Sitting of 16 December 1908

Preamble
The House met at quarter before Three of the Clock.
PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
Water of Leith Purification and Sewage Order Confirmation Bill.—Read a second time; and ordered to be considered To-morrow.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  BOARD OF EDUCATION.
  Copy presented, of Report on the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Royal Colleges of Science and of Art, the Geological Survey and Museum, and on the work of the Solar Physics Committee, for the year 1907 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  IRISH LAND PURCHASE ACTS.
  Copy presented, of Diagram indicating up to the 30th April 1908, by Counties and Provinces, (a) the area of land sold, and (b) the estimated area of lands in respect of which proceedings had been instituted, and were pending for sale under the Irish Land Purchase Acts; also the estimated area of lands in respect of which proceedings for sale had not been instituted on that date under the said Acts [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  BOILER EXPLOSIONS ACTS, 1832 AND 1890.
  Copy presented, of Report to the Secretary of the Board of Trade upon the working of the Boiler Explosions Acts, 1882 and 1890, with Appendices [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  WAGES AND EFFECTS OF DECEASED SEAMEN.
  Account presented, of the sums received and paid in respect of the Wages and Effects of Deceased Seamen in the year ended 31st March 1908 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 367.]
  CENSUS OF PRODUCTION ACT, 1906.
  Copy presented, of Rules made by the Board of Trade under the Act [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  SEAMEN'S SAVINGS BANKS (MONEY OKUEUS AND TRANSMISSION OF WAGES).
  Account presented, of all Deposits received and repaid by the Board of Trade on account of Seamen's Savings Banks under the Merchant Shipping Act, 1894, during the year ended 20th November 1907, and of the interest thereon; Statement showing the number and amount of Seamen's money Orders issued and paid at Ports in the United Kingdom, and at Ports abroad from 1855 to 31st March 1908; also Statement showing the Receipts and Payments in connection with the Transmission of Seamen's Wages, Home and Foreign, from 1878 to 31st March 1908 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 368.]
  GENERAL LIGHTHOUSE FUND.
  Copy presented, of Account of the General Lighthouse Fund, showing the Income and Expenditure for the year ended 31st March 1908 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 369.]
  RAMSGATE HARBOUR.
  Copy presented, of Statement of the Receipts and Payments for the year ended 31st March 1908, together with an Account of the Receipt and Issue of Stores [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  PAUPERS AND DEPENDANTS (SCOTLAND).
  Return presented, relative thereto [ordered 8th December; Mr. Sinclair]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 370].
  FOREIGN COUNTRIES (PREFERENCE TO COLONIES).
  Return ordered, "showing the fiscal advantages at present given by France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, and the United States to goods imported from their Colonial Possessions, and conversely by the said Colonial Possessions to goods from their mother country."—(Mr. Mitchell-Thomson.)
Oral Answers to Questions
  QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CIRCULATED WITH THE VOTES.

    Export of New Ships—Board of Trade Returns.
    MR. BELLAIRS: To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that the monthly Board of Trade Returns in the exports of new ships give displacement tons for war ships and gross tonnage for merchant ships, and these are added together and the total called gross tonnage; and whether the Board can see their way to giving only the total gross tonnage of merchant ships, leaving the displacement tonnage of warships separate.
    (Answered by Mr. Churchill.) The Monthly Trade and Navigation Accounts give the gross tonnage for all kinds of new ships exported, whether war or merchant vessels. It has not been the practice hitherto to insert the word "gross" in respect of the tonnage of war ships, but this will be done in future.

    Overcrowding on the Metropolitan Railway.
    MR. NIELD: To ask the President of the Board of Trade, whether he is aware that there is overcrowding of passengers on the Metropolitan Railway between Baker Street and Harrow, owing to the reduction during the late morning and afternoon of the number of coaches, and that such overcrowding extends to carrying a number of persons on the guard's platform of the coaches of electric trains, preventing the ready ingress and egress of passengers; and whether he will cause an inquiry to be made and an intimation to be given to the company expressing the disapproval of the Board of Trade of this practice.
    (Answered by Mr. Churchill.) The railway company inform me that it is their practice to reduce the length of the trains on the section of line referred to from six to three cars between the hours of 10.15 a.m. and 5 p.m., when the traffic is comparatively light, and that as trains are run at regular intervals of five minutes the accommodation afforded is found in ordinary circumstances to be quite sufficient. Trains of full capacity are, however, run throughout the day on

    1835
    Saturdays and on other occasions when the traffic is heavier than usual. As regards the conveyance of passengers on the carriage platforms the company have a regulation forbidding this practice, and they assure me that the trains between Baker Street and Harrow will be kept under close observation, and that, if necessary, special steps will be taken to deal with any case of persistent disregard of the regulation referred to.

    Dangerous Level Crossing at Streetly Station.
    MAJOR DUNNE: To ask the President of the Board of Trade, whether he is aware that unavailing representations, with regard to a dangerous level crossing at Streetly station, have been made to the directors of the Midland Railway, and that they have refused to do anything, notwithstanding that there is a bridge already in existence which could be utilised; whether the Board of Trade have any power to insist on proper facilities being provided for passengers crossing the line in this and similar cases where danger to life exists; and, if not, whether he will take steps to procure for the Board of Trade the necessary statutory powers.
    (Answered by Mr. Churchill.) The Board of Trade have received representations from the Wallsall chamber of commerce with regard to the absence of a footbridge at this station, and have been in communication with the railway company on the subject. The company do not see their way to erect a footbridge, and the case is not one in which the Board of Trade have any compulsory powers. I may add that there is no record of any accident having occurred at the spot in the last five years.

