an independent position; that if there were to be subsidies, no subsidy could be more justifiable. But his charge against that subsidy was that the agricultural labourer would not get it. This £100,000 or £500,000 which they piously believed was going to benefit the agricultural labourer, was going, instead, into the pockets of the landlords. ["No."] He would try and make himself clear. There were subsidies and subsidies. Some were comparatively harmless, others were bad, but this subsidy on the purchase of land had fewer merits than any other. Let them compare, for instance, a subsidy on the purchase of boots. Suppose the State were to give 6d. a-piece to everybody who bought a pair of boots. Of course the demand for boots would increase and the bootmakers would make larger profits for a time. Those larger profits would attract more capital into the boot industry, and the supply of boots would rise to meet the demand. Under free competition those abnormal profits that the bootmakers were making would be cut down and become normal once more, and the 6d. a-piece would revert to the purchaser and user of the boots. But boots and land were very different, and a subsidy on the purchase of land would have a very different result to the subsidy on the purchase of boots. For this reason: There was no limit to the possible supply of boots, but the supply of land was limited at the creation. Every increase in the demand for land would increase not the supply but the price of that limited commodity, and this subsidy, instead of going to the land user, would remain with the landowner, not only for a few years, as in the case of boots, but permanently; it would not revert, as in the case of boots, to the user of the land. But he thought that apart from that somewhat abstruse piece of reasoning, one could

  1637
  see that any increase in the demand for land must raise its price. If the Government entered the market for the first time as the purchaser of land, the price of land everywhere was bound to go up. He remembered in the days when one used to buy Consols, one was always advised by one's brokers to buy Consols, because there was a limited supply, and because the State was in the market and the price was bound to rise; and so it did. Exactly the same thing happened when the deplorable Irish Land Bill was passed. As soon as the Government entered the market for the purchase of Irish land its price everywhere rose by six or eight years purchase. The passing of that Act, and the entering of the Government into the market for the buying of land, raised the price of land in Ireland by 25 per cent., and that not only where the Government were buying, but throughout the whole of Ireland. The entry of the Government as a purchaser pushed up the price of land. Therefore, the result of this subsidy to small holders would not be to benefit the agricultural labourer, whom they all earnestly wished to help, but it would go instead into the pockets of the landlords. Probably most Members recognised that this increase in the value of land must result from the passing of the measure and did deplore it. But they would say, and with some show of plausibility: "Yes, but if the expenditure of this money means that more people will live on the land and fewer drift to the towns, then, whatever be the cash results in raising land values it is worth it; for the health of the community, the physical and moral stamina and well-being of the nation are worth purchasing even if we have to buy them from the landlords." That would be a very plausible argument if the way proposed in this Bill were the only possible way of getting people back on the land and making it more productive. But it was not the only way, nor was it the best way; he doubted whether it was a way at all of attaining that end. It ignored absolutely and entirely the best way of bringing the land to the people. They sought to create small holdings and intensive cultivation by increasing the demand for land; by
  1638
  taking the tenant by the hand and leading him up to the landlord and helping him to ask for land. Why did they not, instead, set the supply of land free an dflowing? Make it unprofitable to withhold land from use whether for purposes of pleasure or privacy, for sport or speculation. They could do that by taxing land values. By basing the rates on the capital unimproved value of the land they would increase the available supply of land and the demand would follow as a natural consequence. That way would cost them nothing. That wav would not enhance the land values. A land Bill, to be really successful, must allow for the free play of spontaneous demand, for a clear and open market between buyer and the seller, between landlord and tenant. What was, above all wanted was to do away with the uneconomic friction that existed between the owner and user—to break down the dykes and barriers that our theories of irresponsible ownership had built up and which were strengthened by our unsound rating system, and let the waters of commerce flow at their natural level. Without some such scheme as a basis to work upon any small holdings Bill such as that under discussion was mere philanthropic tinkering. The philanthropy that put "dear people" where they did not want to be—that planted out the tame "working classes" like cabbages—no, not like cabbages, that would be too businesslike and orderly: they were going to be planted here and there artistically, clothed in smock frocks so that the non-working classes might have pleasure in the contemplation of their handiwork. What they wanted was to take a very small step forward towards a far more important change. Could they not alter the relations which at present existed between the owner of the land, the man who had the right to dictate exactly how the land should be used, and the people at large, who had to use the land or die? The balance was unfairly weighted in this struggle for existence. It should be made easier to claim the land for use—more difficult to refuse. The right remedy, not only for getting small holdings but for the housing problem also, was to begin by changing the basis of our

  1639
  rating system; to base rates everywhere and only, in town and country alike, on the unimproved value of land, whether the land was used or not, whether it was well treated or badly treated by its landlord, whether much capital was invested on it or not. To quote once more the words of the Select Committee on the Taxation of Land Values (Scotland) Bill—
  "All local taxation should be transferred from the present valuations to the valuations of land value; thus substituting local taxation of land value for all the present local taxation of landed property."
  And again—
  "We consider the benefits of the proposed system lie, not in tapping a new source of revenue, but in the economic benefits which would result from a fundamental reform of the system of taxation."
  That was the Report of a Liberal Committee. In that way they would make it to the landowners' interest to bring their undeveloped land (which at present they were encouraged to leave idle) into the best possible use. That would increase the available and ready supply of land. That was the way, and the only sound way, to induce intensive cultivation and maintain the people on the land. If that were done difficulties of detail would vanish. One person now asked whether a small holding would pay seven miles from a railway station. If they taxed land values they would find out. Another wanted to know whether three acres were sufficient, or should it be ten or fifty; let them tax land values and they would find out; others asked whether tenancy or ownership was the right solution; again let them tax land values and they would find out; for the right things would spring up wherever they would pay. If they procured free play for economic conditions, they would get a sound economic result. It was, he thought, so great a student of law as Prof. Albert Dicey who had said somewhere that—
  "An essential point of any good law is that it should be as universal in its application as possible, and that it should have the automatic regularity of a law of nature."
  He maintained that this Bill violated both those principles. It resembled in its accidental and arbitrary nature some sumptuary law of the crudest age of English law-making. It left it to various
  1640
  individuals to decide whether any particular person was to be given a right to any particular piece of land, and at what particular rent; whether any particular individual was to be called upon to part with any particular piece of land and at what particular price. Could a less universal or automatic law be imagined! If the absolute ownership of land was of the nature of a social injustice, the remedy should lie in a fundamental reform, applicable in all cases, and applying itself automatically. Nothing less could be satisfactory. Nothing less was even equitable. If it was not in the nature of a social injustice, what act could be more tyrannical than to force selected individuals to part with what they rightly owned, even though every stone were paid for in solid gold? Those two methods of attaining the same end—this Bill and freeing the land—were whole poles apart. One was protection, the other was free trade; one started by increasing demand, the other by increasing supply; one laboriously brought the tenant to the landlord, the other sent the landlord to the tenant; one was State interference with economic laws, the other did away with all that was now artificially restraining economic laws; one was what they might expect from a good Conservative Government, the other was what they hoped to get from a Liberal Government. The whole tragedy of the situation was that this Government, with both plans to choose from, had deliberately—he hoped not finally—chosen the worse. He begged to move, "That no legislation requiring the expenditure of public moneys in order to encourage one particular industry is desirable, and that small holdings and intensive cultivation can best be secured by basing the rates on unimproved land value, thus forcing land into the most profitable use."
  The Amendment was not seconded.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am sure the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down need not have apologised to the House for the fact that the opinions which he holds, and which he has just expressed in his speech so ably, find no great support on this side of the House or the other.

  1641
  For my own part I am always glad to hear anyone with the courage of eccentric opinions expressing those opinions clearly, and standing by them with courage. He deserves that amount of praise, and I am glad to give it. I will go further and say that with one of the two propositions around which his speech centred I entirely agree. I concur with him in saying that this is a Bill wholly inconsistent with free trade as free trade used to be understood by the older economists and theorists, that it is a deliberate attempt to divert the course which the particular industry is taking and if left to itself will take, and is therefore undoubtedly inconsistent with one of the many meanings to which the term free trade has been applied. But the hon. Member went on to tell us that the way to get out of these difficulties was to tax ground values, to make perfectly impossible the arbitrary separation between the value of the unimproved land and the value of the improved land, and that we should at once learn who it was wanted land, how the land should be distributed, how it should be cultivated, and how it would at once produce that natural flow of industry which he desires. There, I confess, I fail to follow him. It would not be appropriate or fitting on this occasion to do what undoubtedly we shall have to do later on—discuss the theory of the hon. Gentleman and others with regard to the taxation of ground values. But whether the taxation of ground values is just or unjust, whether Parliament adopts it or rejects it, I think the hon. Gentleman on reflection will see that in no case could the remedy for the evils of which he complains have a tendency to divert or prevent the stream of migration from the country to the towns. It could not carry out any of the objects which the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill has at heart, and in which I believe he has the general sympathy of hon. Members on both sides of the House. I desire to speak with all respect of the efforts which the right hon. Gentleman in charge of this Bill is making to improve our land system. A colleague of his brought in another Bill dealing with another portion of these Islands, with regard to which it was impossible even for the politest critic to speak with the smallest
  1642
  touch of respect. It is wholly inconsistent with current experience, and absolutely inconsistent with the scheme of the right hon. Gentleman, and still more inconsistent with the views of the present Irish Secretary and, I believe, of everybody else in the House who has considered the proper way of treating land in Ireland. I do not think that any Government before has been in the singular position of having so much variety of opinion within its ranks, and so little power of co-ordination that it could at the same moment advocate and attempt to carry out three wholly inconsistent policies with regard to three separate portions of a not very largely or very economically separated community. The Chief Secretary for Ireland in a speech he made the other day, in introducing another measure, expressed the pious hope that nothing would interfere with purchase by the Irish tenant of his holding, while his colleagues disapproves of purchase by tenants of their holdings. He says that tenancy is the right system and purchase the wrong system. The object of purchasing holdings in Ireland is to get rid of dual ownership. The Secretary for Scotland desired to establish dual ownership. Therefore you have in the Cabinet one Minister expressing his desire to see perfect possession of the freehold by the occupiers and dual ownership brought to an end, while at the same time his colleague in Scotland is establishing an elaborate dual ownership where it does not now exist; and you have a third colleague saying he objects to dual ownership and peasant proprietorship and has a scheme of his own. I do not think such a spectacle as that has ever before been presented in one Government. I do not say there has not been inconsistency among members of the same Party, whether they sit on this side of the House or on the other; no doubt there has been; but I never yet heard although a Party may change its opinions—I know a Party has changed its opinions in twenty-four hours—for instance in the case of Home Rule—I am far from criticising any change of opinion in a Party, but I have never yet heard of a Party which expressed three different opinions at the same time through its organised Government. Of the three

  1643
  plans, I frankly admit the one I prefer is that which commends itself to the Chief Secretary for Ireland, but of the plan now before us I desire to speak with a respect far greater than I could command when dealing with the Scottish Bill. But, after all, respect is only relative, and there are some points in the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman which, much as I admire and sympathise with their objects, he will perhaps allow me to criticise, not in a hostile way but, I hope, in a clear and unmistakable fashion. Just before I come to the details of the Bill the House will perhaps allow me to say one word upon certain arguments by which this Bill has been advocated and to try to deal with the fundamental ideas, sometimes expressed and sometimes unexpressed, which lie at the root of the movement to which this Bill gives expression. We have heard several hon. Members say that they desire to see this Bill passed, or something like it, because it will prevent migration from the country to the towns. When agriculture is in a state of equilibrium, migration from the country to the towns depends really upon two things—namely, the birth-rate and the magnitude of the country population. I cannot see how that argument can be answered. It is not so much an argument as a self-evident proposition. The right hon. Gentleman brought forward another argument of which we have heard a great deal, and of which I do not wish to minimise the force, and which I wish to emphasise to the House. He says you must keep the population in the country, not because that would diminish the migration, but because it is absolutely necessary to have a great country population if we mean to maintain the physique of our race. The right hon. Gentleman is in a position of distinction, and he has devoted much attention to the problems of public health, but is this House going to acquiesce in the doctrine which the right hon. Gentleman has stated? Is it really true that we depend for the maintenance of our race upon that population, as to which an hon. Gentleman below the gangway, who spoke this afternoon, told us the whole condition of their occupation was degrading? It is a lamentable fact, if it be a fact, that the whole future
  1644
  physique of our race depends, upon the agricultural labourer, who, we are told, is working under degrading conditions. If we are going to acquiesce in giving up the problem of having an urban population, which problem we have to solve, if we cannot deal with the health of the population of our great towns so as to prevent them from being, as we are told, sources of hereditary diseases, then, indeed, the resources of British civilisation are bankrupt, and I think it would be the first duty of this House to check the growth of big towns and artificially to stimulate the population of the country by laws deliberately intended to be protective, and deliberately intended to keep the population there at whatever cost to the community at large. But I cannot admit this bankruptcy. I cannot admit this bankruptcy of our civic life. I do not think it wise for hon. or right hon. Gentlemen to make these appeals to us about the physique of the race unless they are prepared to prove that urban life is inconsistent with the maintenance of that physique; or if they come to that conclusion, that urban life is inconsistent with that, then let them take their courage in their hands and say that our forefathers were wrong when they took the view that Britain, henceforth, in the main must be a manufacturing country, and that we must, at whatever cost, preserve our most valuable heritage, even if it should involve a great and almost overwhelming public cost. I do not accept the conclusion of the right hon. Gentleman; but if I accepted it, I do not know what further conclusion, I except that which I have stated, could be accepted either by me or any other Member of the House. I have said that if agriculture is at an equilibrium, you have a constant flow, dependent on the size of the population, from the country to the towns; but I admit that it is not at an equilibrium now; that it has been and is still going through a transition period, and that there has been a great diminution of the country population, which, for reasons alien to those I have indicated, I deeply regret. To my mind the causes of the diminution of the rural population are absolutely plain; there is no mystery about them. They depend wholly on the fact that the prices of the great staples of industry have

  1645
  diminished, owing to the opening up of virgin soil, to the great improvements in transport, and to the great development of machinery. These three causes together are amply sufficient, and, in my opinion, are alone responsible for the diminution of the population. I do not believe myself that if you are going to attempt on your small holdings to deal with such things as the growing of corn and the growing of wheat you can hope to have prosperous small holders in most parts of the country unless you condemn them to a life of anxious toil, which is an inseparable accompaniment of small holdings in many parts of the world, and which I believe will be the inseparable accompaniment of small holdings in this country unless the small holders are exceptionally favourably situated or devote themselves to the growth of other things than those great staple products which can only be economically developed by the aid of great capital and the most advanced machinery. If we accept those plain statements of fact, how are we to alter the present state of things with advantage to anybody? In the first place let me point out to the House that there is a great deal of confusion of thought, in my judgment, in the minds of some hon. Members in regard to the size of holdings. There are many people who believe that the fact that land exists in this country largely in the shape of big estates is due to what they vaguely call feudalism. Although I do not agree with the statement, I do not argue against it at the present time, because it has nothing whatever to do with the size of holdings. Granting that estates have been a prejudicial factor by tradition, law, and custom, that does not affect the question of the size of holdings. What has determined the size of holdings? The size of holdings has been determined largely, I believe entirely, by economic causes—by the view taken by those most competent to decide at the particular time what size the holdings should be; and you find the greatest variety in the size of holdings in different parts of the country, corresponding to the economic, or what was the economic condition of the various districts at the time the holdings were parcelled out. Therefore, do not carry away the idea that when
  1646
  you are dealing with the holdings of England you are dealing with an unnatural growth; you are not; you are dealing with a natural growth, an economic growth. That again is a matter which cannot be forgotten when we are attempting to alter the size of holdings. It is an attempt which I do not think inconsistent with free trade in the older acception of the word, and it is an attempt, nevertheless, which this House may well make. But I do not believe it can be made successfully unless in the first place you vary the crops, unless you deal with a different industry from that which now exists, unless your small holders grow something different from what is grown by the bigger farmers. That I take to be the first condition of a very large extension of holdings. The second condition I believe to be that you must organise your small holdings. You cannot leave them as isolated units. You must work them up into some coherent and well-contrived whole, and in that way do much to mitigate the inevitable evils which small holdings generally carry with them. The great farmer hardly requires this organisation of his industry, because he can organise within the limits of his own farm, and he may get on; but the small holder who refuses to come into some organisation is, in my opinion, predestined to be squeezed out in the economic competition which is being forced upon us now, and which will not be less forced upon us in the future. But if you do those two things, if you alter the crops and if you organise, then I think Parliament may well come in to get us over the difficulty of the transition period which is due to the fact that the industry is now organised on another plan. You cannot alter that system without cost. You have no right to throw the cost upon the landlord. If you want to bring about this new state of things, and it is economic when carried out, then it is fair to go to the necessary expense for establishing it. But you would be foolish indeed if, having gone to the expense, the state of things which you have established is not one which can live by itself and fit in with the economic conditions of the world as we find them. There is one more condition we ought to bear in mind, namely, the condition of the small holder.

