Sitting of 19 March 1907

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

  PRIVATE BILLS (STANDING ORDER 62 COMPLIED WITH).
  MR. SPEAKER MR. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bills, referred on the First Reading thereof, Standing Order 62 has been complied with, viz.:—Brecon and Merthyr Tydfil Junction Railway Bill; North Metropolitan Electric Power Supply Bill.
  Ordered, That the Bills be read a second time.

  PRIVATE BILLS (STANDING ORDER 63 COMPLIED WITH).
  MR. SPEAKER MR. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bills, referred on the First Reading thereof, Standing Order 63 has been complied with, viz.:—London United Tramways Bill; London Electric Supply Bill.
  Ordered, That the Bills be read a second time.
  Gas Companies (Removal of Sulphur Restrictions) Bill; Llandrindod Wells Gas Bill. As amended, considered; to be read the third time.
  London County Council (Tramways and Improvements) Bill. Read a second time and committed.

  STANDING ORDERS.
  Resolutions reported from the Select Committee.
  "That, in the case of the South Wales Mineral Railway Bill, the Standing Orders ought to be dispensed with:—That the parties be permitted to proceed with their Bill, on the condition that Clauses 26 to 35, inclusive, are struck out of the Bill:—That the Committee
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  on the Bill do report how far such Order has been complied with."
  "That, in the case of the Collooney, Ballina, and Belmullet Railways and Piers, Petition for Bill, the Standing Orders ought to be dispensed with:—That the parties be permitted to proceed with their Bill."
  "That, in the case of the Simon-Carves Bye-Product Coke Oven Construction and Working Company, Limited Bill [Lords], the Standing Orders ought to be dispensed with:—That the parties be permitted to proceed with their Bill."
  "That, in the case of the Burnley Corporation, Petition for Bill, the Standing Orders ought to be dispensed with:—That the parties be permitted to proceed with their Bill."
  "That, in the case of the Metropolitan Water Board (Charges, etc.) Bill, Petition for dispensing with Standing Order 128 in the case of the Petition of the 'West minster City Council,' against the Bill, the said Standing Order ought not to be dispensed with."
  First Four Resolutions agreed to.
  Report to lie upon the Table.
  South Wales Mineral Railway Bill. Report [this day] from the Select Committee on Standing Orders read.
  Bill to be read a second time.—(Mr. Deputy Chairman.)

  MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
  That they have agreed to—Portobello and Musselburgh Tramways (Port Seton Deviation) Order Confirmation Bill, without Amendments.
  That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to extend the time for the compulsory purchase of lands for and completion of tramways and other works authorised by the West Riding Tramways Act, 1904." [West Riding Tramways Bill [Lords.]
  Also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to empower the Manchester Ship Canal Company to acquire lands and to confer upon that Company further powers in

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  relation to the supply of water in their canal; and for other purposes." [Manchester Ship Canal [Various Powers) Bill [Lords.]
  Also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to make provision with reference to the substitution of a memorandum and articles of association for the existing constitution and regulations of the Royal Insurance Company, and for extending its objects; and to repeal, in part, The Royal Insurance Company's Act, 1891; and for other purposes." [Royal Insurance Company Bill [Lords.]
  Also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to confer further powers upon the Newquay and District Water Company; to extend their limits for the supply of water; to authorise the construction of works and the raising of money; and for other purposes."[Newquay and District Water Bill [Lords.]
  Also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to confer further powers on the West Yorkshire Tramways Company, for widening and altering roads, and acquiring lands and for other purposes." [West Yorkshire Tramways Bill [Lords.]
  And, also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to confer further powers on the Folkestone, Sandgate, and Hythe Tramways Company, for widening and altering roads, and acquiring lands; and for other purposes."[Folkestone, Sandgate, and Hythe Tramways Bill [Lords.]
  Metropolitan Water Board (Charges, etc.) Bill and Metropolitan Water Board (Various Powers) Bill,—That they concur with the Commons in their Resolution, "That it is expedient that the Metropolitan Water Board (Charges, etc.) Bill and the Metropolitan Water Board (Various Powers) Bill be committed to a Joint Committee of Lords and Commons."
  West Riding Tramways Bill [Lords]; Manchester Ship Canal (Various Powers) Bill [Lords]; Royal Insurance Company Bill [Lords]; Newquay and District Water Bill [Lords]; West Yorkshire Tramways Bill [Lords]; Folkestone, Sandgate, and Hythe Tramways Bill [Lords], read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

  PETITIONS.
    COAL MINES (EIGHT HOURS) BILL.
    Petitions in favour: From Aberaman; Bagillt; Bedford; Blaennant; Bow Hill; Bretby; British Rhondda; Burnbank; Cadley Hill; Carluke; Cossall; Dechmont; Featherstone Main; Gilbertfield; Gresley; Gwendraeth; Halls; Harthill and Benhar; Heanor; Highley and Kintet; Hodroyd; Kelty; Kinglassie; Kippax; Llanerch; Mirfield; Nadine and Company; New Cwmmawr; Oakwell; Point of Ayr; Pontheury; Ripley; Rosebank; Tipton; and, West Wemyss Collieries; to lie upon the Table.
  EAST INDIA AND CHINA (OPIUM TRADE).
  Petition from Abergavenny, for suppression; to lie upon the Table.
  EDUCATION (PROVISION OF MEALS) (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petitions against: From Campbeltown; and, Duthil and Rothiemurchus; to lie upon the Table.
  EDUCATION (PROVISION OF MEALS) (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petition from Glasgow, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  HOME WORK REGULATION BILL.
  Petition from Wandsworth, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
    EDUCATION (SCOTLAND) (GENERAL REPORTS.
    Copy presented, of General Report by the Chief Inspector of the Western Division for Scotland for the year 1906 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  EDUCATION (SCOTLAND).
  Copy presented, of Memorandum on the Teaching of English in Scottish Primary Schools [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
ST. LUCIA.
Copy presented, of Amended Prison Rule and Diet Scales [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
TREATY SERIES (NO. 8, 1907).
Copy presented, of Agreement between the United Kingdom and France relative to the Boundary between the Gold Coast and the French Soudan, 19th July, 1906 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
ARMY (ANNUAL) BILL.
Copy presented, of Memorandum relative thereto [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
PAPER LAID UPON THE TABLE BY THE CLERK OF THE HOUSE.
Public Records, High Court of Justice (King's Bench, Common Pleas, and Exchequer), Copy of Schedule containing a list and particulars of Classes of Documents belonging to the late Courts of King's Bench, Common Pleas, and Exchequer Divisions of the High Court of Justice, which are not considered of sufficient public value to justify their preservation in the Public Record Office [by Act].
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CIRCULATED WITH THE VOTES.

  Land Commission Department Clerical Staff.
  MR. FIELD: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can arrange, in view of the increase in the junior clerical staff employed in the Land Commission Department, that the number of first and second clerks be correspondingly increased, with the object of establishing a proper system of direction and supervision in the offices.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Land Commissioners inform me that they are fully alive to the desirability of providing for the proper supervision of their junior clerical staff, and have taken the measures which they consider necessary to that end. The existing vacancy in the staff of first-class clerks is being filled up, but the creation of further first and second-class clerkships is not contemplated.
  MR. FIELD: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state the number of first, second, third, and other clerks
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  assigned to the Land Commission in the year 1891, when it was made a permanent Government Department; whether he can state the number and status of the clerks now employed in these offices; and how many appointments have been made to this Department since the passing of the Land Act in 1903.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The clerical staff of the Irish Land Commission immediately following the organisation of the Department on a permanent basis, in January, 1892, was as follows—

  First-class clerks

  14

  Second-class clerks

  23

  Third-class clerks

  36

  Registered writers and temporary clerks, etc. (which were, increased in numbers between 1892 and the passing of the Act of 1903)

  48

  121

  At present the strength of the clerical staff of the Department, including the Estates Commissioners, is as follows—

  First-class clerks (including one vacancy)

  11

  The reduction from fourteen was caused by the transfer of one to the Congested Districts Board, and transfer of two others to staff posts in the office of a different designation from that of first-class clerk.

  Second-class clerks

  23

  Third-class clerks

  30

  Vacancies in this class are not filled. When such arise the strength of the clerical staff is maintained by the assignment of Second Division clerks.

  Chief clerk to Estates Commissioners, and other clerks, mostly of senior grade

  8

  Clerks for legal purposes

  8

  Second Division clerks, including six vice third-class clerks

  60

  Assistant clerks

  102

  Record attendants

  6

  Temporary clerks and boy clerks, etc.

  124

  372

  The increase in the clerical staff since 1st November, 1903, is as follows—

  Chief clerk to Estates Commissioners, and other clerks, mostly of senior grade

  7

  Clerks for legal purposes

  8

  Second Division clerks, including six vice third-class clerks

  60

  Assistant clerks

  78

  Record attendants

  4

  Temporary clerks and boy clerks, etc.

  50

  207

  Bankruptcy Law.
  MR. HERBERT: To ask Mr. Attorney General whether he has taken note of the case of In re Button ex parte Hair side, whereby it was decided that the owner of goods who leaves them in possession of a bailee who becomes bankrupt, so that they pass to the trustee in bankruptcy under the reputed ownership provisions of the Bankruptcy Law, has no right of proof in the bankruptcy for the value of the goods; and whether he will introduce legislation for the relief of innocent persons thus penalised, and put them in a position not inferior to that of a person who has sold goods to a bankrupt but has not received payment.
  (Answered by Sir John Walton.) The point is of importance, and should be considered in any alteration of the Bankruptcy Law. It would be well to bring the subject to the notice of the Lord Chancellor and the President of the Board of Trade.

  Refusals of Trading Licenses to British Indian Shopkeepers in Natal.
  DR. RUTHERFORD: To ask the Secretary of State for India whether his attention has been called to the number of refusals for renewal of trading licences to British-Indian shopkeepers in Natal; and whether he proposes to take any action on their behalf.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Morley.) The subject is at present under discussion with the Government of Natal.
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  I will not fail to take any opportunity of supporting the legitimate claims of Indian traders.

  The Indian Budget.
  MR. ANNAN BRYCE: To ask the Secretary of State for India when he proposes to take the Indian Budget.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Morley.) The Indian financial statement will be presented at Calcutta on the 20th instant, and discussed a week later. It will be presented to Parliament as soon as it is received in this country, i.e., early in May, and the usual discussion will take place as soon thereafter as the state of public business permits; I hope at an early date.

  Delay in Installation of Private Telephones.
  MR. CARR-GOMM: To ask the Postmaster-General whether he is aware of the inconvenience caused to numbers of persons who, having signed the form of application for a private telephone apparatus, have had to wait a considerable time, in some cases as much as six weeks, before being able to use the telephone; whether he has considered the necessity of largely augumenting the staff of this department in view of the increasing number of subscribers' applications to be complied with; and, if so, what steps he proposes to take.
  (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) So long a period as six weeks would not be occupied in the completion of a Post Office telephone exchange line, unless there were some exceptional difficulty in construction or in obtaining way leaves from local authorities. The completion of a line provided recently for the hon. Member was unfortunately delayed owing to the necessity for laying a new main cable on a section of the route between his house and the exchange, and some further delay occurred owing to the Christmas holidays. The circumstances were, however, exceptional. The Post Office engineering staff is receiving large additions to provide for the increasing telephone work.

  Purchase of Miss Griffith's Grazing Lands.
  MR. KENDAL O'BRIEN:To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he can say what action the Estates Commissioners have taken to purchase Miss Griffith's grazing lands, containing 400 acres, in the parish of Corbally, near Roscrea, with the view to divide them up into small holdings.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Estates Commissioners have communicated with Miss Cecilia Griffith with regard to the sale of her untenanted land, but have not yet received any reply.

  Claims of Evicted Tenants on Estate of Mr. Rotheram, of County Meath.
  MR. PATRICK WHITE: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether Mr. Rotheram, of Crossdrum, Oldcastle, county Meath, has offered a considerable area of untenanted land for sale to the Estates Commissioners; and if, in the event of their becoming purchasers, they will in its distribution have regard to the prior claims of the descendants of people who were evicted from those lands some years ago, and after satisfying their requirements, they will next consider the claims of labourers resident in the district.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Estates Commissioners are negotiating for the purchase of certain tenanted and untenanted land from Mr. Rotheram. If the Commissioners should acquire the property they will, in disposing of the untenanted land, have due regard to the claims of all persons who may be eligible under the Act to receive such land.

  Macedonian Budget.
  MR. LYNCH: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will request the British financial delegate in Macedonia to furnish figures, as soon as possible, showing the amount of revenue collected in Macedonia and available for the Macedonian budget for the year ending 13th of the present month, also figures showing the amount expended on civil and military expenditure respectively, the total deficit on the budget, and the
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  extent to which it has been made good by the Turkish Government.
  (Answered by Secretary Sir Edward Grey.) The British delegate on the Financial Commission has already been requested to do this.

  Dr. Haffkine and his Prophylactic against Plague.
  SIR W. J. COLLINS: To ask the Secretary of State for India whether Dr. Haffkine now holds any appointment under the Indian Government; whether the use of Dr. Haffkine's prophylactic against plague is now encouraged by the Government; and whether any further information has been obtained in regard to nineteen fatal cases of tetanus at Mulkowal consequent upon the use of Dr. Haffkine's prophylactic.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Morley.) Dr. Haffkine is in the permanent service of the Government of India, and is at present on leave in this country. He holds no appointment in India, but the Government of India have offered him employment in that country on research work, at a salary equal to that of which he was in receipt when he left India. Inoculation with Dr. Haffkine's prophylactic continues to be one of the precautions which are recommended by Government to the general population against outbreaks of plague, and facilities are provided for persons who wish to be inoculated. Papers containing the results of the inquiry into the origin of the accidental deaths from tetanus poisoning in the Punjab, have recently been published by the Government of India. I have no objection to lay them if they are moved for.

  Telephone Facilities for Mullingar.
  MR. GINNELL: To ask the Postmaster-General if he will consider favourably the claim of Mullingar to be included among the towns in Ireland to which he proposes to give telephone facilities.
  (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) I am making inquiry as to the conditions on which an extension of the Post Office trunk telephone system to Mullingar can be offered, and will inform the hon.

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  Member of the result. I understand that an exchange was established in Mullingar by the National Telephone Company some time ago, but that it had to be closed on account of insufficient local support.

  Poor Law Expenditure.
  MR. PIKE PEASE: To ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he is now in a position to state the total amount of Poor Law expenditure out of loans for the year ending 31st December, 1906.
  (Answered by Mr. John Burns.) The Returns as to Poor Law expenditure relate to the financial year ending in March, and not to the calendar year. The amount of the expenditure out of the loans for the financial year ended March, 1906, cannot at present be stated.

  Accounts of Metropolitan Boroughs.
  MR. COURTHOPE: To ask the President of the Local Government Board when it is contemplated to issue regulations, together with an Order for Accounts, with respect to the accounts of the councils of metropolitan boroughs established under the provisions of The London Government Act, 1899.
  (Answered by John Burns.) The Local Government Board have prescribed the forms of books and accounts to be used by the Metropolitan Borough Councils in connection with the collection of the rates, and also the form of financial statement to be submitted to the district auditor. They do not propose to issue regulations respecting the accounts of these councils generally whilst the subject of the accounts of local authorities is under the consideration of the Departmental Committee now sitting.

  Uganda Railway Accounts.
  MR. REES: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether the profit upon the working of the Uganda Railway is a true profit, or the difference between actual working charges and gross receipts; whether £5,398,733 is the total cost of the line, including expenditure in Europe and in Africa and administration charges; whether the cost
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  per mile, with all such expenses added amount to £9,426;and whether that sum is adopted by the Government as the normal cost of construction of railways in Africa.
  (Answered by Mr. Runciman.) When speaking of the profit upon the working of the Uganda Railway, I was referring, as the hon. Member suggests, to the difference between actual working charges and gross receipts. The total capital sum expended to the 31st March, 1906, namely, £5,398,733, includes all expenditure in Europe and Africa and also in Asia. The total amount issued from the Consolidated Fund for the construction of the railway is £5,502,592, and, as the length of the line is 584 miles, the cost per mile amounts to £9,422. It is not possible to adopt this or any other sum as the normal cost of construction of railways in Africa, as the cost is determined by such varying factors as the character of the line, the nature of the country and its accessibility, the amount of local labour available, and other conditions.

  New Year's Day Holiday in Board of Works Office, Dublin.
  MR. DELANY: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury if he will ask the Board of Works, Dublin, to explain why New Year's Day was given as an office holiday every year prior to 1907.
  (Answered by Mr. Runciman.) I have nothing to add to the replies which were given to the hon. Member on this subject on the 14th and 18th December last.†

  Resident Magistrate for Newtowncashel.
  MR. J. P. FARRELL: To ask Mr. Attorney-General for Ireland whether he is aware that complaint is made that the populous parish of Newtowncashel, county Longford, is without the services of a magistrate residing in the locality for the signing of summonses and other magisterial functions; and will he direct the attention of the Lord Chancellor to this want and request him to appoint the local county councillor for the division, Mr. John Hanley, to that office.
  †See (4) Debates, clxvii., 832, 1258.

  647
  (Answered by Mr. Cherry.) I have referred this question to the Lord Chancellor, who informs me that no complaint has been made as to the want of magistrates in this districts, but that he will have inquiry made into the matter.

  Introduction of the Metric System.
  MR. L. HASLAM: To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether, in view of the importance of the question whether the enactment of a measure compelling the adoption of a metric system of weights and measures would prove to be of great economic advantage to the public, and in consideration that the subject will probably be discussed in Parliament in the near future, he will consider whether it is advisable, as a first step towards a solution of the question, to institute an inquiry as to the practicability and advisability of introducing such system in all dealings with and undertakings of all Government factories and departments.
  (Answered by Mr. Kearley.) The Board of Trade made, some years ago, inquiries on the point raised by my hon. friend and were advised that it would be undesirable that such a departure from general trade practice in this country should be made by Government Departments and factories. They see no reason to alter this conclusion.

  Rocket Apparatus on British Ships.
  MR. HART-DAVIES: To ask the President of the Board of Trade if his attention has been drawn to the fact that the Dutch Government has brought forward a measure making the carrying of life-saving rocket apparatus compulsory on all vessels of over 200 tons; whether he will take into consideration the advisability of proposing a similar enactment for British shipping; and whether the Schermuly's rocket salvage apparatus has come under the notice of his Department.
  (Answered by Mr. Kearley.) The Board of Trade have no official information with regard to the Dutch measure to which my hon. friend refers, but the question of the desirability of British ships being provided with apparatus for communicating with the shore is being considered. The
  648
  Answer to the last paragraph in the Question is in the affirmative.

  Overcrowding on the Baker Street and Waterloo Railway.
  MR. BRIDGEMAN:To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been drawn to the overcrowding in the Baker Street and Waterloo Railway at the busy times of morning and evening and at 1 p.m. on Saturdays; and whether, seeing that it is largely due to the fact that the company runs trains of three coaches only, he will take any steps to induce the company to revert to four-coach trains during the busy times of the day.
  (Answered by Mr. Kearley.) The Board of Trade are informed by the railway company that it has been decided to return to a service of six and four-car trains commencing on Thursday next, the 21st instant, instead of the three-car service now running.

  Ennis State Inebriates Reformatory.
  MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland how many men and how many women have been committed to the Ennis State Inebriates Reformatory since its establishment; and if he can estimate how many of these have been considered cured of drunkenness on discharge; and whether he will direct the special attention of the judicial authorities in Ireland to the advisability of sending persons convicted of offences arising from drunkenness to this reformatory instead of to prison.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) Since the establishment of Ennis State Inebriate Reformatory in 1899, thirty-eight men and sixty-nine women have been committed, of whom twenty-nine men and fifty-two women have been discharged. Each case is watched and reported on periodically after discharge. Of the twenty-nine men discharged, sixteen are reported cured, three are dead, and ten have relapsed. Of the fifty-two women discharged, twenty-one are reported cured, five are dead, two are in lunatic asylums, and twenty-four have relapsed. The question of sending

  649
  persons to the Inebriate Reformatory is one entirely for the judicial authorities themselves. I will, however, bring the hon. Member's suggestion to the notice of the Lord Chancellor.

  Irish Evicted Tenants—Case of Joseph Mulooly.
  MR. J. P. FARRELL: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether applications have been received from Joseph Mulooly, senior, and Joseph Mulooly, junior, for reinstatement in their farms in the parish of Rathcline, county Longford; whether the inspector has yet visited these men and reported upon their case; whether he is aware that there are several large farms in this neighbourhood which could be easily acquired for the purpose of providing equivalent holdings for these men; and will he now direct that steps be taken towards this end.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Estates Commissioners have received an application for reinstatement from Joseph Mulooly, but whether the applicant is senior or junior does not appear. The application has been referred to an inspector for investigation.

  Sale of Farm on Due de Stacpool's Estate—Compensation to previous Tenant.
  MR. J. P. FARRELL: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether before sanctioning the sale to Pat Mulligan of a farm on the Due de Stacpool's estate at Sonnagh, county Longford, the Estates Commissioners will direct an inquiry into the circumstances under which two half-witted girls named Lennon, whose father owned this farm and who lost it for want of proper sense to manage the same, are now living, with a view to their receiving some small compensation for the interest they lost, not through their own fault but through their sad mental misfortunes.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Estates Commissioners have received no application from the persons mentioned, but will inquire into their case when the estate in question is being dealt with.

  Eviction Notices in the Kells Rural District.
  MR. PATRICK WHITE: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Kells Rural District Council has served notice to quit upon a large number of labourers holding cottages from that body; what is the reason assigned for the shower of notices to quit; and will he supply the hon. Member for North Meath with a copy of the existing agreements between the Naran, Trim, Oldcastle, and Kells District Councils and their respective tenants.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Local Government Board are aware that on the 16th instant the Kells Rural District Council ordered notices to quit to be served on six tenants of labourers cottages, in five instances for non-payment of rent, and in the remaining case for dilapidations. The Board are not in possession of the agreements referred to in the Question.

  Status of Bandmasters in Volunteer Regiments.
  MR. REES: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether bandmasters in Volunteer regiments have no assured military status; whether bandmasters in the Regular Army rank as warrant officers; and whether, if the Answer in both cases or in the former case be in the affirmative, steps will be taken in the Army Bill or otherwise to improve the condition of the former functionaries.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) The reply to the first and second second parts of the Question is in the affirmative. As regards the last part of the Question, I doubt whether it would be practicable to adopt my hon. friend's suggestion. The mode of life and occupation of a bandmaster in a Volunteer regiment is so different under existing circumstances from that of the bandmaster in a regular regiment, who gives his whole time to the work of that regiment, that it is not easy to see how the status could be assimilated.

  Army Accounts Department.
  MR. CLAVELL SALTER: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether he proposes to

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  make any changes in the constitution of the Army Accounts Department.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) No change has been determined on.

  Battery Sergeant-Majors and Quartermaster-Sergeants affected by Army Order of 11th March.
  MR. CLAVELL SALTER: To ask the Secretary of State for War how many battery sergeant-majors and battery quarter-master-sergeants will be affected by the Army Order, issued on the 11th March, which provides that continuance in the service, beyond twenty-one years, of non-commissioned officers on the Home establishment is to cease for the present; and whether he will consider the advisability of allowing exceptions where commanding officers apply to retain such non-commissioned officers in the interests of the service.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) As regards the first part of the Question no figures are available in the War Office, and it would take some time to obtain the information. As regards the last part of the Question the Army Council is prepared to consider any exceptional cases, either in the interests of the service or of the non-commissioned officer.

QUESTIONS IN THE HOUSE.

  Reserve of Guns and Ammunition for the Navy.
  MR. BELLAIRS:I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether in view of the fact that the information given under Vote 9 has been curtailed, while the Vote for guns has been reduced from £915,000 last year to £690,000 this year, and the Vote for projectiles, ammunition, torpedoes, and gun-cotton is now £1,182,000, whereas in 1901–2 it was £2,405,300, he can give the House an assurance that the reserve of heavy guns in the case of the "Dreadnought" and "Invincible" classes will not be reduced below the figure officially given as one heavy gun for every four mounted on board, and that stocks of projectiles, ammunition, torpedoes, and gun-cotton are not being reduced below what has been customary in former years.
  THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. Edmund Robertson,): As has been previously stated, it is considered undesirable in the public interest that statements should be made regarding the reserve of guns and other ordnance stores, but the assurance asked for can be given.
  MR. ARTHUR LEE: Does the reduced quantity of ammunition also mean a reduced allowance for practice?
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: I would rather not answer that Question without notice.
  MR. BELLAIRS: Can the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that the reserve will not fall below that which formerly existed?
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: I have given the assurance asked for by the hon. Member, and I cannot do more.

  Simonstown Warders—Adulterated Canvas.
  MR. BOWLES: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he is aware that the warders on the staff of the naval prison at Simonstown are employed on extra duties with extra pay for an average of 160 days per annum; and whether he will cause inquiry to be made as to whether this prison is overstaffed. I beg also to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he is aware that adulterated canvas has recently been supplied to the Admiralty by a private firm; whether the Admiralty have made any claim upon this firm in consequence; and whether this firm is still supplying canvas to the Admiralty.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: As both these Questions are now under review by the Public Accounts Committee, it would be contrary to the usual practice for me to make any statement.

  H.M.S. "Barfleur."
  MR. BELLAIRS: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty how many captains have successively been appointed to the battleship H.M.S. "Barfleur," and how many crews have successively manned her in the last twenty-four months.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: The number of captains is six; and number of crews five.

  Redistribution of Battle Ships.
  MR. BELLAIRS:I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty how many of the thirty-two battleships which have been in full commission and exercised in their respective fleets under the old distribution will shift their fleets under the new distribution; how many will change their crews; and whether all the Admirals commanding the four fleets will be new to their commands.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: Eighteen of the battleships will shift their fleets, and eight will change their crews. The Answer to the last part of the Question is in the affirmative.

  Pensioner Bradley, Royal Garrison Artillery.
  MR. BRAMSDON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that pensioner Company Quartermaster Sergeant G. Bradley, of the Royal Garrison Artillery, was passed over for promotion by a junior on the 2nd April, 1905, for the rank of Regimental Quartermaster Sergeant through an error, for which he was in no way responsible, that an appeal has been made to the War Office on two occasions, and although it is admitted that the pensioner has been unjustly treated no redress has been given, that a loss of rank and pay amounting to about £14 has resulted up to date of discharge, which was carried out on the 28th February of the present year; and whether he can see his way clear to see that justice is done to the person in question.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. Haldane,): It is regretted that this man was inadvertently passed over for promotion. I am at present considering whether anything can be done.

  Comilla Riots.
  MR. O'GRADY: I bog to ask the Secretary of State for India whether his attention has been called to a riot that occurred at Comilla, in the new province, between a Mahomedan procession, escorting the Nawab of Dacca
  654
  to a pro-partition meeting; whether the Mahomedans assaulted the Hindus indiscriminately and looted Hindu shops, many Hindus being injured; whether the Nawab, in justification of the riot, stated that a stone was thrown at him a fortnight previous at the Comilla District Conference; and, if so, what steps have been or will be taken to bring the Nawab and the other offenders to justice, and to prevent pro-partition demonstrations being held in those quarters where the Hindus live and carry on their business.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Mr. Morley,): I have received a Report of the disturbance referred to. The Local Government appear to have taken steps to prevent illegal action or rioting, whether by Hindus or Mahomedans, at Comilla.

  Bengal Excise Bill
  MR. HERBERT ROBERTS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether, in view of the Report of the Indian Excise Committee, and the consequent action to be taken by the Government of India thereon, the Bengal Excise Bill, which was referred to a Select Committee of the Bengal Legislative Council in 1905, will be reintroduced.
  MR. MORLEY: I have ascertained that the Government of India have still to consider the Bill in connection with the Excise Committee's Report, and that it will not be proceeded with in the current session.

  China and the Opium Traffic.
  MR. ELLIS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether he can now state how the matter of the opium traffic from India now stands, especially having regard to the Resolution of the House passed unanimously on the 30th May, 1906.
  MR. MORLEY: My right hon. friend is aware that the Chinese Government towards the end of last year approached His Majesty's Government on the subject of restricting the import of foreign opium into China, and put forward certain proposals as a basis for discussion. The views of the Government of India on

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  these proposals have just reached me and are under my consideration in Council. The discussion which the Chinese Government have invited will be entered upon with all despatch and will, I hope, result in a satisfactory arrangement at no distant date.

  Indian National Congress Resolutions.
  SIR H. COTTON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether he has received a copy of the resolutions passed at the Twenty-Second Indian National Congress, held in Calcutta during December, 1906; and, if so, whether he will lay the resolutions on the Table of the House.
  MR. MORLEY: The Answer is in the negative.
  SIR H. COTTON: Has not the right hon. Gentleman received a copy of the resolutions of the Government of India?
  MR. MORLEY: I am not at all sure that it comes within the province of the Government of India to forward them.

  Trinidad Customs Tariff.
  MR. SUMMERBELL: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies if he is yet in a position to give the names of the Commission appointed by the Trinidad Government to revise the local customs tariff; whether a representative of the working class has been appointed a member of the Commission; and whether the proceedings of the Commission will be made public.
  THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. Churchill,): I am not as yet in a position to give the hon. Member any further information on this subject.
  MR. SUMMERBELL: When may the information be expected?
  MR. CHURCHILL: I will make further inquiries and inform the hon. Member.
  MR. SUMMERBELL: Will the hon. Gentleman do so by telegraph?
  MR. CHURCHILL: Yes, if it is necessary to do so.

  New Hebrides Convention Expenditure.
  MR. STANLEY WILSON: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies what sums have been expended during the present financial year on legal advice travelling, printing, telegraphing, and other general expenses connected with the New Hebrides Convention.
  MR. CHURCHILL: No special expenditure arising out of the New Hebrides Convention has been or will be incurred during the present financial year.

  Treatment of British Indians in Natal.
  MR. ALDEN: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he has any information to the effect that resolutions have been passed at a large meeting of Indians in Durban, protesting against the manner in which the Dealers Licences Act was being enforced in various parts of Natal, and asking the Imperial Government to safeguard the right of British-Indian ratepayers to vote at the municipal elections; and, if so what action he proposes to take in the matter.
  MR. CHURCHILL: A copy of cable to the effect stated has been received from the South African British Indian Committee. The Secretary of State, as already stated, is in communication with the Natal Government on the subject.

  The Hausa Lines, West Africa.
  MR. KEIR HARDIE: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the ex-soldiers of the Hausa, Lagos, West Africa, have now been evicted from their location; and whether the compensation promised has been paid, and, if not when it is proposed to pay it.
  MR. CHURCHILL: It is understood that the removal of the inhabitants of the quarter known as the "Hausa Lines" has been carried out. The compensation was payable one month after the publication of the awards in the Gazette; and, as this publication was made on the 9th of

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  January, it may be assumed that the compensation has been paid. Inquiry is being made by telegraph as to the amounts of compensation which have been paid and the persons compensated.
  MR. KEIR HARDIE: When is the reply likely to be available?
  MR. CHURCHILL: I should think very soon.

  Shanghai Outrages.
  MAJOR ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has received any information from the British Consul General at Shanghai with regard to the murder of Police-constable Morrow, who was shot dead by a gang of armed robbers on the outskirts of the town; and whether he will cause representations to be made to the Chinese Government with a view to preventing a recurrence of such an outrage.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir Edward Grey,: We have no information on the subject. But inquiries have been made by telegraph of His Majesty's Minister at Peking, and the result will be communicated to the hon. Member.
  MAJOR ANSTRUTHER GRAY: Will further inquiries be telegraphed?
  SIR EDWARD GREY: They have been telegraphed, but the Answer may come by post, as the question is a very complicated one.

  Turco-Persian Frontier Delimitation.
  MR. LYNCH: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can inform the House of the present state of the negotiations between Turkey and Persia for the ratification of the Turco-Persian frontier; and whether any steps are being taken by His Majesty's Government and that of Russia to bring about a speedy settlement of the dispute in question, and the recall of the Turkish troops.
  SIR EDWARD GREY: A joint Perso-Turkish Commission has been appointed to settle the dispute with regard to the
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  frontier in the Passova district, and also to delimit the whole boundary between the two countries. The Commission has already arrived at Mosoul, which is to be its headquarters during the remaining winter months. The present situation does not, therefore, require any steps.

  British and United States Commercial Arrangements.
  MAJOR ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: On behalf of the hon. Member for Lanark, N.W., I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether under the most-favoured-nation treaty between this country and the United States any concessions which may be granted to any foreign country are automatically extended to the United States.
  SIR EDWARD GREY: The practice of this country is to treat imports from the United States not less favourably than those from any other country.

  Income Tax.
  MR. BARRIE: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer why final notices demanding payment of income-tax, under threat of proceedings, are issued in Ireland at least one month earlier than similar notices are issued in England.
  The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Asquith,): There is no foundation for the allegation on which the Question rests.

  Portsmouth Dockyard Silver Plating Works.
  MR. BRAMSDON: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty if his attention has been called to a prosecution and conviction at the Birmingham Police Court on the 1st instant, whereby a number of men were found working on polishing machines in silver-plating works under conditions injurious to their health, in consequence of their employer failing to provide a fan or other efficient mechanical means for removing the dust arising from the polishing wheels when running; whether he is aware that a similar condition of things exists in the electrical department of His Majesty's Dockyard at Portsmouth; that no apparatus is supplied to the men to prevent the inhalation of dust and fluff arising from the brushes during the process

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  of polishing, that there is insufficient mechanical apparatus to carry away the dust and fluff, and the health of several of the men has been injured in consequence, that three men have been placed on the sick list, without pay, and one on the hurt list, with pay; and whether he will institute an inquiry into the nature of this employment, with a view to improve the conditions under which this work is done.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Gladstone,): I beg to answer this Question on behalf of my hon. friend. I have received reports of the prosecution at Birmingham and of the conditions of the electric shop at Portsmouth. These reports reveal a very different state of affairs in the two places. The Birmingham case was an exceptionally bad one. At Portsmouth the records show one case on the hurt list of injury to health from the effects of inhaling dust, but I find that there has been no case on the sick list, nor has any intimation been received from men sick that they have suffered from any such cause. I am informed that an exhaust fan is fitted in the shop and is always kept in action during polishing operations, but means will be taken to secure better arrangements for exhaust ventilation. The men employed in the polishing work have been provided with respirators. The shop itself is reported by the inspector to be a lofty and airy room.

  Fines and Fees in Metropolitan Police Courts.
  MR. CLAUDE HAY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make arrangements through the Receiver of the Metropolitan Police district whereby the several chief clerks of the Metropolitan Police Courts shall be required to forward monthly or quarterly statements to the councils of the Metropolitan boroughs and all other local authorities within that district, showing the fees, fines, and costs due and payable to them under the provisions of the Sale of Food and Drugs Acts, the Public Health (London) Acts, the Summary Jurisdiction Acts, and other statutes or by-laws made there under; and if he will issue an Order to that effect at the end of the current
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  financial year, viz., on the 31st March, 1907.
  MR. GLADSTONE: The preparation of periodical returns as suggested would occupy considerable time; and, as at present advised, I see no sufficient reason for altering the existing practice. Any representations on this subject by the local authorities concerned would of course receive my careful consideration.