    Portadown Post Office Staff.
    MR. MOORE: To ask the Postmaster-General if he is aware that in Portadown Post Office the established staff consists of seven Protestants and twelve Roman Catholics, and the un-established staff of three Protestants and four Roman Catholics; if he is aware that three Roman Catholics and one Protestant have recently been promoted to the established staff, and that one of these promotions is that of a man having a brother on the established staff and is,
    1836
    therefore, contrary to the general practice; will he say if P. Breen has passed the necessary Civil Service examination if he has been promoted over the ex-telegraph messengers employed at Portadown, and if he will state why the rule as to offering a soldier candidate an appointment was ignored in this instance and a suitable soldier passed over; and if it is intended in a Protestant community to reduce the numerical grievance under which Protestants in the Portadown Post Office suffer.
    (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) It is not the practice to take into consideration the religious beliefs of candidates for appointments in the Post Office, and it would be undesirable to introduce such a practice. Inquiry is being made as regards the other point mentioned in the hon. Member's Question.

    Reorganisation of Victoria and Albert Museum.
    LORD BALCARRES: To ask the President of the Board of Education if, prior to the adoption of the scheme to reorganise the Victoria and Albert Museum as outlined by the Departmental Committee, the House of Commons can be given an opportunity of discussing the matter, in view of the proposal to revise the museum policy consistently followed for nearly fifty years.
    (Answered by Mr. Runciman.) I cannot undertake before the end of the present session to prophesy what will be the subject of debate in the earlier portions of next session; and it would, I think, be in the highest degree inexpedient to delay, for an indefinite period, as the hon. Member's Question would suggest, the transference of the magnificent collections at South Kensington to the new premises that have long been needed, and have at last been completed for them at great cost I must emphatically demur to the view expressed and implied in the concluding phrase in the Question. The purpose stated by the Department "nearly fifty years ago" to have been in view in the then rearrangement of the collections followed precisely the same lines as those set before the recent Committee by the Board of Education last February. The practical steps needed for securing a more complete

    1837
    fulfilment of those purposes have been carefully worked out by that Committee in the Report and Recommendations, the main lines of which have since been adopted by the Board, and will be carried out in the approaching rearrangement of the collections, with such minor modifications as may prove desirable on closer investigation. Unfortunately, as was pointed out by the 1897 Departmental Committee, of which the hon. Member was a member (see p. xxxv. of their Report), the Art Museum in subsequent years did not continue to develop under "the guidance of a consistent policy determined beforehand." I must, therefore, contest the accuracy of the view now expressed by the hon. Member in his Question, when he speaks of a policy having been "consistently followed for nearly fifty years"; this is in direct conflict with the Departmental Committee's statement on this point, and cannot accurately be said of the Art Museum. On the other hand, I may point out that the policy now being carried out by the Board is a consistent development both of the original museum policy and also of that laid down by the Department's Minute, dated 20th July, 1897, passed while the 1897 Departmental Committee, of which the hon. Member was a member, were sitting, and approved by that Committee. By that Minute the Art Museum was organised on a basis of sections classified according to material. It is true that the Departmental Committee (in their Report signed by the hon. Member in 1898) made no clear declaration of preference for this basis; but the reasons which they named for approving the particular organisation of the museum staff adopted by the Department in 1897 can only be read as strong arguments in favour of that basis of classification.

    Rents Charged by Co-operative Societies to Small Holders.
    MR. JESSE COLLINGS: To ask the hon. Member for South Somerset, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, whether the rents to be charged to the small holders by the co-operative societies who have acquired land from county councils for the purpose of small holdings will be of such an amount as to enable these societies to pay a dividend to the shareholders, to pay the cost of manage-
    1838
    ment, and to provide for the formation of a reserve fund.
    (Answered by Sir Edward Strachey.) It will rest with the elected committee of a co-operative land society to decide as to the rents to be charged to individual members for their holdings. The called-up capital will, as a rule, be small, and a nominal increase in rent should be sufficient to provide a dividend upon it. The expenses of management should also be small. The question of the provision of a reserve fund is one for the decision of the committee.

    Grants for Cattle-breeding.
    MR. REES: To ask the hon. Member for South Somerset, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, whether any grant is made in Ireland for the purpose of improving the breed of cattle; and, if so, whether a similar grant can be made for Wales, in consideration of the fact that the meat of the United Kingdom is now chiefly supplied from foreign countries.
    (Answered by Sir Edward Strachey.) I am unable to add anything to the replies which I gave on this subject on the 3rd and 11th instant to my hon. friends the Members for South Carnarvonshire and Merthyr Tydvil.

    Applications for Small Holdings in Derbyshire.
    SIR WALTER FOSTER: To ask the hon. Member for South Somerset, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, whether he can now state what steps, if any, have been taken by the county council of Derbyshire to satisfy the 153 applicants for small holdings in the county of Derby; and, if no steps have been taken, whether the Board of Agriculture will take measures to inquire into the causes of the delay.
    (Answered by Sir Edward Strachey.) The county council are endeavouring to obtain land for the suitable applicants, and the Board have recently urged upon them the importance of doing so without any further delay.

    Strangford Bar Buoy.
    CAPTAIN CRAIG: To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he can state the result of his communication to the Irish Lights Commissioners as to the desirability of that Board consulting the local pilots of Strangford and Portaferry on the subject of the proper position in which to moor the buoy recently run down off Strangford Bar; and whether he is aware that a distance of one and a half mile from the Bar mouth would serve coasting vessels and vessels making in or out of the Lough better than the old situation of six miles out.
    (Answered by Mr. Churchill.) The Commissioners of Irish Lights inform me that the buoy in question was placed for the benefit of vessels passing up and down the Channel, and not as a guide for coasting vessels making in or out of the Lough, and that if it were moved to a spot one and a half miles from the Bar mouth, it would not at all answer the purpose for which it was established.

    Floating Docks for Vessels of "Dread nought" Class.
    MR. OWEN PHILIPPS: To ask the First Lord of the Admiralty what would be the approximate cost of a floating dock large enough to dock vessels of the "Dreadnought" class; and what approximate depth of water would be necessary in the place where such floating dock was stationed to enable vessels of the "Dreadnought" class to make use of the dock when the vessel is undamaged, and when one or more watertight compartments of the vessel are full of water.
    (Answered by Mr. MCKenna.) The Board have not had before them the detailed design of such a floating dock, and I should prefer not to quote an approximate estimate of cost. The Answer to the second part of the Question depends on the design of the dock and the amount of damage to the ship.