  1647
  Unless he be very happily circumstanced, his position must be a difficult one. It is your business to give him every motive, and although I do not lay it down as a dogmatic proposition that every small holder should be a freeholder, I think that by making him a freeholder you give him a set of motives for that arduous toil which in many cases is the sole condition of his prosperity and success. The House has listened very patiently while I have ventured to lay down some of the broad principles, and perhaps I may now be allowed to consider their application to the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman. The right hon. Gentleman has undertaken a task which is inherently difficult because it consists of artificially modifying the natural course of an industry. It is a problem which is exceedingly difficult. When you are dealing with a problem which is exceedingly difficult, ought you not to avoid every impediment you can, and make inevitable obstacles as little formidable as possible? The amount of opposition you raise should be as slight, as un-embittered, and as easily surmounted as may be. The right hon. Gentleman has, I think quite unnecessarily, made his Bill repugnant to a very large number of people who will either have to work it or perhaps take advantage of it. I do not mean to dwell on certain aspects of it which I think very unfair to the landlord, such, for example, as the manner in which the right hon. Gentleman proposes, under the name of allotments, to have five acres of arable land taken, it may be, from a farm in a small parish, by the majority of the inhabitants, by which the farm may be destroyed—allotments which may ultimately fail, in which case the locality will then come down upon a solitary ratepayer to bear all the expense, that ratepayer being the man who was injured by the original arrangement. I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will cure that while the Bill is going through the House. He has told us, I am sure, with all sincerity, that he does not mean this Bill to be one for the spoliation of anybody; I accept that statement, though I do not think it is wholly carried out in the Bill. I trust to the Committee stage for remedy, and I am not going to argue the question; from the point of view of the interests
  1648
  of the landlord. There are other interests. I think it is a very gross violation of principle compulsorily to hire from any owner the land you are going to use for another purpose. Of course, in one sense it may not, and ought not, to be described as spoliation if the rent given be sufficient and be adequately secured. But I think it is thoroughly bad in principle and perfectly unnecessary. The hon. Gentleman who spoke from below the gangway on this side, and some other Gentlemen opposite, hold the view that there is a great unearned increment in land, a great source of value not put into the land by the owner of the land; and that is one of their reasons why they desire that land should not be sold to small holders, but retained by the community so that the community itself may profit by the unearned increment, which they think will accrue. We are all familiar with the argument. Then apply the argument. Why is the community not to get the unearned increment of the land you are compulsorily hiring? Buy it compulsorily if you want it, get the unearned increment; do not do what you propose to do, to compel a man, not merely, mark you, to let the original unimproved soil, but to let also the improvements which he and his predecessors have put into the soil. This compulsory hiring, remember, is not compulsory hiring of unimproved land, it is compulsory hiring of capital. I do not believe that is a sound principle, nor one that would be tolerated in any other industry; and I cannot see that it is consistent with the views of those who think that land has got an inherent spontaneous power of augmenting its value, which the community ought to possess. I would suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that, while he is running counter to the prejudices of Gentlemen on his own side of the House who hold these views about the unearned increment, he is equally running counter to those on this side who think a man's land should be either taken or left—who think that if you want to buy it you should buy it outright, and if you want to lease it, you should only lease it if he is prepared to let it. Why introduce this obstacle in your Bill; why raise these unnecessary prejudices? What do you get by it? We are all prepared

  1649
  —I am—to say that if you can show the necessity for the acquisition of land, that necessity should be met by compulsion if it can be met by no other means. But then buy it, treat the land as if you wanted it for a railway, a post-office, or some other great public object; do not carry out an entirely novel principle, wholly inconsistent, so far as I can see, both with the views entertained on this side and with what are called the advanced views of Gentlemen on the other. The third difficulty which the right hon. Gentleman has put in the way of his Bill I have already referred to. He has laid it down that his Bill is not to increase the number of peasant proprietors. Why has he put that limitation on his measure? Why has he deprived it elaborately, deliberately, and gratuitously of the flexibility which surely any sensible statesman would have aimed at in framing such a measure? I am ready for my own part to grant that there may be cases in which it is more desirable and in accordance with the wishes of the community that small holdings should be in the shape of tenancies and not ownership. But does, or can, anybody deny that there is a demand for ownership, that ownership has immense attractions for the very class you want to keep on the land, and that ownership carries with it motives which tenancy never carries with it? In addition, by giving ownership you relieve your local authority or your Board of Agriculture of the most difficult and delicate duties which the task of landlordism inevitably carries with it. Look at tenancies first from the point of view of the tenants. A great many have said that people prefer to be tenants; it may be true in some cases. But suppose a tenancy created when times are good, and suppose times become bad, what is the tenant to do if he be the tenant of a public body? If he be the tenant of a landlord and the landlord think him an eligible tenant, almost always there is some accommodation and arrangement come to between the two; it may be a permanent reduction of rent, it may be temporary assistance, the rent may be allowed to stand over for a shorter or a longer time. Is a public authority going to do all that? Is a public authority going to consider
  1650
  whether Mr. A. or Mr. B. is a man to whom some relaxation of his public engagement is to be given or not? I think you either inflict a very great relative hardship on the tenant if you insist that the terms shall be carried out absolutely to the letter, or you throw a most invidious task on the county or parish council, as the case may be, when you say that those terms may be and ought to be in certain cases, relaxed. You would have to say that the position of peasant proprietor is just as bad—no, it is not just as bad, for the peasant proprietor can, at all events, borrow temporarily to get over the difficulty. The right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill has an inveterate objection to borrowing upon land, but there is no industry in the world which gets on without borrowing. The power to raise money to deal either with temporary requirements or temporary difficulties is one which must be, I think, part of the freedom which you allow to every healthy and self-sufficing industry. In the case of a small tenant the difficulty is got over by the assistance of the landlord; I do not say he necessarily borrows from his landlord, but the payment of his rent is relaxed if he is a good tenant, which is equivalent to borrowing. But you are going to allow these tenants to have no security on which they can borrow; your first object is to prevent them borrowing. Whatever a man may put into his holding, however much he may improve it, you are not going to allow him to borrow on the security of what he has done. Is not that the policy of the Government? It is very important, and I should be grateful for a reply. I do not press for it; but the right hon. Gentleman would help me if he would inform me whether he contemplates these tenants being allowed to borrow on their improvements or not.
  MR. HERBERT: They can borrow on the security of their stock.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Then you do not keep out the moneylender. I think the hon. Gentleman must have omitted to listen to that part of the speech of the Minister in charge of the

  1651
  Bill in which at great length he explained that his object was to keep out the lender altogether, whether in the case of tenants or owners. If that be so, I do not see how the small tenant is to tide over. From his point of view, I conceive that ownership is far more advantageous than tenancy. But, if you turn round to the other side, if you consider the position of the county council with regard to their tenants, are not you throwing on that unfortunate body a duty almost impossible for them effectively to perform? You have already asked them to manage your Army, they already manage your education, they already manage, of course, your roads and police, and now you are going to compel them to undertake all the difficult and delicate duties connected with the ownership of land. I cannot believe that is right. I cannot believe that, at all events, you might not leave a discretion, allow elasticity, and in those parts of the country—I believe far the larger parts—where ownership and not tenancy is desired, allow county councils to agree to ownership and not tenancy in the case of those who wish it. [An HON. MEMBER: They can.] There is no power of compulsion to buy the land in the Bill. Your whole argument, a rather ungenerous argument, is that the Act of 1892 is a failure. My right hon. friend's work in the direction which we are all desiring now to pursue cannot be over-rated; although the Act has not been largely taken advantage of, the value of his pioneer work cannot be over-rated, and I think it has been treated with scanty generosity on the other side. But, at all events, your argument is that the Act has totally failed. If that be so, put into the Bill, which you say is going to be a success, that elasticity which would, at all events, promote the possibility of its use for the acquisition of freeholds as well as for the creation of tenancies. There is a still greater gratuitous difficulty which hon. Gentlemen put in the way of carrying out their policy. Let the House observe the extraordinary departure which the Bill proposes to make in local government. We are all acquainted with the expedient of forcing a local authority to carry out a duty which has been entrusted to
  1652
  them by Parliament. But the Government go much further than that. They take the initiative out of the hands of the county council altogether. They send down an official who has no statutory instructions, who is the nominee, necessarily, of a party Minister. He is not required to consult with the county council, with those from whom the land is to be taken, or with those to whom the land is to be let. In fact, this irresponsible gentleman may even tell the county council that they are to prepare a scheme to carry out his ideas and recommendations. He is first to create the demand for small holdings, then to say how that demand is to be supplied, and then he is to give orders to the county council to carry his scheme out. That is a wholly novel procedure. What is worse, I think it is a disastrous procedure. The right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill tried to hunt up precedents for his proposal, but he totally failed to find them. He gave up to Hansard what was meant for mankind. But why did he not consider the matter on its merits, and give attention to controversies we have had on analogous subjects in this House? I remember when hon. Gentlemen opposite spent night after night on our Education Bill declaring that if we did not leave the county council absolutely to its own devices in the spending of money that was not its own, or even mainly its own, but the money of the taxpayers, we were mistrusting the people; and now right hon. Gentlemen opposite come forward and, without giving a sixpence from the Exchequer, propose to coerce the county council to carry out costly schemes to which the county council may object. And there is here a distinction of fundamental importance to be kept in mind. You may coerce, or try to coerce, with more or less success, a county council to carry out a plain direction. For instance, you may say that every child is to be vaccinated. That is a plain and simple direction, and you can know exactly whether or not it is carried out. The same is true of schemes of sewerage and water supply. There is no discretion in the matter. Selection and doubt are out of place. But when you are deciding whether small holdings will succeed in this or that locality, how much land

  1653
  should be bought, and what price should be paid for it, how big the holdings should be, and what arrangement should be made in regard to letting, is there not an immense latitude for differences of opinion, and for the exercise of discretion, judgment, and doubt? And, should the county council in these matters of discretion, judgment, and doubt differ from the nominee of the central Government, are we really to be told that the central Government will ever succeed in thrusting their views for the settlement of the difficulty down the throats of the county council? The thing is preposterous. It cannot be done. One instance of a controversy between the central Government and a local authority has been mentioned in the debate. The local authority won. It was a vestry. The central Government were beaten by a vestry. Are they going to win against a county council elected on the most democratic franchise? Remember what we had to do in the case of the Welsh county councils and the Education Act. We are all agreed that where there is a plain question of policy the local authority is bound to carry out the views of Parliament. In the case of the Education Act the question was of the simplest character. It was that the Welsh councils should treat the voluntary schools on the same scale of liberality as the provided schools in the distribution of the money provided for education, not by the ratepayers, but by the National Exchequer. Yet we felt we could not trust to the remedy of a mandamus in dealing with the difficulty, and we had to propose a special remedy, which was violently opposed by hon. Gentlemen opposite, who then took the view that it was the duty of the county councils to refuse to carry out the provisions of the Education Act. In this case no remedy of that kind is possible. You do not propose to give the county councils any of the money necessary to provide small holdings; and it is only through money voted by Parliament that you can have any hold on the county councils. To put them into prison is no good. Can you conceive a county council being put into prison because in the doubtful experiment of providing small holdings they think the Government inspector is wrong and they are right? Remember that.
  1654
  this is an economic experiment. The right hon. Gentleman tells us he does not want any one to lose by it. But if the experiment is a failure some one must lose. And who ought to lose? The Government who forces the experiment on the unwilling county council or the unwilling county council? If the experiment fails the county council will say, "You forced us compulsorily to buy land and to parcel it out; we always foresaw that in this district small holdings would be a failure; and now that it is a failure you tell us, who unwillingly undertook the experiment, who warned you that it would be a failure, that we have got to pay the cost. "You cannot impose the cost in such a case. It is evident that if the Government want their plan to succeed they must be far more liberal as regards money, and they must make friends and not enemies of the great public bodies which arc to administer it. The right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill told us that his measure is intended to effect a great public object. If that be so let the public pay. At all events, let the public bear part of the burden. If the public outside the county are determined to force on the county an experiment which the local authority do not wish to try, at least let the outside public engage to pay the whole or the greater part of its cost. If you are really sincere in your desire to see this difficult and costly experiment tried to the best advantage, you must not throw the cost upon the unwilling ratepayer; you must bring in the aid of the National Exchequer, otherwise you will be but adding one more to the previous failures of which you complain, and you will be discrediting the cause you desire to promote, the cause of increasing the number of small holders of land in this country. If the Government really desire to have this experiment tried under circumstances best calculated to bring it success, I beg of them to remember three cardinal points— first, allow the creation of small ownerships as well as small tenancies; secondly, do not violate all the principles of justice by insisting upon the compulsory hiring of the land; and, thirdly — which is perhaps the most important— make the county councils your friends, and help them in the financing of these operations which you insist they shall

  1655
  undertake. I admit that the changes which I have ventured to advocate touch important parts of the Bill, but they do not touch its vital principles. The Bill may yet be made a really useful measure, passed with the consent of both sides of the House and offering every possible hope of successfully carrying out an object which has the approval of all parties. But if the Government are obstinately determined to stick, not merely to the general principles underlying their Bill, but to every detail of it, then I think its course through the House cannot but be troubled, and its effect on the country will not only be less than they anticipate, but it may put back for an indefinite period the cause which they and we have equally at heart.
  *MR. ELLIS: said there were only two points in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition to which he proposed to address himself. The right hon. Gentleman made great play in the earlier part of his speech with what he called the extraordinary attitude of the Government and the diversity of voice with which they spoke. What a spectacle, said the right hon. Gentleman. They had the Chief Secretary for Ireland rising one week and recommending one proposal, the Secretary for Scotland rising another week with quite different proposals, and finally they had the First Commissioner rising with a third set of proposals. But in his opinion it was the great merit of the Government that it spoke for different parts of the kingdom according to their wishes. He was a convinced Home Ruler, and he certainly thought that Irishmen should have the control of their own land system The right hon. Gentleman was a Scotsman, and if the right hon. Gentleman told him that this or that particular did not commend itself to his mind as applicable to his country he would listen to him with respect. There was no reason, so far as he could see, why different land laws should not be made for different parts of the kingdom. The right hon. Gentleman had given the House an interesting dissertation upon what he called the transition period of agriculture, and had said that everybody knew that it was the fall in the price of agricultural
  1656
  products that had caused the depopulation in the rural districts which the House now so much deplored. The right hon. Member for Wimbledon yesterday quoted a sentence to the same affect from the Report of the Royal Commission appointed some years ago. He quite agreed that the fall in the price of agricultural products was most serious, but he also believed that the evil effects had arisen because those who cultivated the land had not been quick enough to adapt themselves to the changed circumstances. The right hon. Gentleman was a great breeder of stock, and he knew perfectly well that though there might be a fall in prices, the altered conditions could be met in firming by increased output. There was land where it was possible to grow wheat at 30s. a quarter and make a better profit by improved farming than from the same land at 35s. if more wheat per acre was produced. Again, if a man had a herd of cattle and took care to breed so that the production of milk rose year by year, while at the same time care was taken that the expenditure did not rise in ratio to the output, he could lower the price of his milk or butter or whatever the product was that he sold. Therefore, price was only one element. What had not been recognised was that what was wanted to meet the altered conditions was improved methods of cultivation, greater freedom on the part of the tenant, and more capital. The other points of the right hon. Gentleman's speech were no doubt important and would be answered by others. But he ventured to say that those two points — the necessity for variety in dealing with different parts of the United Kingdom, and of price being the only element in rural depopulation would not bear examination. The right hon. Gentleman had gone on to say that the First Commissioner had set himself the difficult task of artificially modifying and forcing an industry. Well, all the Acts relating to land from what was called by the Whigs the glorious revolution of 1688 to the present time, were all Acts modifying an industry. It was because the Government had recognised that in this matter the clock must be put back to a certain extent and the conditions made more nearly what they were before those Acts were passed that they brought

  1657
  in this Bill. Speaking broadly and generally he welcomed the Bill. It was an honest attempt to effect a great public reform. All would admit that any system that was put forward by a Bill of this kind must be based on sound economic principles. He was not one of those who wished to stimulate artificially by legislation— it could not be done for that matter— the production of the soil. He was not for a moment in favour of what might be called philanthropic fads in dealing with land. Land was a thing which must be dealt with on strictly business principles, and he was not in favour of finding men money except on the strictest business principles. By this Bill they not only added to the product per acre, which was a great blessing to the community itself, but in it they had a Bill which touched the character of those who would live on the holdings. If he had to choose between the town and the country dwellers as to the ripeness of their judgment on the affairs of life, he would choose the men of the country. They were of better physique, mentally and bodily, and were not subject to those fits of panic, or even of enthusiasm, which they saw in the miserable townspeople. They lived a less articulate life, so far as speech went, but they were none the worse for that. Let a committee sit around a table, and everybody knew that the opinion most worth having was the opinion of the men least ready to speak. From that point of view he preferred the countrymen. The countryman was in community with all that was called nature, whatever might be meant by that term, and in all respects he. had a practical acquaintance with the affairs of life, which went a very long way. He rather regretted that the hon. Member for Norwich had spoken as he had of the degradation of it. He himself did not think there was any real degradation. They desired to see the lot of the labourer in many parts of the country improved, but they must be very careful how they adopted some of the ways that had been proposed to do it. He welcomed the clause of the Bill, baling these holdings on tenancies rather than ownership. Although he represented an electorate of 18,000, several thousand of whom were freeholders and cultivated their own land, he thought, in
  1658
  this matter, they should try to have variety, and he welcomed variety. He listened, he had almost said with amusement, to the lurid picture drawn by the right hon. Gentleman of what would happen if the Bill became law, and he traced again what he had noticed in the right hon. Gentleman when dealing with the Education Bill of 1902, namely, the absence of any practical experience of the working of a local authority. Everyone knew perfectly well that what he anticipated would never take place, and that although it was true that the central authority intermeddled sometimes with the local authorities very little notice was taken of that. He was also very glad to sec the provision for compulsion, and that his right hon. friend had inserted a clause limiting the effect of the Lands Clauses Acts. He well remembered an interesting discussion that took place two years previously in the Grand Committee on light railways. That Grand Committee debated for two hours the limitation of the Lands Clauses Acts, and they came to an even vote, and he, as regards compensation, as Chairman had to give a casting vote. He was perfectly imparrtial on the matter, and he gave it against the application of the 10 percent. for compulsory purchase from owners on the ground that their property had been improved by the making of the light railway. He was very glad, therefore, that the right hon. Gentleman had embodied that principle in his Bill. Another provision to which the right hon. Member for Wimbledon had taken exception was that which swept away the limitations on buildings contained in the old Act. He welcomed that provision, for what was required in different parts of the country was more buildings per acre. Speaking for himself, he regarded the Bill as the irreducible minimum. The Leader of the Opposition had used some rather an biguous phrases to which they must attach some importance, since although his following in this House was small the right hon. Gentleman held another place in the hollow of his hand. From that point of view he would like to be quite sure where they were in regard to what the right hon. Gentleman had said, for he had stated that the principle of the Bill might be accepted, but there

  1659
  were three or four points which "must be amended." He thought the right hon. Gentleman used the word "must."
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I said if the Government showed no desire to make concessions on those points, which did not seem to me to be vital to the principle of the Bill, the progress of the measure in this House would be thorny.
  *MR. ELLISsaid he would not carry the point further; but he hoped the Government would not concede anything which, in their opinion, would touch any vital principle of the Bill. It was to be the irreducible minimum; they thought it would effect a great social reform, and they welcomed the Bill on that ground.
  MR. LAMBTONsaid the right hon. Gentleman had spoken of the irreducible minimum, and the First Commission or of Works had stated that he did not intend to accept any Amendments. The Leader of the Opposition had referred to the unnecessary powers contained in the Bill for the coercion of county councils, but they could not expect much tenderness towards county councils from hon. Gentlemen opposite. He did not think that a case for the Bill had been made out, and the arguments used in the House were different from those used outside. The reason given for the Bill was rural depopulation. In 1881 there were 983,000 agricultural labourers in the country, and in 1901 there were 689,000— a reduction of 30 per cent. But in conjunction with that statement he would point out that, according to the Report of the Commission on agricultural depression, in 1875 the average rental of land was 33s. 10½d., and in 1894 it was 20s. O½d. — a reduction of 40 per cent. Therefore it would be seen that along with rural depopulation they had the decreased rental received by the landlords. The Under-Secretary for the Colonies had said that the justification for the Bill was that land was the great monopoly of a small and privileged class. He did not know what the privilege of the landowners was, except it was that they paid income-tax on gross income, while everybody else paid on what they put
  1660
  into their pockets. He had sought to find out something about this monopoly, and had applied to the Board of Agriculture to ascertain what land had been sold in this country publicly or privately. He received the courteous answer that there were no such statistics in the office, but they referred him to the House and Property and Public Estates Gazette to get his information. He there learned that in 1906 there were 92,000 acres of land publicly sold. There was no record of what was privately sold, and he thought it was most disgraceful to the Government of the country that sales of land were not registered. But putting the sales of land effected privately at a similar figure, they had a total of about 200,000 acres of land sold in 1906, and very probably about a million acres of land had been sold publicly and privately in five years. He did not believe that to be an excessive figure, and he could not conceive, on those figures, where the land monopoly existed. There were large estates sold, and there were ample opportunities for acquiring land for small holdings. He had an Amendment on the Paper that the Bill be read that day three months, but he did not intend to move it in the circumstances, though he would prefer to see it read on September 12th. There was also the Scottish Land Bill going on, and the Government were trying to rush two Land Bills through the House at once. They were trying to ride two horses, though they had not been particularly secure in the saddle in regard to one of their Bills. He was not one of those who believed small holdings were going to be a success spread all over the country. In certain circumstances they would be successful. He believed that if the landlords were properly approached by the county councils there would be no difficulty in obtaining land. The county councils were going to lease land from the landowners; why should they not purchase the land, and, If necessary, lease it again to the small holders? What he objected to was compulsory hiring from the landowner. If the county council wanted land, and to become a landowner, lot it buy the land, but not become a leaseholder. And he would ask the Solicitor-General