  Channel Islands Shipping Laws.
  SIR W. J. COLLINS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what progress has been made, as the result of conferences with the representatives of the Channel Islands, in regard to improvements of the shipping laws obtaining in those islands.
  MR. GLADSTONE: The Board of Trade have prepared detailed suggestions for legislation, framed with a view to secure uniformity, as far as possible, between the law in Jersey and Guernsey and the provisions of English law relating to certificates of competency, safety, and inquiries into shipping casualities. These suggestions were sent to the Insular Authorities a few days ago. The States of Guernsey have already passed a Bill dealing with certificates of competency, and they have been asked whether they would prefer that this Bill should receive approval separately, or that it should form part of the more extended legislation which is in contemplation.

  East Staincliffe Licensing Justices.
  MR. CLOUGH: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has received a resolution signed by twelve licensing justices of the East Staincliffe petty sessions, urging the necessity for early legislation to give to licensing authorities absolute powers to grant or refuse applications for new licenses, or the renewal of existing ones, for clubs where intoxicants are sold; and whether the promised licensing measure will contain some such provisions.
  MR. GLADSTONE: The Answer to the first part of the Question is in the affirmative; and to the second that I cannot at present add anything to my

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  previous statements that the question of clubs is receiving consideration.

  Metropolitan Accounts.
  MR. CLAUDE HAY: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board if he will state what progress has been made by the Board in connection with the preparation of an order for accounts, for the purposes of regulating and controlling the finances of the Metropolitan Water Board, in accordance with the provisions of the Metropolis Water Act, 1902.
  I beg further to ask the President of the Local Government Board what steps have been taken by the Board to prepare an order for accounts for regulating the finances and account keeping of the Central (Unemployed) Body for London and the Metropolitan Distress Committees, in accordance with The Unemployed Workmen Act, 1905, Section 3 (g); and whether it is contemplated to prescribe any financial regulations before the Act expires on the 11th August, 1908.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. John BURNS,: The Local Government Board have prescribed the forms of financial statement to be submitted to the auditor in the case of the Metropolitan Water Board and the Central (Unemployed) Body; but, pending the Report of the Departmental Committee on the accounts of local authorities, they have not thought it desirable to make regulations generally as to the accounts of these bodies.

  Calves for the National Vaccine Establishment.
  MR. LUPTON: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board how many calves were used at the National Vaccine Establishment during the year 1906; what interval of time elapsed, on the average, between the collection of matter from the animals and the slaughter of them; what was the price realised for the veal; what was the total weight sold; and is the meat sold for consumption in the East End or the West End of London.
  MR. JOHN BURNS: The number of calves used or vaccinated during the financial year 1905–6 at the National Vaccine Establishment was 600. As a rule, the slaughter of the calf takes place the day after the collection of the matter. I have no information as to the other points referred to in the Question. I believe the meat is sold at Smithfield market.
  MR. LUPTON: Is any of the veal bought by the Dinner Committee of this House?
  MR. JOHN BURNS: It is not at all improbable. If it were I should not object to eating it.

  Washburn Valley Afforestation Scheme.
  MR. O'GRADY: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he is aware that the men at work under the Leeds Distress Committee, upon the a forestation scheme in the Washburn Valley, have deducted from their wages 1s. 6d. for boots and tobacco and 9s. per week for food, leaving them 9s. 6d. per week for the upkeep of their families; that during the winter, on several occasions, when the men could only work two or three days per week owing to inclement weather, deductions from their wages were made; whether he is aware of the conditions under which the men are required to work; whether he has official information showing that 293 men were offered employment, 139 accepted, 102 only commenced work, fifty-six threw it up very soon after, and at present there are only forty-six out of the 293 who were offered employment engaged upon the forestry work; whether, seeing that the accommodation is limited to forty-eight men only, he will say whether the arrangements are the result of instructions from the Local Government Board or the Leeds Distress Committee; and whether steps will be taken so to amplify the arrangements as to give the experiment a chance of success.
  MR. JOHN BURNS: I have made inquiry on this subject, and am informed that the registered unemployed engaged upon the work referred to receive wages at the rate of 20s. per week of forty-eight hours, that certain deductions are made for boots and railway fares, and that

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  there is an allowance of 6d. per week for tobacco or pocket money. The distress committee, in conjunction with the town council, have made arrangements for the board and lodging of such of the men as desire it, not exceeding forty-eight, in a wooden building in Washburn Valley. If a man elects to board himself he can do so, or he can board with the keeper of the building at 9s. 6d. for board and lodging from Monday morning to Saturday at mid-day, or 11s. for the full week. The men may arrange for board and lodging elsewhere, subject to the terms of the arrangement being communicated to the distress committee. Some of them adopt this course. The wages are only paid for time worked, but between 2nd January and 13th March there were only seventeen hours during which the work was stopped on account of inclement weather; but it is stated that on many occasions a large proportion of the men refused to work whilst others worked full time. The arrangements were made by the distress committee and were considered to be sufficient to meet all reasonable requirements.
  MR. O'GRADY: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman if he has received a Report from a committee of the ratepayers on the subject, and whether he is aware that the men have to walk seventeen miles to and from their work; whether he is aware that it is a celibate colony; and whether he will allow the men the privilege which is granted to the men at the Hollesley Bay Colony to return home at least once a month free of railway fares.
  MR. JOHN BURNS: I have investigated the subject on the spot, and, bearing in mind that these are relief works, I have come to the conclusion that on the point neither of treatment, of accommodation nor of food have the men any more to complain of than the ordinary navvy or ordinary labourer in that particular district would have to encounter if he were not working on relief works.
  MR. O'GRADY: Is it not a fact that the chairman of the distress committee who is responsible for carrying on the experiment once said that he would rather sweep the streets than accept work under the distress committee on the terms which obtained?
  MR. JOHN BURNS: In answer to that I think I had better quote the observations of Mr. Herbert Brown, who is the chairman of the distress committee. He is reported to have said—"Several have returned to the city at the end of the first week, a few have stayed only a day and then disappeared. Moreover, it has frequently happened that men on the spot have deliberately refused to turn out to work. They have put their hand out of the door, and feeling it rather cold have sat round the stove all day." As to the question of food the same gentleman says:—"The men have no fault to find with the food or accommodation. They have bacon for breakfast; they are supplied with a light luncheon to take out with them to eat at noon, and on their return at five or six o'clock they have a substantial meal provided of meat and potatoes."
  MR. O'GRADY: Is it not a fact that the men are only supplied with eight ounces of food between the time they go out in the morning to the time they return in the evening; is it not a fact that there is only accommodation for forty-eight men, of whom forty-six have been working regularly, and that the men have on wet days gone back to their quarters with wet clothes, and having no opportunity to dry them, have had to go out to their work next day with them still wet?
  MR. JOHN BURNS: The best authority on the matter of food is the buxom lady who cooks it. She said when interviewed—"They ought not to be delicate for they eat plenty. They have eaten eighty-six lbs. of butter this last month. I bake over twenty stone of bread every week, and look here (opening one of the largest ovens) here is thirty-six lbs. of beef, and there is seventeen lbs. more stewing in that big pan, and I will be surprised if there is a scrap left after to-morrow's dinner. Why those chaps have appetites like horses, and I like to see it, if they would only waken up."
  MR. LUNDON: I would like to know if the bacon supplied for breakfast is obtained from the firm of O'Mara & Co., Limerick.
  MR. JOHN BURNS: If it is, I have not the least doubt that it is of its usual excellent quality
  MR. LUNDON: It is the best in the world.
  Several other hon. Members rose to put questions, but,
  MR. SPEAKER: I think notice should be given of any further Questions.

  New York Unemployment Returns.
  MR. REMNANT: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board what are the trades covered by the Returns of Unemployment in New York State to which he has referred, and whether he can distinguish the unemployed in the indoor and outdoor trades respectively.
  MR. JOHN BURNS: There are some thirty different trades covered by the Returns referred to. They are not classified under indoor and outdoor trades, although in most cases it might be possible to distinguish them, but, as I intimated yesterday, I would suggest that the hon. Member should himself consult the Returns.

  Prosecutions for Illegal Trawling.
  MR. STANLEY WILSON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether there is any precedent for the prosecution of any subordinate member of the crew of a fishing vessel for an offence committed by the vessel at sea; and whether it has been the regular practice of all the maritime Powers of the North Sea to hold the master of the vessel, as the representative of the owner, solely responsible.
  THE SECRETARY TO THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. Kearley,): My right hon. friend has asked me to reply to the hon. Member's Question. The Board of Trade are not aware of a subordinate member of the crew of a fishing vessel having been prosecuted in the circumstances referred to. I believe it is the practice of the North Sea maritime Powers to regard the skipper as responsible in such circumstances.
  MR. STANLEY WILSON: Arising out of that Answer, may I ask if the hon. Gentleman is aware that prosecutions of subordinates are taking place at the present time in Scotland—such men are in fact being prosecuted to-morrow?
  MR. KEARLEY: I do not represent the Scottish Office; I therefore cannot answer the Question.
  MR. STANLEY WILSON: I thought the hon. Gentleman might like to know.

  Continental Harbours for Cross-Channel Traffic.
  MR. LYNCH: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether, as a result of the wreck of the "Berlin," he will take steps, either in concert with the Postmaster-General by allocation of subsidies, or otherwise, to secure that the entrances to the Continental harbours used in the cross-Channel traffic shall be adapted to the steamers using them, and thus to promote the safety of the British travelling public.
  MR. KEARLEY: My right hon. friend has asked me to answer this Question. As the hon. Member is no doubt aware, a formal investigation has been ordered into the loss of the "Berlin." Until the result of that inquiry is known, it is impossible to say what steps might be taken.

  Elliot Junction Railway Accident.
  MR. C. E. PRICE: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade, what action, in view of the penalty inflicted upon George Gourlay for his responsibility in the recent accident at Arbroath, he proposes taking, or what penalty will be imposed upon the railway company or companies for, according to the verdict of the jury in Edinburgh, the lax state of affairs existing at Elliot Junction on the date of the accident.
  MR. KEARLEY: The Board of Trade are not aware of any statutory provision under which the Railway Company could be subjected to a penalty. The question of their civil liability is not a matter for the Department.

  Thornley Postman's Hours of Duty.
  MR. SUMMERBELL:I beg to ask the Postmaster-General, if he is aware that the sub-office postman stationed at Thornley commences work at 6.40 a.m., and continues till 2.30 p.m., which completes his full day's work, and for which he receives 16s. per week; that he is then called upon to perform three hours extra very night from 6 to 9 p.m., and for which he receives the sum of only 1s. per week, or about ¾d. per hour; and, if so, whether he will grant this man an increase in pay, especially in view of the profit made each year out of the postal system.
  THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Sydney Buxton, Tower Hamlets, Poplar):I have called for a Report on this subject, and on its receipt I will send the hon. Member a reply.

  Kensington Gardens Trees.
  VISCOUNT DALRYMPLE: On behalf of the hon. Member for the Tiverton Division, I beg to ask the First Commissioner of Works how many trees have been lopped and cut down, respectively, in Kensington Gardens during the present financial year; what sums of money have been received for the timber; and how many new park trees have been planted.
  THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (Mr. Harcourt,): The trees lopped number 374, and eleven have been cut down. The amount received to date is £67 12s. There is, however, a large quantity of wood at present unsold. No trees have yet been planted in Kensington Gardens this year, but I hope to plant some there this autumn.
  MAJOR ANSTRUTHER-GRAYasked whether the branches had been burned. Could they not have been given to the poor?
  MR. HARCOURT: Yes, Sir; and before Christmas notices were put up that the poor would be allowed to remove any of the smaller wood that would be of use to them, and orders were given that no wood should be burned before 1st March. I am sorry to say that the poor did not avail themselves of that opportunity, probably owing to the wood being in a green state.

  Duke of York's Steps Footway.
  VISCOUNT DALRYMPLE: On behalf of the hon. Member for the Tiverton Division, I beg to ask the First Commissioner of Works it his attention has been called to the state of the asphalte upon the path leading from the Duke of York's Steps to Storey's Gate; and if the asphalte will be relaid shortly.
  MR. HARCOURT: Temporary repairs, where necessary, will be made in the course of the year, but no general relaying can be undertaken on the present Estimates.
  In reply to a further Question,
  MR. HARCOURTsaid provision would have to be made for the work in next year's Estimates, and Parliamentary authority obtained for it.

  Teachers' Pensions.
  MR. STANLEY WILSON:I beg to ask the Secretary to the Board of Education, how many of the pensions granted under the Education Minutes of December 1846, are given to claimants who were employed before August 1851, when the 1846 Minutes were rescinded; whether he can say how many of the recipients are women, and the number of the pensions at each scale of £20, £25, and £30.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Mr. McKenna,): Four hundred and eight of the teachers now in receipt of code pensions were employed before August 1851, of whom 190 are women. One hundred and forty-one of these pensions are £20, 179 are £25, and eighty-eight are £30 a year.

  Non-Provided Schools.
  MR. CLOUGH: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, what proportion of the £5,882,500 annual grants, £2,752,000 grants in lieu of fees, £2,485,000 aid grants to local education authorities (total £11,119,500), in the Estimates of 1907–8 for the Board of Education, will be allocated to schools not provided by, and consequently not under the complete control of, local education authorities.
  MR. MCKENNA: None of the grants are allocated to particular schools, but are paid to the local authorities in aid of their expenditure on the maintenance of schools. The grants referred to are calculated upon average attendance, and it is impossible to say now what the average attendance in voluntary schools will be during 1907–8, but in the statistical year ended 31st July 1906, it was approximately equivalent to 46 per cent. of the total average attendance in public elementary schools in England and Wales.

  Milan Exposition Awards.
  MR. HALPIN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he is aware that on 12th March the President of the British Commission to the Milan Exposition publicly announced that the diplomas and medals awarded to exhibitors had been received; if he will explain why these are being withheld by the Commission; if he is aware that, when the British Commission was organised, it was stated in a Report presented by the Executive Commissioner to the President and Members of the Commission that the awards would consist of diplomas and medals; if he is also aware that the Executive Commissioner has written to certain exhibitors who have applied for the medals and diplomas awarded them to the effect that the Exposition authorities do not present an actual medal but a diploma therefore; whether he is aware that medals have always been issued with diplomas at international expositions; and will he explain why the British Commission to the Milan Exposition issued such a misleading Report.
  THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. Runciman,): I am informed by the President of the British Commission that he did not make the statement attributed to him in the first part of the Question repecting diplomas. In point of fact the diplomas are daily expected from Milan but have not yet arrived. As it is the intention of the Commission to present the diplomas and the medals at the same time the non-arrival of the former accounts for the delay of which the hon. Member complains. I understand that it is not the case that medals have always been issued with diplomas at Inter-
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  national Expositions, the usual practice being to present diplomas alone. This is the course actually being taken by the authorities of the Milan Exhibition, but the British Commission have determined to purchase and present bronze medals with their diplomas to Exhibitors to whom medals, &c., have been awarded. The Report referred to was based upon a misunderstanding which is regretted, but I understand the facts to be as I have stated.
  MR. HALPIN: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that that the President got a Japanese Decoration for putting a Jap on the jury instead of an Irishman?
  [No Answer was returned.]

  Clerks to Surveyors of Taxes.
  MR. O'GRADY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, in what manner the case of the clerks to the surveyors of taxes is being dealt with; whether the finding of the Department will be laid upon the Table of the House; and, if so, when will this be done.
  MR. RUNCIMAN:I understand that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, on whose behalf I replied to a question on this subject asked by the hon. Member on the 7th instant, is considering whether any improvements can be effected in the organisation of surveyors' offices. His inquiries are at present of an informal nature and are with a view to ascertaining whether a prima facie case is made out against the present arrangements. He is not in a position to lay any Papers.

  The National Gallery.
  MAJOR ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether some steps can be taken to improve the quality of the photographs sold at the National Gallery, and to insure that copies of the principal masterpieces are procurable.
  MR. RUNCIMAN: I am informed that there is at present no official sale of photographs of National Gallery pictures, but that information is officially given as to where the best photographs may be obtained, and this information will be conspicuously posted in the entrance

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  hall as soon as the re-decoration is complete. The sale of reproductions is under the consideration of the trustees.
  MAJOR ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: But is it not the fact that photographs are sold now in the National Gallery?
  MR. CHIOZZA MONEY: Is it not the fact that there is a private stall for which no rent is paid—not an official stall—at which the photographs complained of are sold?
  MR. RUNCIMAN: If hon. Gentlemen will put down a Question as to this private stall, I will endeavour to answer it.
  MAJOR ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: Has the hon. Gentleman no information as to the private stall?
  MR. RUNCIMAN: Only what I have given to the House.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Letthe hon. Gentleman go and see it for himself.

  Agricultural Holdings Act—Mr. Garnett of Clitheroe and his Tenants.
  MR. CLOUGH: I beg to ask the hon. Member for South Somerset, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, whether he is aware that Mr. William Garnett, Low Moor, Clitheroe, has given his tenant farmers notice to quit on 12th May 1908, without assigning any reasons for so doing; and whether he will ascertain the real reason from Mr. Garnett, so as to make it clear that it is not in consequence of the passing of the Agricultural Holdings Act of last session.
  SIR EDWARD STRACHEY: My noble friend placed himself in communication with Mr. Garnett on this subject, and has received from him the following reply:—
  "Low Moor, Clitheroe,
  "March 17th, 1907.
  "My Lord,
  "Permit me to tender my thanks to your Lordship for kindly calling my attention to a Question to be submitted to the House on Tuesday next which I
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  had tailed to notice in the published Parliamentary proceedings.
  "My leases are copies of leases dated back sixty or seventy years at least and require readjusting.
  "I had given order to my agent a year ago to serve these notices, long before the passing of the Act.
  "I do not at all see that the Act named applies in my case, hence it has no terrors to induce me to wish to evade it.
  "My tenants are not allowed, nor over have been, to lay out any money on permanent improvements of any kind, and are in consequence not entitled to any compensation on quitting their holdings and as to the character of the land, there is practically not an acre of arable land in the district.
  "My tenants know that any improvements which can he proved to me as desirable are carried out. All that have been, such as buildings, draining, and even manuring of a quasi-permanent kind, such as boning, etc., have in every instance been at my expense; this I have advisedly carried out, that tenants on leaving, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, should have no claim upon me or be able to say they had spent money for my benefit.
  "I am sorry to say—and what most landowners will be able to confirm—that these outlays, from a financial point of view, have not been to my advantage.
  "Trusting I have been able to answer your Lordship's letter in a way you care to have it.
  "Your obedient Servant,
  "(Signed) W. Garnett."
  The Right Honourable Earl Carrington,
  Board of Agriculture and Fisheries,
  4, Whitehall Place, London, S.W.

  Clifton-on-Bowmont Agricultural Experiments.
  SIR J. JARDINE: I beg to ask the hon. Member for South Somerset, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, if the Board can see its way to the issue of a leaflet to county councils and farmers' clubs containing information to farmers regarding free access to Mr. Robert H. Elliot's demonstration farm at Clifton-on-Bowmont, in the county of Roxburgh.
  SIR EDWARD STRACHEY: The Board do not think that the issue of a leaflet would be appropriate in this case, but we shall be glad to insert a notice as to Mr. Elliot's generous offer in the next number of our Journal.

  Moray Firth Trawlers.
  MR. PIRIE: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland if it is within the knowledge of the Government that rewards have been offered to those giving information as to the presence of trawlers in the waters of the Moray Firth outside the three miles limit, whether many men innocent of trawling in the prohibited area have been subjected in consequence to severe penalties; and that trawlers refrain now from entering the Moray Firth for shelter, even in stress of weather, thereby entailing on themselves much loss and danger.
  THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (Mr. Sinclair,): I have no official knowledge of rewards such as those referred to by my hon. friend having being offered. Neither am I aware that any trawler has, in consequence, been detected or subjected to any penalty. I understand that the Moray Firth is as freely used as ever for shelter by all classes of fishermen.

  Scottish Riparian Rights.
  SIR J. JARDINE: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland if he can state what arrangements exist for protecting the rights of the Crown against assertions of private or exclusive ownership of the right to fish for salmon and trout in parts of the River Tweed, the River Teviot, the River Jed, and the Liddell Water, and in the streams that flow into those rivers; and whether any public authority has made arrangements for receiving early information of any active assertions of private or exclusive ownership over such fisheries in those waters.
  MR. SINCLAIR: The Crown rights, which are under the management of the Commissioner of Woods, only extend to salmon and fish of the salmon kind, not to the river trout. As stated in answer to a previous Question, inquiries were instituted some years ago as to the Crown rights to salmon fishings in parts of the Tweed, but the results were not
  674
  considered at the time such as to justify pursuing the question further, and no special arrangements were therefore required for protecting Crown rights. The matter is now being considered, and if the hon. Member will communicate to the Commissioner of Woods any information he may have as to any apparent infringement of Crown rights, the facts will be inquired into at once.
  SIR J. JARDINE: Has the Commissioner of Woods and Forests any authority to inquire what is going on?
  MR. SINCLAIR: I should prefer that that Question were addressed to the Minister responsible for that Department.

  Jury Challenging at Roscommon Assizes.
  MR. HAYDEN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the fact that Mr. Justice Kenny, at the recent Roscommon Assizes, directed the Crown Solicitor not to permit any of the jurors who tried a particular case, and brought in a verdict not in agreement with his views, to be empanelled in any future cases coming before him; and whether the Crown Solicitor is in any way bound by this direction.
  THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. Cherry,:My right hon. friend has asked me to answer this Question. I would refer the hon. Member to the reply which I gave yesterday to the similar Question put by the hon. and learned Member for South Donegal.†

  Vandeleur Estate Evicted Tenants.
  MR. HALPIN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Estates Commissioners have reinstated all the evicted tenants on the Vandeleur property in West Clare on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, the 12th, 13th and 14th instant; and whether, if all were not reinstated, he will make inquiries why they were not, and when they will be reinstated.
  The CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. Birrell,: The
  †See Col. 485.

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  Estates Commissioners are aware that their inspector has been engaged for several days past in restoring evicted tenants on the Vandeleur Estate, but they have not yet received his Report in the matter, and in the meantime are unable to furnish details.
  MR. HALPIN: Will the right hon. Gentleman continue to use his influence with the Estates Commissioners with a view to settling these West Clare tenants?
  MR. BIRRELL: I do not think the Estates Commissioners require any pressure from me. They are most anxious to expedite their work.

  Crime in Cavan and Sussex.
  MR. COURTHOPE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the boycotting of Mr. Thomas E. Taylor, of Blacklion, county Cavan, which was discontinued about 20th February last, was resumed with additional severity on Monday, 4th March; whether this boycotting still continues; and what steps are being taken to deal with the case.
  MR. DILLON: Before the right hon. Gentleman answers, may I ask if his attention has been called to the fact that according to the last Returns there were only seventy-three indictable offences in county Cavan and 336 non-indictable offences, whereas in the county of Sussex there were in the same period 1,540 indictable offences and 7,282 non-indictable offences. And I would ask whether it is decent for the hon. Gentleman, in view of the fact that his county shows twenty times as many indictable offences—
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order.
  VISCOUNT TURNOUR: How do the two counties compare for population?
  MR. BIRRELL: I propose to answer the Question on the Paper. I am informed by the police authorities that it is not the case that the boycotting of Mr. Taylor has been resumed with additional severity. Two or three persons have refused to supply him with goods, but he has no difficulty in obtaining
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  supplies from others in the locality, or in disposing of his produce. In the circumstances, no action has been called for, but the police will, of course, afford to Mr. Taylor any protection which may become necessary to secure the exercise of his legal rights.

  Simpson Estate (Leitrim) Evicted Tenant.
  MR. THOMAS F. SMYTH: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if the Estates Commissioners have received an application for reinstatement from Michael Regan, Corona, Drums, on the Simpson Estate, in county Leitrim; and if the same will be considered by them.
  MR. BIRRELL: The Estates Commissioners have received the application in question, and have had the case investigated by their inspector, whose report is under consideration.

  Ensor Estate (Leitrim) Evicted Tenants.
  MR. THOMAS F. SMYTH: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if the Estates Commissioners have received an application for reinstatement from Francis Murphy, Drumdarkin, Cloone, on the Ensor Estate, in county Leitrim; and if the case will be investigated by an inspector.
  MR. BIRRELL: The Estates Commissioners have received the application, and have referred it to their inspector for investigation in connection with the proposed sale of the Ensor Estate, which is at present before them.

  La Touche Estate (Leitrim) Evicted Tenants.
  MR. THOMAS F. SMYTH:I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if the Estates Commissioners have received their inspector's report with regard to the reinstatement of Francis Donlon, Errew, Carrigallen, on the La Touch Estate, in county Leitrim; and, as the person at present in occupation of the farm is willing to give it up in case he is compensated, and as the landlord does not object to this arrangement, if the Estates Commissioners will have the evicted tenant reinstated without further delay.
  MR. BIRRELL: The Estates Commissioners have not yet received their inspector's report on this case, and are therefore not at present in a position to consider the question of reinstating the evicted tenant.

  Clements Estate (Leitrim) Evicted Tenant.
  MR. THOMAS F. SMYTH: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if the Estates Commissioners have received an application for reinstatement from Mrs. Ann Kerrigan, who is at present in America, for the farm of land formerly belonging to her at Clooncarne, on the Clements Estate, in county Leitrim; and if the same will be considered.
  MR. BIRRELL: The Estates Commissioners have not received an application from Mrs. Kerrigan.

  Listowel Estate, North Kerry, Evicted Tenants.
  MR. FLAVIN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland what action has been taken by the Estates Commissioners in connection with the untenanted land at Ennismore, on the Listowel Estate, North Kerry, which has been offered to the Estate Commissioners for the reinstatement of evicted tenants, the enlargement of uneconomic holdings, and making allotments to labourers; and whether he can state how soon the land will be acquired by the Estate Commissioners.
  MR. BIRRELL: The Estate Commissioners inform me that they have made an offer to the owner in this case, but have not yet heard whether he is willing to accept it.

  Licensing (Ireland) Act, 1902.
  MR. BARRIE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether it is the intention of the Government to renew the Licensing (Ireland) Act, 1902, which expires this year.
  MR. BIRRELL: The question of undertaking the necessary renewing legislation is under consideration.

  Ballylongford Untenanted Lands.
  MR. FLAVIN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will ask the Estates Commissioners to communicate with Mr. J. D. Crosbie, Ballyheigue, county Kerry, who holds from Trinity College some 400 acres of untenanted land situated near Ballylongford, North Kerry; and whether, as Mr. Crosbie is willing to sell his interest in this land, the Estates Commissioners will take immediate action to secure the same for the reinstatement of evicted tenants and the removal of the congestion which exists in the district
  MR. BIRRELL: I have referred this Question to the Estates Commissioners, who inform me that they will make inquiries with regard to the untenanted land mentioned.

  Housing Loans for Irish Urban Councils.
  MR. BARRIE:I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether, in view of the importance of encouraging urban councils in Ireland to build workmen's houses, he will consider the advisability of granting loans for such purposes, on the same terms as regards rate of interest and time of repayment as were granted under the Labourers (Ireland) Act of last year.
  MR. RUNCIMAN: I have nothing to add to the reply given by my right hon. friend the Chief Secretary on the 26th ultimo to a similar question by the hon. Member for Limerick.†

  Unpaid Board of Works Loan.
  MR. HALPIN:I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland what is the amount of the Board of Works loan borrowed by the late Conor Haugh, of Doonaha, West Clare, still remaining due; when was the last instalment paid to the Board of Works; and whether the Board of Works have taken any steps to recover the amount of the loan still due.
  MR. RUNCIMAN: I am informed that a loan of £110 was made to Connor Haugh in 1883 and the last instalment that has been paid on account thereof
  †Sec (4) Debates, clxix., 1447.

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  was in 1901. The tenant of the holding then left the country, and no steps can be taken for recovering the sum of £74 16s. 2d. which is still due on account of the loan.

  Irish Post Office Savings Bank Headquarters.
  MR. THOMAS F. SMYTH:I beg to ask the Postmaster-General if he would consider the advisability of making Dublin the head office for Ireland, as far as the Post Office Savings Bank is concerned, owing to the delay occasioned to parties living in rural districts, having only one daily delivery of letters, having to wait about five days, when they wish to withdraw money from the Post Office, before they get a reply from London, and also as it would be the means of giving more employment to Post Office officials in Ireland.
  MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: The question whether it would be advisable to transfer to Dublin the administration of the Irish business of the Post Office Savings Bank has been considered on several occasions, and it has been found that there is greater administrative convenience and economy in keeping the Savings Bank accounts at a single centre. The hon. Member has no doubt not overlooked the fact that withdrawals up to £1 may be made at any Post Office Savings Bank in the United Kingdom without previous notice.

  Irish Coercion Act.
  MR. LAMBTON: I beg to ask the Prime Minister when he will introduce a measure to carry out the decision come to by the House and the Government that the Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) Act should be immediately repealed.
  Notice had also been given of the following Question:
  LORD R. CECIL: To ask the Prime Minister whether, having regard to the Resolution passed in this House last Wednesday which declared that the presence of the Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) Act on the Statute-book is a gross violation of the Constitution without parallel in any other portion of His Majesty's dominions, and for which he voted, he proposes to introduce a Bill
  680
  for the repeal of the Act mentioned; and, if so, at what date.
  THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman,: Perhaps I may be allowed to answer the noble Lord's Question at the same time. My right hon. friend the Chief Secretary stated in the debate that it was impossible for the Government to undertake immediate action in this matter. There are more urgent questions on hand, particularly Irish questions; and the powers given to the Government under this Act are not being used.
  MR. LAMBTON: Is the Resolution null and void then? My Question refers to the Resolution, not to the language of the Chief Secretary.
  SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I do not think the Resolution is null and void because it is not immediately put into effect.
  LORD R. CECIL: Do the Government really propose to tolerate on the Statute-book an Act which, according to the Resolution of last Wednesday, is "a gross violation of the Constitution without parallel in any other portion of His Majesty's dominions"?
  SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: It is tolerated for many reasons. In the first place, there is the difficulty of getting it expunged; in the second place, we have other things to do; and then, as I have said, the Act is treated as of no effect by the present Executive.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: It remains as a memorial of the Cecils.

  NOTICES OF MOTION.
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINasked the Speaker's ruling with regard to the Motion dealing with the acquisition of land by local authorities, which was down for consideration that evening. The hon. Member for Norwich had at the last moment altered his original notice of Motion in substance as well as in form. It now included a proposal for compulsion; and it further added a provision that the value

  681
  at which land was to be purchased should be that at which it was assessed for purposes of taxation—a matter to which there was no allusion, direct or indirect, in the Resolution as it originally stood on the Paper.†Would it, he asked, be in order for the hon. Member to move the Resolution in its new form, and to what extent was it in the power of an hon. Member to vary his notice of Motion at the last moment?
  MR. SPEAKERsaid the rule might be stated thus:—It was open to any hon. Member to vary his Motion, but it must not go beyond the notice of Motion which was originally given. In his opinion the second Motion, of which the hon. Member gave notice yesterday, did very considerably go beyond the limits of the Motion of which he first gave notice. Therefore in calling upon him that evening he thought he must ask the hon. Member to omit the words enabling local authorties to acquire land "compulsorily, and to base the purchase price on the value at which the land was assessed for purposes of taxation." The reason for the rule was obvious. Hon. Members seeing a Notice on the Paper to which they possibly might have no objection might make arrangements for not being present or might avoid preparing themselves to speak upon it, but if at the last moment some entirely new Motion appeared on the Paper they might find themselves taken by surprise

  SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEES).
  SIR BRAMPTON GURDONreported from the Committee of Selection; That they
  †The original notice of Motion was as follows:—"That, in the opinion of this House, it is desirable that more complete powers should be conferred upon Local Authorities empowering them to purchase land on fair terms, and enabling them to hold the same until such times as it is considered advisable to utilise it for public purpose."
  The amended notice of Motion read:—"That, in the opinion of this House, a measure is urgently needed enabling Local Authorities to acquire by agreement or compulsorily, and by simple and inexpensive machinery, such land within or adjoining their several districts as may, in their judgment, be needed for the requirements of the community; and further, that, in all such cases of Land Acquisition, the purchase price should be definitely based upon the value at which land is assessed for purposes of taxation."
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  had discharged the following Member from the Standing Committee on Law, and Courts of Justice, and Legal Procedure; Mr. Pike Pease; and had appointed in substitution: Viscount Castlereagh.
  SIR BRAMPTON GURDONfurther reported from the Committee; That they had added to the Standing Committee on Trade (including Agriculture and Fishing), Shipping, and Manufactures, the following fifteen Members in respect of the Railways (Contracts) Bill; Mr. Lambton, Sir William Holland, Mr. Abel Smith, Viscount Helmsley, Mr. Hyde, Mr. Beale, Mr. Mond, Mr. Clement Edwards, Mr. Myer, Mr. Brunner, Mr. Crooks, Mr. Akers-Douglas, Mr. John Williams, Mr. Menzies, and Mr. Wedgwood.
  Report to lie upon the Table.

MARRIAGE WITH A DECEASED WIFE'S SISTER BILL.
Reported, with Amendments, from the Standing Committee on Law, etc.
Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 87.]
Minutes of the Proceedings of the Standing Committee to be printed. [No. 87.]
Bill, as amended (in the Standing Committee), to be taken into consideration upon Friday, 7th June, and to be printed. [Bill 116.]

NEW BILLS.
  RIGHTS OF WAY (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  "To amend the Law relating to Rights of Way in Scotland," presented by Mr. Gulland; to be read a second time upon Wednesday, 10th April, and to be printed. [Bill 117.]
PROBATION OF OFFENDERS (No. 2) BILL.
"To permit the release on Probation of Offenders in certain cases, and for other matters incidental thereto," presented by Mr. Secretary Gladstone; supported by Mr. Herbert Samuel; to be read a second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 118.]
RATING APPEALS (COSTS) BILL.
"To enable the councils of counties and county boroughs to contribute to certain Costs of Appeals against Poor Rates," presented by Mr. Barnard; supported by Mr. Godfrey Baring, Mr. Bethell, Mr. Bertram, Colonel Carlile, Viscount Helmsley, Mr. Abel Smith, and Mr. Micklem; to be read a second time upon Tuesday, 9th April, and to be printed. [Bill 119.]
SMALL HOLDINGS (No. 2) BILL.
"To amend the Small Holdings Act, 1892," presented by Mr. Jesse Collings; supported by Colonel Long, Mr. Hunt, Mr. Bridgeman, Mr. Lane-Fox, Mr. William Nicholson, and Mr. Arthur Stanley; to be read a second time upon Wednesday, 27th March, and to be printed. [Bill 120.]