    Old-Age Pensions-Summary of Decisions.
    MR. R. HARCOURT: To ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he will issue some memorandum or return summarising the various decisions given in
    1840
    doubtful cases under the Old-Age Pensions Act which at present are only available in Departmental letters, Answers to Questions in Parliament, and the like.
    (Answered by Mr. John Burns.) I issued a circular on the 11th instant to local pension committees and sub committees informing them of the decisions arrived at upon some of the more prominent questions raised by the appeals made to the Local Government Board under the Act. The circular has been laid upon the Table, and will be in the hands of Members immediately.

    Construction of Subways at Elephant and Castle.
    MR. RUPERT GUINNESS: To ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he had been urged by the borough of Southwark to obtain Parliamentary sanction for the construction of subways at the Elephant and Castle so that the work might be proceeded with at once and some additional employment be given in a district where it is greatly needed; and, if so, will he state the grounds which prevented him from complying with that request.
    (Answered by Mr. John Burns.) The Answer to the first part of the Question is in the affirmative. The Parliamentary sanction desired would necessitate a Bill, and the Government could not undertake to introduce a Bill to deal with a purely local matter. I have suggested to the borough council that they should approach the London County Council so as to ascertain whether the matter can be dealt with by means of a clause in a Bill promoted by them.

    Indian Rupee Debt.
    SIR H. COTTON: To ask the Under-Secretary of State for India if he can state what amount of the Indian rupee debt standing on 31st March last at Rs.1,32,82,94,955 = £88,552,997 is held by natives of India; and what proportion of this rupee debt held by Indians consists of investments made by the Court of Wards, which is a department of Government, and of deposits which are made by Indian officials as security for their good behaviour.
    (Answered by Mr. Buchanan.) I have not the figure of holdings by natives of

    1841
    India on 31st March, 1908. But the division of the rupee debt on 31st December, 1906, was as follows—

    £

    Europeans

    48,000,000

    Natives of India

    39,000,000

    Total

    87,000,000

    I am unable to say what portion of the £39,000,000 held by Indians represents the investment of money held by the Court of Wards or of deposits lodged by officials.

    Unemployed Grant to Ireland.
    MR. HUGH LAW: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he can state the total amount so far allocated to Ireland out of the moneys available for the working of the Unemployed Workmen Act; the proportion such amount bears to those similarly allocated in Great Britain; and the principle in accordance with which Ireland's share is calculated.
    (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) No sum has been allocated to Ireland generally during the present year in aid of expenses under the Unemployed Workmen Act. Each application for a grant is inquired into by the Local Government Board and submitted by them to the Treasury for consideration. Up to the present time formal applications from Belfast, Drogheda, and Dublin have been received and decided on, the following grants being made. Belfast, preliminary grant of £1,000; Dublin, £3,000; Drog-heda, £450. Applications made by the Ennis and Galway Committees are before the Treasury.

    Evicted Tenants—Application of Edward M'Barron.
    MR. J. MACVEAGH: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Estates Commissioners have received an application from Edward M'Barron, of Agha-derryloman, County Fermanagh, to be restored as an evicted tenant; if so, whether his name has been entered on the list of suitable persons; and, if not, for what reason.
    (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Estates Commissioners have decided, after due
    1842
    inquiry, not to take any action on M'Barron's application for reinstatement nor to provide him with land in addition to that which he now holds. It would be contrary to practice to state the reasons which actuate the Commissioners in the exercise of the discretion vested in them.

    Territorial Army—Commands in the Army Service Corps.
    COLONEL LOCK WOOD: To ask the Secretary of State for War if the junior officer appointed to a divisional Army Service Corps command in the Territorial Force has been given a higher rank than the other officers, very senior to him, in a similar position are allowed to hold.
    (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) The officer first gazetted to the command of a divisional transport and supply column was given the rank of colonel. It was then decided that future appointments should be with the rank of lieutenant-colonel only. As this officer's appointment had been gazetted it was not possible to deprive him of the rank of colonel, but on the other hand, it was not considered desirable to bestow a rank which is now considered unsuitable for military reasons on other officers who are appointed to the command of these columns. The fact that he was junior in service to other officers afterwards appointed to similar commands was purely accidental.

    Government Contracts-Wages in Sub -Contracted Work.
    SIR FRANCIS CHANNING: To ask the Secretary of State for War what is the present procedure of the War Office to secure a reasonable standard of wages, hours and conditions of employment in respect of unorganised labour indirectly employed by sub-contracting of any portion of work to carry out Army contracts; whether he has considered the principle adopted in a standing order made by the Sheffield City Council on 10th April, 1907, that, in municipal contracts in respect of organised trades, the standard wages, hours, and conditions as generally recognised by the trade unions and the employers should be enforced, but that in respect of unorganised workers, where there are no such recognised standards, the council

    1843
    itself will prescribe reasonable standards of wages, hours, and conditions of employment in respect of any such sub contracted work under the municipal contracts; and whether the War Office, in offering any contracts in the carrying out of which unorganised labour is employed by subcontracting or otherwise, will adopt this principle and prescribe the rates of wages, hours of labour, and conditions of employment.
    (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) These points are discussed in the Report of the Fair Wages Committee which will shortly be in the hands of hon. Members, and will receive full consideration by His Majesty's Government. It would therefore, I think, serve no useful purpose to supply the hon. Baronet with the mass of detail that would be necessary in order to answer fully this question as to present practice.

  QUESTIONS IN THE HOUSE.

    Rosyth.
    MAJOR ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty how many men are now employed at the new naval dock at Rosyth, and in what capacity.
    THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. MCKENNA,): Tenders have net yet been received for the new works at Rosyth, but they are due next week. No men are, therefore, employed on the naval dock, which is included in the contract.
    MR. ARTHUR LEE: When does the right hon. Gentleman anticipate that serious operations will commence?
    MR. MCKENNA: Until I receive the tenders I cannot say.
    MAJOR ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: Can the right hon. Gentleman explain the reason for the delay?
    MR. MCKENNA: I am waiting for tenders.