  1661
  whether the provisions of the Bill really guarded the county council against excessive demands for compensation for improvements from small holders if they left their holdings. The Bill did great injustice to landlords and, although some of its provisions might do good, it ought not to be passed in such a hurry. The demand for small holdings was rather fictitious. It was a popular cry at the present moment, he admitted; but he was perfectly convinced that under the existing economic condition of agriculture men could not, in most parts of the country, get a living on such land. The more people were able to live on the land, the better, of course, it would be for the land, but Bills of this sort brought forward in a hurry, Bills of compulsion that were going to force county councils, who ought to know the needs of their own areas, to do things which they believed to be economically unsound, would only throw back agriculture, and not advance it.
  *SIR J. DICKSON-POYNDER:said he would like to express his approval of the intention and objects of this measure, and also of the machinery which it set up to attain those objects He was not without hope that in years to come it would be looked upon as one of the great Acts of the Libera Parliament. He hoped they might be assured of the passage of the Bill through both Houses of Parliament without too much delay or bitterness. He noticed that those who had spoken on the subject, and more especially the Leader of the Opposition and the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down, had spoken in a critical mood, although they had not displayed any really active hostility to the main principles of the Bill. Those who had been a long time in Parliament understood, and realised more than those who had not had so much experience, that it was the duty of an Opposition to oppose and underrate everything proposed by the Government, and the present Opposition were doing their best in that direction. There was a very serious evil confronting them in the rural districts in the abnormal annual withdrawal of the population, which had become what he might call a grave national catastrophe.
  1662
  There was a real demand for land in certain districts, which had not, up to the present, been satisfactorily met, and which, if satisfied, would, to a large extent, mitigate the evil to which he had referred. Rural depopulation had been dealt with by previous speakers. It was manifest that the causes of rural depopulation came from many sources. Those which had been dealt with by the Leader of the Opposition might be characterised as social and economic causes, and could not be mitigated or prevented by any form of legislation. There were, however, others which he believed could be mitigated by legislation, and they might be characterised under three heads. Two of them were dealt with in the measure before the House. One was not actually dealt with by the Bill, but it was of so kindred a character that he would venture to allude to it. One of the main causes of rural depopulation was the deplorable insanitary condition of cottage property in the country districts. That state of things was largely due to the negligence of the local authorities in administering the housing and sanitary Acts. He hoped that at the earliest date next session the Government would be able to see their way to introduce a Bill to strengthen and stimulate local authorities to carry out their primary duties in that respect, and thereby mitigate the evil of the insanitary condition of cottages property. The second point he wished to raise, and it had a close bearing on the Bill, was that it was difficult for landlords, whether loyal authorities or individuals, to build cottage property with any hope of a reasonable return for the capital outlay. The result was that in many villages there was to-day a serious lack of cottage accommodation. The Bill would materially affect that state of things, because one of the provisions was that small holdings and allotments up to five acres should be established with full equipment upon them, which would include the dwellings where the occupants would live. Then there was the difficulty of finding a sufficient quantity of land in certain districts where there was a great demand for small holdings and allotments. It had been said that the demand for land was of a somewhat spurious character, and that there really was no demand for this

  1663
  legislation. A Return showing the demand for land had been taken hold of by the critics of the Bill, and they had pointed out that the statistics, instead of proving the demand, showed just the reverse. He was not there to defend the Return which had been submitted to the House by the President of the Board of Agriculture, but, as one who presided over a Select Committee last year, he was prepared to say that in the course of a long and exhaustive examination of the housing problem in rural districts, which brought in the whole of the land question, witnesses drawn from all parts of the country, representing local authorities, public bodies and many others who had devoted their lives to work in rural districts, without a solitary exception declared that there was in the different districts of England a very serious demand for land which was not satisfied. Those who had read the evidence given before Lord Onslow's Committee would be ready to confirm what he said. During the last forty years, looking back to the innumerable inquiries made by Royal Commissions, Select Committees, and Departmental Committees, they would find an overwhelming mass of evidence showing that there had been in many districts a demand for land which had not been satisfied, and that demand had been accentuated as years went by. Therefore he thought they might dismiss from their minds the argument that there was no demand for land. The Bill proposed to grapple with the difficulty in a practical and sensible way. It gave an opportunity to local authorities to buy, either by agreement or by compulsion if necessary, land up to fifty acres. It appeared to him to meet the demand of the three main classes who required land, and who were they? First, there was the labourer in regular employment who required an allotment; secondly, the independent labourer in intermittent employment who wanted more land; and thirdly, the independent small man who desired to devote the whole of his time to the career of a small farmer. It had been said by the right hon. Member for Wimbledon that allotments had been provided in many districts, that the people were getting tired of them, and that they were being handed back in a derelict state.
  1664
  One would gather from the tone of the right hon. Gentleman's remarks that the desire on the part of labourers for allotments was dying out and was no longer in existence in many parts of the country. He would like to have the opportunity of analysing the reasons why the allotments referred to by the right hon. Gentleman had fallen into a state of desuetude. Of course, allotments miles away from a man's house would naturally become unattractive. In many instances they were in unsuitable positions, or the land was not of a character to make them profitable. The Bill, however, gave parish councils power to arrange allotments in suitable places, within reasonable distance of the holders' houses. Then there was the want of larger allotments for the labourer in intermittent work, a man who was indispensable to the large farmer at certain portions of the year. It had always been a difficult problem how to retain these men in the villages. In many districts the conditions of certain industries made work intermittent. The quarry industry, for example, was liable to violent fluctuations. In the last year there had been in that industry a violent downward fluctuation, with the result that many men had had to leave the district altogether. He had known many instances in which men had left districts where they would have remained if they had been able to get some land to work upon. An allotment of something like five acres would enable such men to tide over bad times, and so keep them in the villages. Another important aspect of the problem was the question of buildings. It was difficult under present arrangements to induce anybody to build a cottage, because the return was so small. A cottage without land was as useless in most cases as land without a cottage. When they put alongside a cottage a certain piece of land, they would be able to offer sufficient attraction to capitalists, whether the local authority or individuals, to develop districts in that direction. He believed that a cottage could be built for £165 or £170, and let at a rent of about £5 a year. That was a very small inducement to build cottages. In saying that, he spoke from his own experience and on the authority of the evidence given before the Select Committee. If they attached to the cottage

  1665
  a certain amount of land they would be able to ask a sufficient rent to pay an adequate interest on the capital laid out. The third point was that they wanted to see small farmers multiplied throughout the country. Some of his hon. friends opposite were apt to look with scepticism on the development of that class. He was of a more sanguine disposition. He believed that that class, with proper support and encouragement, could not only be multiplied, but developed into a very useful and prosperous element in the community. He was strongly in favour of the hiring of land as against purchase, because he looked on small holdings as one of the rungs of the agricultural social ladder. He wanted to see men move from small holdings into larger ones. He had on his own estate a tenant who admirably farmed a holding of 250 or 300 acres. He had been on the estate for forty-five years; he started as a labourer, afterwards became an allotment holder, and now he was one of the best farmers on the estate. They wanted to see such men multiplied all over the country. The Bill would enable men of that class, as never before, to start life under those circumstances. Some hon. Members opposite seemed to think that it would cost £1,000 to develop a small holding. Those who had had practical experience in the matter could not accept that estimate. He thought they could, generally speaking, be developed and equipped at the rate of about £7 or £8 an acre, so that a holding of 50 acres would cost about £400, and there was no reason why the rent obtainable for it should not afford an adequate return. He laid great stress on the establishment of the co-operative system wherever there was a group of small holdings, so as to secure for the holders a reliable market; and he would be glad to see the establishment of some machinery which would enable societies to take over land in order that their members might become small holders. Those societies or associations should be established wherever any appreciable group of small holdings could be created. The success which had attended the co-partnership system in connection with housing showed what could be done by co-operation, and there was no reason
  1666
  why the same principle should not be applied in regard to small holdings.
  SIR F. CHANNINGsaid it was working in Northamptonshire.
  *SIR J. DICKSON-POYNDERsaid that in connection with compulsory purchase the less expensive process of a single arbitrator would conduce to economy. There was not the slightest doubt that one of the reasons why in the past compulsory purchase; had not been acted upon by local authorities had been the expense. Rather than put their compulsory powers of purchase in force, local authorities had negotiated with landowners and eventually paid far above the market value, because they found it cheaper in the end to do so. The present system of purchase and conveyance was most expensive, and he believed that as the scheme developed it would be found desirable to provide a more rapid and less expensive method. They had heard a great deal of land being disturbed by the operation of the Bill. He had no great apprehensions on that score. Hon. Gentlemen opposite always suggested that the members of local authorities were a lot of arbitrary and stupid people. His experience was that county councils were composed of sensible, practical men. The gentlemen appointed to be Commissioners would be very carefully selected, and they would perform their duties, as public officials always did, with judgment. The Commissioners would serve as a useful stimulus to apathetic and reluctant county council, and the enabling powers of the councils would serve in their turn as a, useful stimulus to landlords who hitherto had not turned their attention to small holdings. For some reason best known to themselves, the land agents had been very strenuous opponents of small holdings. If the county councils had this stimulant, the result would be that many more small holdings would be created, either by the county council or by the Commissioners. He believed that the Bill was a practical and progressive attempt to grapple with the land question. But he urged most earnestly on his right hon. friend to use his influence with

  1667
  his colleagues to introduce next year a Bill dealing with the housing of the people in rural districts. The one measure would be the complement of the other, with the State acting as a stimulant to the local authorities to adopt sanitary inspection, which would gradually go on and convert the country districts into a more prosperous state, multiply small holdings, and mitigate and diminish the evils of the slums of our great towns.
  *MR. HILLS: said that if the cost of land transfer were made cheaper it would go a very long way towards the solution of the land question. That would not be easy of accomplishment, but it was quite worth trying, because it was a subject, of great importance all over the country. The present position in regard to small holdings was most deplorable; and many hon. Members had pointed out the grave evils which existed and demanded a remedy. No doubt something was wrong with the present position and something should be done to put it right. There were four well-known facts apparent. In the first place the value of land during the last twenty years was said to have fallen by £500,000,000. In the second place, over the whole country economic rent had disappeared. All that was paid as rent was interest on the money sunk by the landlord and his predecessors on roads, buildings, drains, and other improvements, and very small interest it was. In the third place, the land produced less. And in the fourth place, the number of people employed on the land had very largely fallen. He would be a very bold man who ventured to dispute that if these facts were true the landed and agricultural interest was in a very bad way indeed. His complaint against the Bill was that it was only an attempt to deal with a very small part of the question, and that not in the right way. It did not attempt to deal with the industry of agriculture as a whole or to benefit that industry and make it more profitable, but only to better the condition of the people engaged in that industry. He agreed that the latter was a very good thing even in
  1668
  the narrow limits of the Bill. But the measure stereotyped the existing system instead of going for some defensible change in the system. It only went in for some small modification of the existing lines. It created a new class of landlords and a new class of tenants; but it left the existing condition of the farmers and labourers untouched. If land purchase was the ideal to be attained then it was farther off than ever. If the Bill succeeded all the land in the country would pass into the hands of a body who would not sell and could not die. The land would pass into a sort of perpetual mortmain. It was hard to see why the Government had put aside all question of purchase. If the existing system was all right and if the tenancy system was the best way of working land it was hard to see why it should be attacked at all. The public authority could not deal with any question which the private landlord could not settle. In fact all the advantages were in favour of the private landlord. It was quite clear that the public authority could not let the land any more cheaply. All compulsory powers of purchase or hiring led to higher prices. The tenant could not even get fixity of tenure; for if he had a saleable right in his lease the principle of dual ownership was introduced. It was said that holding under the county council would be a great panacea against capricious eviction, that any popularly elected body would treat tenants with decency and leniency, and would not turn tenants out of their holdings. But all public bodies were capricious in their action, and a strong demand might be made in the county councils under certain circum stances for raising the rents of the tenants. Again, he was not sure whether the Government saw that it was essential that any land reform must carry with it a large amount of State assistance in the way of providing capital to the small holders. Could the Government give that assistance on the same easy terms as the private landlord? He spoke from personal experience on this matter because he had seen the accounts of a very large number of large estates, and he knew that the landlord only got

  1669
  a return of between 1 and 2 per cent. on capital sunk in new buildings, roads, drains, etc.
  MR. FLAVINasked what was the income of the landlords from the tenants after spending the money on their estates?
  *MR. HILLSsaid that the net income which a landlord obtained was something like 2 per cent on the selling value of the estate. The gross income varied very much.
  MR. FLAVINsaid that Irish landlords claimed from 7 to 9 per cent.
  *MR. HILLSsaid that in England there were people who were ready to invest their money in land at a very low rate of interest. He was not sure that the Government quite realised the large change which a system of small holdings would mean. It meant that the part played by the landlord in the economy of the country would be taken by the State, and all the assistance in past times given to the tenant by the landlord the State would be obliged to render. It seemed to him that all this was a very strong argument for purchase against the solution which the Government had adopted, namely, that of a system of leasehold occupancy. The Government had however stated that they would refuse to extend the Bill so as to include purchase. It was very hard to see the reason for that decision. The whole system of small holdings was largely an experimental system, and when the House passed an experimental Bill it seemed desirable it should draw its net as widely as possible and give itself as many chances as possible. Surely all the chances were on the side of ownership. The First Commissioner of Works in his able defence had given reasons why he considered his own system was the best. The first was that purchase was not wanted; he (Mr. Hills) thought that was a matter of opinion. He considered that there were certain people in the House and in the country by whom purchase was wanted, and if they gave the man the land or a chance of getting it, they called into operation all sorts of influences which they did not invoke
  1670
  when they only allowed him to hold it under a lease from the county council. In a great many cases the landlord was perfectly ready to sell, and it would be a great advantage to small holders if they were put in a position to purchase their holdings. No doubt the landlord wanted his price, but very often it was a very low price, and if the State were to step in and buy the land and allow the tenant to re-buy it from them by easy instalments it would be a far greater step in the direction of land reform than the present Bill would be. Of course there must be certain instalments and the State must see that those instalments were paid and future obligations secured. They would also have to see that the land was not divorced from the use for which it was intended but was always kept as a small holding. He thought there was some confusion in some hon. Gentlemen's minds about the taxation of land values. He did not think there was very much natural value in agricultural land in England, and it seemed to him the profits which now came from land took the form of interest on capital. Therefore if hon. Gentlemen had the idea that by taxing land values they would have a large source of wealth he thought they were mistaken. It was very hard to say where the advantages of tenancy would come in when contrasted with the system of ownership, and if hon. Members thought the result of their system would be to force up the price of land he did not think the amount which the county councils would buy would affect it. Under the Bill of the right hon. Member for Bordesley each tenant would acquire his holding for the same amount as the rent which he would pay, and at the end of sixty or eighty years the land which he occupied would become his freehold, so that to talk about the tenant not having the capital to work the land was fallacious. The real argument for small holdings was that they wanted the business of agriculture made more profitable to the people engaged. They wanted to build up a ladder from the bottom to the top, and to give some chance to the labourer of rising to be a farmer and landowner, and surely a system under which the land was said and transferred as cheaply as stocks and shares were sold,

  1671
  by some simple expedient of registering the title, so that a man could sell his land or buy land and add to his holding by means of easy instalments— surely that was a far better ladder and gave the labourer a much better chance of rising than a system under which all the land available for allotments or small holdings was held by the county councils, and all that the labourer got was the right to apply for a small portion which he held at a yearly rent, and from which he could be turned out very easily.
  *SIR F. CHANNINGsaid in the last speech and in one or two other speeches they had been carried off rather to the metaphysical aspects of the question, and away from the practical issues which the House was debating. The issues raised by the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme especially went far beyond the plain and practical matters they had to discuss, issues which he thought it was alike needless and unwise to raise in this debate. In the few remarks which he had to make, he wished to offer some, he hoped, useful comments on the practical issues raised by the Bill. In the first place, however, he should like warmly to congratulate his right hon. friend on the success of his first venture in the larger field of social politics, and on his admirable handling of a subject bound up with many memories of the great services of one of the greatest Parliamentarians whom some of them had ever known. Land reformers had always looked upon the handling of the land question by the late Sir William Harcourt, his clear insight and close, just analysis of the supreme issues which it involved, with the deepest gratitude. He had listened with interest to those who had spoken from the Front. Opposition Bench, and wished to join in the welcome which had been given to one of their oldest friends, the right hon. Member for Wimbledon, on his return once more to that House. With a large portion of his remarks he was in full agreement, though, as the right hon. Gentleman was aware, on some other topics there was a vast chasm of difference of opinion between them. He was delighted, however, to hear in his speech, and also in the speech of the Leader of the Opposition, a spirit of conciliation, and
  1672
  a readiness to handle this subject in a temper by which they could arrive at a common understanding. If he might touch for a moment upon the interesting; and also important speech of the Leader of the Opposition, he would like to offer one or two criticisms on one statement which the right hon. Gentleman made. The right hon. Gentleman spoke of the Government as advocating three systems of land reform, but it seemed to him that the present Government was not concerned with the system which was being carried out in Ireland. He had always supposed that the land purchase system in Ireland, through State credit, was a special achievement of the Unionist Government, and of his right hon. friend the Member for Dover. Then the right hon. Gentleman thought the Government were riding two horses in opposite directions in the Bill of his right hon. friend and the Scottish Bill. To say I that Ministers had spoken in different directions was, to his mind, a complete I misrepresentation. As to the differences which were said to exist between the present Bill and the Scottish Bill, he did not hesitate to say that the central principle of each was identical. There was a slight inversion in the duties of the central body, and he confessed that in that respect he preferred the independent Commission of the Scottish Bill; but taking the report of Lord Onslow's Committee and the two Bills, there was in all three the same principle of a central body and compulsory powers. The differences were in degree or method. He affirmed that without the slightest hesitation. What fell from the right hon. Gentleman with regard to the thorough co-operative organisation of the small holding development which they wished to see carried out throughout the United Kingdom was absolutely essential to success, and he associated himself with the right hon. Gentleman's demand that the question should be treated on an absolutely economic basis. Small holdings should be started not as a matter of philanthropy or sentiment, but with knowledge and on definite business and economic lines. The reason which caused him most heartily to support the Bill was that it was based distinctly upon an economic basis and economic methods. He contended that under the Bill there would be no risk to the ratepayers or anybody concerned, because no scheme would