PATENTS AND DESIGNS BILL.
THE PEESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE,): in asking leave to bring in a Bill to amend the law relating to patents and designs, said: This Bill introduces a good many improvements which have been found necessary in the working of the patent laws in this country. The main object is to simplify and cheapen procedure. The Bill will make provision for the grant of patents of addition, there will be additional checks against invalid patents, and a cheaper procedure for the revocation of patents. These will be introduced in the interest of the poor inventor, for, although it often suits a rich and powerful company to have complicated and expensive machinery, it very often involves ruin for a poor inventor. I propose, therefore, to introduce a series of conditions which, I hope, will effect a considerable cheapening of procedure. I do not know that we can ever make the patent laws cheap as long as the fees of counsel and experts are high, but something can be done in order to meet the difficulty. I also propose to introduce later on a Consolidation Bill, and if that Bill goes through the Grand Committee on Trade I think it will be possible to amalgamate it with the present Bill. But the main object of this Bill, after all, is to prevent the patent laws from being used for the
684
hindrance and suppression of British industrial development. The object of the patent laws is to reward ingenuity, and by so doing to encourage invention and to promote British industry. Unfortunately, however, they have been used in many respects to discourage the British inventor and to destroy many British industries. What is happening at the present moment? Out of 14,700 patents issued last year, 6,500 are foreign. I do not object to that, but a good many of these patents have been taken out not for the purpose of working the patents in this country but for the purpose of preventing their being worked. That I consider to be an abuse of a privilege conceded by British laws. There is a still worse abuse, on the whole I think it is the worst. The British inventor who takes out a patent is very often a poor man who has been able to get his patent financed up to a certain point. After he has started and set up works and purchased machinery, there comes a powerful foreign syndicate which has found there is something in his patent which they imagine is covered by an invention they have already patented—for these patents are very often in exceedingly vague terms. This syndicate then brings to bear the whole machinery of their powerful organisation to crush the inventor. He is brought before the Court of first instance, and if he wins there he is taken to the Court of Appeal, and then dragged up to the House of Lords, by which time all the capital he has been able to raise for the purpose of working his patent is expended in law costs, and the patent which ought to have been an encouragement to his ingenuity has simply become a trap for his ruin. That I consider to be a thoroughly flagrant abuse of the privileges conferred by British institutions upon foreigners on equal terms with Britons, and I think it ought to be put an end to. The mere fact that it has not been put an end to is in itself a proof of the long-suffering of the average Briton. An attempt was, I think, made by the late Government to deal with this problem. I am not criticising their method—for, after all, in these things we must proceed experimentally—when I say that the attempt was a failure, because of the very expensive character of patent litigation. Mr. Levin stein, who took a great interest in this question, brought

685
an action under the Act in order to expose the futility of the machinery. It cost him about £4,000, and that naturally discouraged further experiment in the same line. Therefore, there is very little use trusting to that Act. It is much too expensive. The suitor has to go before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, a very costly proceeding. It is clear, therefore, that some other means must be found for putting an end to the abuse. I propose to apply three or four methods. In the first place, I propose to simplify the procedure of compulsory licence; and instead of the applicant having to go before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, as at present, he will go, first of all, before the Controller and afterwards before a Judge specially selected by the Lord Chancellor, who will be habitually dealing with patent cases. This method will tend very considerably to shorten the hearing of cases, because they will be dealt with by an export Judge. A second method is that any applicant can go to the Controller three years after the granting of any patent and apply for the revocation of the patent on the ground that it has not been adequately worked within the United Kingdom. There is another point of great importance. Big foreign syndicates have one very effective way of destroying British industries. They first of all apply for patents on a very considerable scale. They suggest every possible combination—for instance in chemicals—which human ingenuity can possibly think of. These combinations the syndicates have not tried themselves. They are not in operation, say, in Germany or elsewhere. But the syndicates put them in their patents in obscure and vague terms so as to cover any possible invention that may be discovered afterwards in this country. What happens? A British inventor makes a bona fide discovery. He attempts to patent it. He probably secures a patent. But the moment he does so this powerful foreign sydicate brings an action against him for infringement of patent. They include, possibly, as many as fifteen or sixteen counts in their indictment; they employ the ablest and consequently the most expensive counsel at the British Bar, and the best scientific experts. The result is that the poor British inventor, before there is time for his invention to take root, or to become a
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success, is simply overwhelmed by this tremendous combination. In that way many British industries have been wiped out. There are two ways in which the Bill proposes to meet that state of things. One is by compulsory working, and the second by forcing powerful syndicates—home, of course, as well as foreign—to deposit samples, where the Patent Office demand them, or else their application will be refused. There is another way in which foreign patents work in restraint of British trade. Before a manufacturer, say in the boot trade—a trade in which this grievance has been particularly felt—can use the patent he is obliged to sign a kind of lease for twenty years, during which period he is prohibited from using any other machinery. There may be a considerable improvement in machinery discovered meanwhile by a British inventor, or by some other foreign inventor, but the manufacturer, under the conditions of his lease, will not be allowed to put the improved machinery into his works. It was thought that such conditions, acting in restraint of trade, could be set aside; but according to the decision of Mr. Justice Wills, the patentee has the right to impose any conditions, however unreasonable, he pleases. There are many people in this country working under these impossible conditions, which at any time may have the most serious consequences to the industries of this country. I propose that in future these conditions shall be nugatory. I have not time now to deal with the objection that this is a protective measure. I think it is in the interest of free trade. I am not afraid of foreign competition as long as British trade is free to fight it. I would free British trade from impossible conditions abroad and from equally stupid tariff systems at home. At the present moment many British industries are bound hand and foot by the working of the patent system. Many British industries have been completely wiped out by privileges conceded by British institutions to foreigners. I propose that these bonds shall be cut; and that the British industry shall be made perfectly free to engage on equal terms in the severe struggle with its competitors.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Law relating to Patents and Designs"—(Mr. Lloyd-George.)
MR. BONAR LAW: I wish to—
MR. SPEAKER: Does the hon. Gentleman rise to oppose?
MR. BONAR LAW: No, Sir.
MR. SPEAKER: Then the hon. Gentleman cannot speak under the ten minutes rule.
Question put, and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Lloyd-George and Mr. Kearley.

PATENTS AND DESIGNS BILL.
"To amend the Law relating to Patents and Designs," presented accordingly, and read the first time; to be read a second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 121.]

SMALL LANDHOLDERS IN SCOTLAND.
THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (Mr. Sinclair, Forfarshire):, in asking leave to introduce a Bill to encourage the formation of small agricultural holdings in Scotland, and to amend the law relating to the tenure of such holdings (including crofters' holdings);to establish Agricultural Commissioners for Scotland; and for other purposes connected therewith, said: Last July I introduced a Bill under the same title, with which it was not found possible to proceed. Since then the Report of the Select Committee on Small Holdings has been issued; and its recommendations have been seriously considered by the Government in relation to the Bill. The purposes of the measure are to encourage the formation of small holdings, to direct people and capital to the land by opening up a career in the industry of farming to those who work, or who wish to work, on the land. It is no exaggeration to say that the rural districts should support at least double their present population. Yet in Scotland during the last fifty years, while the population of the entire country has increased by close on 2,000,000, there has been an absolute decrease of not less than 400,000 in the rural districts alone. In the northern district the decrease according to census returns has been 5·13 per cent., in the north-
688
west 1·36, and in the southern district 5·08 per cent., or very nearly the same decrease as in the most northern and most remote parts of these islands. The population of the rural districts has fallen by 42,704 in spite of the great increase in the total population. If, disregarding for the moment the variations in the towns and villages, we look simply at the changes in population of the rural districts in the counties, we find that, except in the five counties of Elgin, Kinross, Renfrew, Lanark, and Linlithgow, the "rural" population of Scotland has during the last ten years shown a decrease in every single county. This is not a tendency peculiar to Scotland or to England. It is common to the other civilised countries of the world. No country comparable to ours has so small a percentage of people in its rural districts. Our competitors, Germany, France, Belgium, and even the United States, which has nearly half its population in the rural districts, are already taking active steps to defend themselves from these dangers. It is high time, therefore, that we should move in the matter. This is the purely political side of the subject. But there is another side. I am not belittling the unrivalled farming which is to be found in this country and the public spirit of many of those who lead the way in agriculture here when I say that we cannot be satisfied either with the productiveness of the land of this island as a whole or the uses to which that land is put. No doubt there are many parts in every district of the country where there are farms, especially large farms, which are thoroughly well equipped and highly cultivated, where there are prize herds and flocks, the blood of which is sought by buyers in every part of the world; and there are other branches of farming in this country which have no equal elsewhere which bring good livings; but when other tests are applied the answers are not so satisfactory. I ask, in the first place, is the rent of land what it was? Certainly not. Is the area of arable land increasing? It is not the case. Is our live stock increasing? Is there more live stock or less to the acre than in other countries? Compare this country with Germany and other countries, and inquire what the answer

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is. Is there more or less perishable farm produce being imported this year than last year? What attention do we give to agricultural organisation? Practically none. What public money do we spend on agricultural education and agricultural colleges? This Bill, which is on the same lines as the Bill of last year, contains proposals which apply to the whole of Scotland, and I do not wish to lead the House to suppose that the circumstances of any part of Scotland specially have influenced the Government in framing the measure. As I have made an observation on the uses to which the land of the country has been put, let me give one or two details from Scotland. My indefatigable friend the hon. Member for Ross and Cromarty was the parent of a Return on deer forests in the five Highland counties of Scotland, namely, Argyle, Inverness, Ross, Sutherland, and Caithness. In 1883 at the time of the crofter agitation the number of acres under deer in these counties was 1,700,000. In 1904 the similar figure was 2,900,000 acres. This figure omits all reference to other counties, such as Perth, Aberdeen, Elgin, and Forfar, everyone of which contains land which is exclusively devoted to sport. The area under deer in the five Highland counties which I have named is nearly one-sixth of the whole area of Scotland, and if a fair calculation is made in regard to the other counties which I have named we shall not be very far from the mark if we say that, approximately, one-fifth of the whole area of Scotland is under deer. The county of Forfar, which I have the honour to represent, contains 560,000 acres. In 1883 three times the area of the county of Forfar was under deer. Since that time there has been added twice the area of the county of Forfar. Now, I do not pretend that you can do impossibilities. It is true you cannot grow wheat where deer will live, but there are other uses to which forest land can be put. I am no enemy of sport, provided sport comes in its proper place. Modern science says practically, "Give me manure and give me water, and I will grow anything."[Cries of dissent.] That is a phrase and possibly an exaggeration. But if there is to be a revival of our country districts
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there must be a revival of farming. Comparing this country with many others it cannot be alleged that the decay of farming is due solely to our soil, which is not inferior to that of other countries. Nor is it due to the climate. If there is to be a reversal of present tendencies it is safe to say that those who work on the land are at the present time to far too great an extent merely hired labourers. Both they and their savings must be admitted to a larger and more intimate interest in the land of the country. It is true of farmers as of other people that they will not invest their savings unless there is security for their money. If farming is becoming more scientific and more costly, more complete security will be demanded by those who put capital into the land. The first thing, therefore, we have to do if we are to check this tendency to depopulation is to give security of tenure to existing holders. We can then go on to consider what should be done to create new holders; but it would surely be folly to spend Government money in creating new holders before attacking and, if possible, counteracting the tendency which is absorbing the present holders. Much of what I have said applies beyond Scotland. Let me say that this Bill applies solely to Scotland and that there is nothing in it which is not founded upon and developed from the actual working of two statutes, namely, the Crofters Act, 1886, and the Congested Districts Act, 1897. To that statement I must make one qualification. Hitherto we have been working without compulsory powers, and we do take compulsory powers by this Bill. It may not be out of place if I remind the House what, a crofter is. Some crofters are yearly tenants, some are leaseholders, but only yearly tenants have been admitted to the benefits of the Act of 1886 and are technically crofters. A crofter is "a person who was a tenant of, and resided on his holding, the annual rent of which did not exceed £30, and which was situated in a crofting parish, and the successors of such person in the holding, being his heirs or legatees." A crofting parish is one "in which there were at the commencement of the Act or had been within eighty years prior thereto holdings consisting of arable land with a right of

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pasturage in common with others, and in which there still were tenants of holdings from year to year, who resided on their holdings." Under the Crofters Act the crofter obtained a complete but a strictly conditional security of tenure. He cannot be removed from his holding except in consequence of a breach of statutory conditions. These conditions are that he must pay his rent when due and payable, that he is not to assign his tenancy, and that he is not to injure his holding by the dilapidation of buildings or by the deterioration of the soil to the prejudice of the landlord. He is not, without the consent of the landlord in writing, to sub-divide or sub-let his holding or any part of it, or to erect upon it any additional dwelling house. He is not to violate any written condition, signed by him for the protection of the interest of the landlord or of neighbouring crofters, which the Crofters Commission find reasonable. He is not to become a bankrupt and not to execute a trust deed for be hoof of creditors. The landlord has the right of entry upon the holding for mining, quarrying, making roads, shooting, fishing, and other purposes. He is not to open a house for the sale of intoxicating liquors without the consent of his landlord. Subject to these conditions the landlord's interest in the holding remains and power is reserved to him to resume the holding when authorised by the Commissioners for any reasonable purpose having relation to the good of the holding or the estate. Two other points should be mentioned. The Crofters Commissioners are given compulsory powers to assign land for the enlargement of holdings, and their decision—and this is a most important point—in regard to any of the matters committed to their determination by the Act is final and not subject to appeal. The Act applies to all the crofting parishes in the seven crofting counties. Of 163 civil parishes in these counties, 151 are crofting parishes. Let me give the House some particulars as to what the Commission have done. Up to 31st December 1904, the Commissioners had fixed 20,179 fair rents. They reduced the old rents so dealt with from £83,180 to £61,589, or an annual reduction of £21,590. The arrears dealt with amounted to £184,981. Of this a sum of £124,194 has been can-
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celled, leaving the balance of £60,787 to be paid. The Commissioners then assigned 49,015 acres for the enlargement of crofters' holdings. There is no doubt, and now no question, of the success of the Crofters Act. It has benefited the crofter by encouraging him to spend his money and his labour in improving his holding. Better houses have been built; there is a higher standard of cultivation to be found, and a better standard of comfort, though much yet remains to be done in these respects. It is commonly supposed that while the Crofters Acts have proved beneficial to the tenants, they are, somehow or other, detrimental to the landlord. That is not the case. In the first place, rents which before the passing of the Acts were nominal rents in many cases, and were unpaid, are paid regularly now, and the interest of the landlord in the holding is increased by every such payment. If the sale value of crofting estates be taken as the criterion of benefit, fixity of tenure has very considerably increased the sale value of the landlord's property. Before fixity of tenure was given to the crofters nobody would have dreamed of valuing a crofting rental at more than seventeen years purchase. Now, under the changed conditions, such rentals are valued not uncommonly at twenty-two, twenty-four, and even more years purchase. And for this reason, that, although the rent may be reduced, it is regularly paid; and it is secured by the tenant's improvements, and in addition the landlord is relieved of all expenditure for improvements—outlay on account of buildings and repairs. Hon. Members may be able to test the statement which I make. It is within the knowledge of many that from twenty-four to twenty-eight years purchase of the net return is a common basis of valuation for the sale of large farms having rentals of £200 or £300 per annum, where, although the rents are large, the landlord has periodically to undertake considerable outlays for buildings. If that be the case it proves that the operation of the Crofters Act has tended to bring the value of crofting property very nearly, if not quite, up to the value of other property of a different character in different parts of Scotland. I am confident that I am understating

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and not overstating the case when I give these figures. Another point must be emphasised. The average reduction of rent effected by the Crofters Commissioners amounts to something like 25 to 30 per cent. of the rental. Since 1883, when the agitation arose, outside the operation of the first Crofters Act rents have fallen at least as much as in the district within which the Crofters Commissioners administer, so that the landlords in the north of Scotland whose land has come under the operation of the Crofters Act are no worse off than their neighbours further south. Indeed they are better off, because they are relieved from the cost of upkeep and improvements, and every shilling which their tenants spend in improving their holdings or the buildings upon them increases the security of the landlord for his rent and the capital value of his land. It is often urged, however, that a crofter is not as other men are; that principles applied with success to the crofting counties are wholly inapplicable elsewhere. What are the characteristics of a crofter? The area under the Crofters Act presents two problems. In the islands there is congestion of the population; on the mainland there is depopulation. The croft of the western islands is simply an accommodation holding; a house and garden, with a bit of ground and grazing rights, at a rent of £1 to £5; a home for the old people, or for the wife and children, while the breadwinner is away earning his annual income elsewhere—working in Glasgow perhaps for the winter or at the herring fishing. From this extreme there are endless gradations until we come to the small farmer on the mainland, for example on the coasts of the Moray Firth, in Ross-shire or Inverness shire, who owns sheep, cattle, and horses, and pays a rent of anything under £30, but has no common grazing. Both these men are crofters under the Act. The crofter in Easter Ross is, as a matter of fact, indistinguishable, so far as the conditions of his farming are concerned, from any small farmer in the south of Scotland, with this exception, that he enjoys the rights and the responsibilities under the Crofters Acts and makes his own improvements. The Crofters Act
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has never been amended in any important particular. Its object lesson is the advantage to the small holder of fixity of tenure, and the demand of the "excluded" crofter is identical with that of the small holder elsewhere and everywhere—security of tenure. That is essential for the successful conduct of his business. It is said that crofter tenure establishes dual ownership. All partnerships in land are more or less dual ownerships, but this criticism is intended to imply that the dual ownership established by the Crofters Act is the dual ownership of the Irish Land Act of 1881. This is not the proper occasion for argument on a detail of this kind, or it would be my duty—and I do not think it would be a difficult duty—to show that the crofter tenure differs widely from the tenure of the Irish Land Act of 1881. It would also not be difficult to show that it was not dual ownership but other considerations which brought about the amendment of the Act. Before I describe the operation of the Congested Districts Act of 1897, let me remind the House that in 1892 Sir George Trevelyan, then Secretary for Scotland, appointed a Royal Commission to inquire what land in the seven crofting counties then occupied for the purposes of a deer forest, grouse moor, or other sporting purposes, or for grazing, not in the occupation of crofters or other small tenants, was capable of being cultivated to profit or of being occupied by crofters or other small tenants. The Bill founded on the report of that Commission for the amendment of the Crofters Act was introduced in 1894 and again in 1895, but did not go beyond a Second Reading, because before further progress could be made with it Parliament was dissolved. Just as Sir George Trevelyan's Bills of 1894 and 1895 amending the Crofters Act followed the report of the Deer Forests Commission, as the expression of Liberal policy, so did the Congested Districts Act of 1897 express the policy of the Conservative Party. In dealing with the crofter question the policy which had been favoured by the Conservative Party in recent years is the policy of land purchase. Three members of the Deer Forests Commission advocated "a well-considered scheme of

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land purchase" in an addendum to the Report of the Commission. The contention is that if, in the public interest, their lands are to be used against their will for the purposes of settlement of crofters, it is only fair that the Government should be ready to purchase from the proprietors. Then came the Congested Districts Act of 1897, which established a Board of Commissioners, with an income of £30,000 a year, to be applied at their discretion, for providing land by purchase or otherwise; for subvention into holdings; for aiding emigration from congested districts, developing agriculture, dairy farming, the breeding of live stock, and other purposes. This policy was probably in some degree due to the example of the Irish policy of the Government of the day, and while in many respects it was supplementary, and usefully so, to the policy of the Crofters Act, it was, in one particular, directly antagonistic to it; for while they refused to amend the Crofters Act and face the extension of crofter tenure, by the Congested Districts Act the Conservative Government gave power for the institution of land purchase and the creation of peasant proprietorships. In the formation of small holdings the Congested Districts Board have followed two different lines of policy. By land purchase on the Irish model they have created 230 holdings which are now being paid for by instalments. This number will be greatly added to by the tenants of Kilmuir in Skye, which has been bought by the Congested Districts Board and is now being adapted for this purpose. On the other hand, they have aided in the formation of 437 holdings, which are tenancies, mostly under the Crofters Act. Let me give one instance of how these schemes of tenancies have been worked. A proprietor is willing that a farm or farms shall be broken up and settled into small holdings of this kind. He notifies his assent to the Congested Districts Board and their officials inspect the land and draw up a scheme for the subdivision of the land with regard to roads, drains, watercourses, etc.—indeed for all the details which must accompany such a scheme. In some cases in which houses have to be built the Congested Districts Board have power to make advances on the security of the land to
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the future tenant. In this way several farms have been broken up with the cordial co-operation of the proprietors. Let me give an illustration. Take a farm of £120 a year, and if this is not the actual figure it represents the facts. The landlord is getting a gross rental of £120 a year, having the responsibility to make repairs. By the agency of the Congested Districts Board the farm is broken up and a number of settlers are put upon it. The landlord, as before, receives a total rent of £120, but he receives it as a net rent instead of a gross rent and pro tanto his property has been improved by Government money in opening it up and providing roads and drainage. It may be asked, Is the Government outlay justifiable under these circumstances? I believe it is. It is not fair to put the question of adapting the land for this purpose upon the landlord, as everybody knows that the one great obstacle to providing model holdings is in supplying houses for those holdings. It is not fair that the burden shall fall upon the landlord, nor is it fair that it shall fall upon the tenant, as he will be sitting at a rent which he will not be able to pay. Nor is it justifiable that the Government shall advance all the money. Just as it is justifiable to advance money for the purchase of land, however, so it is justifiable, in these country districts, to come forward and help the landlord to adapt his land to the new conditions demanded by the public interest. There are two other Acts which I may mention in order to show that they have been entirely inoperative in Scotland—the Small Holdings Act, which has been entirely inoperative, and the Allotments Act, the work done under the latter being so small that it is practically a dead letter, and I need not allude to it. If the lesson of the Crofters Act is that security of tenure is essential to the well-being of a small holder, the lesson of the working of the Congested Districts Act is, first, that it is possible by Government action to settle people on the land, with the co-operation of landowners, giving security of tenure; and, secondly; that security of tenure can be conferred upon the small holder in one of two ways—by a system of land purchase, under which he becomes the owner of

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his holding; and by a system of tenancy, under which he obtains a conditional security of tenure, similar to that enjoyed by the crofters. It is, perhaps, too early to draw inferences from the working of these experiments, but it is possible to compare the two policies without leaning too much on the experience of the last ten years. That experience, for what it is worth, is distinctly in favour of the tenancy system. While a system of land purchase confers complete rights of ownership, with all the advantages inseparable from that condition, it is more costly to the State, and it places the State in the position of a landlord in direct relations with the tenant. Now a Government Department is not a good bargainer. It is expected to buy dear and to sell cheap. Furthermore, a Government Department in the position of a landlord, especially for so long a term of years as a system of payment by instalment must imply, is subject to serious political pressure. Moreover, it is not necessary for the achievement of the purpose in view to expropriate the landlords. No doubt there is a market for limited purposes, and of a limited kind, for the sale of land on such terms in Scotland; but purchase is not desired or preferred as a policy, and it is not popular in Scotland, possibly for the reason that besides being costly to the State, it is also costly to the tenant. Tenants in Scotland wish to push on—they wish to make the most of their money. To be tenant of a holding requires not more than one-fourth of the capital which would be required to own and cultivate the same holding. On the other hand, a system of tenancy which is less ambitious, less drastic, and more conservative, involving, as it does, not the expropriation of the landlord, but the minimum interference with his discretion, requires no examination of title, no arbitrations, no great cost, and, in the security which it gives to the tenant, affords him an inducement equal to that of land purchase to make the best of his holding. At the same time he is not tied to his holding for ever. The land is neither purchased nor resold by any Government Department. The sphere of the Government is restricted to determining the policy and system under which the land is to be held and
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adjusting the rights of the parties to the bargain. It is urged, however, that to apply this system to the Lowlands would be an injustice, on the ground that whereas in the Highlands the tenants have made their own improvements, it is otherwise in the Lowlands. If that were the case—if it were possible to draw any line in Scotland and say that north of that line, always, the tenants made their own improvements, whereas south of it that has not been the case—even so, I can see no injustice in applying this system to tenancies in which hitherto the landlords have made all the improvements. They will get a fair rent for holdings, equipped as they are, buildings and all. What landlord can claim more? But no such fixed line can be drawn. All that can be said is that in the Lowlands it has been the general practice that improvements shall be made by the landlord, and not by the tenant. As a matter of fact, and as a matter of history, the practice was gradual and not universal, or simultaneous, in its introduction. I should like, if I may, to read to the House a passage from a letter from a large farmer on the subject of the crofters. He says—
"The importance of this class of citizen to the State cannot be over-estimated. The cottar who has only a cottage and no land does not produce the same class of man at all. It is the toil, energy, thrift, and enterprise which the croft or small farm calls out that does it. This class of man, of such importance to the State, is gradually being driven out. Within the memory of living man, ninety crofts and small farms have disappeared in this district. The landlord is not to blame, for we know no one would be more anxious to have these small men retained than he. The cost of buildings is such that no landlord short of pure philanthropy can keep them up. Yet I hold that the State cannot afford to let these small crofters go. It is a matter for the State, pure and simple. The laws are largely to blame for this impasse. The present system has broken down, for there are fifty offers for every small place in the market, and yet those small farms are being done away with because the landlord cannot afford to keep them up. The history of the crofter in Aberdeenshire is something like this: A man built a house in a bog and was allowed for a nominal rent to reclaim what land he could. He built, he drained, he toiled and made a. small farm. At the end of his lease his rent was raised and all his buildings and improvements went to the landlord. This was all quite within the law, yet the tenant felt it a hardship. The next generation profited by the lesson and said, If our improvement do to the landlord we will not make any. The

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result was and is that the landlord has to do all the improvements. If the tenant was assured of proper compensation he would do a great many things himself and he would do them cheaper and far more economically than the landlord can do. At present when anything has to be done the tenant tries to get all he can, but if he had the doing of it himself, he would try to do with as little as possible. This has the most important bearing on the difficulty raised."
There are other portions of the letter which I need not quote, but it is important as coming from a large farmer in Aberdeeshire. If it is fair to the Highland landlord to impose these conditions upon him, why is it not fair to impose them on the Lowland landowner? One man has as good a title to his land as the other. And we all know that the differences which are said to exist between the Highlands and the Lowlands are being rapidly diminished. The introduction of railways, telegraphs, telephones, motor cars, and so forth is obliterating them; the need of the Lowlands for alteration in this regard is just as great as that of the Highlands. Moreover, owing to railway facilities and the proximity of markets the prospects of the success of a small holding are infinitely greater in the Lowlands than in the remote Highland districts. Hundreds and hundreds of tons of vegetables and other produce pass through the Lowlands every day to feed the teeming millions of Glasgow, and the prospects in that part of the country, therefore, are infinitely greater. The House will gather that the Government proposes by this Bill to provide security of tenure for all small holders, and for the creation of new holdings by agreement or by the exercise of compulsory powers.
MR. JESSE COLLINGSasked whether there was also to be fixity of rent.
MR. SINCLAIR: I was going to give those particulars in a moment, but it may be convenient if I give the House now the full particulars of what I propose to do. In the first place, the Crofters Act within the crofting area will be applied to existing leaseholds in the case of all holdings of a rent of £50 and under, and of all holdings not exceeding 50 acres in extent, whatever may be the rent. Secondly, the crofter tenure will be con-
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ferred upon all existing small holders throughout Scotland—that is to say, continual security of tenure at a fair rent fixed by the Land Commission established under the Bill, who have powers of revision every seven years. This tenure will be conferred upon yearly tenants when the Bill passes, and upon leaseholders at the end of existing leases. The third point is this. The formation of new holdings under the tenure in the Bill is made possible by agreement, and also by the system of compulsory tenancy which I have described. The Crofters Commission is to be succeeded by the Land Commission, or Court, and the Congested Districts Commissioners are superseded by the Commissioners of Agriculture for Scotland, one of whom is to be charged with the special duty of supervising small holdings. The present annual income of £35,000 of the Congested Districts Boardwill continue to be applied to the congested districts, but it will be applied by the Commissioners of Agriculture. These Commissioners are authorised to expend an additional sum of not more than £65,000 per annum upon the purposes of the Bill. There will be three Agricultural Commissioners, including the Commissioner for Small Holdings. The principal changes in this Bill, as compared with the Bill of last year are as follows:—The Land Commission, or Court, is confined to judicial functions. Administrative powers and duties are given to the Commissioners of Agriculture for Scotland, and the Land Commissioners are thus enabled to act as arbiters when land is taken compulsorily, and on other occasions when it seems desirable that administrative action should be subjected to an appeal to a judicial body. Full restrictions are placed upon the exercise of compulsory powers for the taking of land for the purpose of new holdings. Land forming part of a holding or farm not exceeding 150 acres is not to be so taken when it is occupied by a person who has no interest in any other farm; and, secondly, when the letting value of the land or the farm of which it forms part is reduced by the taking of the land, power is given to the Commissioners to pay compensation to the landlord if his land is taken compulsorily; and that compensation is fixed by the award of the Land Commissioners. Then the preferential claim of the Commissioners

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in the case of the bankruptcy of a landholder who is indebted to them for advances is omitted, and the claims of the Commission and the landlord will therefore be concurrent. One further question may be asked "Why apply these principles to small tenants and not to large ones?" The answer to that is, because it is the small tenants who suffer most under the present system. It is the small holders who are being absorbed under the present system to the injury of the common good. For the last twenty-five or thirty years there has been a continual effort on the part of the small farmers of this country to obtain more complete protection for the improvements of their interests in the farm they occupy. In large farms where the farmers pay high rents they are fairly secure. No landlord would be likely to part with the tenant of a large farm, if there be such tenants in Scotland, paying £3 and £4 an acre for the land. Such tenants are difficult to replace. The legislation of the last thirty years has all been in the direction of protecting the small farmer. The Agricultural Holdings Act gives considerable protection to the interest which the farmer has in his farm, but whether it produces a stable equilibrium is a matter of opinion. The expensive and elaborate procedure under that Act, even cheapened and simplified as it was last year, is least beneficial to the small tenants, and that is the reason for the application of this Bill to small farmers alone. It is not to be supposed that those who are responsible for this Bill contemplate the immediate division of all large farms into small holdings. The best expert opinion on the subject is that the best system is the production of small and large farms—a mixture of both kinds in every district in the country. That is precisely what the present system does not produce. It is the men on the small farms who produce labourers for the large farms. It is from the small farmers and the crofters that the large farmers will in the future come. It is country blood that invigorates our town population. You will not get men to live in the country districts if they are denied the chance of a living, of making a home for themselves, and of independence. The crofter class and the yeoman class are the foundation of
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our social fabric. That is another reason why the Government propose to deal with their case. But the Government recognise that this is only a small part of a much larger question. There are land laws, railway rates, and the great expense of the sale and transfer of land, which press very heavily upon our present land system. But however small a part of a larger question this reform may be, it is important to look at the question as a whole. What we suffer from is not merely that in some parts of the country land is going out of cultivation; we are suffering from the decay of rural life. If it is desirable to encourage the formation of small holdings it must be done under such conditions as will secure some prospect of permanence, and money must be spent under conditions calculated to call out some responsibility from those who are helped and those who are interested. The experience in other countries goes to show that the small holding, to be prosperous, requires not only education, but organisation. In appointing Commissioners of Agriculture in Scotland no reflection is intended or cast upon the work of the Board of Agriculture in that country. Some expression has been given in Scotland to the fear that under this change which is proposed, under a separate organisation, Scotland will not be so well off as she is under the present administration. It has been suggested, in the first place, that there may be a difference of policy between the two Boards in regard to the question of Canadian cattle; but everybody knows that that question is regulated by statute and can only be altered by Act of Parliament. It has been further suggested that under such a change protection of the flocks and herds in Scotland will not be so complete as it is at present; that the traffic over the border will be difficult to regulate, and so forth. These fears have no firm foundation. There are two Local Government Boards, one in Scotland and one in England, but I have never yet heard that Scotland is less well protected than she would be if under one administration. It is simply a matter of adjustment and, let me add, of expense. It can easily be shown that there would be great practical advantage to Scotland in this change, but this is not the time to show it. For all these matters—for the supervision of

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small holdings, for the general supervision and help of agriculture in Scotland, for the consideration of such questions as the encouragement of forestry, you may depend upon it that we shall require separate administration in Scotland. For the solution of these; problems, not only the time of Parliament is required, but also the brains of men who are thinking out these problems. But the real need and the real demand, I believe, in Scotland is that there should be a real effort by Parliament to deal with these matters. Hence the proposal of this Bill for the establishment of a Board of Agriculture, which shall have the general supervision of the whole subject. This Parliament is generous in its outlay for many purposes, and generous in its outlay, also, for the development of British dominions over the sea. From no outlay, in my humble judgment, will you reap a richer reward than from the expenditure involved in the carrying out of this measure. I beg to move.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That leave be given to bring in a Bill to encourage the formation of Small Agricultural Holdings in Scotland, and to amend the Law relating to the tenure of such Holdings (including Crofters' Holdings); to establish Agricultural Commissioners for Scotland; and for other purposes connected therewith."—(Mr. Sinclair.)
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: It is quite evident from the exordium of the right hon. Gentleman that he was fully conscious, in bringing in this Bill, that he was dealing with a very large and important problem. He has led us to understand that rural depopulation was the difficulty which he meant to put an end to, at any rate so far as Scotland is concerned. The right hon. Gentleman was also conscious, I think, that there was a certain absurdity in bringing in a Bill of this character to apply only north of the Tweed. He must admit that the conditions of farming in the lowlands of Scotland and in the rest of this island are practically identical.
MR. SINCLAIR: I made no such admission.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: If the right hon. Gentleman did not say so, he might have said so in far stronger language than I have inadvertently put into his mouth. Anybody with even the most superficial acquaintance with the facts of the case knows that the difference in farming between Berwickshire and Northumberland is incomparably less than the difference in farming between Berwickshire and the crofting counties in Scotland, or between farming in Northumberland and farming in the south of England. Therefore, I ask any hon. Member who considers this Bill not to consider it as a Scottish Bill at all. If we estimate the triviality of the public money devoted to carrying out the Bill, it is indeed quite evident that the Bill in its present shape will do very little good to Scotland and no good at all to England. But the principles which are embodied in the Bill, if they are accepted by the House, will, in the first place, necessarily extend to the whole of the island, and, in the second place, will necessarily involve, not merely an enormous increase of the wretched £65,000 a year which it is proposed to give to the Scottish farmers, but will involve an enormous expenditure of public money for the extension of the principles south of the border. Therefore, let everybody who is interested either in the land system or the financial system of this country remember that this Bill is one which they must imagine in their minds to extend though out the whole of this island. The right hon. Gentleman spoke with a certain suppressed and indignant surprise of the fact that our towns are increasing very much faster in population than the rural areas, and that a large number of the rural areas are even decreasing in the number of their inhabitants. Of course, that is true. It is the inevitable result and the foreseen result of our existing system. For my own part I am one of those who have always said that the abolition of the Corn Laws was a necessary and inevitable, and, with some qualification, a benefical change in our system. But everybody who either opposed the abolition of the Corn Laws or favoured them must have been, unless he was an idiot, perfectly conscious of the fact that the abolition exposed agriculture to all the difficulties of foreign competition if foreign competition should arise, and that it was deliberately intended by its