    H.M.S. "Bulwark."
    MAJOR ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admir-
    1844
    alty whether he can give any information as to the recent defects found in the guns of H.M.S. "Bulwark"; and what is the nature of the defects in question.
    MR. MCKENNA: NO defects have been found in the guns of H.M.S. "Bulwark," but the riveting of the 12-inch gun slides has recently been reported by this ship as defective, and steps are being taken to make good this defect as soon as possible.

    Naval Shipbuilding on the Thames.
    MR. MIDDLEMORE: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether the Admiralty will state what, if any, shipbuilding work has been placed with the Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company since the launch of the "Black Prince" in 1904.
    MR. MCKENNA: An order for a torpedo-boat destroyer has recently been provisionally placed with the company. They have also contracted for the machinery of steamboats, the hulls of which were built by other firms; and have from time to time been given orders for replacing parts of machinery, etc.
    MR. MIDDLEMORE: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty in view of the fact that it is of national moment that a fully-equipped shipbuilding yard should exist in the immediate neighbourhood of London, and that shipbuilding plant cannot be maintained in idleness, whether the Admiralty, in giving out their contracts for the next year's programme, will give full consideration to the claims of the Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company.
    MR. MCKENNA: The Admiralty have always given full consideration to the lenders for shipbuilding contracts submitted by the Thames Ironworks Company, and will continue to do so in the future.
    MR. CROOKS: If unable to give these people a contract, will the Government, in the interests of the defence of London, lay a ship down and I build it themselves on the Thames?
    MR. MCKENNA: We have no dock-yard there.
    MR. CROOKS: Hire it.
    MR. WEDGWOOD: Is it not the fact that exactly similar arguments might be brought forward on behalf of Messrs. Armstrong, Vickers-Maxim, and Beardmore?
    MR. MCKENNA: Yes. I understand similar arguments would be brought forward on behalf of those firms.

    Special Reserve Subaltern Officers.
    MR. COURTENAY WARNER: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he contemplates any immediate action to facilitate the recruiting of Special Reserve subaltern officers; and, if not, how he proposes to deal with the increasing shortage.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. HALDANE,): My hon. friend is in error in supposing that the shortage is increasing. Since 22nd October there have been thirty-four first appointments. It is hoped that now that the Regulations have been published vacancies will gradually be filled up. It is not proposed to take any special measures.

    Special Reserve and the New Rifle.
    MR. COURTENAY WARNER: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War when the Special Reserve will be able to become acquainted with the use of the new rifle which would be the weapon they would have to use if required for active service; and if he would consider the advisability of deferring some of the six months training of the infantry recruits in the Special Reserve until such time as they can be provided for drill purposes with rifles they would have to use if called up for war service.
    MR. HALDANE: Recruits of the Special Reserve are at present trained in musketry with the short, rifle. It is anticipated that it will be possible to re-arm the infantry of the Special Reserve with the short rifle before the
    1846
    next annual training. I do not think, therefore, that the action suggested by my hon. friend would be expedient.

    Military Caps.
    MR. COURTENAY WARNER: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he will consider the desirability of withdrawing from issue the remainder of the obsolete-pattern cap with canvas, cover for infantry Special Reserves, improperly called the "Brodrick" by soldiers, having regard to its unpopularity with the men and the impossibility of making it look smart.
    MR. HALDANE: The cap in question is not confined to the Special Reserve and is still worn by certain Line units. To withdraw the remainder of these caps and replace them by those of the latest pattern would entail a heavy expenditure, which I think my hon. friend will agree with me could hardly be justified.
    In reply to a supplementary Question.
    MR. HALDANEsaid some Line units would wear the cap though it might not be the most becoming for them.

    Special Reserve Permanent Staff.
    MR. ARTHUR LEE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War what is the approximate cost per annum of the permanent and instructional staff assigned to the Special Reserve, and for what total number of Special Reservists is this staff sufficient.
    MR. HALDANE: The approximate annual cost of the Regular establishments of Special Reserve battalions, of the training brigades of Royal Artillery, and of the permanent staffs of Royal Reserve Artillery is £1,300,000. These staffs are considered to be sufficient to deal with the establishment of about 83,000 Special Reservists shown in the Estimates of this year; but the Regular establishments of Special Reserve battalions also handle recruits for the Line.
    MR. ARTHUR LEE: Will the sum of £1,300,000 cover the cost of the staff for both infantry and cavalry?
    MR. HALDANE: The Special Reserve battalions and the Artillery.

    Army Boots.
    MR. T. F. RICHARDS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he can state the reasons that his Department does not manufacture a portion at least of the boots and shoes required for the Army; and whether, having regard to the advantage of his Department, he will consider the advisability of the establishment by the Government of a manufactory for this purpose in or near some place where this class of labour can be found.
    MR. HALDANE: So long as the War Department can obtain all the boots that are required of good quality from contractors as at present, and can rely upon contractors to provide the extra quantities which might be required in emergency, there would appear to be no grounds for adopting the hon. Member's suggestion. In the interests of economy, I am not desirous of embarking on the trade of boot-making.