  1673
  be put through unless economic success was really in reach. Hon. Members opposite had dwelt on the desirability of purchasing the land and making the small holders freeholders in every case, but surely hon. and right hon. Gentlemen would see how inconsistent that was with the economic basis they insisted on. If they insisted that small holders should be freeholders, what they really insisted upon was that a larger portion of the capital which should go to the working of the holding should be absorbed by the process of purchase. They would therefore diminish the working assets which the small holder had for the land and diminish the probability of his making the holding a success. He thought one portion of the right hon. Gentleman's speech showed a lack of personal acquaintance with the subject, which gave him some surprise. The right hon. Gentleman had said the Bill gave no help to the local authorities from the State to carry out its proposals. He contended that the whole cheapening of the costs of arbitration and the cheapening of the procedure which gave to the Board of Agriculture and its Commissioners power to pay a portion of the actual expenses of the county council or other local authority in acquiring the land, and, furthermore, the great concession of giving eighty years as the limit for the repayment of loans advanced to the county councils, was an enormous subvention and pecuniary aid and relief to the county councils in carrying out the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman had also complained that small holders were not allowed to charge their holdings under the Bill, and seemed to think it would be absolutely and entirely impossible for them to obtain money except by the process of mortgaging their holdings. He invited the right hon. Gentleman to consult the various sources of information in regard to the credit banks which were at present working all over the continent. Banks of this type were being promoted by the Agricultural Organisation Society, which had already established a number of them in England, while Sir Horace Plunkett's society had established still more in Ireland. Everybody knew there was no mortgaging in these credit banks. A co-operative credit society was formed among the people themselves. It was governed and controlled by a committee. That committee offered loans to the
  1674
  members of the society to carry out various agricultural operations, and all the loans were made on direct personal security and not upon mortgage. The Bill, as it seemed to him, was admirably adapted to meet many of the obvious difficulties which those interested in the question had found it so exceedingly hard to overcome in the past. He had already alluded to the financial difficulty so admirably surmounted by the Bill. Some of the criticisms addressed yesterday to the Bill were directed to points upon which he certainly hoped his right hon. friend would see there was some reason for the criticism. He did not think those criticisms were based on natural defects in the drafting or the intentions of the Bill, but he thought its passage would be facilitated if provisions were introduced which would make those intentions clearer and more definite. It was said that in the case of hiring land compulsorily by the county councils or the Commissioners there was no guarantee to the landlord as to good cultivation, and that the land would be returned to the landlord at the expiry of the hiring in a well-cultivated and satisfactory condition. He would suggest that the Government would be well advised if they would accept from one of the several Bills which he had laid before the House the specific guarantee which he had there inserted in the case of compulsory hiring of land. He thought that such a provision was perfectly fair and that this Bill contemplated it, and he thought the Government would be well advised if they put a provision of that kind into their Bill. It would be as well if a similar provision were put in for the adequate compensation of the tenant farmers who were dispossessed in order to create small holdings on their farms. The schedule of the Bill provided for compensation for the severance from the landowner, and also an allowance to the tenant who had been dispossessed for the proportion of the rent in respect to the land taken away from him, and he did not think that the Bill would be in any sense weakened if such a provision as he suggested were inserted. The possible unpopularity of the Bill with the tenant farmers of the country would be enormously diminished if there was some definite guarantee that a farmer who was dispossessed should have full and complete compensation not only for improvements,

  1675
  but also for the loss he sustained by having a portion of his land taken from him. He himself had always insisted upon that. He remembered years ago he started a co-operative society to take a portion of a farm from one of the tenants of Lord Want age in his own village in Northants, and he insisted upon the fullest compensation being paid for crops and everything else, and he found that that course was fully appreciated by the labourers who were placed upon the land. He did not in the least disguise his own very decided preference for the procedure of the Scottish Bill especially in the form adapted to English conditions in which he had himself drafted the Bill which stood in the name of the hon. Member for Stowmarket. The Scottish Bill included in its provisions the principle of loans to landlords, and, though many of his friends did not agree with him, he heartily supported that principle. He knew, from many communications constantly reaching him, that many landlords were most eager to carry out a policy of small holdings if it were made financially possible. A great deal of evidence had been taken by the Committee on Small Holdings, of which he was a member, on this point. He commended to the attention of hon. Members the evidence of Lord Harrowby, who was carrying out an admirable system of small holdings on his estates in Staffordshire and Gloucester, since it would entirely relieve their doubts on the question, and they would also see the reason which enabled him, a Liberal, most warmly to support the principle of loans to landlords for the promotion of small holdings. Lord Harrowby said that many of the small holders were perfectly ready to pay for land, previously let to farmers for 30s. an acre, as much as 50s. or even 70s. an acre; they paid those rents regularly and there were no arrears, and he said he could expand the system still further if financially enabled to carry out that purpose. He would like to state frankly to the House the grounds on which the Committee arrived at their conclusions unanimously. He himself had supported the Chairman in his proposals that advances should be made to landowners, but he had insisted that they should have, as a condition of State advances, guarantees that the land thus aided should be ear-marked and maintained in the shape of small holdings.
  1676
  They signed a Report unanimously in that sense, that the money should be advanced at a low rate to the landowner to carry out that policy, but that he on his own side should not be legally enabled to pocket any result of that advance of public money, but that he should remain under the obligation to keep the land in small holdings, and, further, that he should so keep it under conditions which would imply fair play to the tenant, at such a rent, and on such conditions, as would give a fair chance of making a reasonable profit. He much preferred the idea of an independent Commission. He had, while on the Agriculture Commission twelve years ago, and last year on the Small Holdings Committee, heard all the evidence given in Scotland. The striking success of the Crofters Commission gave him the strongest possible opinion in favour of a Commission which would not be in the position of the Commissioners under the present Bill of having, first of all, to bring about the action of the local authority. He preferred a scheme for the promotion of small holdings by a strong body of men responsible to Parliament, who would be able to carry out their policy under that responsibility with a free hand and with public money to promote small holdings in this country. But falling short of that, he thought that the plan of the Bill was the most admirable that possibly could be developed. He believed that the financial difficulties and the administrative difficulties in connection with the county councils would be found to be infinitesimal and practically non-existent. The whole thing, as he had said at first, depended on starting the holdings and working the whole business on economic lines and with the practical certainty of economic success. There was one point on which he wished to urge one or two considerations. That clause of the Bill which dealt with co-operation seemed to be admirable in intention and did much to carry out what was so strongly urged by the Leader of the Opposition in his remarks about the necessity of efficient co-operative organisation if these small holdings were to succeed, and by the hon. Member for Wiltshire, in his admirable speech. Both the Leader of the Opposition and the hon. Member for the Chippenham Division agreed that efficient co-operative organisation of small holdings would afford the best

  1677
  chance of making them an economic success. The hon. Member for the Chippenham Division did not seem to be quite aware that they had really solved this question in a way in Northamptonshire, both as regarded the purchase of the freehold and also with regard to the creation of small holders who were tenants, in a very admirable way. He did not think more could be learned in any other part of the country than in two or three of the towns and villages in Northamptonshire, where they had been thoroughly successful for many years. Rents were regularly paid, the land was well cultivated, and practical fixity of tenure secured. The points which he had to criticise were points of drafting rather than intention. Clause 33, which dealt with co-operative societies and credit banks did not seem to him sufficiently defined as to the sort of co-operative society and sort of credit bank which was to be encouraged and aided. It was imperative that the societies should be such as would do their work in a thorough and businesslike way, and they must be formed and composed, and operate, on definite and ascertained lines. Some speakers had referred to benevolent but inexperienced landlords and others who had initiated rash and reckless experiments. Similarly on a county council there might be some feather-headed but influential member who took great interest in this subject, but with a bee in his bonnet, who might pledge the credit of the rates for ventures and to aid in speculative and theoretical schemes which might be wholly unsound. It seemed to him that they wanted a little more definition in the matter. It might bean advantage if the Agricultural Organisation Society, who had taken a very active part in carrying out credit banks and co-operative societies and who thereby understood the practical methods that must be pursued and the standard that these societies must reach in order to be really effective, could with advantage be consulted. Why should not the Board of Agriculture practically associate with itself the Agricultural Organisation Society in dealing with these questions? In the Bills which he had himself introduced he had tried to furnish a precise definition of what societies should be recognised and aided. He ventured to think that it would be well if they insisted that these societies
  1678
  should be registered, that their rules should be ascertained, that they should require the punctual payment of rent; and they should also give full power to the Committee to turn out tenants who farmed their land badly, and should generally put themselves in order. The financial status of these societies should be thoroughly tested by the Local Government Board and by the Registrar of Friendly Societies. The whole of their rules should be thoroughly tested in order to see if they were satisfactory. As one who had given great attention to this subject as a former director of Lord Wantage's Land Company for some years, on which he had learned to distrust attempts to acquire blocks of land and to attract all and sundry to come and take the land, he thought that this whole subject had made an immense advance. The whole conception of the machinery indicated by the Bill, and the whole of the practical organisation now treated as essential by the Leader of the Opposition and the Member for the Chippenham Division pointed to this fact, that they had got far beyond the stage of rash ventures and speculative experiments in which land was to be taken and offered to anybody who might choose to apply. They had realised the fact that to make a real success of small holdings they must acquire the right land and put upon it the right men, and start them by right methods and under the right conditions to ensure success. It was because he believed this Bill went altogether in the right direction, that he gave it his most hearty support.
  *MR. BRIDGEMANsaid he found himself in no difficulty in supporting the Second Reading of this Bill, because he had always, and the Party to which he belonged had always, been in favour of doing anything possible to increase the number of small holdings for the people. He thought that the Bill might have an effect by creating a certain number of small holdings in favoured districts, where the conditions were especially favourable to this particular kind of agriculture. But when he had said that, he was afraid that he had said nearly all that he had to say in favour of the Bill. He welcomed it for one other reason, that when they

  1679
  had got it to work it would become increasingly evident if they desired to do something really to benefit the agricultural industry it would be necessary to take measures very much more far-reaching, very much wider than anything contemplated in this Bill. When he said contemplated, he referred to the Bill itself, and not to the very extraordinary and magnificent utterances which had been made in respect of the Bill on platforms and elsewhere. There were, of course, a number of provisions of the Bill which seemed to him objectionable, but he thought that they were details which might be dealt with in Committee, and if the Government treated the matter in a fair and not in a partisan spirit, there was every reason to suppose that the difficulties might be got over. The first objection he had was to the provisions with respect to compulsory hiring. They wanted to increase small holdings either by lease or by purchase, and if compulsion was to be introduced at all, those who owned the land should have the option either of letting or selling to the county councils; then the county councils could either let or sell to the would-be smallholder. It seemed to him a most extraordinary thing that the Government should tie themselves down so strictly to the one method of dealing with the question. Hon. Members opposite realised as much as he did that there were many people to whom ownership was a distinctly attractive feature, and that it ought to be provided for. He did not want to force anyone who did not want to purchase to do so, but the county council should be obliged to deal fairly with the owner, and give him the option of either selling or letting, and then to make whatever arrangements they thought fit with the tenant. He did not think that the Government would be so unreasonable as to refuse to make an alteration of that kind. No argument had been more insisted upon than that the Bill would give security to the small tenant, but surely ownership was a greater security than hiring. Another argument used by the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill and the hon. Member for Devizes was that if they had a large system of purchase there would be no chance of promotion. As far as he could tell from experience, if a man took up a small holding it would be some considerable time before he was
  1680
  in a position to require promotion to a larger holding, and even if a man did desire to purchase and enlarge his borders, he would probably wish to retain the ownership of his small holding and hire another farm and perhaps put one of his sons upon it. He objected to the proposal that the Commissioners should be able to override the popularly elected county councils and charge them with the expense of small holdings which they thought were undesirable. He was not afraid of the Commissioners exercising their powers unduly, but it was a matter of principle that if the Bill was advocated on the grounds of a national policy, in order to carry out something which was required by the nation as a whole, if the Commissioners chose to override the county council, then the public purse and not the local rates should be taxed with the cost of the experiment. Another provision which had been very much blessed by hon. Gentlemen opposite, and which had not been opposed as much as he thought it should have been by the Opposition, was the proposal to extend the period for the repayment of the loans raised by the county councils to eighty years. He objected very much to vote-catching legislation at the expense of generations to come. They had never before gone so far as eighty years in the case of these loans, and they were now proposing to charge the third generation with the extremely doubtful experiments they were making in order to justify the cry "Back to the land." The First Commissioner of Works had assumed that at the end of eighty years, if it was a question of purchase, the county council would step into a property very much enhanced in value. What right had the right hon. Gentleman to assume that the property would be enhanced in value in eighty years? He saw no prospects in the future of agricultural land being enhanced in value, and he thought it was very bad finance indeed to extend the limit of repayment for loans to eighty years, and to put upon people yet unborn a great deal of the risk of experiments made in this generation. He objected to the hope which had been raised in regard to the number of small holdings which were likely to be created under the Bill. Hon. Members opposite appeared to be proceeding on the assumption that there had been no small holdings and allotments except those

  1681
  which had been brought about by legislation in this direction. [Cries of "No."] Most of the arguments for the Bill proceeded on the assumption that whatever had been the action of private owners in the past nothing had been clone except what had been carried through under the provisions of the Allotments Acts and other legislation dealing with small holdings. That was not the criterion by which the question could be judged. Those Acts might have accomplished much or little, but a large number of small holdings and allotments had boon created outside those Acts. He had that day been furnished with some figures relating to a large agricultural property in his own constituency, and they showed that 78 percent. of the tenants had holdings of less than thirty acres. He did not think that hon. Members opposite realised the great amount of good work which had been going on outside the operation of those Acts. The right hon. Member for the Rushcliffe Division had told the House that this Bill was the irreducible minimum. He could not but agree in feeling that the measure was so small and inadequate, and as it was possible that it might stand in the way of some larger and more comprehensive measure in the future which would benefit not one class of holders, but agriculture as a whole, he sometimes felt a little doubt whether he should vote for the Second Heading at all. The Bill was being supported on the ground that it was going to deal with rural depopulation, and that was the main reason why it had been introduced. The right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill had told him that he did not expect the measure to lead to an immense erection of bricks and mortar in various parts of the country. In the instances quoted by the hon. Member for South-West Norfolk, a great authority on the question, there had been very little building at all. The estate which the hon. Member for Newmarket had taken up was one on which he had not built a single cottage. Everyone apparently admitted that the Bill might perhaps lead to more land being attached to the cottages now existing, and perhaps to some extra buildings being provided, but no one seemed to believe that it was going to lead to more dwelling-houses being built. The right hon. Gentleman
  1682
  in charge of the Bill did not think so, for he had said so yesterday. Not a single Member had got up to argue that the Bill was likely to lead to a very large addition to the number of dwelling-houses in rural districts. Therefore he did not see how they were going to bring back people to the land if they were not going to provide dwellings. They might keep a certain number of people in the country who were there now, but that was all, and he only wished that the Bill would do all that hon. Members opposite seemed to think it would. The right hon. Gentleman in introducing the Bill said that he had dealt with the matter by hard thinking rather than by high talking. He himself had tried very hard to master the provisions of the Bill, and he could not find any trace whatever of hard thinking on the economic side of the question. There had been a great deal of high talking, a great deal of cry about bringing people back to the land, and about the charter of freedom for labourers. These were all admirable cries in which he should cordially join, but he was not going to adopt them in favour of a Bill which he did not believe would produce those results. He could only support the Bill because he thought it went a little way in the right direction. He supported it on the principle that he would rather have 2d. in the £ than nothing at all. He deprecated the idea that it was going to do all that hon. Members said it was in the way of bringing people back to the land and retaining those who were there. He wished that there had been more hard thinking on the economic side of the question. He should have thought that everyone would have realised that the reason why rural depopulation had been going on was simply that there were many other ways of investing money which produced a much larger return than investing it in land. That was at the bottom of the whole question. He defied any hon. Member to prove that that was not so. He defied any hon. Member to prove that an investment in agricultural land returned anything like what could be got in almost anything else they liked to put their money in. He was glad to think that there was someone sanguine enough to take the opposite view, and he hoped he would be able to convince