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authors to stimulate that great growth of the manufacturing population which I view without dismay or regret, because I recognise it is the only possible mode by which the population of this country can largely increase or augment its wealth to meet the great Imperial needs with which we have to deal. But to come down to this House and talk as if these were unexpected and tragic results is really ignoring the whole theory of free trade as expounded by Mr. Cobden and his successors, who always recognised that we were to be more and more dependent, both for food and for raw material, on foreign countries, and that the progress in this country in wealth and population was to be found in the increase of our manufacturing population and of our great urban centres of industry. Do not let us talk as if this was an unexpected fact. It is a known and foreseen fact. Our business is not to try and turn back the inevitable current, but to see that in its process it does as little damage as possible to the whole social fabric. The most we can hope for is that the rural districts shall not decrease. That is a truism which we must accept. I am so far entirely in harmony with the right hon. Gentleman in thinking that if we can mitigate the effects of this inevitable and foreseen tendency we are bound to do so to the best of our ability. Let us consider whether the plan of the Government is going to do any good even to that part of the country for which it is intended. There was one very singular lapse in the right hon. Gentleman's argument about depopulation. He divided Scotland into eight areas, and said, "Look how dreadful it is. The south-west district of Scotland has diminished 5 per cent. in population since the preceding census." Yes, but the crofting counties, whose system the right hon. Gentleman wishes to extend to all Scotland, have decreased to a larger amount.
MR. SINCLAIR: What would the decrease have been but for the crofting system?
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Perhaps I misunderstood the right hon. Gentleman's statement. Certainly he has misunderstood my argument.
MR. SINCLAIR: No, I have not.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The right hon. Gentleman says that we have to deal with the great problem of rural depopulation, and how great that depopulation is we shall see if we look at Wigtonshire and other places. But we waited with anxiety to discover what the crofting system has done to prevent rural depopulation where the system has hitherto been in force. It turns out that the rural depopulation has been greater in the crofting counties.
MR. SINCLAIR: I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that that has taken place in spite of the Crofters Act. What would have been the decrease if the Act had not been in operation?
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The effect of the operation of the Act has not been to make the rural depopulation less than it has been elsewhere. The right hon. Gentleman appealed to experience, and I will meet him on that ground. On the ground of experience I beg to point out that the result of the very Act which the right hon. Gentleman wishes to extend has not been to make the rural depopulation in the Highlands less than it has been elsewhere; on the contrary, it remains greater. There may be other causes at work which have counter-balanced the effect of the Crofters Act, but then do not let us have this crude appeal to experience when it breaks in your hand directly you attempt to make any use of it.
MR. SINCLAIR: Let me tell the right hon. Gentleman the exact figures. In the north division, which includes Orkney and Shetland, Sutherland, and Caithness, the decrease has been 5·13. In the north-west division, which includes the Island of Lewis, the other islands, and the counties of Ross and Invernessshire, the decrease has been only 1·36. In that district, of course, the Crofters Act also operates. That is a much less decrease than in the Galloway district, where it is 5·08. I think the argument holds good.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Well, I do not. In the first place, the right hon. Gentleman has revised his argument.
MR. SINCLAIR: I have no desire to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, but what I said was that the decrease in the

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northern district was 5·13 and in the north-west district l·36. All these districts are under the Crofters Act. The decrease in the south district is 5·08. Those are the facts.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I think that is a revised statement.
MR. SINCLAIR: My right hon. friend took it down; it is on his notes.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: It is a very small matter. In those parts of the crofting areas which the right hon. Gentleman in another part of his speech said suffered from over-population, the population has practically decreased hardly at all. He told us that in the islands there was over-crowding, and it is just that part of the country where he now tells us that the depopulation has not gone on just where it ought to have gone on. And in those other counties where the Crofting Act has been in force it is greater. I am bound to say, on the point of depopulation, the right hon. Gentleman cannot expect to get much comfort from a study of the census figures. Let us consider exactly what this Bill is going to do for the four classes chiefly concerned—the landlord, the large tenant, the small tenant under £50, and the agricultural labourer, excluding, for the moment, the fifth class, the British tax payer. As regards the landlords, a class which does not meet with very much sympathy always in this House, the method which the right hon. Gentleman is adopting for recommending his measure seems to me very unfortunate. What he has told us is that the number of years' purchase of the crofting holdings has in creased, and that there are cases in which large holdings have been turned into small holdings, with the result that the landlord gets as much gross rent for the small holdings as he formerly got for the large holdings, and is relieved of the duty of finding the capital expenditure necessary for equipping the small holdings. I do not know why the landlord should get that, and out of public funds. I want the landlord to have justice; I do not want him to get more than he ought to have. If the right hon. Gentleman thinks he recommends the Bill to us because he says it is going to put straight into the landlord's pocket that which the landlord has not earned by his expendi-
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ture, or in any other fair way, that is no recommendation in my eyes. What I want is that the landlord should have justice. What sort of justice is he going to get? At present the practice in the Lowlands of Scotland, more than in England, is that the whole equipment of the farms should be done by the landlord, and that the tenant is only asked to find what may be called the less permanent part of the capital necessary to work the farm. The landlord owns the land and is joint owner of the capital. How are you going to treat that part of the landlord's property which does not consist of the land but of the capital—the equipment of the farm? You are going to hand over to a set of irresponsible Commissioners the determination of what interest or remuneration the landlord is to obtain for the expenditure he has made in equipping the holding. Is there any other capitalist in the world whom you treat in that way, and is it a wise way in which to treat any capitalist? I apprehend the view taken by some hon. Gentlemen below the gangway that there ought not to be capitalists—that all the instruments of capital, land, or whatever they are, should be the property of the community as a whole. That is a perfectly intelligible view. But what really is not an intelligible view is that you should try and work a system of individual ownership, yet take away from individual ownership all that makes it useful to the community. That is really gross folly and injustice. Whether it would be right or wrong for the State to capture every instrument of production is a point I am not going to argue in this House. But what everybody, whether individualist or Socialist, thinks is, that so long as you have a system of private property, so long as you depend on private enterprise for improving and effecting that expenditure without which production is impossible, so long must you treat that property as secure—security is essential to it. The right hon. Gentleman uttered some very wise sentiments with reference to the security of tenants' property, but why are those sentiments only to apply to the tenants? I am entirely with him in saying that the expenditure of the tenant on the non-permanent portion of the capital required for farming should be rendered permanent, and I and this Party have done a great deal to carry

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out measures making that portion of the capital perfectly secure. The sound principle which lies at the root of that legislation teaches also the lesson that the landlord's share in the capital should be made secure, and the idea of taking that and putting it in the hands of Commissioners to decide its value is a gross injustice to the landlord. As regards the past, and as regards the future, and from a public point of view, this is almost more important, it will of course dry up that source of capital expenditure, is intended to dry it up, and will prevent the landlords in the future from doing in Scotland, above, all countries, and the South of Scotland, what they have done in the past—namely, from making the most lavish expenditure upon the permanent improvements and equipment of their farms. In this connection, I am bound to say I think the right hon. Gentleman did not treat the House quite fairly, because in his speech he gave us elaborate accounts of what happened in the Highlands, or might happen in the Highlands, but did not deal with the Lowlands except by allusion and cursorily. But the Lowland problem is the Scottish agricultural problem, and not the Highlands. For reason connected with climate and with the soil, a vast expenditure of capital has been made, not in the Highlands, but in the Lowlands, whence the great food supply which Scotland can produce must obviously be drawn. The right hon. Gentleman talked a great deal about deer forests, and told us that in Forfarshire the amount of land under deer forests had greatly increased. Well, if the land can be profitably used otherwise, by all means let it be used otherwise, if you can find the money to do it. But the sort of land which can be used for deer forests is not land with which this Bill is concerned, or with which the inevitable extension of this Bill to England is concerned. There you have to deal with great Lowland farms, the soil relatively rich, the climate relatively good, where there is already a great system of agriculture in operation, where there has been an immense expenditure on the part of landlords, all of which you are going to treat as if it had never taken place at all. That, I venture to say, is a gross injustice to the landlord; and that is not the worst of the injustices to the landlord. I do not think it is fair to
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turn a man against his will from a capitalist owner of land into a mere rent-charger on whom has been thrown the responsibility of collecting rents which the right hon. Gentlemen tells us it is too much trouble for the State to collect. He said, "I object to peasant proprietors who buy their holdings out of money supplied to them by public funds, because that brings the State into the direct relation of landlord." Well, is it fair to take arbitrarily a certain number of landlords and say to them: "You have in the past done your best"—that is admitted—"to see that your land is well cultivated; you have freely expended your money on farm buildings, drainage, accommodation roads, and all the other sources of expenditure necessary for cultivation; we mean to take that from you; we mean entirely to deprive you of the right either of choosing your tenant, or of having any relation at all with the land which is still nominally your own except the relation of extracting from your tenant a rent which we shall fix?" I have myself no objection to the compulsory expropriation of landlords if a reasonable public necessity can be shown; it is done every day for a railway. It may be done on a large scale if you think it right and can find the money; if it will really help the cause of social amelioration, it may be done to-morrow with regard to agricultural land. But to say to any class in the community, "We mean to take your capital and prevent your having anything to do with the management of it; we mean to fix the rate of interest to be paid for it, and we mean to turn you into agents for collecting rents," is a gross injustice to that class. I come now to the large farmer. The large farmers in Scotland, in conjunction with the landlords, have done more for agriculture in these islands than any other body of men. They have shown more enterprise, more knowledge; they have started on more original and effective lines; they have led the way, not only in these islands, but throughout the world, in matters agricultural more than any other agricultural class. You are going to say to them in the future, "You are a superfluous and unnecessary class; you are preventing, by your very existence, the cutting up of your three or four hundred acre farms into smaller holdings; we regard you more or less

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as a nuisance, and we propose, as occasion serves, gradually to expel you from the industry of the land." [Cries of "Oh!"] But you do tell them that by this Bill. I do not think that is good for agriculture. Has the right hon. Gentleman realised that in order to spend £65,000 a year in the creation of small holders in Scotland he is producing insecurity in the whole agricultural interest, not merely in Scotland, but in England? And for what? In order to produce the number of small holders £65,000 a year will call into existence. [A Liberal Member: It is only a beginning.] I am not opposed to a small beginning, if it carries no collateral disadvantage. My argument is, that in order to carry out this really petty, trivial, and insignificant beginning you are disturbing the whole of the great industry of the land in these islands; you are making every landlord say to himself, "Shall I not be acting against my own interests and the interests of my children if I spend any capital sum on this farm which may to-morrow, or the next day, at the sweet will of an irresponsible Commission, be carried off with a fragment of this £65,000, and may be assessed at a valuation lower than its market price;" and you are making every large farmer say to himself, "Is it worth my while to take a farm and bring up my sons to agriculture, when I know that at the end of my lease—and leases are not so long in Scotland as they were—I may be dispossessed and a new arrangement with the landlord may become impossible, simply because an irresponsible Commission may say that some of the £65,000 a year should be employed in cutting up my farm, destroying the value of the buildings upon it and putting up others in their place?" I now come to the small tenant who, I presume, is the special object of the right hon. Gentleman's solicitude—the small farmer whose rent is under £50 a year. By his own showing, the right hon. Gentleman is putting the cart before the horse, so far as the interests of the small holders are concerned. He told us that no small holdings can flourish unless we have, first, agricultural education, and next a system of co-operation. But what provision does he make in this Bill for either one or the other of these conditions? Are provisions for education to come out of this £65,000 a year?
MR. SINCLAIR: Education is provided for by the establishment of a Commission for agriculture in Scotland which is intended to co-operate with existing departments.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: We all know to our cost that education is not a cheap thing. How is this Commission to act unless it is furnished with the money necessary for the carrying out of its work? Does the right hon. Gentleman contemplate that all he is doing for agricultural education in Scotland is to come out of this £65,000 a year?
MR. SINCLAIR: No, Sir. The £65,000 a year is to be exclusively devoted to the purposes of the Bill.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Then the right hon. Gentlemen is doing nothing practically for education. And yet he told us in the very speech in which he proposes these drastic measures that small holdings cannot exist without education and without co-operation.
MR. SINCLAIR: I simply said they could not thrive. What is more, I say that the success of the Crofters Act would have been much more marked than it has been if the Governments which succeeded the Government of 1886 had during their twenty years of office done something to add to that Act powers of education and co-operation.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am quite ready to admit that political virtue ceased in 1886 and has only just been revived. But then I expect to see its fruits. The right hon. Gentleman says that these small proprietors cannot thrive without education and without co-operation. How does he propose to attain those conditions? By this Bill he brings small proprietors into existence, and then leaves them in a condition in which, according to his own showing, they cannot thrive. It is clear that, if this Bill passes, the right hon. Gentleman will have to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer for a great deal of money. I suggest that he should approach the Chancellor of the Exchequer at once for the money to deal with a problem which he admits to be pressing and which he says has waited since 1886 for a really beneficent solution. The right hon. Gentleman deliberately

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contemplates that the small holder of the future is not merely to find, as he does now, the capital required to work his farm, but to find, with or without assistance, the capital necessary to equip his farm, which hitherto has been provided by the landlord. You are going to relieve the landlord of this burden—gratuitously, as I think—and you are going to put it partly on the shoulders of the new holder and partly on your own. I do not know in what proportion. Nor do you. I suppose it depends on the generosity of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. But as there is only a sum of £65,000 a year for the purposes of the Bill, it is clear that practically the whole burden of equipping a farm must fall on the shoulders of the small holder himself. Do you really believe that there is in Scotland or anywhere else a large class in the possession, not merely of the not inconsiderable capital required to work a farm of the annual value of £50, but with the money to provide it with the buildings and all the other necessary equipments? I believe the man who has got that amount of capital is a man who can find a farm in Scotland to-morrow, and, what is more, he will be competed for, if he is a good agriculturist, by the landlords of Scotland. That your proposals will injure the landlord is obvious; I believe they will also injure the large farmer and the small holder. As for the agricultural labourer, it is patent that you are going to inflict a great injury upon him. The right hon. Gentleman lamented the fact that so much agricultural work is now done by hired labourers. I have a strong leaning towards the creation of peasant proprietors in places where they can carry on their business successfully. But I repudiate the idea that there is anything discreditable or degrading in being a hired labourer. The whole tendency of modern industry—not in the case of land alone, but even more obviously in other callings—is that a large number of the people concerned should be in the receipt of weekly wages. I wish most earnestly that they should also have some direct pecuniary profit-sharing interest in the work they are doing. But what is quite clear is that in a very large number of industries, and agriculture is one of them, you cannot work productively or with profit, at any rate under our present industrial system, without this combina-
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tion of great capital expenditure with a large number of workers receiving weekly wages. The right hon. Gentleman is injuring or maiming the landlords and the large farmers, and in so doing he is inflicting a most serious blow on the labourers, for he is depriving them of the best market for their work. For years and years to come, however you may spend this £65,000 a year, the large mass of the agricultural labourers will be still dependent on their weekly wages. Is it not madness to destroy the whole interest of those who are the best employers of the labourer? You cannot do a more cruel act to the labourers of this country. If the right hon. Gentleman had brought in a gigantic scheme for the appropriation of the land of owners and large farmers, and to put every agricultural labourer into a holding which was equipped for him, there would be a system that would be one of great anxiety and one that would inevitably break down, but at all events it would be logical; but to come forward with a Bill which is only the mere beginning of what the right hon. Gentleman hopes will be a new agricultural heaven and earth, and which yet destroys what is good in the old system, is the height of recklessness and folly. For these reasons I think every class of the rural community in Scotland, from the agricultural labourer to the landlord, will suffer by the Bill; and I do not see that anybody will benefit. That is a sufficient indictment against the Bill, but it is not the most severe. I think there is worse behind, because we have to consider not merely the classes interested in agriculture, but the interests of the community as a whole. I ask the House to reflect upon what the Government in their recklessness apparently desire to do. At the very moment when we are straining to the utmost the credit of the country for the purpose of abolishing a system of dual ownership in Ireland, the right hon. Gentleman, with a light heart, proposes to establish a system of dual ownership in Scotland, and perhaps in England also. It will cost from £100,000,000 to £120,000,000 or more to make all the Irish tenants into proprietors, the Irish tenants who built their own houses, who made their own improvements, who are the authors of the capital value of the, land they

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occupy. [Ministerial cheers.] Yes, that is the justification for turning them into small owners, and it is we who established the system for turning them into small owners. This is being done at the cost of £100,000,000 or £120,000,000, and you now propose to take a wholly alien agricultural system in England and Scotland, where the tenant outside the crofting areas in no case built his own house or suitably drained or fenced the land, where all these things have been done by the landlord, whom you wish to get rid of but are afraid to expropriate, and you now seriously desire to establish a dual ownership on that basis, and all the experience of the world allows that such a system is intolerable. No doubt there are distinctions between the dual ownership established by the Crofters Act and the Act of 1881. There were differences between the land system in France before the Revolution, and the land system in Prussia before it was swept away in 1808 or 1809, but all experience has united in saying there shall not be a double ownership which does not carry with it double responsibility. How can any set of men seriously suppose they can turn the clock back and establish a real system upon—I will not call it feudalism, but the wreck of defunct feudalism? You are going to have landlords with debts owed to them but no responsibility, you are going to banish the British landlord, who always had his duties and carried them out, and to turn him into a mere rent-charger, and you think that such a system can continue. Of course it cannot continue; you will have to go much further and do for Scotland what at enormous expenditure we are doing for Ireland, and the whole industry and credit of the country will be hampered to get rid of a system you are needlessly and foolishly hanging round your neck. I cannot imagine anything that gives more food for reflection to all; it goes far beyond the land question; it touches the whole social and industrial system. Any well-thought-out scheme that would encourage a system of peasant proprietorship I would look on with favour; but to keep the landlord, gratuitously taking from him his property and responsibility, putting him into the position of rent-charger to the tenant who has no connection with him but to pay rent, is so
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wantonly foolish a scheme that I am convinced that when the Government have really time to consider it in all its bearings they will see that it goes far beyond the expenditure of £65,000 a year in a corner of Scotland—that it touches the great social and industrial needs of the country and involves legislation in the future carrying with it expenditure impossible at the present moment to estimate.
MR. JOHN DEWARsaid that the people of Scotland who had been able to study this Bill during the recess had warmly welcomed it. Landlords and factors were perhaps not in favour of the measure, and a majority of the large farmers, he believed, were against it. But there was another section of agriculturists, he meant the small holders, who perhaps knew the position best, and it was not too much to say that there was not a single small holder in Scotland who was not an enthusiastic supporter of the measure. The Crofters Act, 1886, caused a revolution of the best kind in the Highlands of Scotland, and gave fixity of tenure and fair rents to the crofters; but the usefulness of that Act had been exhausted, and an extension of it was long overdue. The Crofters Act also gave power to extend holdings, but under several most unfortunate restrictions. That, he believed, was the key to the whole situation, because there could not be a greater curse to a man than to be tied to a holding which was to small for him. In the present Bill the Secretary for Scotland had swept away all those limitations and had given power to the Land Commission to extend holdings wherever they could be established without injustice to any of the interests concerned. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition had said that there was great congestion of population in the west of Scotland which ought to be relieved. He himself could point to parts where there were 300 crofters with 100 cotters squatting on the crofts. The Congested Districts Board had done something to relieve those conditions, but not all that might or ought to be done. He believed that the Secretary for Scotland was working on the right lines in his endeavour to

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solve this very pressing problem. He pointed to the history of the island of Barra, which was notorious for its over-population. The inhabitants of that island had adopted methods which were not generally approved of, but it should be remembered that their condition was deplorable and intolerable. To help the congestion the parish council applied to the county council to put the Allotments Act in force. The county council was not favourable, but appointed a committee, which went to the island and reported strongly in favour of the proposal. But the council never took any further action. Lord Balfour of Burleigh, as Secretary for Scotland, was compelled to intervene, and was able to make a partial solution, and only a partial solution, of the question by the purchase of land. The noble Lord was dealing with a friendly proprietor who was anxious and willing that the condition of the crofters should be improved; but he had to take such land as he could get, and the consequence was that the land he bought was purchased at fifty-six years purchase, and the crofters were settled on it at a price which makes it impossible for them to get a decent living. In another case a friendly proprietor placed a farm at the disposal of the Congested Districts Board. He did not know whether that was the farm to which the right hon. Gentleman referred when he instanced the case of a farm of £120 a year rent. But in that case the rent was £120. Under the new circumstances the landlord got the £120 free of all responsibility, whereas previously he was burdened with the cost of the upkeep of buildings, fences, and the like. On that farm the Congested Districts Board had settled twenty-four families, at a rent of £5 each, and the landlord got his £120 as before but free of in cumbrance. The families were prospering, making more than the farmer could possibly do, and they supplied besides ten men to the Army, Navy, and Naval Reserve. He thought that put in a nutshell the advantage of having farms divided up into small holdings. He would like to call attention to the advantage to the districts of retaining the landlords. The influence of the Scottish landlords was usually good, and
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he was anxious that their influence should be retained for many reasons, but principally because in the Highlands with small holdings and common grazings, and large sporting values it was almost impossible to work a peasant proprietary system. The result of experience in the Scottish Highlands showed that while the tenancy system was a success, that of purchase was a failure. In his opinion the joint ownership system of the Bill was not at all dual ownership in the Irish sense. The absence of a free sale provision made all the difference between the joint ownership of the Bill and dual ownership. The Crofters Act had been a success in the Highlands of Scotland and the social and economic conditions of the people had very much improved under it. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition had spoken about the landlord being a mere rent-charger; but was that likely to be the case? In the Highlands and islands of Scotland were the relations of landlord and tenant better or worse now than they were in 1886? The fact was that there had been a very great change for the better, because before 1886 the landlords were looked upon as the enemies of mankind, and now they were trusted and respected. Before 1886 a Highland landlord, if he were a candidate for Parliament, would not have got a vote from his own tenants; he had contested a Highland county against a laird, and while that laird's tenants were Land Leaguers to a man before 1886, in 1900 they voted for their laird to a man because they respected him, although they were independent of him, and perhaps because they were independent of him. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Scotland had mentioned how the landlords' condition had been improved, and he believed that the rents were better paid than they were when they were uneconomic. He believed that since rents had been revised landlords got more out of their tenants now than before 1886. He was informed that the crofters' rents were if anything better paid than those of the farmers. If the Act had been such a success in the Highlands and islands, where people were apt to forget that it had brought peace, contentment and

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prosperity, why should it not be applicable to other parts of Scotland such as Perthshire and Aberdeenshire, where similar conditions prevailed? Another proof that the landlords were better off under the crofting than under the farming system was the relative reduction in rents. The reduction in crofters' rents was much smaller than that which had taken place in the rents of large farms, it being 25 per cent. in the case of crofters and 40 rising in some cases to 80 per cent. in the case of farmers. It was a great advantage to the landlord that he should have many tenants who paid him a fair and steady rent rather than a few large tenants who paid irregularly. The Leader of the Opposition seemed to be speaking with two voices, and he would remind the right hon. Gentleman that where there was no demand for small holdings they would not be given. He repeated that anybody who knew the Highlands and islands of Scotland was aware of the fact that in the last twenty years the social condition of the people had improved enormously. Since 1886 in Skye alone 845 houses had been built by crofters, and if they only cost £100 each that meant an expenditure of £84,000. In addition eighteen crofters had become farmers since 1886. He had great pleasure in welcoming the Bill, which would be received with enthusiasm all over Scotland and would have the very best results on the social life of that country.
MR. MITCHELL-THOMSONsaid that after the exhaustive speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Scotland it became perfectly apparent that in its details the Bill differed from its predecessor. The revised edition introduced to-day showed that while changes had been made, the principles remained the same, and he personally did not think the Bill had been much improved by its sojourn in the limbo of the Scottish Office. In regard to the professed objects of the Bill, viz., the checking of rural depopulation, there would be very little difference of opinion between Members on the Unionist side of the House and the right hon. Gentleman. But when they considered the way in which those objects were to be attained under the Bill, and that its main principles remained unchanged in spite
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of the fuller information in the Reports of the Small Holdings Committee and the Committee on Depopulation, the difference of opinion would be considerable. In that connection he would like to ask the right hon. Gentleman when it would be possible to give the Return asked for last November as to the number of small holdings in Scotland under a rental of £50. As the Return had not been given the House might take it that the information was not in possession of the Government, and that therefore the Government themselves were ignorant of what was going to be the real scope of the Bill. Everyone, fully sympathised with the object of the Bill, which was to check the decline of the rural population, but he would point out that it was perfectly truthfully stated in the Report of the Committee on Depopulation that that decline could not be ascribed to the absence of small holdings, and it could not be said that the provision of small holdings was going to provide a complete remedy for that decline. From the point of view of rural depopulation it was obvious that there would be no material benefit in repatriating a small holder on to land already in use as arable land, if by so doing the land would be depopulated to the extent of a farm labourer. But when it came to the means by which the object of the Bill was to be brought about they were perfectly amazing. The Bill was supported by hon. Members upon two entirely distinct and inconsistent grounds. Some hon. Members said that it was a natural extension and a logical growth of the system of the crofter legislation of 1886, and argued that as that legislation had done so much good it was worth extending. But when asked to do that, the first thing any reasonable man would do would be to ask how the legislation had worked where it had been tried, and, secondly, whether the conditions differed in the districts where it was proposed to extend it from those in the district where the legislation had been operating. It was hardly fair to argue as the Lord Advocate had done in Inverness that the Crofters Acts were to be regarded as entirely beneficial because they had reduced rents 24 per cent., unless it was also pointed out that in other parts of Scotland rents had also fallen. However, he did not base his argument on any

721
good or ill the Crofters Acts had done in the crofting counties. He contended that it could not be said because they had worked well there, that other parts of Scotland and of England—because this could not stop atScotland—under different conditions would be benefited by similar legislation. The Government were ignoring the whole basis upon which the legislation of 1886 was passed. The Lord Advocate of that day, speaking on the Crofters Bill of 1886, said it was one thing where there was a community established and in possession of their ancestral home to give them facilities for enlargement, but it was quite another to say that every person who had no land and who wanted it was to be provided with it. It was no part of their principle in that measure (the Crofters Bill of 1886) to assign land to every landless person, its purpose was to give certain benefits to existing crofters. If they were to go beyond that they would introduce a state of matters which would not be a benefit but a disadvantage. Lord Dalhousie, who introduced the Bill in another place, pointed out that the Bill was based on the recognition of the particular history and circumstances of the crofter population, and if they went further they would have to go on a very different principle to find themselves face to face with other great difficulties. Sir George Trevelyan, in introducing the Bill, said that it was of a very special character referring to a very special population living in a very special district under very special circumstances, and that if the Bill had been introduced for the Lothians or the eastern counties it would have been not a restoration but an expropriation. That was the first point of view of the supporters of this measure. The second was that the Bill was revolutionary and therefore that it was progressive. He was not sure about the progress. He was afraid that by the Bill they were going to take a short step forward and a long step back. Even setting aside the point of view of the landowner altogether and looking at the matter from the single point of view taken by the Liberal Party on the question, there could be no dispute as to its retrograde nature. Let them take the first point of hypothec. Landowner's hypothec was abolished thirty
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years ago by the Liberal Party, as far as rural subjects were concerned. The hypothec over house furnishings, which remained, was denounced by them to-day, and yet this Bill reimposed hypothec, not in favour of the landlord who might have some bowels of compassion, but in favour of the State, which had none. Let them take another point, the point of entail. Hon. Members opposite were always inveighing against entail and saying it was not fair or just and ought to be abolished, but by this Bill they were going to set up 50,000 entails throughout the length and breadth of Scotland. As to the progress in setting up new holdings, his right hon. friend the Leader of the Opposition had already pointed out that £65,000 a year would not go far—as a matter of fact it might suffice to equip four or five new holdings in each county during a year. To bring forward these proposals to achieve that end, was like burning down the house to roast a pig, and a very small pig too. If they were to review the whole land question it would mean money. If they were to carry a land reform it must mean money, if the land were acquired fairly; and if it were acquired unfairly, it meant robbery. If they were to introduce small holdings and to develop the functions of, not so much the Crofters Commission, but the Congested Districts Board on a national instead of a local basis, then it meant money to put the people on the land. It had meant £5,500,000 in New Zealand. But it meant even more than that, because it meant that some provision must be made to keep the people on the land after they had been put there. The small holdings must be so arranged as to be economic. They must be made to pay, and if they were to be made to pay and the gombeen man was to be abolished, they must not merely put the people on the land, not only educate them in its cultivation—and for that the right hon. Gentleman had made no provision—but there must also be the protection of co-operation, not only between the individuals themselves—whether in substance—as at Blairgourie or in credit as at Scawby and under the Raffeisen system, but between them and the State. Whether that protection was given directly by loans or grants, or indirectly by bounties or import duties, it must be forthcoming; and if not, the

723
experiment was foredoomed to failure. He earnestly called attention to one condition in this proposal. In all these experiments by which small holdings worked in other countries they were based on the permanent and solid foundation of ownership. [An Hon. Member: No, no.] He did not mean ownership necessarily by the small holder, though, as a matter of fact, the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Scotland had not apparently looked at the Report of the Small Holdings Committee when he spoke of the price of purchase being four times that of tenancy, because if he had looked at the Report he would have seen that there were two examples where the calculation had worked out in favour of purchase as against tenancy. But other existing Systems rested on the solid foundation of ownership by somebody, whether the large owner, the small holder, or the State. Under the system proposed, the land for the first time was put in commission between three separate parties. It was not dual ownership—it was triple ownership. All the privileges and powers of ownership were dissipated; landlords were being left without any rights, the State was left with no responsibilities, and the small holder had all the burdens and none of the privileges of ownership. Could the Government really expect that that would be a permanent settlement? When they considered the arguments of the right hon. Gentleman and of others in support of the Bill, they were really amazingly inconsistent. The Secretary for Scotland said that the Bill was highly desirable in the interests of the landowning classes; and the Lord Advocate, speaking in Inverness, pointed out that from the point of view of the tenant the Bill was an admirable thing, because, he said, they were not to be in a hurry about land purchase; they were to wait until they had depreciated the landlord's rights.
THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. Thomas Shaw,): What I said was that the only sound basis of purchase was to start with fixing fair rents.
MR. MITCHELL-THOMSON: But the result of that is exactly what I said.
MR. THOMAS SHAW: I should not suggest, nor do I think, that the result would be to depreciate the interest of the landlords.
MR. MITCHELL-THOMSONsaid he was sure they would be very glad to receive that expression of opinion from the right hon. Gentleman. But he was perfectly certain that the construction he had stated was the one put upon language similar to that used by the right hon. Gentleman. But when they considered the support other members of the Government had given to the principle of the Bill, really the most courageous reason advanced was that of the noble Lord who presided over the Board of Agriculture, who said that the Bill was a Government Bill, and therefore he supported it. He was sure that hon. and right hon. Gentlemen who sat on the Treasury Bench wished that there were more Members on the Ministerial side who preferred loyalty to intelligence. But the noble Lord had also said that it was a strong measure to interfere with contractual rights, and that such restrictive legislation was really the first step in the direction of valued rents, and a Land Court, and he doubted whether the people of Scotland were prepared to go as far as that. That was in Edinburgh, at a meeting of the Chamber on Agriculture. The hon. Baronet the Member for South Some set had spoken last session of the hard-headed Scottish farmers, in whose judgment they placed great confidence. The Chamber of Agriculture was composed in the main of those hard-headed Scottish farmers, and they had passed a resolution condemning the principle of the Bill. But it had really been left to a Committee of a Government Department to pronounce the most emphatic and serious condemnation of it. The Report of the Small Holdings Committee, from which the right hon. Gentleman only differed in a few details—or rather he said there were some differences between it and the Government measure—
MR. SINCLAIR: Important differences.
MR. MITCHELL-THOMSON: Very well; the House would judge how

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important the differences were. The Committee said that while approving a proposal for the acquisition of land for compulsory purposes by a central authority, they did not approve of the giving of compulsory powers to hire land, or to interfere between landlord and tenant; that the exercise of compulsory powers of that kind would involve the creation of a system of tenant right under which the ownership of land would in fact be divided between two or even more persons; that experience had proved that the system of dual ownership of land was one which, under ordinary economic conditions, could not be permanent, and would be fatal to the proper maintenance of the holding, to harmony between the landlord and tenant, and to the prosperity of agriculture; and that that system might be suitable under such conditions as prevailed in the crofting areas of Scotland, but was quite inappropriate where rent, duration of occupancy, and general relations between landlord and tenant were determined by ordinary economic conditions. That was the Report of the Committee, and he left it at that. He was sure that they were all desirous of recognising the good intentions of the right hon. Gentleman, and, so far as he was concerned, he did not propose to vote against the introduction of the Bill. But, at a later stage it would have to go through a fiery furnace of criticism; and when it rose again—and he hoped it would rise—from the ashes to which they would certainly try to reduce it, it was to be hoped in the interests of the tenant, of the landlord, of the country, and of the great Party which the right hon. Gentleman adorned, that there would arise a phœnix of an entirely different kind.
MR. CATHCART WASONsaid his hon. friend who had just sat down had argued against the principle of the Bill and had not gone into the details of the measure which was causing so much interest on both sides of the House. But the argument of robbery and spoliation used against the Bill came with a very ill grace from hon. Members who represented the landlord Party. In the speech of the Leader of the Opposition, from beginning to end, there was very little which did not
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command his sincere admiration; the right hon. Gentleman went to the root of the measure; he pointed out, with justice, that the Bill could not stop at Scotland, that it must be extended to England, and when it had gone as far as England, they must consider their whole position with regard to the measure. He agreed with every word the right hon. Gentleman said on that point. The right hon. Gentleman asked them how they were going to draw any distinction between that which was the land—which possibly they might deal with—and that which was capital, namely, buildings on the land. That, he thought, was a very important argument, which had to be dealt with. From his own point of view it must be dealt with in the interests of the country, and in the interests of the country only. Much of the expenditure which the right hon. Gentleman had alluded to had been absolutely wasteful, vicious, and useless. In the Lowlands of Scotland farm after farm had been founded on the ruins of numerous homesteads throughout the country. On one estate, near to which he lived when a boy, there were forty small holdings. The landlord came in, rich and generous, according to hon. Gentlemen opposite, bought the land, and expended money lavishly in pulling down the small houses and erecting fine palatial buildings where there were forty homes before. There the farmers lived in affluence, or, at any rate, in very large houses, just as if they were in villa residences. The people had gone; there was no happiness in the land, no life; it was destitution and desolation from beginning to end. Wheresoever they went they saw that wasteful expenditure of landlords on buildings, which were, in many cases, solely for their own profit, aggrandisement, and glorification. Let them open up the land to the people, who would find the money to put up their own buildings. They did not want much—they desired to live not in palaces, but only in a small way, if they were not at the mercy of the landlord class. The right hon. Gentleman had spoken not merely to the House but to the country at large; and they, on their side, were speaking to the country, and while they felt that this measure would not, perhaps, be settled there, it would be settled by the country at large,