    Cable Rates to India.
    SIR EDWARD SASSOON: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for India whether there exist any reasons for not giving effect to the recommendation in the Report of the Departmental Committee on Cables, issued in 1900, for instituting a system of deferred messages to and from India at reduced rates; if so, would he state them; and, if not, would the India Office be moved to take immediate steps to bring it about.
    THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Mr. BUCHANAN,): The introduction of a system of deferred messages to and from India at reduced rates rests with the telegraph companies that transmit the Indian traffic. The Secretary of State will refer the question of introduction to the boards of the companies concerned for their consideration.
    SIR EDWARD SASSOON: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the expediency of appointing a small Depart-
    1848
    mental Committee to investigate this matter?
    MR. BUCHANAN: I should like notice of that.
    SIR EDWARD SASSOON: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for India what was the amount earned in 1907–8 by the Joint Purse, and what are the standard earnings which will automatically bring down the Indian telegraph rate to 1s. 6d. per word.
    MR. BUCHANAN: The amount earned by the Cis-India Joint Purse partners on traffic between Europe and India during 1907–08 was £363,531 3s. 7d. There is no standard of revenue, the earning of which would automatically bring down the Indian telegraph rate to 1s. 6d. per word.
    MAJOR ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: Do the Government intend to reduce the rate, if possible?
    MR. BUCHANAN: We should like to reduce it, of course.

    Unrest in India.
    MR. MACKARNESS: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for India whether he can state the number of editors of newspapers and other journalists in India who are at present undergoing sentences of imprisonment or transportation; and how many Indian newspapers have been suppressed or temporarily suspended.
    MR. BUCHANAN: I hope early next session to present a Return, on the Motion of the hon. Member for Nottingham, showing the prosecutions for seditious speeches and Writings in India since 1st January, 1907. According to the reports received by the Secretary of State, the Newspapers Act of 1908 has been put into force against one newspaper, while proceedings in the case of another are pending.
    MR. MACKARNESS: Will the Return bring the facts up to date?
    MR. BUCHANANasked for notice.
    MR. REESasked whether the Return, if granted, would give the caste of the offender in each case?
    MR. BUCHANANsaid he did not think so.
    MR. REESasked whether the right hon. Gentleman would arrange for that being done, in order that the nature and character of this opposition might be shown.
    [No Answer was returned.]
    MR. MACKARNESS: Can the right hon. Gentleman give me the actual number of journalists now in prison?
    MR. BUCHANAN: I cannot.
    DR. RUTHERFORD: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for India whether, in view of the frequency of raids and dacoities committed in British districts on the North-West Frontier of the Punjab by independent tribesmen who are in possession of modern European firearms, and resulting in loss of life and property and in the abduction of women, Whose husbands are unable to defend them because of the prohibition of firearms by the Government of India, he can inform the House what steps have been taken or are proposed to be taken, to remove the feeling of insecurity that prevails in that province.
    MR. REES: Does the Under-Secretary accept the implication that the maladministration or ignorance of the Government concerned has produced a feeling of insecurity in the Punjab?
    MR. BUCHANAN: No, Sir. The Government of India have under consideration the question of what improvements are required in the existing system of protecting the British districts adjoining the administrative border against tribal raids. The issue of arms to villages exposed to attack has been sanctioned in certain cases where it seemed necessary.
    MR. MACKARNESS: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for India
    1850
    whether the Sessions Judge at Allahabad has sentenced Babu Ram, the youthful editor of the newspaper called Swarajya, to seven years transportation on three separate charges of sedition; and, if so, what was the nature of the offences which were so punished; and what previous convictions, if any, stood on record against the prisoner.
    MR. BUCHANAN: The Answer to the first Question is in the affirmative; the sentences run concurrently. The charges against the accused were brought under Section 124 a of the Indian Penal Code, and had reference to several articles published in the newspaper mentioned; it is not known whether there were any previous convictions.
    MR. MACKARNESS: What is the age of this man?
    MR. BUCHANAN: I do not know.
    MR. REES: Old enough to know better.
    DR. RUTHERFORD: I beg to ask the Prime Minister whether His Majesty's Government will consider the advisability of suspending the further operation of the Summary Jurisdiction Act until the reform scheme has been proclaimed and passed into law.
    MR. BUCHANAN: As I explained in reply to a question on Monday, the Act in question is already in force. The Secretary of State does not think it desirable to take the peculiar action suggested by the hon. Member.
    DR. RUTHERFORD: I beg to ask the Prime Minister if he will say when, in view of the blocking Motions placed on the Paper regarding the unrest in India, he will take the long-promised steps to prevent the House from being deprived of its constitutional right to discuss freely all matters of urgent national and imperial purport.
    MR. REES: Before the Prime Minister answers this Question, will he say whether the House, as distinguished from a very small section thereof, does desire to discuss this subject at the present time?
    THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. ASQUITH,): As I have frequently stated, I am prepared, if there is satisfactory evidence of general consent, to ask the House to adopt the recommendation of the Select Committee over which I presided. But no such evidence is so far forthcoming.

    Famine in the Uganda Protectorate.
    MR. CORRIE GRANT: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will arrange for the distribution of White Paper Cd. 4538 among the head-teachers of our schools and the leaders of our different sects.
    THE UNDER - SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (COLONEL SEELY,): I share my hon. friend's desire that the Paper to which he refers should have as wide a circulation as possible since it contains a fine record of the united labours of Government officials and Roman Catholic and Church of England clergymen in relieving the distress caused by the recent famine in a part of the Uganda Protectorate. But I fear that the gratuitous distribution of the Paper in the manner which my hon. friend suggests would prove an inconvenient and expensive precedent.
    MR. CORRIE GRANT: May I ask if the cause of the famine was the existence of enormous herds of wild beasts in the Protectorate?
    MR. SPEAKER: That hardly arises out of the Question on the Paper.

    Straits Settlements—Sale of Public Lands.
    MR. WEDGWOOD: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether his attention has been drawn to the public land sold in the Straits Settlements during 1907; and whether the leasing of public lands at revisable rents usual in the Federated Malay States could be with advantage adopted in the Straits Settlements also.
    COLONEL SEELY: The system to which my hon. friend refers is already in force in the Straits Settlements. Except in very special cases, the statutory grants by which Crown Land is alienated are issued subject to a provision that rents are to be revised at intervals of thirty years. My hon. friend will find full details in the Straits Settlements Ordinance No. II. of 1886.