  1683
  others that they were wrong. He should say that the main reason why they could not get people to stay on the land, whether as owners or occupiers, was because the land was not sufficiently worth living upon. Those owners who were able to make land pay must have an exceptional kind of land— he was afraid that he was not in that position himself— or else they must charge rents very much in excess of what the land was worth. In the diagnosis of the exodus from the country there had been no hard thinking at all on the part of those who had drafted the Bill. Did they imagine that these small holdings were going to pay or not? [An HON. MEMBER: They are going to pay.] If they were going to pay, he failed to understand why it was that landlords, in the natural selfish pursuit of their own interest they were always supposed to be engaged in, could not be expected to do for themselves what was going to pay them.
  MR. LUPTON: It is not their nature to.
  *MR. BRIDGEMAN: said he was glad to think that landlords were such an unselfish class. The case that had been quoted more than any other, perhaps, was that of the noble Lord the President of the Board of Agriculture, who had invested some trust money for which he was getting 3 percent. in a scheme for small holdings which returned rather over 4 per cent., which was more than he could get in other trust securities Did hon. Members suppose that landlords were so altruistic as to refuse, if they had the chance, to invest their money in a way which would yield more than 1 percent. above what they could get otherwise. He did not think that the noble Lord claimed any credit for philanthropy in the matter. He regarded it as a business transaction. Was he the only man who had got his eyes open, or had he his eyes open wider than other landlords? The Prime Minister had property in Scotland not far distant from a very successful experiment made at Blairgowrie in small holdings. The right hon. Gentleman apparently did not think it would be an economic success to cut up his property into small holdings. He was informed that the Prime Minister's property was let to only two tenants. He gave the
  1684
  right hon. Gentleman full credit for doing what he thought right with this property in the same way as the noble Lord the President of the Board of Agriculture had done. If they were to have evidence adduced in regard to what one had done, they must also have the evidence in regard to the other. And they must know why the conditions in the part of the country where the Prime Minister had his estate were unfavourable to the experiment which he was fond of pressing upon everybody else. The proposals now made by the Government seemed to be entirely foreign to their own professions of free trade. They were proposals to interfere with the ordinary course of a particular industry. They should have gone to the root of the matter instead of merely touching the fringe. He did not believe there was the slightest chance of really benefiting agriculture until they went very much deeper into the question than the Government were now attempting to do, or were likely to do. There were three things which ought to have been included in this measure. One was the simplification of the system of land transfer. He believed that an immense amount of land ready to be bought and sold was perpetually being stopped because of the extraordinary legal difficulties. He should have thought the first step to be taken was the simplification of transfer. He could not expect the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite (the Solicitor - General) in his own interest to take any step in that direction. [Cries of "Oh!"] He had not said anything in the least offensive. He was sure that in his public capacity the hon. and learned Gentleman would consider the advisability of introducing a reform of that sort, and that he would not allow his own interest as u member of the legal profession to stand in the way. Nor did he think that the other members of the legal profession would allow their own particular interest to stand in the way of what he believed to be a great national reform.
  THE SOLICITOR-GENERAL (SIR W. ROBSON, South Shields)said he hoped they would have the support of the hon. Member in Committee in maintaining the provisions in the schedule of the Bill for securing simplicity of procedure.
  *MR. BRIDGEMAN: said that anything that secured simplicity of procedure in connection with land transfer would have his most cordial support, and especially anything that might be proposed with regard to land registration. In the second place, he thought something should be done to advance and assist cooperation. The Government, if they had their heart in the matter, would, he thought, have embarked something in excess of the paltry £100,000 provided for under the Bill, in order to initiate cooperative societies, which would really have done something to make small holdings more likely to pay. The third point which had been omitted was in regard to the most unfair system of taxation, both local and general, which bore upon the agricultural industry. There was no attempt to deal with that question, and he believed it to be a far more serious evil than hon. Gentlemen opposite were willing to admit. The Local Taxation Commission, which reported some years ago, came to the conclusion that the sum of £2,500,000 was duo in relief of local rates. The local rates had increased very much since then, and he should say that the sum of £3,000,000 was now required to make the system fair with regard to the people who made their living out of agricultural land. Nothing in his opinion would ever be satisfactory in the direction of land reform which did not recognise the duty of allowing people who lived upon the land to pay not upon what was supposed to be their incomes but upon their actual incomes. Hon. Gentlemen opposite were always pointing to Denmark as the example for this country to copy. Might he be allowed to say that after reading the last diplomatic and consular Report, he found that in recent years a great deal had been done in Denmark in the way of relieving landowners from unfair taxation? Further, in the last few years much had been done in that country to mitigate the hardships which still fell upon the people who occupied land in this country. The Bill could not be regarded as at all a satisfactory solution of the difficulty; it was merely a tinkering with a great question and postponing the real solution. The First Commissioner of Works had given them on the previous day a quotation from Horace wrenched like most of the Government quotations on this subject from its
  1686
  context. Surely the proper quotation should have been—
  "Vivendi recte qui prorogat horam,
  Rusticus expectat dum defluat amnis,at ille
  Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis ævum."
  In other words, the man who put off the hour of reforming his life was like the rustic who waited for something which it was impossible for him to have. If the right hon. Gentleman put off the hour for dealing fully and properly with this land question, he was like the rustic who was expecting to achieve something which was quite impossible of achievement; so long as he put off that hour the people in this country would not have an opportunity of going back to the land and living prosperously upon it.
  MR. ROWLANDSsaid he had listened with very much interest to the speech of the hon. Member for Oswestry. Up to the last speech or two his right hon. friend who introduced the Bill had been congratulated on the way in which the measure had been received; but now, at last, the House found that this poor unfortunate measure was so small and so inadequate that nothing could be expected from it ! It had been said that they had only got from the Government a half measure; then it fell to a quarter measure; and he really thought that hon. Gentlemen opposite were going down to vulgar fractions. He did not think that most hon. Members took the same pessimistic view which the hon. Gentleman had just done all through his speech. He thought that the hon. Gentleman was actually going to put before the House some grand scheme which the First Commissioner of Works could adopt so as to bring the measure up to his standard for the solution of the land question. But his hopes were disappointed. He regretted that the hon. Member for Oswestry and his friends did not introduce such a grand scheme in the days gone by, when they were in office for so many years. They were all in favour of cheapening the cost of land transfer. They on the Liberal side had been preaching that doctrine for years, both inside and outside the House. So was it also in regard to rural housing. He believed that there was very great scope in this country for small holdings. Everyone seemed agreed that there was a demand for such small holdings, and

  1687
  the only difference was as to the conditions upon which these small holdings should be held. It might be right to supply them under the conditions approved by the right hon. Member for Bordesley or under the conditions of this Bill; but he believed that there was a great demand for them.
  *MR. BRIDGEMAN: I never said that there was not a demand for small holdings; I have always recognised that there was.
  MR. ROWLANDS: said he would accept the statement of the hon. Gentleman; but the question was, how was the demand to be supplied? They had always accepted with gratitude what had been done either by voluntary effort or by legislation. He had had as much correspondence on this question as a good many people. He had been responsible for calling non-political conferences in different parts of the country, followed by public meetings, to discuss the matter; and he had found that there was the strongest possible desire for small holdings, and, what was more, that there was no opposition to the idea that the people should get the opportunity of going on the land either by purchase or by hire. Hon. Gentlemen opposite had become very enthusiastic over the difference between letting and selling land to the people. Some hon. Members on that side of the House had had the idea that people should obtain the right of getting the fee simple of their property in towns, but except from the late Lord Randolph Churchill they did not get any support from hon. Gentlemen opposite. The Town Holdings Committee, of which he had been a member, agreed with the opinion that the letting of land on the leasehold system possessed considerable advantages and conveniences. The one great argument for leasing instead of purchasing property was that it released the tenant's capital to be used for other purposes. That was true of hiring land under this Bill. The hon. Member for Oswestry had said that if the county council took over the land they would relieve the landowners of much responsibility so that compulsion was not necessary. Let them take on the other hand the case of hiring— and the case of a man who had no capital to commence to purchase— a man who could not put down even the one-
  1688
  eighth which would be required if they altered the Bill of 1892 according to the ideas of the right hon. Member for Bordesley. That man, however, had something which was known in his locality, and which to him was as valuable as capital. He was known to be a man of good moral character, and a sober and a steady man. That could be stated by the farmer who had employed him. Under this Bill he was face to face with no responsibility for payment towards purchase money. All he had to do was to meet his rent. He would not have, as under the purchase system to have recourse to the credit banks which were in existence in this country. What they had to do was not only to bring small holdings into existence, but to organise them, and under this system instead of a man having to pay an instalment they left everything clear for him, and he would go into the holding and get to work under the best possible conditions, his only liability being to meet the rent. The hon. Member for Oswestry was very much afraid that they were going to lend money under conditions which would not be beneficial, but the House had found money for many other purposes which benefited other classes. He believed that the land owners had benefited in this regard by money advanced by the Public Works Loans Commission. The money advanced was to be lent by that body at the minimum rate of interest allowed. The hon. Member for Oswestry also criticised the fact that eighty years was taken for repayment. He forgot the exact time in which under the last Amendment of the Housing Act passed by the late Government repayment was arranged for, but it was a very long period, and he thought that it should be extended over a longer period in the case of land than in the case of houses. For himself he was pleased that the Government had taken eighty years in regard to land. They started with an eighty years limit, and every repayment was so much towards the sinking fund, and every year the capitalised value of that would become more and more valuable to the locality, so that the security of the locality would be continually increasing if the repayments were maintained.
  SIR F. BANBURY: thought that the eighty years was not only applicable for the purposes of the

  1689
  land, but for the purposes of any buildings which the county council thought fit to erect on it.
  MR. ROWLANDSsaid as he read the Bill the period related to the land alone. Perhaps the Solicitor-General would clear up the point and satisfy them upon it, but he did not want to go into it in detail now. He thought Parliament might give a much longer period for repayment in the case of land than in the case of houses, and there were some people who thought that in regard to the former a hundred years might safely be given. They were told that the period should be the period allowed under the Local Loans Fund.
  *MR. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (MR. CALDWELL)said the points to which the hon. Gentleman was alluding were matters of detail which should be raised not upon the Second Reading of the Bill but in Committee. As there were a number of other Members who were anxious to speak he hoped the hon. Member would not prolong the debate on the Second Reading by referring to points of detail.
  MR. ROWLANDSsaid he would leave the subject where it was. He only wanted to call the attention of the Government in the question of loans, and he would not have gone into the question but for the observations made on the other side of the House. As to the central body he could not see the reason for the opposition to the appointment of Commissioners. He believed that in order to get the work done thoroughly they must have a direct touch between the House and the local authority. He therefore did not see any objection to a proposal which gave that direct touch to the Minister of Agriculture. One other point he wished to refer to was that of co-operation in regard to small holdings. Wherever they found that small holdings in Europe had been a great success they would find that that result had been achieved by the system of co-operative distribution. He believed that such cooperative efforts were the mainstay of the system of small holdings in Denmark and other countries. The Staffordshire Farmers' Co-operative Society founded in 1897 had created a milk trade which had tended to the prosperity of the farmers. Then there was the Hereford Co-operative
  1690
  Fruit Trading Society which sent the fruit produced by the farmers, graded, into the market, and that had been a great means of giving work to the labourers. The same sort of movement had been going on in every direction, and all experience tended to show that the associated effort by means of which the farmers sent their produce through the best possible channels was a system we should have to adopt if we were to compete with other parts of the world. Another reason for the adoption of the system arose in connection with railway rates, because such a system would force the railway companies to reduce their charges. He ventured to say in conclusion that they had before them a very useful and practical measure indeed. It might be strengthened in Committee, but he was sure that it would tend to bring about a great amount of prosperity which they all desired. He was sure also that everyone would welcome the effort of his right hon. friend, and he hoped the measure would speedily be placed on the Statute-book.
  *MR. JESSE COLLINGSagreed with the last remark of the hon. Member for Dartford as to the advantage of co-operation, but pointed out that co-operation under tenancies never succeeded except under great difficulties and under the patronage, not so much of the co-operators themselves as of private gentlemen and others; it never succeeded except in countries where ownership was the predominant feature. If they wanted co-operation to nourish nationally they must have ownership. He was glad that they were all agreed as to the benefit of small holdings. They differed only as to methods. On the one side was the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill, who had set his face against ownership. The right hon. Gentleman was setting up a barrier against any agricultural labourer ever becoming the owner of an inch of the soil he cultivated.
  THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (MR. HARCOURT, Lancashire, Rossendale): The right hon. Gentleman misunderstands me. I leave the whole of the Act of 1892, passed by the friends of the right hon. Gentleman, in operation.
  *MR. JESSE COLLINGS: said that, at any rate, tenancy was the basis of the Bill. On the other side were those who supported the principle of ownership, among whom he believed were several of the supporters of the Government. One would have imagined from the utterances of the Prime Minister that the Bill was going to be a wonderful measure—
  "We are enabling the peasantry,"
  said the right hon. Gentleman— he meant the labourers, of course, for there were no peasantry—
  ''to lift up their heads and call their souls their own; to obtain a footing; to be no longer tied men, but freed."
  It was "the mountain in labour," and the Bill before the House had been the result. The right hon. Gentleman knew that not one man in ten would ever study the Bill, but would take that description as being the Bill itself. Dealing with allotments, he showed that the Act of 1887 had not been interfered with by the Parish Councils Act, 1894; the name was simply changed from the Poor Law and Sanitary Authority to the District Council, and up to to-day any six labourers might apply to the district council to be provided with allotments. To his own knowledge that Act had been very useful to the labourers, who would rather apply to large district councils composed of representatives of many parishes than to the council of the particular parish to which they belonged. He wanted to know whether the present measure abolished the power of applying to the district council and made the parish council the sole arbiter for the obtaining of allotments. That was a very important question, because if that right to apply to the district council for allotments was abolished it was a retrograde step The allotment of this Bill was, however, of small importance, but the right hon. Gentleman in one of his statements made the Act of 1887 to appear of no use whatever. The principle of that Act was to provide allotments by voluntary arrangement, and in default of that by aid of the district council. The right hon. Gentleman ignored altogether the thousands of allotments which were secured by voluntary arrangement under the Act. If he read the Report published three years after the Act was passed he would find that in those three years 92,000 allotments had been
  1692
  obtained. By the administration of the Act, at any rate, the number of allotments had increased four or five fold since it came into operation, and the presumption was that that vast increase was due to the passing of the Act of 1887 and that comparatively few allotments were obtained compulsorily. He protested therefore against that Act being so misrepresented. The small holdings part of the measure was the important part from the point of view of the labourers. Speaking from the labourer's point of view he would ask what had they got. To this he asked the attention of those who were against all sweated labour. If they wanted a Bill for sweating it was the Bill before the House. He would take a concrete case. A local authority purchased £5,000 worth of land and divided it into small holdings. Everybody knew that corporation management was always costly, and therefore the expenses of management under the local authority would be very high, and that heavy expenditure would be included in the rent which the small holder had to pay, and the sinking fund was another charge. The one fact certain was that the men would buy the land and pay for it; but they would not get it, the local authority would get it.
  MR. LUPTON: The labourers are the local authority.
  *MR. JESSE COLLINGSasked how many small holders were on the county council.
  MR. LUPTONsaid in an agricultural district the labourers were five to one of every other class.
  *MR. JESSE COLLINGSsaid the small holders in the county would be a very-small minority compared with the millions of other people. The small tenants would buy the land and pay for it and the community would have it, and eventually it would go to benefit the ratepayers. What the Bill said to these poor fellows was that they should labour and buy the land which should go eventually into the pockets of men many of whom were rich, but that the labourers should not have one inch of the soil which their money and toil had bought. He did not see how the right hon. Gentleman was to get out of that.

  1693
  He could find no answer to it. Therefore the process was a sweating one. Under the purchase system, on the other hand, all the expenses of management and repairs and so forth were not incurred, they were avoided and the rent consequently was lower. Of course, the men had to pay interest and sinking fund, but nothing else, and the land would be their own, and that made all the difference. He hoped his hon. friends representing labour would remember that. Then there was the compulsory hiring. But without some explanation from the right hon. Gentleman that seemed to him absolutely unworkable. Small holdings required homesteads unless they were near a village. Who was going to put them up, and at the end of the term to whom would they belong? The landlord or the local authority? He said there was a clause for compensation for cropping on the market garden scale, but if hon. Members read the Report of the Fruit Industries Committee they would find the compensation given was very small. Of course, they got anything they planted and unexhausted manure in the soil. But the real value of the peasants' work was put into the land and was not perceptible. They knew that the incessant toil which was put into the land added to its value by 20 per cent. Who had all the result of that?. He did not get it: he simply got a little compensation on the market garden scale, which was hardly worth considering. His right hon. friend the Member for Wimbledon had dealt in his speech with the question of mortgage. His right hon. friend represented an urban constituency and this was a town question just as much as it was a rural question. His right hon. friend could enlighten the people of Wimbledon just as he could enlighten the people of Birmingham and other places on this very important subject. The financial ramifications connected with the land were so great that they affected all classes, and the working classes perhaps more than any other. There were the clubs and building societies, the benefit societies, and the thousand and one associations of workmen to be considered, and he thought that the friendly societies alone at this moment had invested in land and buildings on the land not less than between twenty and thirty millions ster-
  1694
  ling. Were they prepared to vote for a scheme that would assuredly knock down such securities and damage them considerably? He did not advance this point in any Party spirit, but only in the interests of the working classes. Under purchase, all that was different, because when a man was sold out the mortgagee would get no more than his money and therefore there could be the least possible loss. Some spirited words were used by his right hon. friend about fixity of tenure. It was a pretty phrase, useful on the platform, like "bring back the men to the land," "depopulation," and half-a-dozen phrases of that sort. Nobody knew what fixity of tenure was, and nobody could give it except by ownership, and to talk of fixity of tenure was to talk about something that this Bill could not give. The tenant would have to rely on the tender mercies of the local authority. They might take it as an axiom in all matters connected with land that those who commanded rent commanded the whole position. Under the Bill the local authority had full command over the rent. But the county councils had other interests to attend to; in some cases they had nearly a million people to preside over; they had the general body of the ratepayers, the shopkeepers, and others under them; and there might be among the community those who would say, as political economists, that the local authority should raise the rents of the small holdings in order to reduce the rates; and the reduction of the rates was a very fascinating thing for every voter, as they knew by the London County Council election. There was nothing to prevent the raising of rents on small holders, as they were very likely to do. Therefore this security, depending on popular landlordism, was not at all a good one. The next point he had to make was one which he hoped that the Liberalism of his right hon. friend would lead him to alter at once— he referred to the coercion of the local authority. It was the ratepayers who should make the local authority do what was wanted. When a candidate came forward for election as member of a local authority it was the ratepayers who told him what they wanted done. That was the democratic method, and there was no other method reconcilable with democracy. But under this Bill they had the monstrous proposition that commissioners

  1695
  should go down and settle schemes running, perhaps, into thousands of pounds, and the ratepayers would be called upon to pay the bill. They could not do it; they could not put the local authority in prison. He wondered that his right hon. friend the Member for Wolverhampton, after pissing the Act of 1904 putting the franchise on the widest basis short of universal suffrage, could swallow such a scheme. Why not do away with local government altogether and govern by an authority in London? They were dispensing with the local authorities in this case. This was modern democracy ! They seemed to be overriding Parliament by preventing discussion, and now they were overriding the local authorities— and they were not in Russia. He trusted that the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill would remember that, especially after he had said that the men who would deal with the matters relating to small holdings would know the details, they would have an accurate knowledge of the wants of the villages, the capabilities of the land, the fitness of applicants, and so on.
  MR. HARCOURT: The parish councils.
  *MR. JESSE COLLINGS: said it did not matter what the authority was— it was local; and that brought him to his other point. The parish councils were to have powers under this Bill— powers of hiring and purchasing land, but he thought that was subject to the county council. Was he right in that? Supposing the county council did not agree; were the Commissioners to override in this case as well? He should be glad if his right hon. friend would answer that. He trusted that he would take the matter seriously. [Laughter.] This was their form of democracy, and they laughed at the destruction of our local institutions. It was this to-day, it must be something else to-morrow. He came to the Act of 1892, the statements with regard to which were not true. The right hon. Gentleman had said that that Act was a pathetic and huge mistake; and that under its proposals the occupier would not become owner under less than sixty years. What was the reply? The man became owner the moment he paid his first instalment. The hon. and learned Gentleman opposite knew that there were a number of free-
  1696
  holds which were subject to annual payments, and subject to permanent annual payments, while under the Act of 1892 the instalments were for a certain number of years, and then ceased. The other objection to the Act of 1892 was that the rights of sale were limited. His reply was that the rights of sale were unlimited to other cultivating owners, but they had not the right to sell to a neighbouring landlord so that the holding should be absorbed into a large holding. With regard to what had been said about the money-lender, he would not be likely to advance money when he knew that the land had already been given as security to the State for the money advanced, and the interest could never be raised, and so the argument about the money-lender fell to the ground. The objections taken to the Bill of 1892 would not hold water; but his right hon. friend got as near as he could to a sneer at the magic of owner ship. If the principle of the magic of ownership was not admitted, if it was not believed that a man by the possession of land, or anything else, had all that was best in him brought out, all his powers disclosed, and his energies revealed in a manner that no tenancy could bring about, then the right hon. Gentleman must have a wrong apprehension of what the power of ownership meant. The history of the Act of 1892 would dispel the imputation that it was introduced with political motives on the eve of an election; it was a Bill considered by a Committee in the previous year and introduced by himself previously, in 1886. A Select Committee, of which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham was Chairman, was appointed, and that Committee approved of the Bill with some alterations. That measure was promoted as the present Bill was promoted, with a sincere desire to establish small holdings, though he did not believe that it would bring a single man back to the land or do much to keep a man there. Let the Government improve on the proposals of fifteen years ago, let them remove the 20 percent. barrier which the labourer was asked to pay down. His own Bill, introduced a few weeks ago, would remove that difficulty. That measure had not been allowed to make any progress on account of the position of the Government. Last Wednesday they opposed it, on the ground that they were bringing in a Bill of their own. He