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before a satisfactory solution was arrived at. Agricultural labourers in Scotland really were badly off; and there was not a single word in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman who introduced the Bill which suggested that there was anything degrading in an agricultural labourer's taking work for reasonable hire. Still, it was better for the State that a large portion of the men settled on the land should be independent of any master whatever. It was one of the most deplorable things to see enormous masses of men absolutely dependent on some other person for a living and wages. His hon. friend had alluded to New Zealand, of which he had some experience, and he could assure him that the land settlement had done a great deal for that country. As to the question of compulsory powers, of which so much was made, he did not think that, if the Bill was carried in anything like its present form, those compulsory powers would be very often required to be put in operation. He thought the Government might very well, in the due exercise of their judgment, make some concessions where they did bring in those compulsory powers; but he was quite satisfied that when the country began to discover that there was such a widespread feeling in favour of this proposal, no body of men would stand up against doing something to relieve the present state of affairs. Sixty-five thousand pounds was a beginning. It was a question not of money, but of credit, and the credit of this country was good enough for all purposes at the present time.
MR. BARNESsaid he would not venture to say anything about the details of the measure, but he rose for the purpose of welcoming the Bill as outlined in the speech of the Secretary for Scotland. He welcomed it, on behalf of those with whom he was associated, for two reasons. In the first place, he agreed with the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland as to the extreme importance of having the larger proportion of the people of England and Scotland employed on the land. He looked with considerable misgivings and apprehension to the crowding of the people of the country in large factories in the towns and urban areas and the
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consequent weakening of the physical and moral fibre of the people. Having regard to the evils enumerated by the Secretary for Scotland in connection with the depopulation of the rural districts, he was not concerned whether it was worse in the north or in the south of Scotland. It was sufficient for him to know that it was going on, not only in Scotland but in England as well. Having regard to that fact and the effects of a direct character which it had had upon the people of Scotland, he was in favour of the Bill as something which would tend in the direction of setting up such a condition of things as would make the stream of population revert from the towns to the country, and thus produce a more robust people. His second reason was that he represented in the House, in a special sense, town dwellers, and in that capacity he also welcomed the Bill. And why? Because they knew that the rural population was being drained from the country districts where the people had been getting their living under more wholesome conditions. Those people were being driven into the towns, with the result that they increased competition for employment. The Leader of the Opposition had said that all this was inevitable and foreseen by Cobden and Bright, but he ventured to say that nothing of the sort was the case. On the contrary, the speeches of Bright and Cobden and the early free traders, so far as he had been able to follow them, foretold, not the depopulation of the country districts, but increased prosperity for the town dwellers and the agricultural population as well. So far as his reading on the subject went, he found that not only was the depopulation not the result of free trade, but it did not follow free trade for at least a generation. There might have been a flow of the rural population into the towns after free trade, but he thought he was right in saying that it did not happen to any great extent, and the filling up of the towns which had come about during the last thirty years or thereabouts, was something not incidental or peculiar to this country, but which had been general all over the civilised world. In America, Germany, France, and almost every other country, the people had been attracted

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from the dull life of the country into the glamour and glitter of town life. In those countries which most nearly approximated to our own, so far as free trade was concerned, they did not find that steady flow of the people from the country districts into the towns. In Holland and Denmark, which were practically free trade countries, far from there being any flow of people from the rural districts into the towns, the flow had been, with the exception of Copenhagen, from the town into the country districts. Therefore the flow of the people into the towns which they all agreed was an evil, had not come about as the result of free trade, but as the result of more general causes, some of which he would venture to point out. There were three real reasons. First of all there was the throwing open of this country to the importation of corn and other food products from abroad. That was one of the reasons why the population had drifted away from the agricultural districts. The second reason was quite as potent, and it was the unfair railway rates which were applied to English growers, and that had quite as great an effect in crippling the farming industry in Scotland as in England. If anyone would take the trouble to look up the figures in regard to the competition for the markets of Glasgow and the surrounding urban population, they would find that the people who were sending produce from Hamburg, and from other places across the North Sea, were getting their goods conveyed more cheaply than the people who were growing agricultural produce about the southern counties of Scotland. And thirdly, there was the application of science to the farming industry. He had before him a report of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, referring to the decline of the agricultural population of Great Britain, and it stated that as the result of careful investigations it had been found that in almost every county in Scotland there had been a great reduction of casual as compared with permanent labour, and it was generally agreed that the use of labour-saving machinery was the main cause. And so they arrived at the conclusion that one of the causes why more people were not engaged in farming was
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the greater intensity of toil on the one side, and the application of science in the shape of machinery on the other side, which produced a great displacement of labour. He thought they ought to take steps like those which were taken in Denmark for the setting up of colleges for the encouragement of scientific farming, and he understood that that was provided for in the Bill. [Opposition cries of "No, no."] At any rate, he hoped it would be one of the features of the Bill that they would be able to spend public money in the best of all possible ways, namely, in teaching our own people how to apply their labour and capital so as to produce the best results. He gathered that some such proposal as that might eventually be grafted upon the Bill. He understood that there was to be fixity of tenure, and they all agreed that it would be an advantage that the person who possessed an economic advantage over another should not be able to come down upon him and turn him out of his holding at any time he liked. Then there was another important principle, viz., fixity of rent. He did not quite gather what the right hon. Gentleman meant on that point, but he understood that there was to be a rent court with power to fix rents which would be undisturbed for seven years. He thought he was right in assuming that the rent court would not be able to increase any rents unless there had been something put into the holding by the capital of the landlord. For those reasons he welcomed the Bill as a step in the direction of dealing with a pressing and urgent public question. He gathered that £65,000 a year of public money was to be spent in this way for Scotland. That, as the Leader of the Opposition had pointed out, was only a small part of what would be required if the same principle was to be applied to England and Wales as well as to Scotland. Therefore, it was very important, if public moneys were to be spent, to see that they should get full value. It appeared to him that they were not going to get full value for this money unless the freehold of the holdings thus set up was vested in and owned by the public. He looked upon the experiment, therefore, with some misgiving in that respect; and his misgiving had not been in any way

731
lessoned by the ten our of some of the speeches already made in favour of the Bill, for he found that several hon. Gentlemen had stated that they welcomed the Bill because it was going to do something to buttress up landlordism. [Cries of dissent.] That was what he understood, though they did not put it so bluntly. He gathered from what they said that they were in favour of the Bill because the multitude of small holders to be set up would be a bulwark to the large landowners. He did not like large landowners, and he did not think the small landowners were going to be an improvement on the big ones. He believed that landlordism was a great monopoly, and that the land ought to be owned by the public. He did not put that forward as an abstract or theoretical expression of opinion. He believed landlordism had been weighed in the balance and found wanting. Therefore, although the Bill dealt, perhaps, with a practical question in a way which had been forced upon the Government by the exigencies of the situation, he looked upon it with considerable apprehension. He had not consulted the colleagues with whom he usually acted, but for his own part he looked upon the measure with so much misgiving that if his colleagues were agreeable he would be willing to take the responsibility of moving its rejection on the Second Reading, unless there was some provision made that the public money to be spent, and the machinery to be set up, were not permanently for the interest of landlordism, but for the interest of the whole people, and unless there was some prospect that ultimately the land would be dealt with in such a way as to be of use to the whole people, instead of, as now, for the use and enjoyment of a few.
MR. COCHRANEsaid the hon. Member who had just sat down had stated that he was little acquainted with agriculture. That circumstance had possibly tinged the latter part of his speech in regard to the land system of the country. He had a great deal of sympathy with some parts of the hon. Gentleman's speech. Every one deplored the depopulation of the country districts, and the aggregation of people in the
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urban districts. That was a very obvious evil, and if this Bill were an honest attempt to overcome that difficulty it would receive thoughtful consideration, and it would have more merits to commend it than he and his friends on that side of the House could find at present. This was not the only country where there was depopulation of the rural districts. Even in Denmark there had been a considerable falling off in the rural population. In Denmark they had the very system of agricultural education which was needed here. There was also a system of bounties on agricultural produce—a form of protection for agriculture which hon. Members opposite would probably deplore. In this Bill there was no provision for agricultural instruction whatever. The Departmental Committee recommended that there should be a system of agricultural education, but no attempt was being made by this measure to give it in any shape or form.
MR. SINCLAIR: Hear, hear.
MR. COCHRANEsaid he was glad the right hon. Gentleman agreed with him in that. The Bill was one of considerable magnitude, and hon. Members who had spoken had all concurred in saying that if it was passed for Scotland a similar measure would ultimately be introduced for England. It would be for the convenience of the House before the Second Reading of the Bill if the Government worn able to intimate when the Bills for the other parts of the United Kingdom would be presented, in order that they might see what differences existed in the different parts.. He thought there was ground for complaint in the fact that the right hon. Gentleman before introducing such drastic legislation on a question of such magnitude had not ordered some form of inquiry. There had been no demand for legislation of this kind in Scotland. The country was peaceful and quiet, especially in the Lowlands. Previous to the introduction of the Crofters Act there was great discontent and distress in the crofting districts, but at present there was no unrest of that kind in Scotland. The Agricultural Conference was a representative, and not at all a

733
Conservative, body; it had very Liberal tendencies. That Conference carried by an enormous majority an Amendment condemning the Bill brought forward last year. If the proposed legislation was confined solely to crofters he was sure that it would be regarded with considerable sympathy by many hon. Members. All acknowledged the part the crofters had taken in the history of the country. They made excellent soldiers, as those who had been connected with the Army could testify. They had had their struggles like other classes of the community. They had been the victims, to a considerable extent, of the policy of free trade. In the Highlands and islands of Scotland a thriving crofter population depended for their livelihood on the kelp industry. On account of the free-trade policy manufacturers of potash were able to import other materials, with the result that the price of kelp declined. [An Hon. Member: It brings a fair price now.] He was glad to hear that. The difference between the crofter and the Lowland tenant was very marked. The crofter in the old days had no security of tenure and was liable to be turned out on short notice.
MR. WEIR: Forty days.
MR. COCHRANEsaid this Bill would apply to a different class—the leaseholders in the Lowlands. In ninety-nine cases out of 100 the leasehold tenants had a tenure of nineteen years. A tenant paying £50 a year, having a lease of nineteen years, had absolute fixity of tenure during the period of his lease. He was on an absolutely different footing from the crofter who was liable to be turned out of his small holding, and the steading which he had put up at his own cost, at forty days notice. In the Lowlands farm buildings had invariably been built at the cost of the landlords. Most of the fencing had also been done by the landlords. The right hon. Gentleman, without any inquiry whatever, and without having gone into the question, except in the most cursory manner, proposed to take away the capital the landlord had invested in farm buildings and hand it over to the Commissioners or the tenants. If the right hon. Gentleman
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expected that capital was going to be invested under those conditions he would be disappointed. The present system of land tenure in Scotland had done much for the country. Could the right hon. Gentleman point to any country in the world where there was a more prosperous system? [Cries of "Yes."] He ventured to say that it would be difficult to do so. Go where they liked, they would not see farms better tilled, or crops more magnificent than those grown in the Lothians. He asked the right hon. Gentleman himself if he thought that all the high cultivation which was to be seen in Scotland could have been carried on if it had been divorced from the capital of the landlord? It was impossible. He ventured to say that what had made Scotland so thriving had been the intelligent interest, skill, and care of the landlords in the management of their estates and their close association with their tenants. It could not be expected that landlords would take that interest in their farms, in the modern machinery required for up-to-date cultivation, in acquiring the knowledge of the chemical composition of manures, if they were to be told that an irresponsible body could come down and carve certain portions out of their farms in order to make small holdings. That would produce a dangerous element of uncertainty in the management of land. Then, in addition, there would be the cost of equipping the small holdings carved out of the farms. At present he believed that some £10,000,000 a year were spent in improving farms under present conditions; but if this Bill passed that capital would be diverted from Scotland. The Act of 1892 was passed with the view of endeavouring to remove the difficulties of agricultural labourers in obtaining small holdings, but it had proved a failure, notwithstanding honest attempts to put it in force. To a large extent the reason for that failure was that it did not pay ploughmen and other labourers engaged in agriculture, whose wages were extremely good, to take a. small farm. The Report of the Departmental Committee showed that in the very district of Kilmuir to which reference had been made, the small crofters had not become owners of the land because they were afraid of

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the rates and taxes that would be demanded from them. His friend Sir Charles Renshaw, who sat so long in that House, had given a description of what had happened in Renfrewshire. He did everything he could to put the Act of 1892 in force, and, by advertising, to induce people to come forward to take up small holdings under the County Council. But his efforts were in vain, the real difficulty being that the men supposed to be likely to take up a small holding were paid good weekly wages. What was wanted was an Amendment of the Act of 1892, and not the fanciful attempts proposed by this Bill to deal in an arbitrary fashion with the land. The recommendations of the Departmental Committee, based upon careful investigation, should be adopted. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Scotland said that his plan was not a system of dual ownership. They had seen the operation of that in Ireland and were going to spend £150,000,000 in abolishing it. But the right hon. Gentleman was going further. He was proposing to establish a triple ownership—the farmers, the agricultural labourer, and the Land Commission, and none of them would have complete control over the land allocated in small holdings. He was not surprised that the Departmental Committee had passed the scathing criticism that the plan of the Bill would not be permanent, that it would lead to endless disputes and to the cessation of all responsibility on the part of the landlord. The dual system of ownership had not cured depopulation in Ireland, nor had all the Land Bills passed by the House of Commons. In 1897, when tenant right existed, the population of Ireland was 5,412,000; in 1881 it was 5,174,000; in 1901 it had fallen to 4,500,000—a fact which they all deplored. The right hon. Gentleman had alluded to the crofting parishes in Scotland, but the same depopulation had taken place there. The report of the Crofters Commission showed that the population in those parishes in 1881 was 155,000, whereas in 1901 it had fallen to 142,000.
MR. WEIR: In the Island of Lewis, the population has increased considerably.
MR. COCHRANEsaid he was very glad to hear it, but he always thought that that
736
was one of the most congested districts in Scotland, and where the crofters paid their rents with the least facility. His hon. friend was constantly asking the House for assistance for those crofters. However, that did not affect his argument. In Great Britain two-thirds of the total number of farms were under fifty acres, and in Scotland there were 46,000 holdings with a rental under £50. The right hon. Gentleman proposed that in each of those 46,000 holdings the Land Commission should step in and assume the functions of the landlord. He thought that that would impose upon the Commissioners a very serious duty. Might he ask what would be the cost of the Land Commission? He had endeavoured to work it out and could not make it less than £100,000 a year, including the salaries of the Chairman, the Commissioners, and assistant Commissioners, travelling expenses, etc.
MR. SINCLAIR: Nothing like it. I expect it would be nearer the cost of the Crofters Commission.
MR. COCHRANEsaid that when they came to administer one-third of the farms in the whole of Scotland it would be necessary to set up, not only the Commission, but sub-Commissions and deputy sub-Commissions all over the country. Under the scheme propounded by the right hon. Gentleman what would be position of the unhappy landlord? Landlords were very much like other classes of the community, some were good and some were bad; and he thought that they were entitled to a certain amount of sympathy in the difficulties with which they had to struggle in the last few years. There was plenty of land for sale in Scotland at the present moment, and he submitted that if the right hon. Gentleman wished to make experiments in a scheme of small holdings the opportunity lay before him. Of course the Government would have to purchase the land and administer it if it was intended to plant out upon it deserving small farmers. It would be a mistake to deprive the tenants and landlords of Scotland of the interest they had in their business, and to make the landlords mere rent-chargers, bereft of all control over their estates. The small farmers would not have the

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capital to keep the buildings in good repair in the same way as the landlords did at present. In the crofting counties the tenants had been satisfied with accommodation of a very humble character. No doubt the crofters wanted more land, and under the Bill there was an extension of their power to get it. But what would be the position of the large farmer who might find the eyes picked out his farm to benefit the crofters, who naturally would not take the worst but the best bits? The landlord might not be unwilling to sell, but the difficulty was that the small man would wish to get the parts of the farm which were most profitable and to leave the large farmer with the unprofitable portion and the obligation to keep up the steading. Such a course would be in the interest neither of the tenant nor of the landlord. If he could see in the Bill any really honest attempt to settle the population more successfully on the soil, and to provide a useful gradation of holdings, he would welcome it, but he failed to see in it anything which would carry out those objects. The hon. Member for Leith Burghs, a supporter of the Government, had indulged in no exaggeration when he described the measure as a crude form of Socialism.
THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. Thomas Shaw,)said it was satisfactory in some respects to find that both Parties admitted, first, that depopulation was going on in Scotland to a grave, if not alarming, extent, and that the depopulation of the rural districts was an evil to the community at large; and, secondly, that no attack could be made on the Crofters Act of 1886. For in none of the speeches delivered had there been a note of hostility to that Act, which had been administered with signal ability, and in the spirit of its founders. It had been a conspicuous success for Scotland, and parts of the Highland area had been almost completely transformed from a derelict into a prosperous country. The Leader of the Opposition was an adept in the prophesying of disaster with regard to this kind of legislation, but similar prophecies had been uttered before. In addressing the House to-day the right hon. Gentleman had said no word in con-
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demnation of the Act of 1886, but when that Act was before a Liberal House of Commons his tone in regard to it was exactly the same as was his tone with regard to the present Bill. The right hon. Gentleman then, in an impassioned passage, said—
"I tell Her Majesty's Government and I tell the House that the legislation which they have initiated and which may pass into law this session will, whatever else it may do, undoubtedly dry up every source of prosperity derived from the security of capital. From this time forward, money which has been poured out like water on these barren wastes—"
the right hon. Gentleman was then dealing with the Highland areas, and defending the proposition which to-day he denied—
"will be poured out no more, and the very spring from which it came will be dried up."
There were other choice passages, which were interesting to the historical student as showing that, whatever were the facts, prejudices still remained and found renewed utterance despite the teachings of experience. The right hon. Gentleman in 1886 also dealt with the four classes of people who he thought would be endamaged by the Act, but the evil that he prophesied had not occurred. There was hardly a landlord in the Highland area who if left to himself would not bless the day when the Crofters Act was passed, since when he had never huckstered for his rent or arrears, had enjoyed good relations with his tenants, and had found the capital value of his estate and even the sporting rentals, increased. Yet now they were told that the landlords were to be reduced to mere rent chargers. How sad for duke and earl who owned property in the Highlands! For the Duke of Sutherland, for instance, who owned a county, how sad was his case! It was that kind of mock sympathy that the House was asked to evoke—for those who were affected precisely as people were affected by the Act of 1886. One thing he must emphatically correct. The right hon. Gentleman had said that the landlord in the Lowlands had expended large sums of money on the improvement of his property. He did not think that that was quite the universal rule. But presuming that all that had happened, how could it be said that the landlord would receive no benefit from his expenditure, when the Bill provided that in fixing the

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rent every contribution he had made to the value of his property should be taken into account by the Court? Let them assume that the landlord had expended large sums of money in the improvement of his property. That would be taken into account by the Rent Court in fixing the rent, as well as all other contributions of the landlord to the value of the property. Nothing was to be taken from the landlord. On the contrary, the landlord was secured in a strong position in regard to his property, and in the event of the violation by the tenant of the statutory conditions for the payment of rent the landlord could resume possession. What the Bill established were those two beneficent provisions without which content and progress on rural holdings were impossible—security of tenure and a rent fixed by an independent tribunal. It was said also that the landlord was to be reduced to the position of a rent charger. Why? Because he was to be deprived of the arbitrary power to evict a man from the holding which was part of his life's history. There was simply taken away from the landlord a certain power which, in the case of the landlords of Scotland, certainly had not been exercised. It was said that the large farmer was to be treated as a nuisance. Yet the Bill only declared that there might be tracts of land which could be judiciously used in establishing a system of small holdings. It was said that the proposed Commission would be an irresponsible body. It might safely be assumed that the Commissioners, in dealing with land, would have regard for all the interests concerned. It was said that the small holder could not thrive unless he was first taught the principles of co-operation. The Bill was pretty heavily loaded already; and the Government thought they were doing very well as a beginning when they established the small holder in an independent position, enabling him, in the first place, to bring up his family in comfort, and, in the second place, to equip himself, or, at least, those who were to follow him, with a better knowledge of the principles of agriculture. As for the agricultural labourers, if they were polled to-morrow they would give an answer by 99 per cent. in favour of the Bill. The present prospect of the agricultural labourer was
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to pass a time in what some called a state of servitude, and in his old age to be reduced to poverty or to seek refuge in a town. By this Bill the agricultural labourer was given the opportunity of obtaining a small holding where, even in his old age, if he did justice to the soil, he could bring up his family. It was the homestead idea that underlay the Bill. Its aim was to provide that the homes of the race should be found, not in the slums, but on the soil.
MR. WALTER LONG: There is no intention on our part to interfere with the First Reading of this Bill, and I only intervene because of some remarks made by the Lord-Advocate. It is remarkable that in all the land debates that take place in this House none ever take place without some hon. Members talking as if all the landlords of the country were dukes and earls. My right hon. friend the Leader of the Opposition said that some part of the Land Act of 1886 had not been justified by example. He then proceeded to show that the Crofters Act had not prevented depopulation which the Government desired to prevent. The Lord-Advocate has defended this measure and sought to show that it would remove the evil upon which he said both sides were agreed. Of course both sides are agreed as to the evil of depopulation and as to the desirability of giving those who have either no land or insufficient land an opportunity of getting what they want. But the reason why we are criticising this Bill, and will do so in all its stages, is not that we do not admit the evils, are always ready to admit the evils—but that we do not approve of the remedy proposed. The Lord-Advocate said we had not learnt by experience. I say the experience of this country in land legislation ought to have taught the Government that they would have been wiser if they had proceeded more slowly and had proposed to set up landholders in a manner less fantastic. The Lord-Advocate said the object of the Bill was to establish these men on suitable holdings, to give them suitable homes and homesteads. I know something about the system of agricultural holdings in other

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countries besides Scotland, and I know that the number of persons who are desirous of getting these holdings and who have sufficient capital to equip them is very small. I listened to the right hon. Gentleman with blank amazement when he told us that what the Bill sought to do was to establish in every district three classes of occupiers, the large occupier, the small occupier, and the labourer.
MR. SINCLAIR: What I said was that the best expert opinion favoured a gradation of farms ranging from small to large holdings.
MR. WALTER LONG: That is exactly what I said.
MR. SINCLAIR: No. The right hon. Gentleman's words were "sought to establish."
MR. WALTER LONG: I do not think that I shall be guilty of any very extravagant assumption if I assume that that was one of the objects of the Bill. I defy the right hon. Gentleman or any member of the Party opposite to adopt that principle and apply it to the agricultural land of this country. There is only one way in which small holdings can be successfully established, and that is by selecting districts which lend themselves to that purpose. [Ministerial cries of "Hear, hear!"] But that is not the policy put forward by the Secretary for Scotland. I will not now discuss this matter in detail. I think it is much to be regretted that in a debate which has been so fairly conducted from a practical point of view on both sides of the House, the Lord-Advocate should have descended once again to adopt that form of argument which is the most cowardly that can be adopted in this House, namely, when you are defending a particular class and criticising suggestions made on behalf of the owning class, to drag in as a reason for the passing of the Bill that it is to prevent the eviction by the landlords of the tenants from their holdings. This has been dragged into the debates on the Land Tenure Bill for England, but the charges of eviction were never proved, nor has inquiry revealed a condition of things to justify the Bill on such
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ground. I quite believe the Government have a sincere desire to deal with the difficult question of maintaining occupation ownership of small farms, but they appear to be blind to the lesson taught by experience that a system of dual ownership cannot go on without subsequent legislation; that once established it does not deal with the evil sought to be removed and creates another evil alongside for which the further remedy of making the tenants into actual owners is required. It is only in that way that you can give the tenants real security and plant in them the confidence and the desire to succeed without which they are not likely to prosper. We believe that this Bill is based up on unsound principles, and will require very considerable amendment before it is workable. We do not on this side of the House intend to offer any further opposition at this stage, but we do intend during the subsequent stages to criticise the Bill closely, and to do our best to amend it, not for the reason given by the learned Lord-Advocate, but because we believe that it is not a practical remedy, that it proceeds on wrong lines, and that it will do great injury to the landowners who have taken a keen interest in the development of their estates, whilst it will not give any advantage to the tenant and the labourer. For these reasons we shall do our best during the subsequent stages of the Bill to carry Amendments which will be likely to make it an effective instead of a most defective measure.
MR. MORTON: considered that the opposition to the Bill had been exceedingly weak, and it all came to the one proposition that they ought to purchase and not rent. A scheme of purchase might be all very well for Ireland, but they could not afford to go on in that way, and therefore he considered that it was a fair business-like proposition to fix what was a fair rent. If at a later period some of the tenants or the Government liked to purchase, by all means let them do so. He hoped that the Bill would be allowed to pass with the view of making an endeavour to settle this question in the interests of the people. The tenants would be

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quite willing to pay a fair rent under a system which gave them fixity of tenure. If the House refused that principle the people might eventually insist that the land should be returned to the people from whom it ought never to have been taken, and returned upon very different terms from those which were proposed in the Bill. With regard to the Bill itself, he thought it would have been much better if the crofter districts had been dealt with separately. He would be able to bring before the House at a later stage actual cases where at the present time the tenants had no fixity of tenure, and where good tenants had been driven off the land because the landlord or his agent wished to replace them, sometimes out of spite, but mainly for sporting purposes. What had been said by the Chamber of Agriculture did not matter so much, because it was mostly a chamber of landlords and Tories. Fixity of tenure was wanted in order to stop the depopulation of the Highland counties. The vast stretches of land in Scotland which were at present devoted to sport ought to be let to tenants at a fair rent. In Sutherlandshire there were nearly 400,000 acres of land ear-marked by the Deer Forests Commission which ought to be allotted to the people for extension of crofts, new crofts, and small holdings, which should include cottars and other workers. He appealed to the Government not so much in the interests of Party but in the interests of the country to see the Bill through this session. The Crofters Act 1886 had been so successful that they might extend it without fear.
VISCOUNT HELMSLEYsaid he had been particularly struck with the speech of the hon. Member for the Blackfriars Division of Glasgow, who began by commending the Bill and the Government and ended by blaming the Government rather considerably for bringing in a Bill which was so favourable to the landlords. Of course they all knew what were the opinions of hon. Members below the gangway in reference to the land, and he was not sure that a good many of them would not prefer those opinions, impossible though they thought them,
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to some of the proposals which were occasionally put forward by hon. Gentlemen opposite. The Secretary for Scotland had stated that the object of the Bill was to attract capital to the land. He thought the Leader of the Opposition had shown that the exact reverse would be the result, and that instead of attracting capital the Bill would have a tendency to drive capital away from the land.
Question put, and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Sinclair and the Lord Advocate.

SMALL LANDHOLDERS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
"To encourage the formation of Small Agricultural Holdings in Scotland, and to amend the Law relating to the tenure of such Holdings (including Crofters' Holdings); to establish Agricultural Commissioners for Scotland; and for other purposes connected therewith," presented accordingly, and read the first time; to be read a second time To-morrow, and to be printed. [Bill 122.]

GREAT WESTERN, LONDON AND NORTH WESTERN, AND RHYMNEY RAILWAY COMPANIES BILL (BY ORDER).
Order for Second Reading read.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
MR. MORTONasked if the Instruction standing in his name was in Order.†
MR. SPEAKER: The Instruction of the hon. Member is not in order for the same reason that I ruled it out of order last year. Any proposal to impose upon railway companies the liability of adding third-class sleeping carriages to their trains should be done
†"That it be an Instruction to the Committee to whom the Bill is referred to consider the desirability of inserting a clause requiring the companies to provide sleeping accommodation for third-class passengers in all cases where sleeping accommodation is provided for first-class passengers."

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by a general Act. Particular companies should not be selected for this purpose, but it should be made applicable to all railway companies in like circumstances.
MR. MORTONsaid that it would be quite impossible for him to get a general Act passed, only the Government could do that; on the other hand he desired to apply his proposal to some of the railways only. But, before the Great Western, the London and North Western and Rhymney Railway Companies were given further powers he thought he had a right to ask that certain grievances should be redressed and that the Companies should act fairly to all classes in exercising monopolies which they could not enjoy without the consent of Parliament. He asked that all classes of railway passengers should be treated alike without any undue preference or favour. In the case of passengers travelling long distances he thought that the third-class passengers should be provided with the same facilities as to sleeping accommodation as the first-class passengers. Last session he was hopeful that that question would be favourably considered by the great railway companies, but he gathered from information which had been supplied by the Board of Trade that the railway companies now refused to consider any redress whatever of that grievance. That being so, there was no other course for him to adopt than to move the rejection of the Bill. It might be a wise policy occasionally to throw out a railway Bill so as to let the railway companies understand that before they could obtain monopolies from Parliament they had to adopt fair regulations, and treat the different classes of passengers somewhat alike. The reply of the companies had generally been that first-class sleeping carriages did not pay. As far as he could ascertain first-class passenger traffic never did pay anywhere in the United Kingdom, and the whole of the profits from passenger traffic came from third-class passengers. Fifty years ago third-class passengers were treated worse than animals, but they were now being treated much better. The companies had found out that the better
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they treated the third-class passengers the more profit they made. He did not say that sleeping accommodation should be provided except upon proper notice and at reasonable rates, but on trains where there were two sleeping coaches there was no reason why one of them should not be available for third-class passengers. He did not wish to do any harm to decent railway companies; on the contrary, he preferred to give them, all the assistance he could in carrying on their business in the best possible way, but he had no alternative but to take the line he had done. The railway companies might say that they did not care for the hon. Member for Sutherland; he did not care much about that, but the companies might find that just when they wanted assistance they would not get it. He remembered that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham when at the Board of Trade said with regard to railway companies not only that people had the right but that it was their duty on the Second Reading of railway Bills to have their grievances brought forward and to insist as far as they were able upon Parliament seeing fair play done between the companies and the people. He thought the duty of the Board of Trade was to deal fairly with the railway companies, but they should recollect that there was a British public. He hoped they would have the assistance of the Board of Trade in getting this matter settled. They granted railway companies great powers and the public had a right to ask for something in return. He hoped they would not have to proceed so far as to throw out a Bill which, no doubt, had some good points, and he trusted that railway companies would see the advisability of giving reasonable and proper provision in the direction he had indicated. He moved that the Bill be read a second time that day six months.
MR. BRACE:, in seconding the Amendment, said the promoters had not done him justice when they declared that his reason for opposing the Bill was that he happened to be in favour of the Barry Railway Bill. He happened to be resident in the district affected

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and he was the representative of the workers who resided there. He wished to explain to the House that this scheme was simply on a par with many other schemes on a par with many other which had been produced previously to tap the Sirhowy and Rhondda Valleys. The present joint scheme of the Great Western, London and North Western, and Rhymney Railway Companies covered practically the ground of a railway scheme which was promoted from time to time by various promoters in the years 1882, 1884, 1885, 1886, 1887, and 1888. In 1888 a Bill was promoted by the Taff Vale Railway Company to connect Cardiff with the Sirhowy and Monmouthshire valleys. In the same year the Great Western Railway Company had a Bill to connect their system with another railway at Cogan. By agreement of 14th March, 1888, both schemes were withdrawn, and the Taff Vale and Great Western Companies agreed never again to promote similar schemes. The Rhymney Railway Company in the same year obtained the sanction of Parliament for a scheme connecting their railway with the Sirhowy Valley, but the Great Western Railway Company made arrangements with the Rhymney Railway Company not to construct the railway, one of the features of the arrangement being that the Rhymney Railway should receive a payment of something like £10,000 a year, and the Rhymney Railway Company accordingly abandoned the scheme. That was a serious statement to make, and he would be glad to hear what the promoters of the Bill had to say upon it. If a railway company failed to exercise its Parliamentary powers in consideration of a monetary payment by another railway company, that was a reason why Parliament should not again entrust it with such powers. In 1890 the Cardiff Railway Company obtained powers to construct the railways authorised in 1888, should the Rhymney Railway Company not do so, but for some reason or other they allowed the powers to lapse, and the district had been without improved railway accommodation ever since. In 1905 the Barry Railway Company promoted a Bill to serve the same objects as the dropped scheme of 1888, but that Bill was rejected on the oppo-
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sition of the Great Western and Rhymney Railway Companies, who said that the line was not required. If the line was not required then, upon what ground did the company say that the line was required now because they happened to be the promoters? His main reason for opposing the Bill was that the monopoly enjoyed by the Rhymney Railway Company in their respective valleys, and by the Great Western Railway Company, had been in a marked degree used to the disadvantage of the public. So much did the public of the western valleys of Monmouth object to the treatment which had been meted out to them by the railway companies that they had formed a council of gentlemen from county councils, chambers of commerce, and other public bodies, representing altogether upwards of 100,000 people, to consider the subject of railway facilities with the view to their improvement. He asked the House to pay attention to that fact, because if the railway companies had used their powers properly there would have been no necessity for those public bodies to form a railway council for the purpose of bringing pressure to bear on the Great Western Railway Company to do what was right. So far as the valley line was concerned, it was one of the best paying bits of railway which any company could have. The mineral and iron and steel traffic amounted to 6,000,000 tons a year, to say nothing of passengers. He himself resided seventeen miles from Newport, and the journey on the Great Western Railway occupied substantially over an hour. The journey to Nantyglo on the same railway, a distance of twenty-one miles, took an hour and a half when the trains were up to time, but they were frequently late. He understood that one of the arguments which would be used was that the Great Western Company had put on an improved service. It was true that the trains had been altered, but the service was still inferior to what the travelling public might fairly expect. The speed of the trains was what it was about thirty years ago. Although the Great Western Railway Company had obtained powers, they had done very little to provide better train connections up the valley. The majority of the stations were just as

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they were forty years ago. It was because of the monopoly which the companies enjoyed that the public were left helpless and entirely at their mercy. He thought he was entitled to ask the House to reject the Bill altogether on account of the manner in which the railway companies had treated the public. He wished to refer to another side of the question. Not only was the local passenger service bad, but the connections for trains to the north were so arranged that travellers had to start an hour or an hour and a half earlier than would be necessary if greater consideration were given to the convenience of the public. Parliament, as the custodian of the public interest, ought not to give a monopoly to any company which in the past had misused its powers in the way the Great Western Company had done. The Chairman of the Great Western Railway Company, at the half-yearly meeting in February this year, said—
"I think I told you—I am sure I told you—six months ago that we should not move again in South Wales unless our interests were distinctly threatened. We all hoped that when the wisdom of Parliament decided that the Great Western and Rhymney Joint Bill, and no other Bill, was necessary, the question might have slumbered, at any rate, for a short time; but the action of the Barry Company obliged us to put forward a Bill for the protection of our own interests, and I think the shareholders will, at any rate, be glad to see this—that we are in partnership at this time, not alone with the Rhymney Railway Company, but with our good friends who were our opponents last year—the London and North Western Railway. We are working together with a view, of course, to minimise the expense, and to increase the advantages to the shareholders."
If that was why this company came to the House, he hoped that the House would not lend itself to such a policy. Alter all, the public had rights, and no railway company which had abused their monopoly powers should come to Parliament and ask for an extension of those powers. As to the position of workmen who had to travel by rail to get to their work, it was true that there were workmen's trains morning and evening, but if the men travelled during the day they were put into workmen's carriages and made to pay the full ordinary fare. Moreover, no attempt was made to heat the trains, and many of the carriages were quite open. Taking all these things into consideration,
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and because the Rhymney Company had received a payment of something like £10,000 a year from the Great Western Railway for abandoning a scheme which Parliament had authorised them to construct, he asked the House to reject the Bill as a warning to all railway companies that Parliament would not be trifled with by parties who had been given monopoly powers and who had abused them at the expense of the public.
Amendment proposed—
"To leave out the word 'now,' and at the end of the Question to add the words 'upon this day six months.' "—(Mr. Morton.)
Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
MR. BALDWINsaid that the object of the Bill was a very simple one. It was to make a line eight and a half miles long from Cross Keys to Newport to connect with the Western Valleys Railway, and the Sirhowy Railway of the London and North Western Company with the Rhymney Railway at Caerphilly, making a new route between the Western Valleys and Cardiff, Penarth and Barry, which would be nearly five miles shorter than the existing route. It would be a business and not a pleasure line. There were a large number of collieries served by the Great Western Railway; and if the line was made it would help to develop the district. The Great Western Railway now carried over 3,500,000 tons of coal to Newport, and 1,750,000 tons to Cardiff. The eight and a half miles between Newport and Cross Keys was the most congested part of the Great Western Railway traffic, and from 40 to 50 per cent. of the overtime worked on the Great Western Railway was worked on that 1ength. The directors of the Great Western Railway Company believed that the making of the line would greatly facilitate the traffic. Remarks had been made about the passenger traffic. The Western Valleys Railway was twenty-one miles long, and there were on it twelve stations. The new line would give a direct route to Cardiff, instead of going through Newport, so that the people in the Western Valleys would profit to that extent.