    Straits Settlements—Public Debt Charges.
    MR. WEDGWOOD: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies with reference to the 1907 Report on the Straits Settlements, whether the increase in the charges on account of public debt from $24,000 to $194,000, shown under the head of expenditure, was due to the nationalising of the docks; and, if so, why revenue from these docks does not appear on the revenue side of the account.
    COLONEL SEELY: No, Sir. The loan was raised for certain public works in addition to the acquisition of the docks, and the charge to which my hon. friend refers is in respect of that portion of the loan allocated to the former purpose. The revenues of the Dock Board provide the interest for such part of the loan as was devoted to the acquisition of the docks.
    MR. WEDGWOOD: Has the money been spent on remunerative works, and will future accounts show the revenue therefrom?
    COLONEL SEELY: The question of what should be charged to capital or to revenue account is too wide a subject to discuss by way of Question and Answer across the floor of the House.

    Alienation of Malacca and Penang Public Lands.
    MR. WEDGWOOD: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the statutory grants mentioned on page 27 of Cd. 3729 (Straits Settlements) are in the nature of alienations in fee simple or of leases; and, if the former, will he take steps to prevent the increasing alienation of public land in Malacca and Penang.
    COLONEL SEELY: These Grants are of the nature of leases. Grants in fee simple are prohibited by Straits Settlements Ordinance No. XII. of 1903, except in the case of an exchange of Crown land for other land already held in fee simple. As I have just informed my hon. friend, the terms on which Crown land is now alienated include provision for periodical revision of rent.
    MR. WEDGWOOD: Would it not be better to have statutory grants or leases in these cases?
    COLONEL SEELYwas understood to say that point would be considered.

    Australian Immigration Laws.
    MR. T. F. RICHARDS: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether his attention has been drawn to the treatment of a British subject named Robert Harris, who was not allowed to land at the Port of Sydney, New South Wales, when endeavouring to visit London, and who has written fully, explaining the circumstances, to the Secretary of State for the Colonies; and whether he has made the necessary inquiries concerning this case, and, if so, can he say what action, if any, his Department intends to take in the matter.
    COLONEL SEELY: The Secretary of State recently received a Memorial from Mr. Harris, and he has asked the Commonwealth Government to be good enough to furnish him with a Report on the circumstances of the case.

    The Baghdad Railway.
    MR. REES: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can give the House any information regarding the progress of the Baghdad Railway.
    THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. MCKINNON WOOD,): No further progress has been made with the construction of the railway since the last Question was answered in the House.
    MR. REES: Does the hon. Gentleman know whether the Young Turks, under the new constitution, have accepted the exceedingly onerous contract with regard to the kilometric guarantee of this undertaking?
    MR. MCKINNON WOOD: I have no information on that subject.

    Hop Industry.
    MR. DUNDAS WHITE: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will consider the advisability of appointing a Departmental Committee to inquire into the working of the Adulteration of Hops Act, 1733, the Hop Trade Act, 1800, and the Hop Trade (Prevention of Fraud) Act, 1866, with a view to ascertaining whether and how far the provisions of these Acts operate advantageously or disadvantageously to the British as compared with the foreign hop trade.
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE,): As a Committee only recently inquired into the condition of the hop industry, I am of opinion a further Committee would not serve any useful purpose.
    MR. DUNDAS WHITE: Was the matter mentioned in the question particularly inquired into by that Committee?
    MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: They must have considered the question before coming to the conclusion they did.
    SIR W. J. COLLINS (St. Pancras, W.): Will the right hon. Gentleman cause inquiry to be made as to the working of existing legislation in Germany and Australia, whereby the use of hop substitutes is prohibited?
    MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: Yes.

    Duty on Methylated Spirits.
    MR. ALEXANDER CROSS: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will state the duty leviable at the Customs houses at our ports upon imported methylated spirits per proof gallon and per gallon

    1855
    66 degrees over proof; what are the Excise duties charged on spirit manufactured in Home distilleries per proof gallon and per gallon 66 degrees over proof; and if he will state what is the advantage calculated to be afforded to the domestic producer under this tariff.
    MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: So far as I am aware, there is no importation of methylated spirits to this country. If any importation took place, the spirits would be chargeable with duty at the rate of 11s. 5d. per proof gallon, or 18s. 11d. per bulk gallon at a strength of 66 overproof. The Excise duty on British spirits is 11s. per proof gallon, or 18s. 3d. per bulk gallon, at a strength of 66 over-proof. Having regard to the conditions affecting home production, I am not satisfied that there is any substantive advantage to the domestic producer at these rates.

    Old-Age Pensions—Pauperism Dis- qualification.
    MR. GILL: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he intends to remove the pauper disqualification from the Old-Age Pensions Act during the next session of Parliament.
    MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: I am not in a position to make any further statement at present.
    MR. BELLOC (Salford, S.): Arising out of that Answer, is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this is a most important question for the constituencies, and can I press him to give a more favourable hint? It is very important for the Government.
    MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: The hon. Gentleman was not in the House when the Prime Minister made a statement on the subject. If he has time to look it up, he will find it is rather more friendly than he thinks.
    SIR FRANCIS CHANNING (Northamptonshire, E.): I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether his attention has been called to several instances of persons being held to be disqualified for old-age pensions for
    1856
    having received outdoor relief since 1st January, 1908, although members of their families have voluntarily repaid to the guardians the whole of the sums thus paid in outdoor relief; whether, where the guardians have themselves enforced such repayment by members of the family, the applicant would under the Act and the regulations be entitled to a pension; and whether, having regard to this, he will issue a circular to pension committees urging them to accept as qualified for a pension persons whose relatives have thus voluntarily repaid any sums paid in outdoor relief as if the guardians had enforced such repayment.
    MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: My attention has been called to cases of the kind referred to; but I am advised that subsequent repayment, by whomsoever it may be made and whether made voluntarily or compulsorily, does not remove the disqualification. The disqualification is statutory, and I have no power to issue instructions in the sense suggested in the Question.
    SIR FRANCIS CHANNING: Will boards of guardians be advised to take action in case such an applicant is disqualified?
    MR. LLOYD-GEORGE'SAnswer was inaudible.
    MR. CORRIE GRANT: Does the reply cover a case in which the guardians bring an action to recover relief by a loan to the pauper?
    MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: I should like notice of that Question.