  1697
  was addressing a meeting that night in the country, and when he read a telegram stating that the Bill had been blocked again the people were almost as angry as he was himself. He would like to see the peasant class restored to the land. Their divorce from the land was completed in 1850, and from that time there had been no peasants in England, as that term was formerly understood. He remembered that in the villages songs of a pathetic character were sung in regard to that change. The refrain of one was—
  "No spot of hind do I possess,
  A poor wayfaring man."
  He believed the expenses of the Commissioners would represent money which might as well be thrown into the sea at once. He would suggest that the money to be spent on them should be given to the local authorities to aid them pro rata, according to the expense they incurred, in creating small holdings. In his Minority Report he recommended the making of grants of money for that purpose, in the same way as grants were made to the Congested Districts Board. He hoped his right hon. friend would consider that suggestion. Reference had been made to the Act of 1892 as a ludicrous failure. He pointed to the results of the experiment at Catshill as showing that small holdings could be worked on economic lines. That settlement was an all round success. There were no arrears, the men were thrifty, sober, and industrious, and the women were, if anything better than the men. Many people talked about emigration, but let them look at the state of our rural districts. In the rural districts of forty-two of our counties there were less than 200 people to the square mile, in twelve less than 100 to the square mile, and in three less than fifty. Why! it was a desert. Instead of taking money to emigrate the best of our labourers, why could they not, at no cost except a loan, which was in variably repaid, put those men into colonies on those desert lands. The issue was clear; ownership was going to win, no matter how great the opposition to it was. Look at the results of the elections at Brigg and at Rutland. The voters there would not listen to tenancy. Before sitting down ho wished to refer to one other point. He had been trying for years in his own humble way to
  1698
  show that agriculture was the basis of our prosperity, nay, of our actual existence. The right hon. Gentleman had said that he; should not make any proposal for forcing an industry which could not stand alone without State aid. His hon. friend the Member for Windsor had on the previous day referred to a French book on agriculture. In the concluding paragraph of that book, the author stated that public prosperity was like a tree. Agriculture was the root, industry and commerce were the branches and the leaves; and if the root suffered, the leaves dropped, the branches fell away, and the tree died. He would recommend that statement, not only to his right hon. friend, but to all who had the welfare of the country at heart. There was no instance in ancient or modern times where a nation, however rich or luxurious, remained in the front rank after its agriculture was destroyed, and its rural population decayed.
  SIR W. ROBSONsaid the right hon. Member for Bordesley in the course of his very interesting speech had asked whether it was a fact that under this Bill the powers of district councils were, in respect of allotments, transferred to parish councils, and he intimated that if that were the case the Bill took a very retrograde step. That was the case, and as to whether it was a retrograde step or not, one might perhaps refer to the amount of work district councils had done in the matter of allotments, as compared with that done by parish councils. The rural sanitary and district authorities had under the Acts of 1887, 1890, and 1892, purchased by agreement about 375 acres, and they had hired by agreement about 1,700 acres.
  *MR. JESSE COLLINGS: Can you give us the amount of acreage and the number of allotments which have been acquired by agreement under the voluntary clauses of that Act? They probably amount to 200,000.
  SIR W. ROBSON: The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bordesley suggests that 200,000 allotments have been acquired outside the Acts, but he has not told us where he got that figure from.
  *MR. JESSE COLLINGS: Look into the Report of 1890 and you will see it.
  SIR W. ROBSON: said he was giving what had been acquired under the Act. He had searched through a good many Reports for those 200,000 allotments, and he had not succeeded in finding them. He was assured that the right hon. Gentleman must have taken into account every case where in the suburbs of a town there was a house with a garden patch. The figure was ludicrous, and he hoped it would not go forward as a figure to be seriously dealt with in the controversy. The parish councils, operating over a shorter period, had purchased by agreement twenty-six acres, hired compulsorily 252 acres, and by agreement 15,265 acres, and they had placed on the land thus acquired over 30,000 persons. Was there any comparison between the spontaneous activity of the parish councils as evidenced by these figures and the activity of the district councils? When those figures were compared, it was not fair to the parish council or to the Bill to say the transfer of the powers of the district council to the parish council was a retrogade step. The strongest objection which appeared to be taken to the Bill was founded upon the provisions conferring upon the Board of Agriculture power to supersede, if need be, the action of county councils in default. He thought the terms in which those powers had been condemned were exaggerated. He could understand that hon. Gentlemen opposite should demand that those provisions should be justified by very strong arguments and evidence. But they had treated the matter as one of constitutional magnitude, and condemned the principle in terms which apparently implied that it ought not to be applied at any time or in any circumstances. That was going too far. They had heard a great deal about overruling a representative assembly. In that House they had the greatest representative assembly in the world, and they wore accustomed to be overruled. It was an almost daily occurrence nowadays to find their deliberate decisions, springing from the people, mutilated and rejected, at the instance of the right hon. Gentleman who now stood as the champion of representative assemblies. He hoped that the right hon. Gentleman would lay equal stress on the sanctity which ought to attach to the decisions of representative assemblies at a later stage of the
  1700
  session, and particularly on 24th June. The Leader of the Opposition spoke of an Education Act, which he would have done well to keep in the background, because it afforded abundant precedent — not one that he should like to see followed, but one which stopped the right hon. Gentleman from complaining of this Bill. He referred to the Defaulting Authorities Act of the last Parliament. Under the principal Act of 1902, privately appointed individuals had been empowered to incur expenditure which fell upon the rates, and when the county councils objected to that remarkable proceeding the right hon. Gentleman brought in a Bill to supersede them. The Board of Education was enabled in all cases of that kind to step in to exercise the powers of the county council against the will of the county council and at the expense of the county council. Therefore, if one wanted a procedent— which one scarcely required— there was abundant precedent in the legislation of the last Government. The right hon. Gentleman had pointed out one difficulty which had no doubt impressed the House. He had laid stress upon the difficulty of coercing a county council. There he was right. He could assure the House that the difficulties attending that course wore present to the minds of those concerned in drafting the Bill, and if the Leader of the Opposition had given a little closer attention to some of the provisions of the Bill which he himself had thought would excite more attention and curiosity generally, he would have seen that the Government had met his difficulties in a very fair and reasonable way. A county council, if it thought small holdings did not pay, would no doubt give strong reasons for that conclusion, and the reasons which appealed to the county council, if they were good, would also appeal to the Commissioner. But supposing the Commissioner took a different view, then, asked the right hon. Gentleman, what was to happen? The right hon. Gentleman had overlooked for this purpose one very important provision of the Bill. The Bill contained a clause enabling the Commissioners to undertake small holdings for the purpose of demonstrating their feasibility at the charge of the Board, falling upon the small holdings fund. Therefore, if the county council said they could not establish small holdings and the Commissioners said they

  1701
  could, they would back their opinion at the expense of the Exchequer. That was an excellent provision for bringing the county councils and the Commissioners into accord by means of actual experiment. He hoped they would act together in a reasonable spirit. In criticising a Bill it was easy to assume that each Party would act in the most unreasonable spirit. In the last resort the sum which the Commissioners desired to charge against the county was to be treated as a debt duo to the fund to be recovered by civil proceedings, if civil proceedings became necessary, and not by mandamus. The Crown had adopted ample methods for the collecting of its debts, and he doubted very much whether the local authorities would be in a hurry to contest the payment of any sum definitely stated to be a debt from it to the Crown. The merits of any scheme of this kind must be judged, not by any abstract consideration, but by the circumstances of each individual case. In the debate there were two propositions which had come to be practically undisputed. The first was that provision for the increase of small holdings was a very fit object for public policy and State action. That was now universally agreed. The next proposition was that the Act of 1892 had completely miscarried in regard to adequately meeting the demand for small holdings. The Small Holdings Act of 1892 has been used rather for the purpose of getting allotments than for the purpose of small holdings. In the Local Government Board returns for small holdings he found an instance where 100 acres had been distributed amongst 139 persons, so that they should have been described as allotments rather than small holdings. The Act of 1892 had not only not achieved its object, it had scarcely even approached its object. All the land that it had affected was equal to about a moderate-sized farm, and all the persons it had affected were about sufficient to fill a small village Was that an adequate outcome of a legislative attempt to meet a grave and admitted national evil? Clearly it was not. Therefore they stood in the position of being bound to meet that state of things with some remedy. He was ready to listen to any suggestion on the part of hon. Members opposite to deal, otherwise than by this proposal,
  1702
  with the apathy of local authorities in the matter. Some had suggested ignoring the local authorities altogether, but that would be very difficult indeed if they desired small holdings to succeed. By what means did hon. Members opposite propose to stimulate and inspire the local authorities, whose apathy was applicable just as much to purchase as to compulsory hiring? The right hon. Gentleman who had just spoken had referred to his Bill as an alternative I method; but it was no remedy for that apathy. They had to complain that the county councils had not used the powers they had got, had not made advances, and had not borrowed money where they might have done so. What was the right hon. Gentleman's remedy? To enable them to borrow more money and make more advances. They did not get any assistance on that point from the right hon. Gentleman's Bill. A suggestion had been made by the Committee whose Report was before them with regard to loans to landlords for the purpose of equipping small holdings. Hon. Members opposite had not urged that as an alternative proposal, however, doubtless because, if loans were made to landlords on any scale, there would be no alternative to some general measure of compulsion. Not all the landlords wanted money. Where they were dealing with impecunious landlords, advances for purposes of equipment might be of substantial service. Hut there was a vast area of English land which was scarcely farmed for profit at all. Considerations of sport and pleasure might in some cases override questions of profit, and he did not see anything wrong in that. So far as personal kindness was concerned, many landlords were most generous to their tenants, nevertheless they were against increasing the number of their tenants; and though they were most considerate persons, yet their estate policy encouraged large rather than small tenancies. The Government made no attack on the landlords, so far as their personal character was concerned, because of their objection to facilitate the creation of small holdings. He believed there was no great class of land proprietors in the world among whom considerations of personal property were more often subordinated to kindly personal

  1703
  considerations than among the landowners of England. But that was not inconsistent with an estate policy which, in its wider national aspect, might be most mischievous to the community as a whole. The landlords who took up larger tenancies were not likely to make smaller ones which required equipment. So far from its being a want of money, there were some landlords who might honestly think the Bill bad, but who yet spent a good deal of money among the people. But another point which they had also to consider was how far the county councils were exactly representative in the matter of small holdings. The number of persons desirous of small holdings in any electoral area must necessarily be few, and the number of persons in the same area desirous of withholding them — it might be for perfectly proper motives — were often largo and even powerful, especially when apprehensions of a rise in the rates influenced them. It therefore happened that those who looked for small holdings, being few and unorganised, were lost sight of in local elections which might turn on purely local questions regarded from a purely local standpoint; and it was the national and not the local point of view which must prevail in this matter. Another great point was the controversy between purchase and hiring. Nobody doubted the earnestness of the right hon. Member for Bordesley on this point, and nobody doubted the earnestness and sincerity of those who sat on the benches behind him; but he wondered whether they who championed the proposals for purchase had really considered what they were. He imagined that the landlords did not object to compulsory hire so long as they did not take away the land altogether, and left him his sporting rights. He doubted whether the landlords of the country generally adopted the view which was urged on their behalf by hon. Gentlemen opposite. The universal agreement which prevailed in the House as to the necessity for small holdings was due to the fact that in the House the question was regarded, not from a local, but from a national standpoint; and it was from the national and not from the local standpoint that the question must be determined. He could understand a landlord raising no objection to letting, so long as he was allowed his sporting rights, but objecting strongly to be expropriated in patches. Of course,
  1704
  everybody would rather own a piece of land, but would everybody rather pay for it? Everybody would rather buy it than hire it; purchase was an excellent thing, especially for some, but it had the initial disadvantage of requiring a good deal of money. In the case of a large number of persons the consideration presented itself that if they bought their holdings they would have nothing left for equipment and for working the land. There could be no doubt about the legitimate inference to be drawn from the figures he had quoted earlier in his speech. Where they had 200 or 300 purchases by a parish council and 15,000 acres hired, what inference could any reasonable man draw but that hiring was more popular than purchase? There was one point with regard to purchase which had not been mentioned in the debate, but to which he desired to call the attention of the House. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bordesley, he thought, had overlooked it, and certainly the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition had overlooked it, for he said—
  "Why not buy instead of hire, and thus acquire the unearned increment on the land?"
  Small holdings were most successful in the immediate neighbourhood of towns, because they got an excellent market for their produce. But in the places where they would be most successful there the price might be almost prohibitive, because the land in the neighbourhood of good markets was very valuable. The Government had considered that problem, and they gave to the landlord the power of resumption in cases where building value was imminent in regard to a piece of land taken for small holdings; that was to say, as soon as the adjacent population became so great that the land had a building value, the landlord would be entitled, on paying compensation to the small holder, to soil the land. But if at the outset purchase was insisted on in such cases the price of the land with this prospective building value would be prohibitive for the purposes of small holdings; or if that policy were carried out, and the small holders obtained and cultivated the land, the result would be to impede and restrict the development of the adjacent town, the expansion of which was perhaps more important than the establishment of small holdings

  1705
  in that particular case. Other hon. Members had complained about the application of compulsion to land. He could not understand any landlord denying that the State had always assumed to exercise a special interest and right in landed property, and had put land on a different basis from any other property. There had been as many as twenty-three Acts passed in which provision was made for loans to the landlord. Something like six millions of money had been advanced to landlords under various Acts of Parliament. That meant that the State had a special obligation and duty in relation to landed property— an obligation and a duty to the cultivators of the soil and the community and not merely to the owner. But now, after all, the real, paramount, and urgent necessity for the proposal which the Government had made was to be found in the fact which nobody denied— namely, the rural depopulation. Ho was not going to dwell upon the economic aspect of that great exodus of over 300,000 persons concerned in agricultural work during the last twenty years. The figures which had been quoted showing the extent of the depopulation were few, simple, and appalling. He had no doubt whatever that economic reasons were the principal cause of the agricultural depression, and it had caused great economic loss to the country. But there was another consideration than the economic one which ought to be paramount in the mind of the House, and that was the health and virility of the race. He confessed he was rather at a loss to understand the observations of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition in answer to his hon. friend the Member for Norwich, who pointed out the discomfort
  of a purely urban life. He should think himself there could be no doubt at all as to the enormous physical advantages of those who lived in the country as compared with those who lived in the towns. The wholesome life of the farm or the garden, the daily work in pure air, the natural life away from smoke and the din of factories, maintained an element of our population which was worth preserving. He hoped the day would come, when in the progress of things, factories and industries would be spread over wider areas instead of being closely concentrated in confined spots. But there was little sign at present of such a dispersal over larger areas taking place. We had generation after generation growing up under conditions which made for the physical decadence of the race. In industry and in war we must rely on the physical efficiency of the people; and, those who would be most responsible for the evil results of physical decadence would be those who obstinately adhered to a landed system under which the cultivators of the soil could make neither a subsistence nor a decent career. These were the considerations which had induced the Government to bring forward this Bill and enabled them to commend it with confidence to the attention of the House.
  Motion made, and Question put, "That the Bill be committed to a Committee of the whole House."— (Mr. Balfour.)
  The House divided:— Ayes, 107; Noes, 330. (Division List No. 231.)

  AYES.

  Anson, Sir William Reynell

  Carlile, E. Hildred

  Craig, Charles Curtis(Antrim, S.

  Anstruther-Gray, Major

  Carson, Kt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.

  Craig, Captain James(Down,E.)

  Aubrey-Fletcher, Rt. Hon. Sir H.

  Castlereagh, Viscount

  Craik, Sir Henry

  Balcarres, Lord

  Cave, George

  Dalrymple, Viscount

  Balfour, Rt Hn. A.J.(City Lond.)

  Cavendish, Rt. Hon. Victor C. W.

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

  Banbury, Sir Frederick George.

  Cecil, Lord John P. Joicey-

  Du Cros, Harvey

  Banner, John S. Harmood-

  Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.)

  Duncan, Robert(Lanark, Govan)

  Baring, Capt. Hn. G (Winchester

  Chamberlain, Rt Hn. J. A. (Worc.

  Faber, George Denison (York)

  Beach, Hn. Michael Hugh Hicks

  Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry

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

  Beckett, Hon. Gervase

  Clark, George Smith(Belfast, N.)

  Fell, Arthur

  Bertram, Julius

  Coates, E. Feetham (Lewisham

  Forster, Henry William

  Bignold, Sir Arthur

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

  Gardner, Ernest (Berks, East)

  Bowles, G. Stewart

  Collings, Rt. Hn. J.(Birmingh'm)

  Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West)

  Bridgeman, W. Clive

  Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow)

  Gordon, J.

  Butcher, Samuel Henry

  Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

  Gretton, John

  Campbell, Rt. Hon. J. H. M.

  Cowan, W. H.

  Haddock, George R.

  Hamilton, Marquess of

  Magnus, Sir Philip

  Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.)

  Hardy, Laurence( Kent, Ashford

  Marks, H. H. (Kent)

  Sheffield, Sir Berkeley George D.

  Harrison-Broadley, H. B.

  Mason, James F. (Windsor)

  Smith, Abel H. (Hertford, East)

  Helmsley, Viscount

  Meysey-Thompson, E. C.

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

  Hervey, F. W. F. (BuryS Ed m'ds)

  Moore, William

  Starkey, John R.

  Hill, Sir Clement (Shrewsbury)

  Morpeth, Viscount

  Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

  Hills, J. W.

  Muntz, Sir Philip A.

  Talbot, Rt. Hn. J.G.(Oxf'd Univ.)

  Kennaway, Rt. Hon. Sir John H.

  Nicholson, Wm. G. (Petersfield)

  Thomson, W. Mitchell- (Lanark)

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

  Nield, Herbert

  Walker, Col. W.H. (Lancashire)

  Keswick, William

  Pease, Herbert Pike( Darlington)

  Walrond, Hon. Lionell

  Kimber, Sir Henry

  Percy, Earl

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

  Lamb, EdmundG. (Leominster)

  Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

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

  Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm.

  Randles, Sir John Scurrah

  Willoughby de Eresby. Lord

  Lane-Fox, G. R

  Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel

  Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm

  Law, Andrew Bonar (Dulwich)

  Renton, Major Leslie

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

  Liddell, Henry

  Ridsdale, E. A.

  Wyndham. Rt. Hon. George

  Lockwood, Rt. Hn. Lt.-Col. A. R.

  Roberts, S.(Sheffield, Ecclesall)

  Younger, George

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

  Ronaldshay, Earl of

  Lonsdale, John Brownlee

  Rothschild, Hon. Lionel Walter

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES—

  M'Calmont, Colonel. James

  Salter, Arthur Clavell

  Sir Alexander Acland-Hood and

  M'lver, Sir Lewis (Edinburgh. W

  Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert

  Viscount Valentia.

  NOES.