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What occurred last year was that three Bills were before the House—the Great Western and Rhymney Railway Bill, the London and North Western Railway Bill, and the Barry Railway Bill. The London and North Western Bill and the Barry Bill were both rejected before the holidays; and the Great Western and Rhymney Bill was also rejected, chiefly on the opposition of Lord Tredegar, because if that Bill had passed he would stand to lose on his Park Mile, which now produced above £13,000 a year. The hon. Member for South Glamorganshire had complained about the slow trains. In 1902 and the early part of 1903 the Great Western Company tried the experiment of running trains without stopping at all the stations; but the result was such an uproar in the Western Valleys that the company had to revert to the old system of stopping at all the stations. A deputation from Newport and the Western Valleys waited lately on the chiefs of the department, and asked, not for express trains, but for additional stopping trains; and on 1st March, the company met their views, and put on two new trains each way. Inquiry was made as to the through passenger traffic from Paddington, and it was found that in twelve days there were only three through passengers by the 6.10 p.m. fast train from Paddington to the Western Valleys. He wished he could say something to ease the mind of the hon. Member for Sutherland as to sleeping accommodation. During January on the Fishguard route, in the one train which carried a sleeping carriage the average was one passenger per day, and on the other line on which sleepers were run the average was two passengers per day. In spite of what the hon. Members had said, he claimed that the Great Western Railway Company had for many years never been unmindful of the comfort of the general public. It seemed to him that the fair course to pursue was to send this Bill and the Barry scheme upstairs when an impartial Committee would decide upon their merits.
MR. GUESTsaid that the speech of the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down was lucid and clear and showed very important interests which were involved in the consideration of the Bill. It was nothing less than a
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mineral Bill, a proposal to connect the port of Cardiff, with the Western Valleys and the other Monmouthshire valleys; to give, in short, an outlet to the port of Cardiff. Its object was to get an outlet at the port of Cardiff for the coal raised in the Western Valleys, and the other question which had been raised that evening had very little to do with the matter. The authorities for the great shipping port of Cardiff regarded the Bill as one which would very materially add to the interests of the port, and the people there would feel deeply aggrieved if hon. Members, in order to avenge a wrong, real or fancied, were to reject it. He had no doubt that the hon. Member for South Glamorgan had ground for complaint and had a real grievance. It must be remembered, however, that the object of a railway company was to connect not only the up train but the down train, and if in one particular instance a train was retarded by the desire of the inhabitants of the western valleys their interest must be considered as well as that of an hon. Gentleman who was coming to London. He thought the hon. Member for Bewdley had made it clear that the Great Western Railway did their best to meet the desires and wishes of those whom they existed to serve. The local authorities he believed supported the measure, and he did not think the attention of the House ought to be distracted from the main issue by the side issue which had been introduced. He had put down a notice in opposition to the Barry Bill with a view to securing that this Bill and the Barry Bill should both go before the Select Committee, and he hoped that that object would be attained. If a joint line was established he believed that the interest of the community would be best served, and he hoped the House would assent to that arrangement.
MR. JENKINS: supported the Bill. During this session and last session the President of the Board of Trade had been appealed to to do something to get rid of the overtime in consequence of which many accidents were caused on railways. About 5,750,000 tons of coal were brought from the western valleys down to Newport and there was great delay at that point.

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There was indeed greater delay at the Newport siding than on any other part of the Great Western Company's system. He was sure that his hon. friend, after considering the facts that railwaymen had to work so many hours and that this Bill would do something to do away with excessive overtime, would withdraw his opposition. As a Member of the Cardiff Corporation he wanted to see the trade of that city revived and more work given to a larger number of men. He appealed to hon. Members who had blocked the Bill to allow it to pass.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY TO THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. Kearley,: hoped that the Bill would be allowed to go to a Select Committee. He did not intend to criticise either the merits or the demerits of the measure, but he drew attention to the lack of connection between local trains and main line trains in South Wales referred to by the hon. Member for South Glamorgan. In these and other cases of which complaint had been made to the Board of Trade the scheduled time for the local trains was so fixed that they missed the connection with the main line express trains by a few minutes. The railway companies would do well to see whether they could not reduce to the lowest possible margin the grievance thus arising. As regards the question of third-class sleeping accommodation he, last year, had given certain pledges as to the action of the Board of Trade on the ground that it was thought, judging by the growing feeling in the House, that something should be done by the companies. This grievance had been placed before the representative of the railway companies in the House and an opportunity had been taken to see the general managers of the two lines whose Bills were then before the house. The general managers of the various railway companies had communicated their decision to the Board of Trade on the 3rd October, wherein it was said that, after fully considering the suggestion mentioned by the hon. Member, the heavy pecuniary loss that would be incurred induced the companies to come to the conclusion that they would not be justified in providing the suggested accommodation. Had the third-class
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passengers a fair claim to consideration in the matter? In the opinion of the Board of Trade their claim was undeniable. The railway returns for 1905 showed that the passenger receipts were £36,000,000, of which the third-class contributed 80 per cent. or £29,500,000. Railway companies and managers objected to third-class sleepers, because they said that they would not be profitable, but he thought they ought to take into account how profitable the third-class traffic was to them. The opinion of the Board of Trade was that the railway companies in their own interests ought to take a larger and broader view. They had submitted no data to the Board of Trade which showed that the traffic would be unremunerative. Provided that the demand existed there could be no question whatever that third-class sleepers would be profitable investments for the railway companies. He had estimates and plans which showed that. One first-class sleeping car accommodated ten passengers. So that, taking a journey from London to Glasgow, in one sleeping car there would be ten passengers each paying 58s. for his fare. The earning capacity of that sleeping car was altogether about £33. Then let them take a third class sleeping car of the same size. Nobody would doubt that that coach would comfortably accommodate, with, of course, overhead sleeping arrangements, twenty passengers. No third-class passenger would object to pay 5s. for that accommodation for the journey. There would, therefore, be twenty passengers in one sleeping car at 5s. each and the fare to Glasgow would be 33s. So that the earnings of the third-class sleeping car would amount to £38 as against £33 earned by the first-class sleeping car. The Board of Trade had not the opportunity of helping the hon. Gentleman that night in his desire to obtain that accommodation save by expressing their sympathy. The instruction which his hon. friend wished to move was out of order. If it had been in order the Board of Trade would have accepted it. He now suggested to his hon. friend that he would benefit the cause which he had at heart if he withdrew his Motion and allowed the Bill to have its Second Reading. He hoped he would take cognisance of the fact that the Board

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of Trade would press to have the experiment tried in order to see if it was as they thought it was, a paying proposition. That was not an unfair proposal. Although they were sometimes charged with making expensive changes on railways they had not done so, and he would not advocate the third-class sleeping car experiment if he was not absolutely convinced that it would open to the company not a losing but a profitable trade. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman representing the North Western Railway would believe him when he said that he had only spoken in the way he had because he thought the railway company in this matter were standing in their own light.
MR. WEIR: aid that on the last occasion when this question was before the House, they had a promise from the right hon. Member for Epping that he would have this matter considered by the railway companies and would give them the result of those considerations. But he had not done so. He would therefore like to know what the railway companies intended to do. He was glad his hon. friend the Member for Sutherlandshire had the sympathy of the Board of Trade with regard to third-class sleeping accommodation. It appeared to him that the railway companies of this country would do nothing whatever for the third-class passengers in this direction until they were compelled. Therefore he hoped the Board of Trade would continue to press this matter until the railway companies did what was required. The hon. Gentleman the Secreary to the Board of Trade had to-day given the House some interesting information. He had pointed out that a third-class sleeping car would earn £38 odd as against £32 odd earned by the first-class sleeping car. He was sometimes inclined to ask himself when he travelled on the tube railways why it was that railway companies did not sweep away first-class carriages altogether. Third-class carriages were generally full, whilst the first class were usually empty or almost so. This was a very real grievance. His hon. friend the Member for Sutherlandshire had to travel to and from his constituency several times a year, and
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he was not at all surprised that the hon. Member was anxious to have third-class sleeping carriages, not only for himself, but for the thousands of other passengers and specially commercial travellers, who frequently travelled long journeys at night sitting in cramped and uncomfortable positions in third-class carriages unable to take any rest and who had to attend to their business the next morning. It was all very well for passengers who could command the first-class fare. It was not uncommon to find first-class carriages occupied by only one or two passengers while many first-class were absolutely empty. The hon. Member for Worcester had stated that he was unable to answer his hon. friend with regard to the question of sleeping cars because on his line the question was so small a question. If it was so very small he was surprised that the hon. Member was not able to answer so moderate a request. He would again urge this question upon the railway companies and the right hon. Gentleman, who promised on the last occasion to do his best to give them some information. Now was the opportunity and that was the time for him to tell them all about it. They had had a statement from the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Board of Trade and they now wanted one one from the directors of the company. He was glad to hear from the hon. Member the Secretary to the Board of Trade that this matter would not be allowed to rest where it was.
Question "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question," put, and agreed to.
Main Question put, and agreed to.
Bill read a second time, and committed.

LONDON AND NORTH WESTERN RAILWAY BILL (By ORDER).
Order for Second Reading read.
MR. TREVELYANsaid he had been long enough in the House, and was sufficiently cognisant of the difficulties in the way of getting private Bills through Parliament, not to move willingly against the Second

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Reading of a great railway Bill, but there were occasions when considerations of public policy were more important than even a very important private Bill. The facts which had led him to intervene were not disputed. The directors of this railway company sanctioned last year a payment of £200 to the London Municipal Society. The society had during the last six months been promoting the candidature of Moderate candidates for the London County Council, and had enabled large sums of money to be spent in assisting such candidates over and above the legitimate expenses permitted by Act of Parliament. In fact, the society was as partisan an organisation as could well be imagined. The fame of it was ringing throughout London, and was apparently unknown only to the directors of the London and North-Western Railway Company. According to their present story, he understood that the directors were ignorant of the partisan character of the association. They regarded it apparently as a society for expressing a platonic love of economy. It was wonderful how they managed to deceive themselves, because the society was not a new body. It had at two previous elections been the main society assisting Moderate candidates. Its treasurer was Mr. Percy Harris, the Chairman of the Moderate Council; its President, the Duke of Norfolk. Not only so, but the Duke of Norfolk, on 15th December last, issued, in the name of the society, the manifesto which was regarded by the whole Conservative Press, and the Moderate candidates, to be the manifesto of the Moderate Party. Moreover, on its Committee sat Mr. Lawrence, Deputy-Chairman of the London and North-Western Railway, and Mr. Guinness, a director of the railway, was a Moderate candidate at Haggerston, and profited by the cartoons of the society to whose funds his railway had contributed. Of all this the directors apparently remained in ignorance until he put down the Motion which stood in his name. But he was not quite so certain of that, and he would like to call the attention of the House to a speech made by Lord Stalbridge on 15th February, at a general meeting of the London and North Western Railway Company. In that speech Lord
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Stalbridge spent some considerable time in discoursing on the evils of municipal and national trading. He went on to say that—
"He wished them not to relax their efforts as ratepayers, but to do the utmost they could to check the reckless expenditure which had been going on. It was all the more necessary that shareholders should use every exertion in their power to ensure candidates being returned to the various councils pledged to economy; and as regarded London in particular, where the rates had gone up by leaps and bounds, they had not only the opportunity to look to theirs, but to the general interests of the ratepayers."
There was, in fact, a partisan spirit throughout the whole speech, and it was hardly surprising that a large number of people thought that the subscription made by Lord Stalbridge was made in the same spirit as his speech. To his mind this was not a question primarily for the shareholders of the Company. Their treatment, he thought the House would agree, was assuredly inconsiderate, and was resented by many of them. This thing was not done openly by the directors. It was put down, as they now understood, among "sundry payments not classed." There was a secret-service fund to which apparently the ordinary shareholder had not access unless by accident he happened to hear of any expenditure under it. Luckily some shareholder heard that this subscription had been made, and he wrote and found out that it had been made from the secretary. He then wrote to the Economist newspaper, and consequently the whole thing came out; otherwise, it might never have been known. For his part he objected to leaving the shareholders to fight a question of this sort against a great and wealthy corporation. It was a question of public policy. It could not be confined to municipal politics alone. What the directors had done they could do perfectly well by the same argument in every municipality in the country, and both in municipal politics and every kind of national politics as well. The rates were not the only pecuniary interest of the companies; there were taxes as well as rates. He would take what seemed to be an exactly analogous case. The present Foreign Secretary was, until three months before the general election, chairman of the

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North Eastern Railway. He and several of his co-directors believed that the maintenance of free trade was necessary to the prosperity of the northern district, and therefore to the railway of which they were directors. On the principle applied in this instance, it would have been perfectly easy for the present Foreign Secretary to have subscribed out of the funds of the railway company to the Free Trade Union, a political organisation which supported Liberal candidates with the same unfailing regularity as the London Municipal Society supported the Moderates. He thought the House saw that if they admitted this principle, great companies might, whether secretly or openly, provide funds for Party organisations; there was no limit to it. He thought the House would probably feel with himself that money which was lavished on politics with the sole aim of gaining more money, was a dangerous element in politics. This country had not yet suffered from the employment of corporate funds in politics. In America, railway and other corporations operated in the political market just as they did in the commercial markets. They subscribed largely to Party funds, they paid candidates, they bought votes, they got obedient assemblies to pass laws, and obedient Judges to administer those laws. Let the House not be so foolish in their pride at their present political purity as to suppose that these were not dangers in the future for themselves unless they took precautions against them. He was opposing this Bill because he wished the House to protest against the beginnings of that American system. Their chief business that night was to make absolutely impossible a repetition of such action as that to which he had referred. The course he proposed to take was that of moving the Resolution which stood in his name—"That no Bill can be satisfactory to this House which confers increased powers on a railway company created by Act of Parliament, which has subscribed out of its corporate funds to a Party organisation." He did not desire to destroy the Bill if it could be helped, but he would have no scruple in asking the House to do so if it were necessary. He would not withdraw unless
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in the first place the £200 was refunded to the shareholders, which he believed the directors were ready to do. He thought that the House ought to ask for security against the recurrence of such a thing, and the security should be of an absolute kind. A promise of the directors would not be enough, because they could not control their successors; but if the directors did not wish to repeat this action, he did not see why they should not accept a clause in Committee by which they would engage to pay no public money out of corporate funds in future to any candidate or any society which in any way promoted any candidature in any national or municipal election. What they wanted was not an apology from the company. Anyone who was found out could always apologise. He desired no violent or vindictive action, but there must be absolute security against the repetition of such an experiment.
MR. STUART SAMUEL:, in seconding the Motion, thought it was the duty of all reasonable people, and among reasonable people he included hon. Gentlemen opposite, to protest against this innovation in English political life. If it were true that railway companies desired to support candidates in favour of economy, let him point out that the Liberal Party was pledged to economy. He was not aware, however, that the London and North-Western Railway Company had gone out of its way to subscribe to the funds of the Liberal Party. It was quite clear that, the subscription was intended to go into the funds of one Party—not to a non-political body, and it was to that that he took exception. Was it fair that railway companies should come to the House and ask the majority to put them in a position to gain profits by giving them a monopoly when those profits were used against the policy which the majority represented? For a public company to be allowed to apply the funds of its shareholders for the benefit of any political Party was to lower the purity of public life.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
Amendment proposed—
"To leave out from the word 'That,' to the end of the Question, and add the words 'no Bill can be satisfactory to this House which confers increased powers on a railway company created by Act of Parliament which has subscribed out of its corporate funds to a Party organisation.' "—(Mr. Trevelyan.)
Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
COLONEL LOCKWOODsaid it was a very difficult thing, in a House of Commons constituted as at present, to stand up and take the part of any railway company. As an hon. Member stated the other day, even a railway company was worthy of having justice done to it. He appealed to the House to consider the Bill honourably and fairly on its merits. When the hon. Member for Derby brought forward his Motion the other day he said that he was quite sure the House would accept his statement, and hon. Members cheered that statement. He now asked the House to extend to him the same generosity and accept the statement which he was about to make as one made in the full belief that it was true. He would place briefly before the House the facts connected with this vote of £200. He would like first of all to remind the House that the present Bill involved the expenditure of £2,750,000, a great deal of which would be spent in wages. [Ministerial cries of "Oh."] As to the vote of £200, in answer to a question from the Board of Trade a letter was sent to the Board stating that in the spring of last year the London and North-Western Railway Company were approached by the London Municipal Society, who stated their object to be to secure the return of men, both on the borough councils and the London County Council, who would recognise the importance of the exercise of the strictest economy. The circular also stated that the movement was absolutely non-political, and the support of the company was asked on the ground that in common with other railway companies they had termini in London and were deeply interested in the matter. The increase in the rates of railway companies had been enormous. In the case of the
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London and North-Western Railway Company alone the rates had increased in the last decade from £368,000 to over £600,000. Therefore, they considered they were fully justified in contributing out of their corporate funds to support a movement having the object stated, and being, as they were assured, of a non-political character. They accordingly subscribed the £200, which was paid in the month of July. The whole matter was considered by the board last Friday, which was the first opportunity they had had of considering the subject since it was raised in the House, and the board came to the conclusion that, although on the information before them in July last they were fully justified in the course they then took, yet subsequent events had proved that the relations existing between the society and Party politics could not be denied. The board had always rigidly refrained from subscribing a single shilling to any political object, and they had decided to relieve the corporate funds of that subscription, and to pay it out of the pockets of the directors themselves. The presence upon the board of men of political creeds different from that of the Opposition ought to have shown that when the board subscribed the money it was not intended for any political object. He repudiated, in the strongest possible way, the unworthy insinuation made by the hon. Member for the Elland Division that the directors purposely and designedly hid the charge from the public.
MR. TREVELYAN: What I said was that there was no way in which the public could find it out.
COLONEL LOCKWOODsaid the hon. Member went much further than that.
MR. TREVELYANsaid that if the right hon. Gentleman could show how any ordinary shareholder could have found out in the ordinary way that the money had been subscribed to the society he would be quite satisfied.
COLONEL LOCKWOODsaid that was a different matter altogether. The point he took exception to was that the hon. Member insinuated that the directors

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designedly hid the fact of this subscription from their shareholders. He warmly repudiated that. It was not placed under a separate heading because there was no separate heading for such items—all subscriptions to literary institutes or other similar institutions being put under "sundry expenses not classed." It was the invariable practice of the board to put under that heading anything which did not come under the special headings set forth in the statutory form of accounts. There was no intention, and never had been any, of concealing the fact that this subscription had been made. At the time it was made the board did not think they were subscribing to any political object at all. In the past his board had never subscribed a shilling to any political Party funds, and after the explanation he had given, which to him had not been a pleasant task, the House might take it that there was not the smallest likelihood of such a subscription being continued. In the past the Board had never subscribed a shilling to any political fund
MR. CLEMENT EDWARDS: I challenge that statement. The directors subscribed to the Free Labour Association for the purpose of securing contracting out of the Employers' Liability Bill in 1893.
COLONEL LOCKWOODsaid advisedly that his company had never subscribed to any political object in the past, and they would not do so in the future. After the explanation he had given he hoped the House would allow the Bill to pass.
MR. CLEMENT EDWARDS: characterised the statement of the right hon. Gentleman as perfectly amazing. In 1893 the Board subscribed £25 to a body of men calling themselves at that time the Free Labour Association. [Cries of "That is not political."] They were precisely the same body of individuals who had carried on their operations on previous occasions under the variety of titles which, under the chairmanship of the present Duke of Devonshire, who was then Lord Hartington, had been dealt with by
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the Royal Commission that inquired into the Malversation of City Funds. That body carried on operations of a purely political character under no less than forty-eight aliases. The Royal Commission in 1887 reported that the system of subsidising so-called political associations, such as the Metropolitan Ratepayers' Protection Association, was calculated to mislead Parliament by the appearance of active organisation of public opinion which might have no existence. The Metropolitan Ratepayers' Protection Association was one of the aliases under which these individuals carried on their operations. As a matter of fact they carried on their operations in London in connection with municipal politics under no less than thirty-two different names, amongst them being the Free Labour Electoral Association, the Free Labour Association, the National Free Labour Association, the British Labour Protection League, the United Building and Allied Trades Council, the Metropolitan Ratepayers' Association, the National Conference of Working Class Representatives, the United London Working Men's Association, the Patriotic League, the Representatives of Trade, Labour, and Friendly Societies in the East End and West Ham Districts, the East London Water Consumers' League, the British and Foreign Arbitration Association, and the Society for Promoting Social Concord. As the Free Labour Association they issued a manifesto on the eve of the County Council election in 1895 in denunciation of the Progressive policy of the Council. At that time also they sent to every Moderate member of the County Council, and to every Moderate candidate a letter in the following terms—
"Gentlemen,—We send herewith copy of a manifesto which has been very extensively posted throughout London. The execution of this has involved the Association in considerable expense and we are making an earnest appeal for funds to carry on the work. If you can see your way to favour us with a donation or a regular subscription it will both encourage us and help forward the movement. Yours faithfully,
W. COLLISON."
In 1893 the London and North Western Railway Company subscribed £25 to this organisation, and yet it was suggested that the organisation was not of a political character. In 1893 the Association

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presented a petition to the House against the picketing clauses in the Conspiracy Act of 1875. A great number of the signatures to that petition were procured from school children in East and South-East London, who were given packets of sweets. He spoke of what was within his own knowledge. It was this organisation which organised a demonstration in Trafalgar Square, purporting to represent working men, to pass a resolution in favour of a contracting-out clause being inserted in the Employers' Liability Bill. One of their heaviest subscribers was the hon. Gentleman who was at that time the Chief Whip of the Conservative Party. The London and North Western Railway Company, which subscribed to a body of such a character, was not a company that ought to be looked upon with favour by the House. For that reason he hoped the House would reject the Bill.
MR. F. E. SMITHsaid the hon. Gentleman who introduced the subject had raised a debate of no little interest. It was one which from many points of view passed rather beyond the region of ordinary Party controversy. He could not help thinking it certain that the House as a body would consider, after the statement made by his right hon. friend on behalf of the London and North Western Railway Company, so far as the present Resolution was concerned, there could be very little doubt as to the decision to which they should come. The right hon. Gentleman had gone a great deal further than he himself would have desired that he should go. Hon. Members, on whatever side they might sit, would see that there were profoundly important social and political questions underlying the system of preclusion which the hon. Member wished to impose on railway companies. The hon. Member's argument would involve similar preclusion in regard to all limited companies and also upon trade unions.
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What was the nature of the position on which the hon. Member insisted? Put quite baldly, it apparently amounted to this—that if an election were forthcoming the result of which would determine what political Party was to have the control of the rates, any individuals or corporations who might have to come to Parliament for statutory powers should not be allowed to make their political influence felt upon the persons who imposed and spent the rates but did not pay them. It was not necessary in the least to consider whether the view they might take, or the influence they might exercise, was right or wrong. He was willing for the purpose of his argument to say that the railway directors were entirely wrong and that the Party of municipal reform would in no way reduce the rates. If this principle were adopted that company and similar corporations would be precluded in future from exercising any kind of political influence; it could be easily got rid of. What was the position of the London and North Western Railway Company as a ratepayer? In a very large number of the parishes through which their system ran the company paid from eight-tenths to nine-tenths of the total rates levied; and yet they were in future to have no voice at all in the policy which was to regulate the amount of those rates, or the purposes for which those rates were to be devoted, [Opposition cries of "Hear, hear."] He gathered that the general view on the Ministerial side of the House was that the company should not have any such voice. What had been the change in the last ten years in the position of this railway company which was to have no voice whatever on municipal policy? In 1897 the company paid in rates and taxes £376,000; in 1906the amount had gone up to £603,000, and there was little doubt by 1916 they should be paying in rates and taxes considerably over £1,000,000. It was conceivable that they should not have any votes, but were

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they to be put in a position in which they could not exercise any influence at all? In the Blue-book issued in connection with the Poor Law inquiry at Poplar there was a very interesting statement of policy. That inquiry was made by the Government officer appointed by the Liberal Government. In explanation of the policy pursued in Poplar which affected closely the railway company which paid far the larger proportion of the rates, a colleague of the hon. Member for Woolwich declared that the election should be fought on the question of making relief from the rates a substitute for old-age pensions. The proposition being that the rates should be illegally diverted for such a purpose, was a corporation paying a very large portion of the rates to be precluded from supporting by subscription a committee or association formed to resist such a policy? When, further, the guardians deliberately pursued a policy of increasing expenditure in order to show that Poplar needed additional assistance, not for public necessities, but in order to serve an indirect political purpose, was the House going to declare by Resolution that those who paid the rates should not assist in promoting inquiry into such a policy? If the House made itself responsible for such a principle it must be applied, not only to political associations, but to anybody using influence in any election on a political issue, such as trade unions. There were points of analogy as well as points of distinction in trade unions as compared with companies, and if the House resolved not to permit a company to make such subscriptions could it, with consistency, allow the political and pecuniary activity of trade unions? If it was made a distinction that a statutory corporation had peculiar privileges, he was also entitled to say that under the present Government trade unions had also become statutory corporations enjoying very special privileges. Was it an objection to railway companies as
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such or to any wealthy corporation or body of individuals assisting Party funds for election purposes? Did not many wealthy Liberals make very large subscriptions to political funds in the interest of free trade? Before the House finally adopted the principle involved in the Amendment he hoped they would realise the position in which they would be placed, not only with reference to taxes but also with reference to rates. If hon. Gentlemen opposite were going to commit themselves to the position that no limited company—for the ground of monopoly on which the case was to be put at the outset had been abandoned—should be entitled to contribute a farthing to the purposes of any political association they would have taken a step which was certainly not Liberalism, because taxation and political influence ought to go together.
MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: I do not think the London and North-Western Railway Company will thank the hon. and learned Member for the speech he has just delivered. Presumably he is a supporter of the Bill, but I have never heard from a supporter of a Bill a speech less calculated to advance the interests of a measure than the deplorable and injudicious intervention of the hon. and learned Member. The Bill is one for which, on its merits, there is a good deal to be said, though I do not want to prejudge the questions which have to be fought out before the Committee. But the question of principle raised by my hon. friend the Member for the Elland Division is one which ought to be fought out in the House of Commons. The London and North-Western Company have subscribed a sum of money—very unfortunately, I think, departing from precedent—out of their funds to a keenly-contested, bitter political contest. How do the directors of the company meet that position? They meet it in, I think, the most admirable

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spirit. The right hon. Member for Epping, with that tact which he always displays on these occasions and which makes his interventions always so acceptable to the House, got up and practically admitted that the action of the railway company was due entirely to a misapprehension by the secretary. I know the right hon. Gentleman well, and I am quite certain that when he makes a statement of that kind it is one that ought to be accepted from him, and I believe the majority of the House are prepared to accept it. The directors went further than that, and said they would pay the money back into the funds. They have practically said that, if they had known this was a political controversy, they would not have intervened. They practically own that they ought not to have used shareholders' money for the purpose of subscribing to a political controversy, and through the right hon. Gentleman they have said they do not intend to do it in future. In my judgment that is a complete and satisfactory answer. Unfortunately there came along the hon. and learned Member, who challenges the whole position. The hon. Member is not a railway director yet, and I do not think there will be any competition for his services after his speech to-night.
MR. F. E. SMITHasked if it was necessary for the right hon. Gentleman to interfere with his chances of business preferment.
MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: It is my business to see that the railway companies at any rate do not unfairly handicap themselves when they have got legitimate business to put through as I consider they have. What is much more serious than the intervention of the hon. Member is the enthusiastic sanction he evoked from a champion of railway companies, who is a director, himself—the hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London.
SIR F. BANBURY: I beg pardon, I have not said a word.
MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: The hon. Baronet has said a good many words, and much more sensibly than he generally does. He has been intervening constantly, and challenges the position of the right hon. Member for Epping by supporting the view taken by the hon. Member for Liverpool. Up to this moment the question has been merely whether the explanation of the right hon. Gentleman could be accepted. I say frankly that I accept the explanation; but the hon. and learned Member has raised another issue and has challenged the House of Commons to declare its opinion upon it; and if that challenge were endorsed by the railway directors in the House, I should have no hesitation with regard to my vote. That is why, before the debate closes, I invite some one who can speak authoritatively on behalf of the railway companies to say whether it is their view that they have a right to use funds raised under statutory powers conferred by the House of Commons for a particular purpose for another purpose—the purpose of political propaganda, either municipal or national. That is a question we have a right to ask before the debate closes. I am sorry for the right hon. Gentleman. He has done his best, but we must really keep him and his co-railway directors in order on an occasion of this sort. I heard the hon. Member say, "Why should they not subscribe; are they not in the same position as a trade union?" No; they are not. If a trade union carried a Bill through this House to give that union a monopoly of the business of a whole district, it would be in the same position as a railway company. In his reference to limited companies also, the hon. Member raised an issue which is absolutely irrelevant. He is not satisfied with the issue that had been raised; but wants to widen it. He wants a declaration of the House of Commons that every limited liability

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company, whatever its object, is entitled to use money obtained from the public for one purpose, and practically appropriate it to other purposes. The hon. and learned Member is not satisfied with the Second Reading of the Bill; he wants it accompanied by a declaration that there should be permitted in this country the sort of thing that has polluted public life in other parts of the world, where huge trusts and syndicates use for political purposes money subscribed for commercial purposes. Is that what the directors want?
COLONEL LOCKWOOD: No.
MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: I am glad to hear that declaration from the right hon. Gentleman, and I am sure it would smooth the passage of the Bill if some one on behalf of the railway companies would get up and make a declaration of that kind. As to the introduction of a clause prohibiting these subscriptions by railway companies, I have consulted the authorities of the House, and am informed that such a course would not be possible. It would amount to an alteration of the general law of the country. That may be necessary. If railway companies go on using for political purposes the monopoly conferred by Parliament, it will be time for Government to interfere. But that is a question for a general Bill. After the declaration of the right hon. Gentleman I shall vote for the Bill; but it would help the passing of the Bill if some one on behalf of the railway companies would say that it was not intended to regard the Second Reading as an affirmation of the legitimacy of the proceeding of which complaint has been made.
MR. WALTER LONG: I rise to say a word or two with reference to the speech we have just heard from the right hon. Gentleman. He has asked some director to get up and say what is the policy of the railway companies in regard to the issue which he conceives to have been raised by my hon. and learned friend. The right hon. Gentleman has on behalf of the Government told the House how he proposes to vote on this Bill. He accepts the declaration of my right hon. friend on behalf of the company whose policy is challenged, and he asks that the passage of the Bill shall be secured by some declaration on behalf of the railway company. The right hon. Gentleman must know that at this moment that is an impossible request. He must know that no director can speak for his company without consulting his board. I submit, therefore, that the view of the President of the Board of Trade has been expressed in an extremely frank manner, and that he has put the issue before us on its proper footing. The President of the Board of Trade has frankly accepted the explanation of my right hon. friend behind me. The whole question of corporations in regard to rates is an extremely difficult one, and I think it will be admitted that it would be unfair to discuss it in connection with this particular Bill. Corporations are called upon to pay rates in regard to which they have no representation and over whose expenditure they have no power of control. The right hon. Gentleman has disposed altogether of the case before the House, having accepted the frank, honest, and outspoken declaration of my right hon. friend; and I am bound to say that it would be a very partial acceptance

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of the advice of the Government if, apart from the merits of the Bill, a wider issue were raised. I hope that the question will be decided on the merits of the Bill, and that the matter will not be complicated by a side issue as to the rates paid by corporations. After the acceptance of my right hon. friend's explanation, I cannot help thinking that the House will not reject the Bill, which would not only mean delay to the railway company, but affect all those who depend on that company.
SIR J. BRUNNERsaid he was very sorry that the right hon. Member for South Dublin had not spoken up to the level of his reputation. He was quite satisfied that in his own mind the right hon. Gentleman disapproved quite as much as the right hon. and gallant Gentleman behind him of the practice of giving money to political organisations out of corporate funds. If he would only tell the House that he thoroughly disapproved of such action they would accept the statement.
MR. WALTER LONG: I do not understand that the point is under discussion. The President of the Board of Trade has distinctly stated that he accepts the explanation of my right hon. and gallant friend, and the right hon. Gentleman was speaking on behalf of the Government. ["No!"] Well he was speaking as President of the Board of Trade. My right hon. and gallant friend admitted that the directors had made the subscription, but were in ignorance of the nature of the society. That explanation has been accepted, and, if so, what becomes of the charge?
SIR J. BRUNNERregretted still more that the right hon. Gentleman had not told them that he thoroughly disapproved of the money of companies being used for political purposes. He was convinced that the right hon. Gentleman did disapprove of corporate money being used in that way.
MR. WALTER LONG: Certainly.
SIR J. BRUNNERbelieved that, after such a declaration, the mischief would never occur again. Railway companies were under no peculiar disabilities. His own company paid large sums in rates. In one township they paid 92 per cent. of the rates; in another 87 per cent.; and in another 95 per cent, but he remembered very well going into one parish meeting, and being told by the chairman to go out. He sympathised with his right hon. and gallant friend who had made a frank declaration to the House, and, as he thought that the larger question which had been raised was one which they had better sleep over coolly, he would move the adjournment of the debate.
MR. J. W. WILSONseconded the Motion, which seemed to be in the best interests of the traditions of the House and the interests of the Bill. He felt that the House had a right to consider the larger issue which had been raised, and he believed that the overwhelming majority of Members would be found to be against what had taken place. But after the frank admission of the directors, he thought it would be rash to throw out the Bill.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the debate be now adjourned."—(Sir John Brunner.)
MR. LLOYD-GEORGEsaid he was inclined to support the Motion for the adjournment of the debate. They would all feel that in view of the wider issue which had been mixed up with the narrower one it was desirable that there should be an adjournment, more especially as it would enable some other railway directors to repudiate the theory which had been put forward in regard to the practice of subscribing to Party funds. Even if this Motion were got out of the way, the Bill could not be disposed of then, because there were other Motions relating to it. He suggested for the consideration of the promoters whether it would not be better in the interest of the Bill that they should consent to the adjournment.
COLONEL LOCKWOODconcurred in the proposal for the adjournment.
MR. PERKSagreed that the matter might require some further consideration. He was glad that the House had had an opportunity of looking into this question. He had for the last twenty-five years been closely associated with railway companies in various capacities, and he had been an unfortunate shareholder in some of them. He could not help feeling that it would be a wholesome check upon some railway companies if the House looked carefully and strictly—
MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! The only matter which can now be discussed is the adjournment of the debate.
MR. PERKSsaid he would suggest that railway companies should be given an opportunity of collectively ascertaining their views upon these public
776
questions, and he thought his right hon. friend opposite would do well to avail himself of the adjournment to obtain the collective opinion of the directors of the various companies as to the advisability or otherwise of such an appropriation of funds. He had no hesitation in saying that he would have nothing to do with any railway company which, directly or indirectly, voted money for any political or religious organisation.
Question, "That the debate be now adjourned," put, and agreed to.
Debate to be resumed To-morrow.

CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 1) BILL.
Considered in Committee.
(In the Committee.)
[Mr. Emmott (Oldham), in the Chair.]
Clause 1:—
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."
SIR F. BANBURYrose to move the omission of Clause I. on the ground that it appropriated £439,000, which ought to go to the reduction of Debt instead of going to the reduction of the Army Estimates.
THE CHAIRMAN: The hon. Baronet cannot discuss that point, because it is a matter which has already been decided by the House.
MR. WILLIAM RUTHERFORDasked what was

777
the object in putting the Question if it could not be discussed?
THE CHAIRMAN: I put the Question "That Clause 1 stand part of the Bill," in the ordinary way, because there were no Amendments.
MR. WILLIAM RUTHERFORD: Yes, after having decided that it could not be discussed.
Question put.
The Committee divided:—Ayes, 250, Noes 51. (Division List No. 45.)

AYES.

Abraham, William (Cork, N. E.)

Davies, Ellis William (Eifion)

Kennedy, Vincent Paul

Agnew, George William

Davies, Timothy (Fulham)

Kilbride, Denis

Ainsworth, John Stirling

Davies, W. Howell (Bristol. S.)

Kincaid-Smith, Captain

Alden, Percy

Dewar, Arthur (Edinburgh, S.)

King, Alfred John (Knutsford)

Allen,A. Acland (Christchurch)

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

Kitson, Rt. Hon. Sir James

Ambrose, Robert

Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles

Laidlaw, Robert

Armstrong, W. C. Heaton

Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness

Lamb, Ernest H. (Rochester)

Baker, Sir John (Portsmouth)

Edwards, Clement (Denbigh)

Lamont, Norman

Baker, Joseph A.(Finsbury, E.)

Edwards, Frank (Radnor)

Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, W.)

Balfour, Robert (Lanark)

Elibank, Master of

Lea, Hugh Cecil(St. Pancras,E.

Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight)

Essex, R. W.

Leese,Sir Joseph F(Accrington)

Barker, John

Esslemont, George Birnie

Lehman, R. C.

Barnard, E. B.

Everett, R. Lacey

Lever A. Levy (Essex, Harwich

Barnes, G. N.

Fenwick, Charles

Levy, Maurice

Barran, Rowland Hirst

Ferens, T. R.

Lewis, John Herbert

Barry, E. (Cork, S.)

Fiennes, Hon. Eustace

Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David

Barry, Redmond J.(Tyrone,N.)

Findlay, Alexander

Lough, Thomas

Beale, W. P.

Fuller, John Michael F.

Lundon, W.

Bellairs, Carlyon

Fullerton, Hugh

Lynch, H. B.

Benn, Sir J. Williams(Devonp'rt

Gill, A. H.

Macdonald, J.R (Leicester)

Bennett, E. N.

Gladstone,Rt.Hn Horbert John

Macdonald, J.M.(Falkirk B'ghs

Berridge, T. H. D.

Gooch, George Peabody

Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J

Black, Arthur W.

Grant, Corrie

Macpherson, J. T.

Boland, John

Greenwood, G. (Peterborough)

MacVeagh, Jeremiah (Down, S.

Bowerman, C. W.

Gulland, John W.

MacVeigh, Charles(Donegal, E.)

Brace, William

Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton

M'Callum, John M.

Bramsdon, T. A.

Gwynn, Stephen Lucius

M'Hugh, Patrick A.

Brigg, John

Hall, Frederick

M'Laren, H. D. (Stafford, W.)

Brocklehurst, W. B.

Halpin, J.

M'Micking, Major G.

Brooke, Stopford

Hardie,J Keir(MerthyrTydvil)

Maddison, Frederick

Brunner,Rt.Hn.SirJT(Cheshire

Harmsworth,Cecil B.(Worc'r)

Manfield, Harry (Northants)

Bryce, J. Annan

Hart-Davies, T.

Marks,G. Croydon(Launceston)

Burns, Rt. Hon. John

Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)

Mason, A. E. W. (Coventry)

Burnyeat, W. J. D.

Hayden, John Patrick

Meehan, Patrick A.

Byles, William Pollard

Hazel, Dr. A. E.

Menzies, Walter

Carr-Gomm, H. W.

Healy, Timothy Michael

Micklem, Nathaniel

Causton, Rt. Hn RichardKnight

Hedges, A. Paget

Molteno, Percy Alport

Cawley, Sir Frederick

Hemmerde, Edward George

Mooney, J. J.

Cheetham, John Frederick

Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

Morrell, Philip

Cleland, J. W.

Henry, Charles S.

Morton, Alpheus Cleophas

Clough, William

Herbert, Colonel Ivor(Mon.,S.)

Murphy, John

Clynes, J. R.

Higham, John Sharp

Murray, James

Coats, Sir T. Glen (Renfrew, W.)

Hobart, Sir Robert

Nicholson, Charles N.(Doncast'r

Collins, Stephen (Lambeth)

Hobhouse, Charles E. H.

Norman, Sir Henry

Collins, SirWm.J.(S.Pancras, W.

Hodge, John

Norton, Capt. Cecil William

Cooper, G. J.

Hogan, Michael

Nussey, Thomas Willans

Corbett, CH(Sussex, E Grinst'd

Hooper, A. G.

Nuttall, Harry

Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

Hope, W. Bateman(Somerset, N.

O'Brien Kendal(Tipperary Mid

Cory, Clifford John

Horridge, Thomas Gardner

O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

Cowan, W. H.

Hudson, Walter

O'Dowd, John

Cox, Harold

Hyde, Clarendon

O'Kelly, Conor (Mayo, N.)

Craig Herbert J. (Tynemouth)

Jenkins, J.

O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N.

Crean, Eugene

Johnson, John (Gateshead)

O'Malley, William

Cremer, William Randal

Johnson, W. (Nuneaton)

O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

Crooks, William

Jones, William(Carnarvonshire

O'Shee, James John

Crosfield, A. H.

Jowett, F. W.

Parker, James (Halifax)

Dalmeny, Lord

Kekewich, Sir George

Paul, Herbert

Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)

Vivian, Henry

Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)

Scott,A.H.(Ashton under Lyne

Wadsworth, J.

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

Sears, J. E.

Walters, John Tudor

Pickersgill, Edward Hare

Seaverns, J. H.

Ward, W. Dudley(Southampton

Pirie, Duncan V.

Shackleton, David James

Wardle, George J.

Power, Patrick Joseph

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

Waring, Walter

Priestley, W.E.B.(Bradford,E.)

Shipman, Dr. John G.

Waterlow, D. S.

Radford, G. H.

Silcock, Thomas Ball

Wedgwood, Josiah C.

Rainy, A. Rolland

Simon, John Allsebrook

Weir, James Galloway

Raphael, Herbert H.

Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie

Whitbread, Howard

Rea, Russell (Gloucester)

Smyth, Thomas F. (Letrim, S.)

White, Luke (York, E.R.)

Rea, Walter Russell (Scarboro'

Stanley, Hn. A. Lyulph(Chesh.)

White, Patrick (Meath, North)

Redmond, John E. (Waterford

Steadman, W. C.

Whitehead, Rowland

Redmond, William (Clare)

Stewart, Halley (Greenock)

Whitley, John Henry (Halifax

Rees, J. D.

Stewart-Smith, D. (Kendal)

Wilkie, Alexander

Rendall, Athelstan

Strachey, Sir Edward

Williams, J. (Glamorgan)

Richards,T. F. (Wolverh'mpt'n

Straus, B. S. (Mile End)

Williams, Llewelyn (Carmarth'n

Richardson, A.

Strauss, E. A. (Abingdon)

Williamson, A.

Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

Stuart, James (Sunderland)

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

Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)

Summerbell, T.

Wilson, J. W. (Worcestersh.N.)

Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.)

Taylor, John W. (Durham)

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

Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside)

Taylor, Theodore C.(Radcliffe)

Winfrey, R.

Robinson, S.

Tennant, Sir Edward (Salisbury

Wodehouse, Lord

Roche, John (Galway, East)

Thomas, Sir A.(Glamorgan, E.)

Wood, T. M'Kinnon

Roe, Sir Thomas

Thomasson, Franklin

TELLERS FOR THE AYES— Mr.

Rogers, F. E. Newman

Thorne, William

Whiteley and Mr. J. A.

Rowlands, J.

Toulmin, George

Pease.

Runciman, Walter

Trevelyan, Charles Philips

NOES.

Acland-Hood, Rt.Hn. SirAlex.F.

Fletcher, J. S.

Roberts,S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)

Arkwright, John Stanhope

Forster, Henry William

Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool)

Ashley, W. W.

Gardner, Ernest (Berks., East)

Smith,F.E.(Liverpool, Walton)

Aubrey-Fletcher,Rt.Hon SirH.

Haddock, George R.

Starkey, John R.

Balcarres, Lord

Hamilton, Marquess of

Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

Beach, Hn. Michael HughHicks

Helmsley, Viscount

Thomson, W. Mitchell-(Lanark)

Bignold, Sir Arthur

Hervey, F.W.F.(BuryS.Edm'ds

Thornton, Percy M.

Bridgeman, W. Clive

Hunt, Rowland

Turnour, Viscount

Carlile, E. Hildred

Lane-Fox, G. R.

Valentia, Viscount

Cave, George

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

Vincent, Col. Sir C. E. Howard

Cecil, Lord John P. Joicey-

Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred

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

Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.)

Mason, James F. (Windsor)

Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E.R.)

Coates, E. Feetham (Lewisham)

Meysey-Thompson, E. C.

Younger, George

Corbett, T. L. (Down. North)

Morpeth, Viscount

Courthope, G. Loyd

Nicholson, Wm. G.(Petersfield)

TELERS FOR THE NOES—Sir

Dalrymple, Viscount

Nield, Herbert

Frederick Banbury and Mr.

Faber, George Denison (York)

Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

Harmood-Banner.

Fell, Arthur

Randles, Sir John Scurrah

Finch, Rt. Hon. George H.

Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel

Bill reported, without Amendment; to be read the third time to-morrow.

ENGINES AND BOILERS (PERSONS IN CHARGE) BILL.
Order for Second Reading read.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the debate be now adjourned."—(Mr. Stanley Wilson.)
And, it being Eleven of the clock, the Motion for the Adjournment of the debate lapsed without Question put.
Debate to be resumed upon Friday.
Adjourned at a quarter after Eleven o'clock.

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
Humber Conservancy Bill [H.L.]. Reported from the Select Committee, with Amendments.
Manchester Ship Canal (Bridgewater Canal) Bill [H.L.].]. Reported, with Amendments.
Borax Consolidated Bill [H.L.];Western-super-Mare Grand Pier Bill [H.L.]; Staveley Coal and Iron Company Bill [[H.L.]; Devonport Corporation Bill [H.L.]; Society of Apothecaries of London Bill [H.L.]; Manchester Corporation Tramways Bill [H.L.]. Reported, with Amendments.
Tyne Improvement Bill [H.L.]. The King's consent signified; and Bill reported, with Amendments.
Middlesbrough Corporation Bill [H.L.]. The King's consent signified; and Bill reported, with Amendments.
Tees Conservancy Bill [H.L.]. The King's consent signified; and Bill reported, with Amendments.
Oxford and District Tramways Bill [H.L.]. Reported from the Select Committee, with Amendments.
Medway Lower Navigation Bill [H.L]. Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
Electric Supply Corporation Bill [H.L]. Presented (pursuant to leave given this day). Read 1a; and referred to the Examiners.

ELECTRIC SUPPLY CORPORATION BILL [H.L.]

  ELECTRIC SUPPLY CORPORATION (No. 2) BILL [H.L.]
  THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (The Earl of Onslow): My Lords, your Lordships will see on the Paper two Bills with the same title. One of them is a Bill affecting England and the other a Bill affecting Scotland only, and in accordance with the Standing Orders the
  598
  Scottish Bill had to be introduced in the first instance, under the Scottish procedure, as an Order in Scotland, but as it affected exactly the same subject as the English Bill it was thought better that the Order should be brought up to London and be made into a Bill. I consequently have to ask your Lordships to agree to the Bills not being further proceeded with, and to Standing Order No. 86 being dispensed with, and leave being given to the promoters of the Bills to present a consolidated Bill in lieu thereof.
  Moved, "That the Bills be not further proceeded with, that Standing Order No. 86 be dispensed with, and that leave be given to the promoters of the said Bills to present a consolidated Bill in lieu thereof."—(The Earl of Onslow.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

BYRNE'S DIVORCE BILL [H.L.]
House in Committee (according to order).
[The Earl of Onslow in the Chair.]
LORD ASHBOURNE: My Lords, I do not rise with any intention of discussing this Bill, but I should like to refer to the last clause as a matter for the consideration of the Lord Chancellor. The clause is found in every Divorce Bill and the effect of it is that the party who is incriminated and has been guilty of misconduct is forbidden to marry a particular person. I believe the clause is inserted in consequence of a Standing Order.
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: No, it is not a Standing Order.
LORD ASHBOURNE: I had been informed that it was. At any rate, the clause is invariably found in every Bill of this kind, and is as invariably struck out in the Committee stage. I think it is worthy of consideration by the Lord Chancellor whether some procedure might not be taken to end that inconvenient practice.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord LOREBURN): My noble friend is quite right in saying that this clause is always put in and always struck out. I do not

599
know the reason for its insertion; it is lost in the mist of antiquity. It is obvious that the clause ought not to be inserted, and I now beg to move its omission.
Amendment moved, "That the last clause be omitted."—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Bill reported, with an Amendment to the House.
Electric Supply Corporation Bill [H.L.]. Ordered that all petitions presented with respect to the Electric Supply Corporation Bill [H.L.], and the Electric Supply Corporation (No. 2) Bill [H.L.], be deemed to have been presented in respect of the said Bill.
Galwey's Divorce Bill [H.L.]. Message from the Commons for copy of the Minutes of Evidence taken before this House, together with the proceedings and the documents deposited in the case: Ordered to be communicated, with a request that they may be returned.
United Methodist Church Bill [H.L.];City of London (Union of Parishes) Bill [H.L.]. Reports from His Majesty's Attorney-General received, and ordered to lie on the Table.

RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.

  TREATY SERIES.
  No. 8. (1907). Agreement between the United Kingdom and France relative to the boundary between the Gold Coast and the French Soudan, 19th July, 1906.
  No. 10. (1907). International agreement respecting the unification of the pharmacopœialformulas for patent drugs; signed at Brussels, 29th November, 1906.

EDUCATION (SCOTLAND).
General Report by the Chief Inspector of the Western Division of Scotland, for the year 1906.
Memorandum on the teaching of English in Scottish primary Schools.
Presented (by Command), and ordered to lie on the Table.

ST. LUCIA.
Amended prison rule and diet scales: Laid before the House (pursuant to Act) and ordered to lie on the Table.

ORDER IN DEBATE.
LORD BURGHCLERE: My Lords, I rise to call attention to the Standing Orders of the House which relate to matters of Order in Debate; and to move to resolve, "That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the Standing Orders of the House which relate to Order in Debate, and to report what alterations, if any, are desirable in those Standing Orders." The Motion which I now have the honour of submitting to your Lordships has been on the Notice Paper for some considerable time, and I regret that I was unable to move it during last session owing to the stress of business, and I further apologise to the House that owing to unforeseen circumstances I was unable to bring it forward this session at the time appointed.
I must confess that, speaking from this side of the House and as a Member of the Party to which I have had the honour to belong for a great many years, I approach at the present moment and in the present political juncture any question referring to the House of Lords with very considerable diffidence. But I think it will be admitted that my Motion, though it may, no doubt, have many faults both in its purport and in its phraseology, at any rate does not err in the direction of being over-ambitious or revolutionary. It obviously has nothing whatever to do with those weighty considerations, the relations of the two Houses, which were referred to in the gracious Speech from the Throne; nor can it in any way soar to those constitutional heights to which I am glad to say my noble friend Lord Newton is going to ask your Lordships to ascend in the month of May. I hope I shall have the advantage of the support of my noble friend for this Motion on the present occasion.
The Motion standing in my name pledges no one who votes for it to any reform whatever. It merely pledges its supporters to set up a Committee which may examine and report with regard to those Standing Orders of your Lordships' House which affect the question of order in debate. I have frequently heard it

601
said since my Motion has been on the Notice Paper that I intended by it to cast some reflection upon the conduct of our debates during the Committee stage of the Education Bill last autumn, and to imply that some unnecessary disorder took place at that time. I say at once that nothing is further from my thoughts than to imply any censure on the conduct of those debates or of anyone who was responsible for their conduct. I certainly wish to reflect in no way upon my noble friend the Lord Chairman of Committees, or upon the three most distinguished Members of the House—the Leader of the House, the Leader of the Opposition, and the Lord Chancellor—who during my experience have generally interfered, and rightly interfered, on matters of order with a view to counselling your Lordships when difficulties arose; and, least of all, if I may say so without presumption, do I wish to cast any reflection upon your Lordships as a body, for I must say I listened to those debates with the utmost admiration.
When we consider that day after day for an unprecedented period we were sitting here from half past four in the afternoon to nearly twelve o'clock at night; when we remember that in this crowded assembly there must have been many noble Lords who, from the well-known acoustic properties of this House, were unable to hear the conversation at this Table, and that other noble Lords, from the difficulty and technicality of the subject as well as the multiplicity of the Amendments, must have found equal difficulty in understanding what was said, I venture to think this House at that time showed a spectacle of dignity and decorum which was a shining example to other and more popular assembles on similar occasions. At the same time it is perfectly true, that, during those arduous and protracted debates, the unprecedented length of our discussions, the unprecedented number of Peers present, and the unprecedented number of Amendments which were showered upon the Table, naturally focussed the attention of Members on the question whether it would not be possible to improve, in some way, the ancient Standing Orders relating to order in debate. I think that that was a feeling which was not confined to any one quarter of the House, but was very nearly
602
general. I have said that I wish to cast no reflection upon the conduct of those debates nor upon those who were responsible. I may go further and say that since I have had the honour of a seat in your Lordships' House, now more than twelve years, I have felt that on ordinary occasions and at ordinary times the mode of our procedure, I will not call it the free-and-easy mode, but the elasticity of our procedure, is sometimes extremely beneficial; and I hope that if your Lordships consent to the setting up of a Committee to examine into our Rules of Order the question of elasticity in a House consituted as this is will not be overlooked.
Having said that I may be asked, Why cannot you leave it alone? Why bring forward this Motion at all? I say at once that I base my reasons for asking your Lordships to grant an inquiry into this subject on the changed and changing conditions of the political atmosphere and the possibilities of this House; on the increased attendance of Peers; on the increased length of our discussions; on the increased numbers of Amendments that were moved last Autumn to our Bills, and this, no doubt, will happen in the case of other Bills brought forward; and on the increased numbers of speakers taking part in our debates.
With regard to the increased number of Peers attending and the increased number of speeches, I think that is a subject upon which we may heartily congratulate ourselves, because the severest criticisms that I have ever heard passed on your Lordships' House have generally been founded on the scantiness of our attendance and the shortness of our debates; and though, as a Party man, I may have sometimes last autumn regretted the overflowing battalions which rallied behind the noble Marquess the Leader of the Opposition to defeat measures which I thought were for the good of the country, yet as a member of this assembly I do think on the whole that as long as your Lordships' House is constituted as it is, and as long as your Lordships have seats and voices and votes in it, it is far better that you should come and listen to and take part in the debates than flood the lobbies when divisions take place without having heard any of the arguments.

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As to the increased number of speakers and the increased output of oratory, that is a somewhat delicate subject which I shall not pursue at any length, except to say that if it be true, as I think it is, that there are an increased number of speakers in this House as compared with former times it is not peculiar to your Lordships' Assembly, but is rather distinctive of the period in which we live. In old days the debates in both Houses of Parliament were left to two or three prominent members of one Party or the other, who represented the feelings of their followers; but in these days that has entirely changed, and, owing to the increased interest taken in these matters and the greater gift of oratory possessed generally, there are very few Members of either House who are not able to deliver a long and elaborate speech.
I know your Lordships do not care for statistics, but I should like to be allowed to justify what I have said with regard to the increased number of Peers attending our debates and the increased interest which is taken in the legislation submitted to this House. I could take any number of Bills during the last fifty years, but I prefer to take the three important Education Bills because they are some what germane. I will take the Education Bills of 1870, 1902, and 1906. The Education Bill of 1870 was, I need not remind your Lordships, a very important measure. It was what is called, in political slang, an epoch-making measure; and, in addition, the sectarian question, which, unfortunately, seems always bound up with our elementary schools, was very much to the front. Yet the Committee stage of that Bill only occupied one day in your Lordships' House. The Report stage also took one day, and there was only one division. In 1902 the Committee stage of the Education Bill lasted three days, and the Report stage one day, and there were nine divisions. Then we come to the Bill of last year. On that occasion we were in Committee sixteen full days, commencing at 4.30 p.m. and sitting, with one exception, till 11 p.m. and later. We discussed the Bill two days on Report, making eighteen days in all, and there were eighteen divisions. I think these statistics amply justify my contention that the House is taking—most rightly taking—an in-
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creased and increasing interest in the affairs of the country.
Then I come to the number of Peers attending. In 1870 the largest number of Peers voting was 125; in 1902 the number rose to 207; but in 1906 the largest number of Peers voting was 312. It may be said, of course, that the Education Bill of last year was a very exceptional measure, that it was an isolated instance of general interest, and that such circumstances would never occur again. Does anyone here suppose for an instant that during the next four or five years, or it may be more than four or five years, other measures will not be submitted to your Lordships of equal or of surpassing importance, and that your Lordships will not find it to be necessary to devote an equal, if not a greater, amount of criticism, industry, and eloquence to those measures in the future than were devoted to the Education Bill of last autumn? If that be so, and I think he would be a very bold man who would say that my contention is not a right one, surely it is wise for your Lordships to set up a Committee at the present moment to inquire whether the Rules of Procedure could not be improved rather than wait till some more inopportune moment when you are under an even greater glare of criticism than now.
There are plenty of precedents for this Committee. I will not weary your Lordships by referring to more than the last one, which was appointed in 1888, and presided over by Lord Cadogan, who was then Lord Privy Seal in the Conservative Government of the day. That Committee was certainly a precedent for the Committee I am now asking your Lordships to appoint, and as it was a precedent for its constitution I hope it will also be a precedent for its outcome, for from that Committee came one of the most useful and businesslike bodies that I have ever had the honour of sitting in—I refer to the Standing Committee of your Lordships House, to which are automatically referred all measures which have passed the Second Reading stage. I shall not presume to say exactly what the improvement in your Rules ought to be. It may be that after inquiry by this Committee your Lordships may find that it is difficult or impossible to make any alteration at all.

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But there are one or two difficulties which occur to me, and which I think ought to be mentioned in order to make good my case.
There is, of course, one vital question—the question of order. In your Lordships' House, as in all public assemblies originally, the question of order rests with the House as a body—that is to say, if it is necessary to determine whether a matter is in order or not, whether a Member is in order or not, it is for the House as a whole to determine that question. That was the case with all legislative assemblies originally, but it was found convenient in all those cases, in order to facilitate the progress of business, that the House should delegate to one person chosen by themselves the power which they themselves as a body possessed. As your Lordships know, in this House, when points of order arise, the inconvenience is some times great. It is necessary, if there is a dispute as to whether a certain matter is in order, and if it is pushed to a vote, that we should adopt the cumbrous and inconvenient process of going into the lobbies to determine the point.
So also with regard to the question of order of speakers. Everyone in this House naturally has a right to address his fellow Peers; but two noble Lords may rise at the same time, and the only way in which it can be determined whether one speaker or the other is to have the ear of the assembly, supposing it is disputed, is, as I have said, by the cumbrous process of dividing. Some of your Lordships must remember the historic occasion when that took place, and when at this Table there a rose the late Lord Granville and the late Lord Cairns. They were both anxious to speak at the same time, and it was not until noble Lords had divided that the question of who should have precedence was decided. That system has its disadvantages, and might very well be rectified.
Then it may be said that, although the Lord Chancellor and the Lord Chairman have neither of them more right to interfere in questions of order than the most junior baron of your Lordships' House, they might take upon themselves to exercise a greater freedom with regard to imposing order on the assembly, and that in doing so they would receive the support of the majority of your Lordships' House.
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Several noble Lords say "Hear, hear!" I venture to think that if any of your Lordships who say "Hear, hear" were Chairmen yourselves that is the last thing you would do, and I will tell you why. The Chairman being, as he is, a most prominent Member of your assembly, would naturally be more scrupulous than any private Member not to overstep in the slightest degree that limited amount of order invested in him, and therefore I venture to think that if noble Lords who say" Hear, hear" wish the Chairman to possess that power they must delegate it to him officially and by vote of the House.
Then it has been said that if you give the Lord Chairman these added powers you must also give them to the Lord Chancellor, otherwise it would be said that you were putting that high and dignified official in a position lower than the Lord Chairman. I agree that there is a great deal to be said in that direction. I also think that, when we take into consideration that my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor, who is, as your Lordships remember, constituted the Speaker of this House, has a great deal more to do than the Speaker of the other House; when we remember that the Lord Chancellor may possibly spend his mornings in the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, sometimes in the Court of Appeal, sometimes in presiding over the judicial business of this House, and then has to sit on the Woolsack during extended discussions on important Bills, it will be agreed that the House is imposing upon him duties almost too much for any one man to bear. There are such officials as Deputy-Speakers. You might give the Lord Chancellor the same powers as you give the Chairman of Committees, but you might also appoint a Deputy-Speaker and give to the Deputy-Speaker the same powers as he is given in other assemblies. That would enable the Lord Chancellor, when unable to be present, to have a deputy with full powers in this matter.
The question of Deputy-Speakers might well be entered into. At the present moment there are, I think, five Members of your Lordships' House who have a right to sit upon the Woolsack. There is the Lord Chancellor and the Chairman of Committees, who are, I believe appointed by Royal Commission. There are, in addition, by custom, the ex-Lord

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Chancellor and the two Whips of the great Parties—in the present case Lord Waldegrave and Lord Ribblesdale. Those five noble Peers are the only Members of your Lordships' House who have a right to sit upon the Woolsack, but if the Chairman of Committees, who is senior to the other noble Lords, is present in the House, the other noble Lords are unable to sit upon the Woolsack. Therefore, in the absence of the Lord Chancellor it has come about that the Chairman of Committees has been standing at this Table reporting the decision of a Committee of the House to an empty Woolsack, and then, stepping quickly over the floor and taking a seat upon the Woolsack, he has himself received his own Report—a process which must remind your Lordships more of a celebrated character in comic opera than the staid procedure of your Lordships' House. I think that such a question as this, for instance, might well receive the attention of the Committee which I hope your Lordships will agree to constitute.
It may be that the Committee may find it inconvenient, perhaps impossible, to alter the Regulations at all; but if, as I thoroughly anticipate, they find they are able to combine elasticity with efficiency, then I think they will have done something to further the dignity and the authority of your Lordships' House. Before sitting down I will ask your Lordships to allow me to put myself entirely out of order, as an example of that elasticity in our Rules to which I have referred. I wish to allude to the next Question which stands in my name on the Paper—
"To ask the Lord Privy Seal whether he can now state what course His Majesty's Government propose to adopt with regard to the question of Peers who have sat and voted without taking the oath."
I hope your Lordships will allow me to allude to this notice before I sit down, because I think it will be for the convenience of the House that I should do so. I do not think it is necessary for me in any way to go into the circumstances which occurred last autumn.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: My Lords, I rise to order. I believe it is for the general advantage, not only of this assembly, but of all assemblies, that we should discuss only one thing at a time. I remember during the debates on the
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Education Bill, which appear to have elicited such a large amount of admiration from my noble friend, that on one occasion a Member of the Episcopal Bench, after having delivered a very long speech, thought it would be a very good thing if he were then to proceed and enter upon an Amendment of his own. That led to considerable confusion, and at last he was called to order. I think when my noble friend is so anxious to preserve order he should not be the person to propose to depart from it, and therefore I beg to move—
LORD BURGHCLERE: If the noble Earl had allowed me to proceed he would have found that it would have been for the convenience of the House that I should state what I had to say. But, as he takes exception, I certainly bow to such a champion of order as my noble friend.
Moved, "That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the Standing Orders of the House which relate to Order in debate, and to Report what alterations, if any, are desirable in those Standing Orders."—(Lord Burghclere.)
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: My Lords, the noble Lord who has just sat down has made several references to the position of the Chairman of Committees of your Lordships' House, and therefore perhaps I may be allowed to make a few observations upon the speech which the noble Lord has delivered. Not that I want in any way to oppose the appointment of the Committee which he suggests, though I confess I am somewhat at a loss to know what that Committee will report. I do not think that I can be accused of being a crusted Tory, who believes that "all that is is best," but I certainly feel proud of the dignity and gentlemanlike manner in which the business of this House is conducted upon almost every occasion. I think it was Lord Campbell who said that this House, though believed to be the most august Assembly in the world, was perhaps the most disorderly. The fact that that had never been discovered up to the speech of my noble friend, I think speaks well for the manner in which—
LORD BURGHCLERE: I beg my noble friend's pardon. I specially

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guarded myself from saying that I thought the House had been disorderly.
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: I said that what Lord Campbell had stated had never been discovered by anybody. How is the business of your Lordship's House conducted? It is conducted in accordance with a general sense of what is proper by the Members of the House. If anyone rises and makes a speech which, in the opinion of any Member, is out of order, that Member calls attention to the fact, and in nine cases out of ten—one example happened only a moment ago—the noble Lord who has been addressing the House resumes his seat at once. If that does not happen it is possible that a debate might arise, but that debate, in my experience at any rate, is usually confined to the leaders on both sides of the House. Both of them, probably, agree that the matter is one which is not entirely in order, whereupon the noble Lord, however much he may, in his own opinion, believe that what he has been doing has been in accordance with order, gives way.
Now, what is the remedy my noble friend proposes that the Committee should take into consideration? It is, as I understand him, that powers should be given to whoever presides over the Assembly to call noble Lords to order something in the same way as is done by the Speaker of the House of Commons, and by the Chairman of Ways and Means in that House. But I should like to point out to my noble friend, and I hope the Committee, if it is appointed, will consider it, that by Standing Order No. 19 the House has declared that the Lord Chancellor is not to adjourn the House or to do anything else as the mouth of the House "without the consent of the Lords first had, except the ordinary thing about Bills"—whatever that may mean—"wherein the Lords may likewise overrule." Therefore the Lord Chancellor has in every case to put anything which he may wish to submit to the House on a point of Order to the Question. He has not, like the Speaker of the House of Commons, to make any pronouncement from the Woolsack, but if he wishes to speak to anything in particular he has to go to his own place as a Peer. That Standing Order was designed, I imagine, after careful fore-
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thought and in view of the tact that the Lord Chancellor is not appointed by this House but is a nominee of the Crown. Although when I am in the Chair I occupy a position to which I have been elected by your Lordships, when I sit on the Woolsack, in the absence of the Lord Chancellor, I sit there by virtue of a Royal Commission which is issued at the beginning of every Parliament to the effect that the Lord Chancellor shall be the Speaker of the House of Lords, and that in his absence the Deputy Speaker shall be myself by name, not as Chairman of Committees.
I think your Lordships will be very doubtful as to whether you should lightly interfere with that which has been the settled practice of this House for many years. This is a matter which is not new. It has been brought forward on many previous occasions. It was brought forward by the late Lord Salisbury in 1868 and negatived. It was recommended again in a debate in this House and was again negatived, and in 1888 it was formally moved in the Committee and resolved in the negative. I should be very much surprised, therefore, if your Lordships should see fit to take a different view from that which has been taken in the past. There are several reasons why that practice should not be interfered with. To begin with, the Lord Chancellor is a member of the Government. He may not even be a Peer. There have been occasions when the Lord Chancellor has sat on the Woolsack before his patent had been made out; and both he and I, as Chairman of Committees, exercise our right to vote and speak in this House in a manner totally different and distinct from that of the Speaker and the Chairman of Ways and Means in the House of Commons. I should be very sorry indeed if I were prevented from addressing your Lordships when I might wish to do so in debate, and I hope, therefore, that nothing will be done to alter the position of the Chairman of Committees.
Whenever any noble Lord has appealed to me—and some appeals were made during the progress of the education debate—I have always been most anxious and willing to give any expression of opinion and assistance in my power.