    Stud Tramway Dangers.
    SIR JOHN BENN: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that on the stud tramway system in the Mile End Road, E., certified by the Board in June last, animals and persons have been injured by live studs; whether he can state the number of live studs and accidents during the working of the system and the amount paid by the London County Council in claims for injured horses or persons; and whether

    1857
    the Board's certificate is still in force with regard to this stud system.
    THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. CHURCHILL,): Accidents to two persons and five horses have been reported to the Board of Trade as occurring on the tramway in question through coming in contact with live studs. The tram service was withdrawn in July last and the period covered by the Board's certificate expires on the 23rd instant. I have no official information as to any amounts paid by the London County Council for injury either to persons or to horses.

    Suicides at Sea.
    MR. WALSH: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to the suicide at sea of a fireman named Altorallee Ariff Meah on the steamship "Kassanga," of London, on 6th of September, 1908; whether any inquiry was held, whether the seaman was medically examined before joining the ship, and whether he had any previous sea service; whether the Board of Trade surveyors have satisfactorily reported upon the ventilation of the stokehold; if he can state the amount of coal the fireman and trimmers were required to work in each twenty-four hours; and whether any previous cases of suicide, supposed suicide, or disappearance amongst stokehold hands have occurred on this ship.
    MR. CHURCHILL: Yes, Sir. Inquiry was held by the Shipping Master at Chittagong. The man was engaged at Calcutta and had previously served as fireman, but I am not aware whether he had been medically examined. As the vessel has not returned to this country since she sailed on her first voyage, the Board of Trade surveyors have not had an opportunity since the date of the occurrence of reporting on the ventilation of the stoke-hold. The consumption of coal was thirty-six tons per twenty-four hours, and the number of firemen and trimmers was eighteen. No previous case of suicide, supposed suicide, or disappearance in this vessel has been reported.
    MR. REES: Is it likely natives of India commit suicide on account of want of ventilation in stokeholds?
    AN HON. MEMBER: Is it not the fact that a considerable number of firemen do commit suicide?
    [No Answer was returned.]

    Salford Hundred Court of Record.
    MR. GILL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if his attention has been called to the practice of the Salford Hundred Court of Record in issuing writs from that Court to persons residing in distant parts of the country, whereby it is well-nigh impossible for them to defend such actions; if he can state the number of writs issued during the present year by such Court for sums under £5, under £10, and under £20, respectively; whether he is aware that this Court is extensively used by moneylenders; and whether he proposes to take any steps by legislation or otherwise, to curtail the jurisdiction of this Court in cases where the defendants reside at a distance and where Judges of County Courts have power to try such cases.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. GLADSTONE, Leeds, W.): My attention has been called to the hardships caused by the practice to which the hon. Member refers, and I have consulted the Lord Chancellor, who states that the proper course to be adopted by the council of any borough, or the ratepayers of any parish, whose inhabitants are aggrieved at the action of the Salford Hundred Court of Record, is to petition His Majesty in Council as prescribed in Section 7 of the County Courts Act, 1888, that the jurisdiction of that Court may be excluded.

    Penrhyn Slate Quarries.
    MR. WILLIAM JONES: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what was the number of men at work in the Penrhyn Slate Quarries for the year ending 31st December, 1907; how many were employed inside and outside respectively; and what was the number

    1859
    of fatal and non-fatal accidents that occurred to inside and outside workers during the same period.
    MR. GLADSTONE: The figures asked for are as follows: 889 employed inside; 1,060 employed outside; total, 1,949. One fatal and 13 non-fatal accidents inside; one fatal and 15 non-fatal accidents outside.

    Time-Cribbing in Cotton Mills.
    MR. GILL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he can state the number of prosecutions for time-cribbing in cotton mills during the present year; the number of convictions and the amount of fines inflicted; whether any inspector's assistants are engaged in that work; and, if so, how many, and the districts to which they are attached.
    MR. GLADSTONE: 482 informations have been laid against thirty-four occupiers, resulting in 481 convictions. The fines imposed amounted to £540 1s., and the costs to £208 7s. 6d. Four inspector's assistants assist in the work of detecting time-cribbing; they are attached, one to the Manchester district, one to the Blackburn district, one to the Preston district, and one to the Oldham, Rochdale, Bolton and Stockport districts.

    Cotton Mills, Cardroom Ventilation.
    MR. GILL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the factory department have concluded their investigations regarding better ventilation in cardrooms in cotton mills; Whether he is satisfied that more efficient apparatus can now be affixed for taking away the dust, etc., which is caused by the stripping and grinding of carding engines; and, if so, Whether he is prepared to issue an order making it compulsory on all employers to adopt such improved methods on an early date.
    MR. GLADSTONE: The subject has been engaging the attention of both the manufacturers and the inspectors. A number of different appliances for removing the dust are being tried, and
    1860
    the results already obtained are such as to show that the dust can be successfully removed without undue cost. The matter is still in the experimental stage, and further experience as to the respective efficiency of the various methods is necessary before a definite requirement can be imposed. The inspectors, however, have instructions to keep the matter before the manufacturers, and I hope that in the course of a few months sufficient progress may have been made to enable the Department to take definite action.

    Old-Age Pensions for Rural District Council Workmen.
    MR. HUNTI beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether, in view of the fact that in some country districts rural district councils have been in the habit of keeping on old men of long service from charitable motives at higher wages than they were really worth, and that they are now about to reduce their wages to the point at which they are eligible for the full 5s. pension, he will say if these men will be entitled to receive pensions.
    THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. JOHN BURNS,): The facts to which the hon. Member calls attention would not, in my opinion, render these persons ineligible for pensions under the Old-Age Pensions Act. The circumstances of each case would, of course, have to be onsidered.