  Acland, Francis Dyke

  Cameron, Robert

  Findlay, Alexander

  Adkins, W. Ryland D.

  Carr-Gomm, H. W.

  Flavin, Michael Joseph

  Agnew, George William

  Causton, Rt. Hn. Richard Knight

  Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Walter

  Ainsworth, John Stirling

  Cawley, Sir Frederick

  Fuller, John Michael F.

  Alden, Percy

  Channing, Sir Francis Allston

  Gardner, Col. Alan (Hereford, S.)

  Allen, A. Acland (Christchurch)

  Cheetham, John Frederick

  Gibb, James (Harrow)

  Allen, Charles P. (Stroud)

  Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R.

  Gill, A. H.

  Armitage, R.

  Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S.

  Goddard, Daniel Ford

  Armstrong, W. C. Heaton

  Cleland, J. W.

  Gooch, George. Peabody

  Astbury, John Meir

  Clough, William

  Grant, Corrie

  Baker, Sir John (Portsmouth)

  Cobbold, Felix Thornley

  Greenwood, G. (Peterborough)

  Baker, Joseph A. (Finsbury, E.)

  Collins, Stephen (Lambeth)

  Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward

  Balfour, Robert (Lanark)

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

  Griffith, Ellis J.

  Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight)

  Cooper, G. J.

  Guest, Hon. Ivor Churchill

  Barker, John

  Corbett, CH(Sussex, E. Grinst'd)

  Gulland, John W.

  Barlow, Percy (Bedford)

  Cory. Clifford John

  Gurdon. Sir W. Brampton

  Barnes, G. N.

  Cotton, Sir H. J. S.

  Gwynn, Stephen Lucius

  Barran, Rowland Hirst

  Cox, Harold

  Haldane. Rt. Hon. Richard B.

  Barry, Redmond J. (Tyrone, N.)

  Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth)

  Hall, Frederick

  Beale, W. P.

  Crean, Eugene

  Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Lewis

  Beauchamp, E

  Cremer, William Randal

  Hardy, George A. (Suffolk)

  Beck, A. Cecil

  Crooks, William

  Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Worc'r)

  Bell, Richard

  Crosfield, A. H.

  Harmsworth, R. L. (Caithn'ss-sh

  Bellairs, Carlyon

  Crossley, William J.

  Harrington, Timothy

  Belloc, Hilaire Joseph Peter R.

  Dalziel, James Henry

  Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale)

  Bonn. T'w'r Hamlets, S. Geo.)

  Davies, Ellis William (Eifion)

  Harvey, W. K. (Derbyshire, N. E.

  Bennett. E. N.

  Davies, Timothy (Fulham)

  Halsam, Lewis (Monmouth)

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

  Davies, W. Howell (Bristol, S.)

  Haworth, Arthur A.

  Bothell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon)

  Dewar, John A. (Inverness-sh.)

  Hayden, John Patrick

  Billson, Alfred

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

  Hazleton. Richard

  Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine

  Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P.

  Hedges. A. Paget

  Black, Arthur W.

  Dobson, Thomas W.

  Helme, Norval Watson

  Boland, John

  Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness)

  Hemmerde, Edward George

  Bottomley. Horatio

  Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne)

  Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

  Bowerman, C. W.

  Dunne, Major E. Martin(Walsall

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

  Bramsdon, T. A.

  Edwards, Clement (Denbigh)

  Henry, Charles S.

  Branch, James

  Edwards, Frank (Radnor)

  Herbert, Colonel Ivor (Mon., S.)

  Brigg, John

  Elibank, Master of

  Herbert, T. Arnold (Wycombe)

  Bright, J. A.

  Ellis, Rt. Hon. John Edward

  Higham, John Sharp

  Brodie, H. C.

  Erskine, David C.

  Hobhouse, Charles E. H.

  Brooke, Stopford

  Essex, R. W.

  Hodge, John

  Brunner, J. F. L. (Lancs., Leigh)

  Esslemont, George Birnie

  Hogan, Michael

  Brunner, Rt Hn Sir J. T(Cheshire)

  Evans, Samuel T.

  Holden. E. Hopkinson

  Bryce, J. Annan

  Fenwick, Charles

  Holt, Richard Durning

  Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn

  Ferens, T. R.

  Hope, W. Bateman(Somerset, N.

  Burke, E. Haviland

  Ferguson, R. C. Munro

  Horniman, Emslie John

  Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas

  Ffrench, Peter

  Horridge, Thomas Gardner

  Byles, William Pollard

  Fiennes, Hon. Eustace

  Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

  Hudson, Walter

  Newnes, F. (Notts, Bassetlaw)

  Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim.S.)

  Hutton, Alfred Eddison

  Nicholls, George

  Soames, Arthur Wellesley

  Hyde, (Clarendon

  Nicholson, CharlesN.( Doncast'r

  Soares, Ernest,J.

  Isaacs, Rufus Daniel

  Nolan, Joseph

  Spicer, Sir Albert

  Jackson, R. S.

  Norton, Capt. Cecil William

  Stanger, H. Y.

  Jacoby, Sir James Alfred

  Nuttall, Harry

  Stanley, Hn. A. Lyulph(Chesh.)

  Jenkins, J.

  O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

  Steadman, W. C.

  Jones, SirD. Brynmor (Swansea)

  O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

  Strachey, Sir Edward

  Jones, Leif (Appleby)

  O'Donnell, C. J. (Walworth)

  Straus, B.S. (Mile End)

  Jones, William(Carnarvonshire)

  O'Dowd, John

  Strauss, E. A. (Abingdon)

  Jowett, F. W.

  O'Grady, J.

  Stuart, James (Sunderland)

  Joyce, Michael

  O'Malley, William

  Summerbell, T.

  Kekewich, Sir George

  Parker, James (Halifax)

  Sutherland, J. E.

  Kelley, George D.

  Partington, Oswald

  Taylor, Austin (East Toxteth)

  Kilbride, Denis

  Pearce, Robert (Staffs., Leek)

  Taylor, John W. (Durham)

  Kincaid-Smith, Captain

  Pearson, Sir W. D. (Colchester)

  Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

  Kitson, Rt. Hon. Sir James

  Pearson, W. H.M.(Suffolk, Eye)

  Tennant, SirEdward(Salisbury)

  Laidlaw, Robert

  Philipps, Col Ivor (S'thampton)

  Tennant, H. J. (Berwickshire)

  Lambert, George

  Philipps, J Wynford (Pembroke)

  Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen,E.)

  Lamont, Norman

  Philipps, OwenC. (Pembroke)

  Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan,E.)

  Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, W.)

  Pickersgill, Edward Hare

  Thomas, David Alfred(Merthyr)

  Leese, Sir JosephF.(Accrington)

  Pirie, Duncan V.

  Thomasson, Franklin

  Lehmann, R. C.

  Pollard, Dr.

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

  Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich

  Power, Patrick Joseph

  Tomkinson, James

  Levy, Maurice

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

  Toulmin. George

  Lewis, John Herbert

  Price, Robert John(Norfolk, E.)

  Trevelyan, Charles Philips

  Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David

  Priestley, Arthur (Grantham)

  Ure, Alexander

  Lough, Thomas

  Radford, G. H.

  Verney, F. W.

  Lundon, W.

  Rainy, A. Rolland

  Vivian, Henry

  Lupton, Arnold

  Rea, Russell (Gloucester)

  Walker, H. De R. (Leicester)

  Luttrell, Hugh Fownes

  Rea, Walter Russell (Scarboro')

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

  Lyell, Charles Henry

  Redmond, John E. (Waterford)

  Walton, Joseph (Barnsley)

  Lynch. H. B.

  Redmond, William (Clare)

  Ward, John (Stoke upon Trent)

  Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester)

  Rees, J. D.

  Ward, W. Dudley (Southamptn)

  Macdonald, J. M.(Falkirk B'ghs)

  Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

  Wardle, George J.

  Mackarness, Frederic C.

  Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)

  Waring, Walter

  MacNeill, John Gordon Swift

  Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.)

  Warner, Thomas Courtenay T.

  MacVeigh, Jeremiah (Down, S.)

  Robertson, Rt, Hn. E (Dundee)

  Wason, Eugene (Clackmannan)

  MacVeigh, Charles (Donegal, E.)

  Robertson, SirGScott( Bradford

  Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

  M'Callum, John M.

  Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside)

  Waterlow, D. S.

  M'Crae. George

  Robinson, S.

  Watt, Henry A.

  M'Kenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald

  Robson, Sir William Snowdon

  Weir, James Galloway

  M'Micking, Major G.

  Roche, John (Galway, East)

  Whitbread, Howard

  Marks, G. Croydon (Launceston)

  Roe, Sir Thomas

  Whitehead. Rowland

  Marnham, F. J.

  Rogers, F. E. Newman

  Whitley, John Henry (Halifax)

  Massie, J.

  Rose, Charles Day

  Wiles, Thomas

  Meagher, Michael

  Rowlands, J.

  Williams, Osmond (Merioneth)

  Meehan, Patrick A.

  Rutherford, V. H. (Brentford)

  Williamson, A.

  Menzies, Walter

  Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)

  Wilson, Hn. C. H. W.(Hull, W.)

  Micklem, Nathaniel

  Scarisbrick, T. T. L.

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

  Molteno, Percy Alport

  Schwannm, Sir C. E. (Manchester)

  Wilson, John (Durham, Mid)

  Mond, A.

  Scott, A. H.(Ashton under Lyne

  Wilson. J. H. (Middlesbrough)

  Money, L. G. Chiozza

  Seaverns, J. H.

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

  Montagu, E. S.

  Seely, Major J. B.

  Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

  Mooney, J. J.

  Shackleton, David James

  Winfrey, R.

  Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall)

  Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford)

  Wodehouse, Lord

  Morrell, Philip

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

  Wood, T. M'Kinnon

  Morton, Alpheus Cleophas

  Sheehy, David

  Yoxall, James Henry

  Murnaghan, George

  Sherwell, Arthur James

  Murphy, John

  Shipman, Dr. John G.

  TELLERS FOR THE Noes—

  Murray, James

  Silcock, Thomas Ball

  Mr. Whiteley and Mr. J. A. Pease.

  Myer, Horatio

  Simon, John Allsebrook

  Nannetti. Joseph P.

  Sinclair, Rt. Hon. John

  Napier, T. B.

  Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie

  Bill committed to a Standing Committee.

  *MR. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. EMMOTT): said that two instructions on
  1710
  the Paper, standing in the names of the hon. Member for the Leith Burghs and the hon. Member for the Reigate Division of Surrey, were not in order. The first was unnecessary, as the Committee would

  1711
  be able to deal with the subject matter of the instruction. The second was mandatory. †
  †The proposed instructions were as follows:—
  MR. MUNRO FERGUSON: That it be an Instruction to the Committee on the Bill that they have power to make provision to apply the Bill to Scotland.
  MR. BRODIE: That it be an Instruction to the Committee to provide that the powers conferred on parish councils in regard to allotments under Part II. of the Bill shall be enlarged by the elimination of all reference to county councils, and by arranging that no other authority shall intervene between parish councils and the Commissioners in the exercise of the powers proposed to be conferred by the Bill.

  LEEDS (SOUTH PARADE CHAPEL) CHARITY BILL.
  Read a second time, and committed to a Standing Committee.
  KINGSWOOD (WHITFIELD TABER. NACLE, SCHOOLROOM, &c).
  Read a second time, and committed to a Standing Committee.

  LONGTON (CAROLINE STREET CHAPEL) CHARITY BILL.
  Read a second time, and committed to a Standing Committee.
  Adjourned at twenty-one minutes after Eleven o'clock

Preamble
King's Norton and Northfield Urban District Council Bill. The Chairman of Committees informed the House that the opposition to the Bill was withdrawn. The order made on the 5th instant discharged, and Bill committed.
Great Yarmouth Port and Haven Bill, Reported, with Amendments.
Armagh Urban District Council Bill. Read 2a, and committed.
Brecon and Merthyr Tydfil Junction Railway Bill. Head 3a, and passed.
Grays and Tilbury Gas Bill; Brighouse Corporation Bill; Gas and Water Orders Confirmation (No. 2) Bill [H.L.] (unopposed Orders); Tramways Orders Confirmation Bill [H.L.] (unopposed Orders); Local Government (Ireland) Provisional Orders (No. 1) Bill [H.L.] Order for the meeting of the Committee on Tuesday next discharged, and Committee to meet on Monday next.
Murphy Grimshaw's Divorce (Validation) Bill [H.L.] Message from the Commons for copy of the Minutes of Evidence and Proceedings taken before this House, together with the documents deposited in the case. Ordered to be communicated, with a request that they may be returned.
Education Board Provisional Order Confirmation (London, No. 2) Bill [H.L]; Pier and Harbour Provisional Order (No. 1) Bill [H.L.]; Gas and Water Orders Confirmation (No. 1) Bill [H.L.]. Amendments reported (according to order), and Bills to be read 3a on Monday next.
Electric Lighting Provisional Order (No. 2) Bill [H.L.]; Electric Lighting Provisional Order (No. 4) Bill [H.L.]. Read 3a (according to order), and passed, and sent to the Commons.

RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.

  INDIA (SANITARY MEASURES).
  Report on sanitary measures in India in 1905–1906. Vol. XXXIX: Presented
  1542
  (by Command), and ordered to lie on the Table.

  STATUTE LAW REVISION HILL [H.L.]
  House in Committee (according to order): Bill reported without Amendment: Standing Committee negatived; and Bill to be read 3a on Monday next.
  QUALIFICATION OF WOMEN (COUNTY AND BOROUGH COUNCILS) BILL.
  LORD BELPER: My Lords, I beg to give notice that, on the Motion to go into Committee on this Bill on Monday next, I shall move to refer the Bill to a Select Committee, with an instruction to consider and report whether the co-operation of women in certain matters of local government entrusted to county and borough councils might not be more effectively secured by methods other than election.

  FACTORY AND WORKSHOP BILL [H.L.]
  Order of the day for the Third Reading read.
  Moved, "That the Bill be now read 3a" — (Earl Beauchamp )
  THE EARL OF LYTTON: My Lords, I am anxious to make a few remarks of a general character about this Bill before it is read a Third time. Immediately after the Committee Stage I made an appeal to the noble Earl in charge of the Bill to postpone the Report Stage for a week in order that I might have time to consider Amendments to Clause 5. I feel that some explanation is due to the noble Earl, and, indeed, to the House generally, of the reason why no Amendment to that clause appeared in my name when we reached the Report Stage yesterday.
  When we were in Committee I endeavoured to persuade your Lordships that Clause 5 was a blot upon the Bill and moved to leave it out. I did not receive any support from other quarters of the House on that occasion. My intention was to refer to the matter again on the Report Stage, and to bring up a number of Amendments which would have the effect of very materially altering the character of the clause. On reflection, however, I considered that as

  1543
  I had no reason to believe that I should receive more support on that occasion than I had received in Committee I should only be taking up the time of the House unnecessarily if I brought forward a number of Amendments which were not likely to receive general support; and, at the same time, since my objection was to the principle of the clause I felt that it would be impossible to remove that objection by any Amendments which would leave the principle unchanged. For these reasons, my Lords, I did not bring forward any Amendments to that clause when we reached the Report Stage.
  I hope, however, that your Lordships will allow me to explain as briefly as I can some of the arguments which I should have used and some of the objections which I do feel to this clause. I am quite aware that we have already reached the Third Heading stage, but, for reasons of which the Government have offered us no explanation whatever, the greater part of the session was allowed to pass before the Bill was introduced at all, and I should like to ask, in connection with this Bill, the same question which was asked by Lord Camperdown with regard to the Bill we were discussing yesterday —namely, why it is that we did not see the Bill at an earlier stage in the session. The result of the lateness of its introduction has been that it has been hurried through its various stages in a manner which has made any lengthy discussion or careful consideration of its provisions very difficult indeed.
  The Committee Stage and the Report Stage were put down upon days when the House was waiting to discuss two other very important matters —the land policy and the Irish policy of His Majesty's Government. Anything like a full discussion, therefore, upon those occasions was naturally undesirable. At the same time I feel that there were probably many noble Lords, like my noble friend Lord Balfour of Burleigh, who had an interest in this Bill from quite different reasons and who would have been willing and anxious to take part in discussions upon it if it had not clashed with other more important subjects. And I do feel that it is really rather absurd, in view of the many days in the year in which this House has nothing whatever to do, that any matter
  1544
  in which even one or two of your Lordships take an interest should be crowded out by mere considerations of time.
  I do not wish to appear ungrateful to the Government for having introduced a Bill dealing with the subject, or, indeed, unreasonable for quarrelling with them over what may appear to some of your Lordships a mere matter of detail in one of its clauses; but I do wish to make it clear, if I can, that my objection to this clause, my difference from the Government about this Bill, is one of principle and not merely one of detail. The point I wish to make clear is this, that in a factory or workshop which is carried on as a commercial undertaking and for purposes of trade, what I may call the convent spirit ought not to be encouraged. I hope I shall be understood when I use the words "convent spirit." I mean that attitude on the part of the authorities towards the inmates which treats them, not as free and willing workers, but as reluctant penitentiaries, without any will or freedom of their own, who have to be kept to their duties under conditions which are intended to be in as great a contrast as possible to those which prevail in the world outside.
  Whether the disciplinary methods of convent life are or are not the best suited to the improvement of character is a question with which we are not concerned hero this afternoon. It is a matter which we need not discuss in connection with this Bill. But whether those methods are good or bad for that purpose, I do protest against their being extended into the industrial part of the work of the convent, into the factory which is carried on as accessory to the other work of the institution. Where the work is that of a factory I maintain that it is the spirit, the discipline, and the conditions of a factory which ought to prevail there; and by factory spirit I mean that the workers should have the right to a statutory limitation of the hours of their employment, and that they should have a right to full knowledge both of the conditions under which they work and of the name and address of the inspector of their district. But these are exactly the points which are refused by the authorities of these institutions. They wish that their inmates should never see the conditions under which their labour is carried on, that they should