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My noble friend himself on one occasion, when Lord Ridley had an Amendment on the Paper to which he was speaking, appealed to me to know what we were discussing, and I said that the House was discussing a question which I thought your Lordships had already determined, upon which Lord Ridley immediately sat down. During the whole of the thirty-three years I have had the honour of being a Member of your Lordships' House, the last three of them in the Chair of your Lordships' Committees, I have recollection of but two or three cases where an act that could seriously be called disorderly has taken place which was not immediately apologised for by the noble Lord concerned.
I remember one occasion when a noble Lord of somewhat eccentric habits was addressing the House and was called to order. He said—
"I may not, my Lords, be your equal in debate, but I am the equal of any one of you in my shirt sleeves."
That was not an orderly remark. I remember that another noble Lord from Scotland was anxious to address the House on the subject of the Deceased Wife's Sister Bill, but he missed his train and did not arrive till next day, when your Lordships were discussing the question of opening museums on Sunday. Yet he got off his speech on the Deceased Wife's Sister Bill all the same. Then there was the occasion to which my noble friend has already alluded, when there was an unfortunate conflict between Lord Granville and Lord Beaconsfield. I recollect quite well that after the death of Lord Beaconsfield Lord Granville expressed to the House his great regret that he stood between the House and Lord Beaconsfield, because he subsequently learned that Lord Beaconsfield had taken a drug which made it necessary for him either to address the House at that moment or not at all. Therefore, I may say that this House has invariably been guided in matters of this kind by personal courtesy. Only last session the noble Marquess who leads the House and who is unfortunately unable to be present to-night, rose to address the House at the same time as a Peer behind him whom he did not see, and some of my noble friends behind me cried "Divide." Lord Ripon said he thought he had a right to address your Lordships as
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Leader of the House, and next day there was a meeting of some of my noble friends behind me, and they begged me to write a letter to Lord Ripon to explain to him that the cry "Divide" was not intended for him, for whom they all had the greatest admiration and respect, but for another noble Lord who had risen at the same time and whom he had not noticed.
As I said at the commencement of my remarks, I am not quite sure what is going to be the work of this Committee. The reference to it is confined entirely to questions of order in debate, and how far that may be regarded as covering the general business of the House I do not know. I daresay my noble friend did not make his reference wider because on previous occasions, notably in 1888, doubt arose whether a reference of this kind might not be held in some way to cover a reference in the nature of something dealing with the constitution of this House. We all know that Lord Newton has a Bill which will come on for consideration after Easter, and we should deprecate that that matter should be in any way prejudged or considered by any tribunal other than that of the House as a whole. But there are, I am willing to admit, some difficult points which arise and which I find in the position to which your Lordships have done me the honour to appoint me, more particularly the method of putting the Question. I should be very glad indeed if that could be taken into consideration.
As your Lordships are well aware, it is the rule of this House that when a question is put and the numbers are equal simper prœsumitur pro negate. In the whole House it seldom happens that the numbers are equal, but in Joint Committees—and Joint Committees are becoming every year more common—the numbers are not infrequently found to be equal and everything depends upon the way in which the Question is put. For instance, if the Motion were to put the word "not" before the word "expedient" and the numbers were equal, the word "not" would not be put in; but if, on the other hand, the Motion were to omit the word "expedient" for the purpose of inserting "inexpedient," the word "inexpedient" would not be put in, and the clause would read nonsense. I am not putting an hypothetical case, but a case that has

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happened on more than one occasion. My noble friend Lord Balfour of Burleigh will recollect a very important measure, the London Water Board Bill. One question was intentionally put in such a way that the decision of the Committee was quite different from what it would have been if it had been put the other way. So well is that known that when your Lordships sit as a Court of Appeal the Question is not put, "That this House do affirm the decision of the Court below," but "That the decision of the Court below be reversed"; so that if the numbers on either side are equal the decision of the Court below is not reversed, but, of course, affirmed. I do not think it is right that it should depend on the ingenuity of the mover who might see a temporary advantage in making a Motion in such a manner that the decision in case of equality was not to leave matters in statu quo.
Then there is the question of the way in which Amendments appear on the Table of your Lordships' House. During the Education Bill debates they were marshalled every day, but upon ordinary occasions they are not so marshalled, and I was much surprised to find that it was not the practice hero to furnish the Chairman of Committees with a Bill interleaved and marked with the places where the Amendment came in, though when I had, in consequence of the regrettable absence of the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, to take his place when the Bill came up on Report, I found that his Purse Bearer furnished him with a copy of the Bill interleaved, with the places where the Amendments came in marked. I hope that for the future that will be the recognised practice of the House.
Then I think great inconvenience has arisen from the fact that Amendments are put down at a very late stage. I noticed during the progress of the Education Bill that on several occasions noble Lords were not furnished with copies of the Amendments. I quite agree that it would be impossible to make any rule that Amendments should be deposited by a certain time, and it would be impossible to say that Amendments might not be moved at any moment; but I do think, seeing that there are other opportunities, such as Report and Third
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Reading, in addition to the Committee Stage, it would be well if no Amendments were considered at the Committee Stage unless they had been circulated with the Votes at least on the morning when the Bill came under the consideration of your Lordships' House.
So far as I am personally concerned I cannot say that I have any complaint to make as to the order which your Lordships observe in debate. It is quite true that some Second Reading speeches are occasionally made in Committee, but you cannot prevent people who are deeply interested in a matter which they look upon as absolutely vital sometimes going a little further than the Amendment and raising questions that are more general. I think that was very marked during the discussions on the Education Bill, and, if I may be permitted to say so, I think principally from the right rev. Bench; but we all recognised that right rev. Prelates felt very strongly about that Bill and we were glad to give them the advantage of that elasticity which my noble friend who raised this question to-day welcomes in our debates. It was once said of an ancestor of mine—I am a descendant of three Speakers—by Mr. Burke in the House of Commons—
"I have not the honour, as the hon. Gentleman has, of being born with order running through my veins."
I think every Member of this House has order running through his veins, and that every noble Lord endeavours to observe decency and order in debate. I think that the manner in which our debates have been conducted, notwithstanding the absence of any rules or of Chairman or Speaker to call noble Lords to order, is worthy of the great traditions of this House. It may be, as the French General said of the charge of Balaclava, that it is not war, but it is magnificent.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I note that the inquiry which is suggested by Lord Burghclere is regarded at any rate without disfavor by His Majesty's Government, and I do not think that we are called upon to raise any objection to it. At the same time I am bound to say that I do not think that the case made by the noble Lord who moved the Motion now before us was a very strong or a very convincing one. He made it clear to us that he had

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no complaint to make of the manner in which the House has conducted its business, notably through the trying session of last autumn. Indeed, I think he went so far as to say that the manner in which our business was conducted on the whole commended itself very much to his judgment. Nor again was he very distinct as to the alterations which he himself had in view.
But, my Lords, while I take note of those points, I am bound to admit that these Standing Orders, with which perhaps some of us are not as familiar as we might be, are a good many of them of a somewhat archaic description. I do not say that by way of reproach, because I think some of the most ancient of them are those we may still regard with most admiration. Some of them, perhaps, are not quite enough borne in mind. How many of us, for example, are careful to observe that admirable Order, which is numbered twenty-four, in which it is laid down that if any Lord has occasion to speak with another Lord while the House is sitting they are to repair to the Princes Chamber and, in particular, that they are not to converse in the space behind the Woolsack, or else the Lord Speaker is to call them to order, and, if necessary, to stop the business in agitation. It has been my duty to attend your debates pretty constantly, and I am afraid I must admit that I have very often seen that sacred space occupied by Peers who were more bent upon attending to the particular business they had in agitation than to the business before the House at the moment. But no doubt there may be minor points covering our procedure which require reconsideration in view of the fact, and it is a fact, that the number of Peers who take part in our debates tends to increase and that the speeches tend to increase in length.
I am bound to say, as a result of a somewhat long experience of this House, that I have never myself known a case in which the House was not grateful for the guidance offered to it either by the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack or by the noble Lord who sits at the Table. Whenever we have found ourselves in a position of any difficulty or embarrassment, a word of advice from either of those quarters has, in my ex-
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perinence, always been accepted without any demur. There may, no doubt, be one or two historical episodes, such as that which has been referred to to-night when Lord Granville and Lord Beaconsfield rose together; but these really are exceptions which tend to prove the rule. On the whole, however, I rise without any idea of opposing the Motion. I am very glad that the noble mover has limited its terms. It is, I understand, restricted to the particular Orders which govern our procedure in debate—the Orders, namely, which are numbered from nineteen to thirty-six. If the Committee is so restricted I think it can certainly do no harm, and it maybe of some use in dealing with those points of detail to which reference has been made in the course of the discussion.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (The Earl of Crewe): My Lords, I think we must all agree that my noble friend who introduced this subject made a very interesting speech, and I must thank him for having postponed the consideration of the question from last session, when our time was so fully taken up and when we could not possibly have given it the consideration it deserves. At the same time I regret very greatly that my noble friend who leads the House, whose experience is so unrivalled, is not here, because I have no doubt he would have been able to say something very much to the point on this question.
As my noble friend stated, this is by no means a new matter. The House has been very often exercised before on this question of order. There have been a number of cases. There was a very considerable discussion in 1869 which arose, if I remember aright, out of the rather heated debates that took place on the Irish Church Bill of that year. Then there was the well-known Committee in 1888, over which Lord Cadogan presided; and I hope I may be permitted also to express regret at Lord Cadogan's absence and the reason for that absence. The proposal, I understand, which is favoured by my noble friend is that some definite powers in the direction of keeping order in your Lordships' House should be entrusted to the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack and also to the Lord Chairman of Committees. That is a proposal which has often been made, but

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it is one to which so far the House has never seen fit to agree.
It was proposed, I think, in 1869 by Lord Stanhope, but he limited the powers of the Lord Chancellor to the general maintenance of order in the House and did not suggest that the noble and learned Lord should be allowed to call on particular speakers; for the obvious reason that it would place the Lord Chancellor in an extremely invidious position as a Party man, a member of the Government, if he had to call on particular speakers. In the course of the later debate Lord Granville also strongly opposed that change; and I notice that in the Committee Lord Cowper proposed that the Lord Chancellor should have these powers, but the proposal was negatived without any great degree of discussion. Some of your Lordships may remember a little occurrence of, I think, three years ago, when there was a slight misunderstanding between my noble friend Lord Ripon, who was then sitting on the Front Bench opposite, and the noble and learned Lord who then sat on the Woolsack. The then Lord Chancellor stated, with perfect truth, that he had the same right, neither more nor less, as any other Lord to call attention to any breach of order, and Lord Halsbury added—
"Unless the Lord Chancellor took notice of a breach, nobody else would."
That, I think, was perhaps a little overstating the case, because, as a matter of fact, ever since I have been in the House there always has existed what I may call a breed of watch-dogs on the look-out for broaches of order, of whom I think my noble friend Lord Camperdown may now be considered to be the principal representative; and if, as I think likely, it is found exceedingly difficult to entrust any formal powers either to the Lord Chancellor or the Lord Chairman, I hope that that breed will be encouraged in every possible way; for this reason, for one thing, that the Front Benches are not able to help very much in this matter. When the noble Lord whose speech transgresses the rule of order is on the same side of politics, the Minister or the occupant of the Front Opposition Bench is naturally unwilling to quench the enthusiasm of a friend and supporter. If, on
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the other hand, the speaker is an opponent, he is equally unwilling to interfere, because he is afraid that his interference may be set down rather to a dread of the cogency of the arguments which are being addressed to the House than to the prolixity or want of relevance of the speaker. And that leads me to say that, so far as my recollection of the House goes, our debates are distinctly less disputatious than they were when I first came here. But I have noticed—and I do not confine my observations to the Education Bill of last year—a very marked increase in the habit of irrelevant speaking during the last few years. I am not prepared to give any reason for what appears to me to be an incontestable fact, and if the effect of the appointment of this Committee is to encourage noble Lords in all parts of the House to rise in their places and draw attention to the very frequent cases, particularly in Committee, where a speech has very little reference to the actual subject-matter of the Amendment, I must say I think that great good will be done.
The noble Earl the Lord Chairman mentioned in particular the education debates of last year. I am very far indeed from joining in all such criticisms as were made, either in or out of the House, of the conduct of business during that discussion. On the other hand, there was, as the noble Earl has said, a considerable degree of irrelevance, and I think it is not overstating the case to say that one day, and possibly two days, of the Committee stage might have been spared to us if noble Lords in all parts of the House, not excluding, like the noble Earl, the right rev. Bench, had confined themselves to the actual matter under discussion. As I say, I do not look forward with any great degree of confidence to any marked change being recommended by the Committee in the practice of your Lordships' House. As a matter of fact, I quite agree with what the noble Marquess said just now. I believe that any intervention on the part either of the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, or of the Lord Chairman when the House is sitting in Committee, would be welcomed by the House as a whole. They have, as Lord Halsbury said, the same rights as other Members of the House, and there is no reason why they should not exercise those rights oftener.

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When I first came to the House Lord Redesdale was Chairman of Committees, and he kept us in very severe order indeed. I remember many years ago, when I was sitting on this Bench as a Member of the Household in charge of a Department, having an extremely bad ten minutes with the noble Lord over some point on which he thought I had transgressed; and consequently, if the only effect of the appointment of this Committee was, by the expression of a strong opinion, really to strengthen the hands of the Lord Chairman, because it is in Committee that the difficulty most arises, I should be in favour of its appointment.
But, in addition, there are two other matters which were mentioned by my noble friend Lord Onslow. He mentioned the obscurity which attached to the putting of the Question. He mentioned the case of the Water Board Committee. I was on that Committee, and I think my noble friend Lord Balfour, who acted as he technically had a perfect right to do, went through some searchings of heart before he put the Question in the form he did, in which form it had to be put if his view as to what was necessary as a Member of the Committee and of the Government of the day was to prevail. Consequently we do not oppose the appointment of this Committee, and although I cannot profess myself sanguine of any large practical result as regards serious changes in the form in which order is maintained, I think real good may come of it in a general discussion of the matter, and, as I say, by strengthening the hands of those who, from their position and experience, may be regarded, if not as official guardians of order, as its unofficial guardians.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, may I say one word in regard to the position I hold? I have no right at all to speak on questions of order, having been so short a time in this House; but I can speak in regard to the office I hold. I do most earnestly hope that nothing will be done to impose on the Keeper of the Great Seal the duty either of maintaining order in the House or of calling a particular Member of the House in debate. There is no analogy between the position of the Lord Chancellor and that of the
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Speaker of the House of Commons. The Speaker in another place is a popularly elected official, chosen by the whole of the Members, and is debarred from taking any part in debate. He is looked up to as an absolutely impartial official. He forsakes Party when he enters the Chair, and is practically precluded even from addressing a political meeting in the country. The anomalies of the Lord Chancellor's position are sufficient already. There is no greater anomaly than the fact that he is called upon to sit judicially and at the same time to discharge Party duties as a Member of the Cabinet. There are many other anomalies. I hope, therefore, that to the existing anomalies will not be added the extremely anomalous duties of endeavouring to maintain order in the House and of showing in the slightest degree any preference to one Member of it over another with regard to speaking. I am quite sure that the Lord Chancellor ought to be kept clear of that.
On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly.

PEERS AND THE OATH.
LORD BURGHCLERE, who had given notice—"To ask the Lord Privy Seal whether he can now state what course His Majesty's Government propose to adopt with regard to the question of Peers who have sat and voted without taking the oath," said: My Lords, I will now resume the sentence in which I was interrupted by my noble friend Lord Camper down. Your Lordships will remember the occasion last session when certain noble Lords voted without having taken the oath and the consequent debate that arose. The reason why I have put this Question on the Paper is that I would venture to suggest to His Majesty's Government that it might be wise to refer this matter also to the Committee just appointed. I beg to put the Question.
THE EARL OF CREWE: My Lords, I can reply in a very few words to my noble friend's Question. Your Lordships will remember the circumstances under which last year certain noble Lords inadvertently, and greatly to their personal regret, transgressed the important rule that they should not sit without taking the oath.

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I think we all feel that it would be desirable that some inquiry should be made into the penalties which now exist for this infraction of the law. There is something not very dignified in nominally inflicting a very large pecuniary fine which is never exacted. I think it must be generally felt at the present day that the infliction of a money penalty is not the proper sort of punishment for such an offence, and obviously if the penalties are never exacted the effect is not likely to be exceedingly deterrent. Whether it would be possible or desirable to inflict any other form of disability on noble Lords who commit this breach of the law is another matter, and one upon which I should not wish now to express any opinion; but as this Committee has been set up and must naturally be a Committee of very considerable authority, and as it has to deal with questions of order in your Lordships' House, it certainly would be a reasonable thing to refer this question to it also. Therefore, the Government will offer no opposition if the noble Lord submits a Motion to refer this Question to the same Committee.
LORD BURGHCLERE: As it would be out of order to-day to move an Amendment to a Motion already agreed to, I will give notice of a Motion for another day to extend the reference.

BRITISH INDIANS AND THE COLONIES.
LORD AMPTHILL: My Lords, I rise to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will insist on a full discussion at the approaching Imperial Conference of the question of the disabilities of British Indians and their future treatment in the Colonies, as a matter of the highest importance to the unity of the Empire.
The noble Earl to whom my Question is directed has been good enough to hold some private communication with me on the subject, and I am sorry to say that he regards it as indiscreet of me to put this Question. If he had thought so very seriously, it would have been open to the noble Earl to have asked me to withdraw the Question, but this he has not done. I need hardly say that if, with the full weight of his authority, he had made such a request to me, I should have felt
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bound to remove the Question from the Paper. I must therefore feel that my indiscretion has not been more serious than that of which every questioner is guilty in the eyes of the Minister who has to reply to his Question. It has occurred to me that possibly my indiscretion may lie in the form of the Question, and that the words "insist on" may seem aggressive or hostile in some way. If that is the case, I would very gladly ask the noble Earl to allow me to substitute the word "ensure" or the words "take steps to ensure," which would express my meaning even better than the words as they stand on the Paper.
A Question similar to this has already been asked in another place, and the reply which was given by the Secretary of State for India was that the subject had not been placed on the Agenda of the Imperial Conference, but that, should opportunity offer and time permit, Mr. Morley proposed to invite the Conference to consider it. I think those who are acquainted with official phraseology will agree with me that that Answer means nothing at all. I think your Lordships will also agree that that is not the way in which to treat a question of immense importance to the Empire—a question which, as a matter of fact, vitally affects our national honour, and concerning which millions of our fellow countrymen feel keen resentment and indignation. It is on that account that I have put the Question on the Paper, as I wish to give the noble Earl the Secretary of State for the Colonies an opportunity of giving an Answer which will be more satisfactory to our follow citizens in India.
But in order to do so it is necessary to state—but I shall be as brief as possible in doing so—what exactly is at stake. I shall confine myself mainly to the disabilities of our Indian fellow subjects in South Africa, where the grievance is at present most serious and most keenly felt. In the Australian Colonies the attitude of our kinsmen is not what we should like to see, but it is the fact that no disability so humiliating as those which exist in South Africa is imposed on resident British Indians. The treatment of British Indians by the South African Republic was regarded as one of the main justifications for the late war. It was the subject of many

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important statements by responsible Ministers at the time, but I need not do more than quote one of them. The noble Marquess who leads the Opposition in your Lordships' House, speaking at Sheffield in 1899, said—
"A considerable number of the Queen's Indian subjects are to be found in the Transvaal, and among the many misdeeds of the South African Republic I do not know that any fills me with more indignation than its treatment of these Indians. What do you imagine will be the effect produced in India when these poor people return to their own country to report to their friends that the Government of the Empress, so mighty and so irresistible in India, is powerless to secure redress at the hands of a small South African State?"
It was naturally supposed, it was regarded, indeed, as a foregone conclusion, that on the termination of the war this restrictive legislation would be abrogated at once. But what is the case? The actual case is that the position of British Indians in South Africa is more intolerable now than it was under the Government of President Kruger. Well might our Indian fellow-subjects there say that the Boers may have chastised them with whips, but that under the British Government they are chastised with scorpions. I will briefly state what the difference is. Under the South African Republic British Indians could, as a matter of fact, if not actually by right, trade in any part of the Transvaal with a licence. They could live in any part of the country without molestation and without having to apply for exemption. Now, under the British flag, every Indian must live and trade exclusively in bazaars, with the exception of those who held licences to trade in town before the war, or who by virtue of education are able to obtain certificates of exemption from the local government; but these certificates at the present time are largely nominal and inoperative.
There are, besides these, many other humiliating restrictions on which I will not dwell; but, in brief, the fact is that the Boer law, which we regarded as so unjust and severe, was not in practice enforced, mainly owing to the intervention of the British Government, while the law which now prevails is more severe than that of South African Republic, and, what is worse, it is strictly enforced. This is an indignity and humiliation which is felt and keenly resented, not
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only by those whom it directly affects, but by every Indian to whom it is a matter of common knowledge, and the number of these latter is increasing daily and to a very remarkable degree. They regard it as a breach of faith, a violation of those solemn promises which they have been accustomed to receive from the mouths of our statesmen or in the most solemn declarations of the Sovereign of the Empire.
It is a matter of the highest importance to the cause of Imperial unity that this grievance should be removed, and in considering the matter it is as well to remember one or two leading facts in regard to the Indian Empire. The grievance to which I am alluding affects the whole of the people of India—that is to say, three-fourths of the whole population of the Empire; it affects the people of a dominion of which the trade is more important than that of any other two nations of the Empire put together; it affects that part of the Empire which must be described as the strategic pivot on which the whole defence and security of the Empire depends, and, what is more, the only part of His Majesty's Dominions except the United Kingdom that pays a full share for the defence of the Empire as a whole. I think it is absolutely necessary in view of these facts—facts which I have not hesitated to repeat, although they may seem mere platitudes, because of their enormous importance—that the people of India should be kept contented. That is an obligation which arises not only from our material interests, but also from those high moral duties which devolve upon this country and its Government.
There is at the present time unrest and discontent in India. The greater part of that discontent is due to political aspirations which we ourselves have encouraged in our fellow-citizens in India, but part of it, and by no means a negligible part, is due to the treatment of British Indians in the Colonies. I am not one of those who regard this unrest in India with any serious anxiety. In the body politic, just as in the corporeal body, unrest and ill health are often the necessary preludes to growth and development. Illness, as is well known, will often carry off some permanent weakness and disability, and so all political sores and eruptions, ugly though they look on the

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surface, may be the means of carrying off morbid influences which are not so apparent. But irritation must be allayed before any new regime is prescribed. We know that the Secretary of State for India is contemplating political innovations. I am glad of it; I shall welcome those innovations provided they do not ignore the existence of a large section, or large sections, of the peoples in India who do not desire a rapid extension of Western methods. But the point I wish to make is that no political concessions will act as a remedy for discontent unless they are administered with sympathy—real sympathy, human sympathy, the sympathy which springs from knowledge of the feelings of the aggrieved and from recognition of their human rights, not the professional sympathy of politicians who administer a legislative remedy according to recognised rule and practice, just as a physician administers a drug. That sympathy must show itself in acts which cost effort and sacrifice, not in such as can be made as easily as a charitable dole. There is, in my opinion, no way in which that sympathy can better be shown than in the redress of the grievances under which British Indians suffer in the Colonies, and particularly in South Africa. Here the effort is to persuade our Colonial brethen to see our point of view—the point of view which we must necessarily hold as the paramount power in the Empire, the nation on which devolves, takes the hegemony of the Empire and which has to control the unity and harmony of the Empire as a whole. The sacrifice is to run the risk of incurring the displeasure of our colonial brethen. But if there should be displeasure at any representations which we might make, I do not for a moment believe it would be lasting. I believe that the colonists would respect us for courageously and freely expressing our views on a subject like this, and insisting that they should be considered and met with due respect by all the other nations of the Empire.
Let me make it clear that I am not in the slightest degree imputing blame to His Majesty's present Government. It is, of course, obvious that they found the present state of affairs existing when they came into office; but what I do say is that His Majesty's Government will
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be held blameworthy by a large proportion of the citizens of the Empire if they do not make a big effort to redress those grievances and to succeed where their predecessors unfortunately failed. I noticed with satisfaction and pleasure that in the new Constitution for the Transvaal they reserve powers which were obviously intended for this purpose. I hope and trust they will not hesitate to use that power.
No man, my Lords, has, ever had a better chance of remedying this evil than the noble Earl the Secretary of State for the Colonies, and I venture to think that no man has ever had a clearer duty than he has in this matter. The noble Earl has been Viceroy of India and he is now Secretary of State for the Colonies. He has come from India with a knowledge of the feelings and the wishes of Indians to the Colonists, with whose wishes and sentiments he is now equally acquainted. He seems to me, therefore, to be a mediator, one might almost say providentially appointed, to effect reconciliation between our fellow-citizens in India and our brethren in the Colonies. The sympathies of the noble Earl in this matter are no secret. I hope he will have the courage to act up to his opinions, and that good fortune will aid his endeavours. The noble Earl will, I daresay, tell me that this subject has not been placed on the Agenda for the Imperial Conference, but I cannot see why, when the Premiers of the Colonies are assembled, he should not say to them that this is a question which has not been placed on the programme for the Conference, because that programme has been drawn up mainly with reference to their own wishes, but it is a question of the highest importance to the Government of this country who have to regulate the relations between the different parts of the Empire, and to preserve the unity and harmony of the whole; and, therefore, he must ask them to be so good as to listen to the views held by His Majesty's Government on behalf of this country, and, if they will, to express their own. I do not see how it can be doubted that the representatives of the Colonies would most readily and willingly lend themselves to such an appeal.
An Agenda is not a sacrosanct document; it is not a portion of Holy Writ which cannot be altered; it is not even

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an Education Bill: and I personally for the life of me cannot see why even at the last moment some alteration in deference to the views of the paramount power in the Empire should not be made in the settled programme of the Conference. The noble Earl knows, I am sure, that it is not in any factious spirit that I ask this question. I think he will admit that I have some right to speak on behalf of the people of India, and some right to expect, on their behalf, a clear and unequivocal answer. I feel confident that he will give me something rather better than a merely official reply. An official reply is, of necessity, guarded and evasive. Officials who frame these replies, and I have had some experience in the matter, have not the right to say "Yes" or "No," or to say that this or that will or will not be done. But it is the highest privilege, as well as the duty, of the statesman to say "Yes" or "No" when great issues are concerned, and nothing will persuade me that this present issue is not one of the most important and the highest in the whole field of Imperial statesmanship. I therefore hope and trust that the noble Earl will be able to give a clear "Yes" in answer to my Question.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (The Earl of Elgin): My Lords, the noble Lord has only done me justice in saying that this question appeals to me from my previous connection with the Empire of India. I became acquainted then with the sober, peaceful, and industrious character of the Indian people, and my experience also gave me an opportunity of knowing their patience under the stress of suffering, and their readiness to welcome management, if it be only sympathetic. I might go further and say that I am well aware that there must be somewhere in the records of the Departments here despatches in my name drawing attention to the very point with which the noble Lord has dealt. It was my duty to expostulate with regard to the treatment of British Indians in South Africa during my Viceroyalty. I have nothing to withdraw from the opinions which I then expressed. It appears to me that British Indians, if they are to be admitted into the Colonies, ought to be well treated there; and it would be desirable that those native gentlemen whom we have known in India, and with whom we have associated and sat on councils in
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India, should be able, if possible, to take a welcome share in the life of the countries to which they go.
But, my Lords, of course we have to consider the opinions of the self-governing Colonies in regard to this matter. The noble Lord said in the course of his speech that the particular part of the world to which he sought to draw attention was South Africa, and he spoke specially of the Transvaal and of the Boer rule. I would remind him that the law that existed there was criticised by the noble Marquess at the time of the war; and when the war ceased, it was within the option of the Government then established, and of Lord Milner in particular, to alter that law. It was not altered. I am not going now to argue whether that was right or wrong; but it does not lie with the noble Lord to make any imputation against the Government which I represent in this matter further than can be made against the Government that preceded us and the High Commissioner in charge at the time.
LORD AMPTHILL: I most specially guarded myself against doing so.
THE EARL OF ELGIN: I quite admit that. I would just say a word about a proposal for an alteration of the Ordinance which came up not long ago. There was such a proposal, and it was represented by a deputation of British Indians that it would aggravate their position. It is quite true that the effect of what has taken place since British rule was established in the Transvaal has been to make more effective the provisions which existed, but which were not so strictly enforced during the Boer rule. As to the new Ordinance, I felt it my duty to object to certain details, and these could not be brought into operation before the institution of responsible government. Therefore from that fact alone the Ordinance was bound to fail. But I acted in this way with great regret, because I believe that it was the desire of the High Commissioner, in bringing forward this Ordinance, to do all that he could to amend rather than to harden the position of the British Indians in the Transvaal. I am aware that they did not take that view themselves, and I think that in some ways their apprehensions were exaggerated. But I must

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testify that the sole desire of Lord Selborne was to make the arrangement as fair as he possibly could, holding the line between the view of the Indians and of the Colonists.
The noble Lord said that he thought I took the view that this Question was inopportune. I do think so. There are two words in the Question which are remarkable. The noble Lord mentioned one—the word "insist." There is another. In his notice he speaks of an "Imperial Conference." That must be an intelligent anticipation of the future, because at present we are dealing with the Colonial Conference. With regard to the word "insist," I think that that gives an impression which is rather hostile to any Conference at all. You "invite" people to confer with you; you do not "insist." What settlement can we have if not by agreement, and how is it to be brought about?
I am not quite sure whether the noble Lord defined what he wanted us to do; but I gather from the way in which he spoke of my duty in laying down the view of the Government that he would go as far as to say that if provisions of this kind were to find their way into a law passed by a Colonial Government in future it would be the duty of the Secretary of State to advise His Majesty to refuse assent to it. That course would be a very serious matter indeed, and I point out to the noble Lord that I think it is contrary to the precedent of what has taken place on former occasions. This subject was not mentioned at all in the Conference of 1902, but it was mentioned in the Conference of 1897. Mr. Chamberlain then made an eloquent reference to the position of British Indians, but he also stated that—
"His Majesty's Government thoroughly appreciate the objects and needs of the Colonies in dealing with this matter. We quite sympathise with the determination of the white inhabitants of Colonies which are in comparatively close proximity to millions of Asiatics that there should not be an influx of people alien to their civilsation and customs, whose introduction would interfere with the legitimate rights of the existing labouring population"
The right hon. Gentleman went on to describe the arrangements made in Natal, and added—
"I hope to be able to arrange a form of words which will avoid hurting the feelings of any of His Majesty's subjects while at the
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same time amply protecting the colonies from the invasion of any class to whom they could justly object."
But it is not only in the Conference that this expression of opinion as regards just consideration for the Colonies has been made. I find that Lord Curzon in March, 1905, speaking in the Viceroy's Council at Calcutta, stated that—
"Colonies possessing, or likely before long to possess, rights of self-government cannot be dictated to in such matters; and the feeling that exists among them is undoubtedly very strong that it seems to be our duty to do nothing to inflame that feeling, but to lose no opportunity of pleading the cause of those whose natural protectors we are."
That is the position which I think His Majesty's Government ought also to assume.
The noble Lord is not satisfied with the reply which was given by my right hon. friend the Secretary of State for India in another place. He pointed out that the reason why other subjects took first place in their consideration was that they were brought forward by a majority of the Governments taking part in the Conference. I think that is a good reason. But I do not think the noble Lord need assume from this fact that, should opportunity offer and time permit, the matter will not be considered. I hope that among the engagements of the Conference there may be an opportunity for it to give attention to some subjects which do not appear in the formal agenda list. At any rate your Lordships will remember that not all the Colonies are equally interested in this question, and no doubt there will be subordinate Conferences—if I may use the expression—where, in some form or other, I hope there will be opportunity provided to discuss with our friends from across the seas the matter to which attention has been drawn by the noble Lord.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, my noble friend expressed a hope that he would not receive a too official Answer to his Question, and he told your Lordships that the answers to such questions as his were generally guarded and evasive. I do not think the Answer to which we have listened can properly be described as an evasive Answer, because the noble Earl dealt very very fully and fairly with the question. That the noble Earl should reply in guarded terms is not in the least

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surprising, for the question we are discussing is certainly one of the most difficult and delicate which any Government has lately had to consider. We have to try and steer a course between two conflicting currents of public opinion. On the one hand, there is a strong feeling—in which I share—of concern that the Indian subjects of His Majesty should receive in one of our Colonies treatment which can be described as humiliating to them, or as tending to deprive them of the advantages and rights they had been led to expect would be theirs when they settled in that part of our dominions. My noble friend was good enough to quote a speech I delivered in 1899, and in which I devoted some attention to this subject. I feel as strongly about it now as I did then, and I am not at all surprised that these feelings should be entertained by my noble friend.
On the other hand, we have to take into consideration the fact, and it is an undoubted fact, that throughout these Colonies there is a very strong feeling that the indiscriminate influx of Asiatics or of any persons of alien race should not be permitted. How strong that feeling is must be apparent to anyone who will take the trouble to read the Papers which have been laid on the Table of the House. Let anyone look at such a document as Sir Arthur Lawley's despatch, in which he enlarges with some minuteness on that aspect of the case.
Now, the action of the late Government was animated by a desire to hold the balance as evenly as possible between these two sets of conflicting considerations; and I think that anyone who will take the trouble to read the long and closely-reasoned despatch of Mr. Lyttelton contained in the Blue-book of 1904 will think that we were at any rate not unsuccessful in endeavouring to give due weight to each side of the argument. In that despatch there is laid down the necessity of distinguishing between the treatment accorded to Asiatics entering these self-governing Colonies for the first time, and those Asiatics who have acquired a domicile in the Colonies and have settled down and developed their business. Then there is the further distinction which is to be made between that part of the resident Asiatic population which may be described as a superior class of people, educated men who
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have business premises, and the more numerous class who herd together in the bazaars, and for whose sake, if not for the sake of the community which surround them, it is necessary to take special precautions to prevent them from being a danger to the other residents in the Colony. All these aspects of the case are fully dealt with in the despatch; and it is to that document I would refer anyone who desires to know what the policy of the late Government was.
My noble friend makes a specific suggestion that this question should be referred to the Colonial Conference. That is a suggestion which I think must be left to be acted upon or not to be acted upon as His Majesty's Government may upon reflection consider best. I admit that there are some reasons which make me doubt whether it would be, on the whole, desirable that this question should be officially laid before the Conference. I understand that no representative of India is likely to take part in these proceedings.
THE EARL OF ELGIN: India will be represented by the Secretary of State.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: But there is no one who comes to this country with special and intimate knowledge of the particular class of immigrants we are discussing this evening. I heard with satisfaction the noble Earl's statement that, although the question might not be officially laid before the Conference, he did not think it impossible that advantage would be taken of the presence of the Colonial representatives in order to discuss it at what I think he called subsidiary Conferences. I think that it is a more hopeful course than official reference to the full Conference.
The matter is a very delicate one; feeling runs high about it; and if we are to overcome the deep-rooted antipathies and objections which exist in the public mind in the Colonies, it can only be done by endeavouring in the most temperate and tactful way to convince them that while there is a Colonial side to the question, and while we fully recognise how much weight should be given to the Colonial aspect of the case, there is also an Imperial side, a side which concerns our great Indian Empire, where, as my

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noble friend truly said, these questions are watched with increasing interest. It is therefore not too much to hope that the Colonial statesmen may be found ready to take into account not only the arguments which appeal most directly to them, but also those other and more far-reaching arguments by which other parts of the Empire are affected. We may, I feel sure, gather from the statement that has been made this evening that the matter will not be lost sight of, and that all that can possibly be done, in whatever way the Government think most effective, will be done to ensure proper treatment for these Indian subjects of the King.
LORD REAY: My Lords, I may perhaps be allowed, as I take the deepest interest in the question which my noble friend opposite has submitted this evening, to state that I am quite satisfied with the Answer given by my noble friend the Secretary of State for the Colonies. He could not be expected to give more than an assurance that the matter would not be lost sight of. I agree with what has fallen from the noble Marquess the Leader of the Opposition, that the means which should be used to arrive at a just settlement in this most delicate question must be left to the judgment of His Majesty's Government. The utmost tact will be required in order to avoid that the discussion of the subject, instead of loading to conciliation, should lead to further estrangement. I would especially press the point to which the noble Marquess has called attention, that especial consideration should be given to the legal status of those who are resident in the Colonies whose character is well known in the Colonies. And in any ordinance which may be enacted a distinction should be drawn between those who from long residence have acquired a domicile, and others who as immigrants might affect the labour market, and in connection with whom more difficult points may arise. For the first time at this Conference India will be represented, and I wish to express my great satisfaction that His Majesty's Government have acceded to this legitimate demand of India. It is quite obvious that the representative of India will be aware of the strong feeling which exists throughout India with regard to this question, and
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that he will be able, at all events in any subordinate Conference which may be summoned, to plead the cause of India. No doubt this is a matter of the utmost importance to the friendly relations which ought to exist between the various parts of the Empire, and I agree with the noble Marquess that it requires very delicate handling on account of the antipathies and prejudices which unfortunately are so deep-rooted in some of the Colonies. I feel confident that His Majesty's Government will not lose sight of this question and that the presence of the Colonial premiers will be utilised in order that some solution may be found of this question worthy of the great traditions of the Empire.
LORD AMPTHILL: While I am grateful to the noble Earl for the courtesy evidenced in his full consideration of my Question, I cannot refrain from saying that I am disappointed. I had hoped—
THE EARL OF CREWE: I am afraid that, as we have been discussing order in debate, I must draw the attention of the noble Lord to the fact that he has merely asked a Question and not made a Motion, and that he is therefore not entitled to a reply.
LORD AMPTHILL: I beg your Lordships' pardon. I had no idea I was out of order.

METROPOLITAN WATER BOARD (CHARGES, ETC.) BILL.

  METROPOLITAN WATER BOARD (VARIOUS POWERS) BILL.
  Commons' Message considered (according to order): Moved, That this House do concur in the following resolution communicated by the Commons, viz., "That it is expedient that the Metropolitan Water Board (Charges, etc.) Bill and the Metropolitan Water Board (Various Powers) Bill be committed to a Joint Committee of Lords and Commons" (The Earl Carrington); agreed to; and a Message ordered to be sent to the Commons to acquaint them therewith.
  House adjourned at twenty-five minutes before Seven o'clock, till To-morrow half past Ten o'clock.