  1545
  have no knowledge of the fact that their work is subject to the inspection of a Government Department, and that they should never be questioned except in the presence either of the mother superior or of one of the nuns of the convent.
  Now, my Lords, the Factory Act was passed in the interests of the workers who are engaged in industrial occupations, and this desire on the part of the good sisters of those religious and charitable institutions to conceal from those who work under them all knowledge of the benefits of that Act is, I maintain, an absolute negation of the whole spirit in which that Act was passed. It is assumed over and over again —it was assumed, I think, in a speech which Lord Balfour of Burleigh made in the Committee stage of this Bill —that in the case of these charitable bodies there is not the need which there is in the case of commercial undertakings for the application of a law of this kind. We are told that they are engaged in doing the work of God, and that in order that proper industrial conditions may prevail, they are under no need of the incentive of the factory law. I yield to nobody in my admiration of the work which is done in these places; nor do I desire for one moment to bring any accusation whatever against the authorities of these institutions. I do wish, however, to say very clearly, that the actual experience which has been gained in the last two or three years by His Majesty's factory inspectors, working under a voluntary arrangement, has proved beyond all question the fallacy which lies at the bottom of that view.
  The Factory Reports in the last two years have contained evidence of the great need for the application in the fullest possible manner of the factory law to these places, for not only have the conditions which prevail in laundries under the authority of these institutions been found to be far from satisfactory, but in many cases the inspectors have found that the information given to them on the part of the authorities is altogether of an unreliable kind. I would just quote this one passage from the last issued Factory Report for I905. The inspector says —
  "We felt strongly that the information received with regard to accidents was entirely
  1546
  unreliable, and wherever we had the means of checking it we found it was not upheld."
  A little later on, speaking of Houses of Mercy, the inspector says —
  "With regard to the period of employment we cannot feel that our information is any more reliable than that obtained in the penitentiaries."
  The suggestion was put forward by Lord Balfour of Burleigh when the Bill was in Committee that whenever information of this kind was given which was contrary to the truth the institution in question should be struck off the list of those coming under the provisions of the Bill and receiving benefits from it. I maintain that, in the case of these institutions, if his suggestion were to be carried out a very grave injustice would be done. The breaches of the law for which they are responsible or the unreliable character of their information are not due, I am perfectly certain, to any wilful desire to mislead the authorities or to work hardly upon their inmates; but, whatever the motives may be, the facts remain, and it is because of these facts that I insist very strongly that there is a grave need for the application of the law to these institutions in the fullest possible manner.
  What the Government have to decide is this, whether or not the Factory Acts shall be applied in spirit and in letter to the industrial work carried on in connection with these institutions, and if they decide that question in the affirmative they must be prepared to meet with a certain amount of hostility and opposition on the part of those who are very apprehensive of what the consequences may be. But, my Lords, if they are not prepared to meet that opposition, if they are not prepared to meet and to overcome opposition on the part of the authorities of some of these institutions and those who speak for them, I say they had much better have left the question alone altogether.
  My noble friend Lord Balfour, speaking in the Committee stage, said, or implied, at any rate, that what I was proposing by the Amendment I had brought forward was something quite new and harsh, and unjust with regard to these institutions. I cannot help thinking that he must have forgotten what has been the past history of the matter, for this

  1547
  is not the first time upon which this question has been raised. In 1895, after a full inquiry into all the circumstances of the case, the Liberal Government which was then in power introduced a Factory Bill with provisions applying the factory law to the laundries carried on by these institutions, without any exceptions whatever. It is quite true they were unable to carry that clause by reason of the fact that their majority was entirely dependent on the Irish vote, but in those days at any rate they had the courage of their convictions; and to-day, when they are not so dependent, it is a very different Bill which they are bringing forward. But in 1901, when a Unionist Government was in power, a clause was carried in Committee in the House of Commons on their Factory Bill also applying the law to these institutions. Again the clause was dropped, and on that occasion the Unionist Party was subjected to the severest possible criticism on the part of Liberal newspapers and Liberal Members of Parliament for having, with their very large majority, failed to grapple with the question. I will give your Lordships a specimen of what was said of the Unionist Government in those days This is an extract from the Daily News of August, 1901 —
  "If this be a Government of social reform we can only say that most genuine reformers would prefer a Cabinet of honest reaction. There is no use in blaming the Irish Members. …The sole responsibility rests with the Government, who have given up what they knew was right rather than face an Irish resistance they could easily overcome. Mr. Asquith, in 1895, was in a very different position. He and the Government depended on the Irish vote."
  The present Home Secretary, who was responsible for this Bill, speaking in reply to a Scottish deputation, said —
  "He considered that the difficulty of dealing with institution laundries had been perhaps rather exaggerated, and that the opposition was such as would be likely to yield if the question were taken up with firmness and decision."
  Then in 1902 similar proposals were brought before this House in a Bill which I had the honour to introduce, and it passed through all its stages in your Lordships' House without a division. Those facts prove that what I venture to ask this House to accept this year was accepted by both Houses of Parliament in former years. It was not only accepted by both Houses of Parliament; it was accepted
  1548
  also by a large section of those who are responsible and who spoke on behalf of the institutions themselves. I have in my hand a letter, published in The Times in 1902, written by the secretary of the London Diocesan Council for Rescue Work, and it gave a report of a conference held by that council to consider the Laundry Bill which I had introduced. This is the resolution that was passed —
  "This Conference approves generally of the Bill introduced by the Earl of Lytton, but considers that the Bill should be amended in Committee so as to secure (a) that the notices to be published under the Act should in the case of charitable laundries be of a form appropriate to the special conditions of the institutions, and (b) that option should be given to the managers to ask for a female inspector."
  Then there follow these important words —
  "The questions of the hours of labour and the allowance of overtime were laid before the Conference, but no resolution was proposed, it being generally felt that no representation respecting these points was called for."
  There was nothing which was said against the Unionist Government in 1901 for having dealt without firmness with this question which is not equally applicable to the present Government with its large majority in the House of Commons.
  Clause 5 of this Bill is a surrender of the whole position. It brings these institutions within the law, and it leaves the convent spirit paramount in them just as it was before. As the Bill stands no abstract of the conditions of labour need be put up in the workroom, none of the usual notices required by the Factory Acts have to be sent, and with regard to the hours of employment the whole matter is left to the discretion of the Home Office. It is quite true, we are told, that those hours are to be on the whole not less favourable than those of the principal Act, and the noble Earl in charge of the Bill told me the other day that I ought to be satisfied with those words. But I am not altogether satisfied with those words on the whole. Can anybody tell me what they mean? I have no doubt the Government would say —they did, in effect, say the other day —that the condition of Ireland at this moment was on the whole satisfactory. They would, I have no doubt, also say that their conduct of the course of the Parliamentary business of this session had been on the whole successful. They would tell me, I have no doubt,

  1549
  that this Bill was on the whole a good Bill. The only conclusion I can draw from these considerations is that some thing which is good on the whole is at any rate not wholly good.
  And when I am asked to have this confidence in the Home Office I cannot help considering that their attitude, as shown by the drafting of this Bill, is certainly not indicative of that firmness and decision which Mr. Herbert Gladstone pleaded for in 1902. We have no guarantee whatever that the arguments which have already prevailed with the Government to withdraw from these institutions the obligation of putting up notices in their workrooms may not equally be used and equally prevail with them to allow the periods of employment to be so manipulated and so arranged that they can be used as a disciplinary measure to over come the resistance of a single recalcitrant inmate. I would much rather that these institutions remained outside the law altogether than that they were given the appearance of being institutions under Government inspection and subject to Government authority whilst the spirit of the convent was still left paramount in their commercial undertakings.
  It is upon that point, my Lords, that I take my stand. Where commercial work is undertaken for purposes of trade it should be the spirit as well as the name of a factory which should be applied. I apologise to your Lordships for having spoken at such length on the Third Reading of this Bill, but for the reasons I have already explained it was difficult to bring forward some of these arguments on a previous occasion. If the views which I have put forward have not been able to prevail in this House I am confident, nevertheless, that when this Bill goes to the House of Commons, if it ever does go there, very much the same criticisms as I have ventured to raise will be brought against it, and it will not be allowed to pass into law in its present shape.
  *THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: My Lords, those who have followed the discussions of this subject will be aware that I am entirely in accord with the principle underlying the greater part of the noble Earl's remarks.
  1550
  As the representative of a large number of institutions connected with the Church of England —and, of course, I have no authority to speak for others —I may remind you that I have from the first welcomed the introduction of inspection into their industrial departments and the making of that inspection as thorough and adequate as possible. I welcome the play of fresh air and light on everything that happens in the industrial part, or indeed in any part, of these institutions.
  I venture to think that the noble Earl's speech to-night has left us a little in the dark as to what he exactly means by the introduction of the convent spirit into the industrial work of these institutions. I can only say that a state of things under which the inmates are kept in ignorance of their rights and prevented in some degree from letting facts become known about matters which are amiss, is not only not a state of things with which I have any sympathy, but I do not recognise it as existing in any of the institutions with which I have been connected. We want to have all our industrial arrangements thoroughly and authoritatively inspected. We have nothing whatever to conceal, nor any desire that mistakes, if such there be, should be shielded or excused. At the same time I do maintain, and I venture to think the noble Earl has a little forgotten it, that there are fundamental differences of conditions between factories and laundries conducted solely for the purpose of trade and factories and laundries connected with the kind of institution to which reference has been made. The noble Earl asked why the rules and customs laid down for the one should not apply to the other. In the main, my Lords, I hope they do. I desire the fullest inspection, every reasonable facility for complaints in connection with the management, and the fullest daylight on every part of the proceedings. As to the notification of accidents, I have obtained a declaration on behalf of the Government that rules on that subject applicable to trade laundries will also be made obligatory with regard to institutions. I am eager that the hours of work should be known to the authorities, and that anything which needs amendment

  1551
  should be amended. But, my Lords, when all this has been said, there does remain a fundamental difference between the conditions under which work is carried on in religious institutions and the conditions which quite properly subsist in the trade laundry. The object of the former is to effect reform of an educative kind. In the trade laundry, disorder or laziness or any other sort of wrongdoing is punishable, of course, by dismissal. But in the institution, the very object is to take in the disorderly and the ill-behaved and to train them, in spite of themselves, into reasonable, wholesome, and orderly workers. Surely, therefore, it is obvious that some of the rules which are applicable to the trade laundry require a little modification before they are applied exactly as they stand to these educative institutions. I entirely agree, however, that that modification should not be such as to interfere with freedom of examination and inquiry on the part of those who are qualified and commissioned to see that all is as it ought to be.
  After studying the Bill with all the care I can, I fail to see any probability that, on the whole, it will make wrong things possible which could have been avoided by another mode of wording. It is a question of administration, and if the administration be found to work badly I should be the first to desire to see a further remedy applied. I should deeply regret it if anything were done now which should throw this whole reform back. It does seem to me that, whether the words which regulate the special arrangements are exactly what we should have chosen or not, we have gained something in that we have secured the necessity of Government inspection for every laundry connected with these institutions, and that there shall be only such modifications with regard to notices and rules as the Home Secretary, subject to the pressure of public opinion, which will, I know, be watchful, feels to be right and necessary. After the assurances which the noble Earl has given us, I fully believe that we may trust the Home Office to deal with the matter fairly, that we may trust the inspectors to act with common sense and judgment, and that the best and wisest women among those connected with our institutions will be ready, after a short
  1552
  experience, to welcome the results of this legislation.
  EARL BEAUCHAMP: My Lords, the noble Earl opposite began his remarks with a question and a complaint, with which I should like to deal first. He asked why the Bill had been introduced so late, and I think my reply must be based upon the speech which was made by the Prime Minister in another place. The Prime Minister explained how great a pressure the autumn session of last year had placed upon the public Departments, and how difficult it had been for them, in view of the extra work entailed by Parliament sitting throughout the autumn, to draft their Bills in time to be introduced early in the present session.
  Then I come to the complaint that we had rather hurried this Bill through. I am afraid I cannot plead guilty. This Bill was introduced and read a first time on 2nd May, and I do not think, that as to-day is the 13th of June, it is quite fair to charge His Majesty's Government with having hurried the measure through your Lordships' House. Let me remind the noble Earl of what, after all, is the principle underlying the action of His Majesty's Government in this matter. The noble Earl's remarks dealt chiefly with Clause 5. I think I may fairly ask your Lordships to remember that up to the present time there has been no effective inspection of institution laundries at all, though there has been a little voluntary inspection in some; and this Bill introduces effective inspection for the first time. In the circumstances, it was thought, and I think not unnaturally thought, that some elasticity was necessary, seeing that to put rigid conditions on all these institutions would arouse opposition and be fatal to the Bill in another place.
  The noble Earl commented on the great difference between the factory spirit and the convent spirit. I think the most rev. Primate has already dealt effectively with that point. I cannot see, however, that it is impossible for the two to be combined. In so far as the factory spirit means that you desire to protect your workers, and the convent spirit means that you wish to improve their character, it does not seem to me

  1553
  to be impossible in these institutions to combine the two under the elastic conditions provided by His Majesty's Government in this Bill. The complaint of the noble Earl was chiefly that the rules and regulations for the management of these laundries were not to be fixed in a prominent place in the laundries themselves. I venture to think that that is, after all, a very small matter as compared with the more important points —the hours at which they are to work, and effective inspection —which, in the opinion of His Majesty's Government, are provided for in the Bill.
  One of the most brilliant speeches ever delivered in your Lordships' House was made some years ago in moving or seconding the Address, and in it the noble Lord who was then speaking made special fun of some of his opponents on the ground of their gloomy predictions. He spoke of them as having created, not castles in the' air, but dungeons in the air. The noble Earl who initiated this discussion may remember that phrase, as it was one of his own, and I could not help thinking, as I listened to him this afternoon, that he himself was full of somewhat unnecessarily gloomy predictions as to what might be the result of this clause. It will be obvious to your Lordships that it is in the first place expedient that the Government should do all they can to meet the wishes of the institutions in this matter. As I say, they come under inspection for the first time, and it is not unnatural that some of them should be somewhat timorous of the results of that inspection. I think it is only expedient, therefore, that such provisions as can be placed in the Bill should be placed there in order to allay their fears, and I venture to think it is also in the circumstances right that there should be this greater elasticity allowed. His Majesty's Government in this matter have been guided by the experience of these institutions, who have asked for these provisions to be introduced into the clause, and for my own part I cannot associate myself with the noble Earl in his somewhat gloomy predicaments as to the results.
  In common with all those who are interested in this question. I regret that the noble Earl should not be able to give
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  us a more wholehearted support of this measure. I had hoped that he would at any rate have associated himself with the most rev. Primate, who is able to give the Bill hearty approval, even though that approval is slightly qualified. But I trust that the noble Earl will carefully watch the effect of the s Bill if it becomes an Act, and I have very little doubt indeed that after he has watched it for some time he will come to the conclusion that the general advantages which it does confer on the workers in these factories far outweigh the fears which he, somewhat unnecessarily in my opinion, has expressed to your Lordships this afternoon.
  On Question, Bill read 3a, and passed; and sent to the Commons.

PROHIBITION OF MEDICAL PRACTICE BY COMPANIES BILL [H.L.]
  DENTAL COMPANIES (RESTRICTIONS OF PRACTICE) BILL [H.L.]
  Report from the Select Committee (with Proceedings of the Committee), made, and to be printed. (No. 72): Prohibition of Medical Practice by Companies Bill [H.L.] reported without Amendment, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House: Dental Companies (Restrictions of Practice) Bill [H.L.] reported with Amendments, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House, and to be printed as amended. (No. 73): Minutes of Evidence and an appendix laid upon the Table, and to be delivered out.
  MATRIMONIAL CAUSES ACTS AMENDMENT BILL [H.L.]
  Read 3a (according to order), and passed, and sent to the Commons.

  METROPOLITAN POLICE COMMISSION.
  LORD NEWTON: My Lords, I rise to ask His Majesty's Government if they can state how much longer the Royal Commission on the Duties of the Metropolitan Police is expected to sit, and whether any facts of importance have been elicited hitherto. I have put this Question on the Paper because I am quite unable myself to understand for what

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  reason this Commission is now sitting. If it was appointed for the purpose of discovering that the police are human beings like everybody else and liable to make mistakes occasionally, it was unnecessary, and it was equally so if the purpose was to demonstrate that the Metropolitan Police are the best body of police in the civilised world. These are facts with which everyone is perfectly familiar. The immediate cause of the appointment of the Commission was a mistake made in the case of a lady of French nationality, and it is hardly credible, but nevertheless true, that this much-maligned person has not appeared before the Commission. Nearly the whole of the time of the Commission has been occupied in listening to tales told them by bookmakers, loafers, and persons whose professions and avocations are perhaps better left undescribed, and it has resolved itself into a vague, fishing kind of inquiry. In view of the terms of the reference to this Commission, which was appointed —
  "To inquire into and report upon the duties of the Metropolitan Police in dealing with eases of drunkenness, disorder, and solicitation in the streets, and the manner in which these duties are discharged,"
  it is perfectly obvious that it may go on indefinitely. At the beginning of the session I inquired privately of my noble friend who represents the Home Office whether the inquiry was shortly coming to an end, and he informed me that he was under the impression that it was about to terminate. I wish now to ask how many days the Commission has sat, how much it has cost up to now, and whether, in the opinion of the Home Office, any single fact of any importance has been elicited in evidence, and whether, in short, the noble Earl considers that anything worth the cost of a single day's sitting has yet been elicited by the Commission? It is a curious fact that, whereas our Metropolitan Police force appears to be the envy of every other nation —and foreigners are never tired of expressing their admiration for the methods by which something like 15,000 men control a population of 6,000,000, including some of the worst ruffians on the face of the earth —we are at the present moment apparently endeavouring to discredit the force by haling them,
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  as if they were criminals, before the Commission in question and putting all sorts of ridiculous questions to them. If an inquiry into the condition of the police force is necessary, it should be conducted in the ordinary way by means of a departmental Committee. A fishing inquiry of this kind can only exercise a demoralising effect on the police. I hope my noble friend will be able to give me an assurance that this long-drawn-out farce is coming to a conclusion.
  EARL BEAUCHAMP: My Lords, I am glad to be able to tell the noble Lord that the Royal Commission do not expect that it will be necessary to hold more than a few further sittings for the taking of evidence. They began to sit on 17th July of last year; and they have held fifty-seven sittings for the taking of evidence since that time. I am unable to answer the noble Lord's question as to cost, as that has not yet been accurately ascertained. The Commissioners are of opinion that the inquiry is not one which in the interests of the public should be prolonged for a longer time than is necessary to discharge; the duties imposed upon them; and they propose to present their Report and the bulk of the evidence as soon as the difficult and delicate character of the inquiry will permit. With regard to the expression of opinion invited from me by the noble Lord on the kind of information elicited, he will at once see that it is impossible for anybody who represents the Home Office to express such an opinion at the present time. The inquiry relates to a body of men under the control of the Home Office, and it would be very inadvisable that the Home Office should, before the presentation of the Report, express an opinion on the matter, which is still, so to speak, sub judice.

  HOUSE OF LORDS REFORM.
  EARL CAWDOR: My Lords, I beg to move that the following Lords be named of the Select Committee to consider the suggestions which have from time to time been made for increasing the efficiency of the House of Lords in matters affecting legislation, and to report as to the desirability of adopting them either in their original or in some modified form.

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  Moved, that the following Lords be named of the Select Committee —

  L. Abp. of Canter bury.

  V. Selby.

  V. St. Aldwyn.

  D. Norfolk.

  L. Clinton.

  D. Bedford.

  L. Brodrick (V.Midleton).

  D. Devonshire.

  D. Northumberland.

  L. Ribblesdale.

  M. Lansdowne.

  L. Clonbrock.

  E. Jersey.

  L. Rosebery (E.Rosebery).

  E. Lauderdale.

  L. Belper.

  E. Onslow.

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

  E. Cawdor.

  E. Camperdown.

  E. Lytton.

  L. Newton.

  E. Halsbury.

  L. Courtney of Penwith.

  L. Collins.

  — (Earl Cawdor.)

  On Question, Motion agreed to.
  The Committee to appoint their own Chairman.
  House adjourned at twenty minutes past Five o'clock, to Monday next, a quarter before Eleven o'clock.