    Depwade Guardians Meeting Place.
    MR. NICHOLLS (Northamptonshire, N.): I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board if his attention has been called to the fact that a committee of the guardians of the Depwade Union, Norfolk, are holding a meeting on Thursday next at the Railway Tavern, Tivetshall; and if he proposes to take any steps to prevent guardians meeting in a licensed public-house for the transaction of public business.
    MR. JOHN BURNS: I have made inquiry on the subject, and am informed that a special committee of the guardians

    1861
    propose to meet to-morrow at the Railway Hotel, Tivetshall, for the purpose of conferring with the medical officers of the union in the hope of settling an outstanding difference with regard to vaccination arrangements. Tivetshall was selected because several of the medical men have to come by rail, and would desire to return by the next train, which could not be done if the meeting were held at the workhouse, and there is no other suitable place at Tivetshall where the meeting could be held. The occasion seems to be altogether exceptional, and I do not think it necessary to take any action with regard to the matter. I may add that I fully agree with the view I understand my hon. friend to entertain, that the holding of meetings of local authorities on licensed premises is in general open to great objection.

    Labour Exchanges.
    SIR FRANCIS CHANNING: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he can state the total number of persons registered in the employment registers of the local labour exchanges in London since 31st March, 1908; what is the number of labour exchanges or bureaux or employment registers started or utilised by distress committees in the provinces, and what has been the total number of persons registered since that date in such exchanges and employment registers; what has been the number of situations filled through the agency of such exchanges and employment registers since 31st March in London and in the provinces; whether any satisfactory system of intercommunication has been established, and is in actual operation, between the central exchange of London and the provincial labour exchanges and bureaux; and whether the number of skilled workmen provided with situations through these agencies is increasing or not.
    MR. JOHN BURNS: The total number of persons registered by the local labour exchanges in London since 31st March last up to the 11th instant is 115,195. The number of situations filled by the exchanges in London in the same period is 18,172. For the provinces, I cannot give such precise figures, but it appears
    1862
    that during the eight months following 31st March last there were thirteen labour bureaux maintained by distress committees (apart from some other exchanges worked by town councils), and that the total number of new applicants at the bureaux of these thirteen distress committees was 28,403, out of which number 3,893 were provided with situations. Some intercommunication takes place between London and the provinces as regards the operations of labour exchanges, but there is no organised system for the purpose. I am informed that in London the exchanges are daily becoming more used in respect to both registering and supplying skilled workmen, and that many large factories now draw the whole of their hands from them.
    SIR FRANCIS CHANNING: Do I understand that the intercommunication between London and the provinces will be looked into by the Local Government Board and will be more fully organised?
    MR. JOHN BURNS: The subject of labour bureaux is being considered at this moment in concurrence not only with my right hon. friend the President of the Board of Trade, but with the Government as a whole.
    SIR FRANCIS CHANNING: Does the right hon. Gentleman contemplate giving further Returns covering recent months?
    MR. JOHN BURNS: Yes. We trust to be able to issue before June a Report which will be an improvement on that of June last.

    Postal Facilities at Scarborough.
    MR. W. R. REA: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General whether the curtailment of postal facilities in the town of Scarborough, which he has announced, is part of a general scheme of reduction; if so, whether he will state what other towns have been or will be affected; whether any exceptions to the rule are being made; and whether, before coming to a final decision, he will take steps to ensure that local opinion and convenience are consulted.
    THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. SYDNEY BUXTON,): The time during which a post

    1863
    office is open to the public is arranged according to the business done, and is not curtailed unless the business at the end or beginning of the period is insufficient to warrant the employment of the staff required to deal with it. The question of extension or curtailment of the hours of counter business is one which is taken up at the periodical revisions of force carried out at all offices. It is the practice in cases in which there is any question of permanent curtailment to consult the local authorities if it is thought that the change is likely to provoke much opposition. The case of Scarborough is still under consideration.
    MR. BECKETT: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that local opinion in Scarborough is considerably averse to the proposed curtailment?
    MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: That, I think, is highly probable, because whenever it is proposed to curtail the hours there is naturally some local opposition, and it is really a question of the merits of the particular case. As I have said, Scarborough is still under consideration, and I may say that I desire to give every consideration to local opinion in these matters.
    MR. BECKETT: Can the right hon. Gentleman say how long it will be before this decision is arrived at?
    MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: I cannot say off-hand.

    The Victoria and Albert Museum.
    LORD BALCARRES: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Education what proportion of the £11,260 voted for 1908–9 as the art purchase grant for the Victoria and Albert Museum has been expended during the first eight months of the financial year.
    THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Mr. RUNCIMAN,): The noble Lord's Question is based on a misapprehension as regards the money to which he refers. The £11,000 is not given by the Exchequer to be spent in the financial year; it is a
    1864
    grant-in-aid—unexpended balances not surrendered—placed regularly to the credit of the Art Museum for purchasing such objects as it may from time to time be expedient to procure to strengthen particular sections of the museum exhibits, or to secure some specially desirable object that happens to be for sale. During the last few months I have thought it expedient, in the best interests of the museum, to direct that the officials should refrain from making any purchases at all except in the case of such few objects as presented exceptional opportunities that ought not to be missed. I did so, and am still doing so, in order that there might thus be accumulated a substantial sum with which to start the museum upon the important new stage in its career that will commence when the occupation of the large new premises is proceeded with. The sorting and rearrangement of the various objects of the museum collections in the extended new galleries and courts will demonstrate in a way hitherto impossible which of the various departments of the museum are most in need of development by careful purchasing, and in which of them the needs are less pressing. For this purpose the accumulations now in hand resulting from the savings of the last two years, amounting to some £11,000, will then be at our disposal.
    LORD BALCARRES: But how much of the money voted this year has been actually spent?
    MR. RUNCIMAN: I cannot give the exact amount. There was a balance carried forward from last year, and we have made purchases to the amount of £2,900 this year.
    LORD BALCARRES: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Education if, prior to the adoption of the scheme to reorganise the Victoria and Albert Museum as outlined by the Departmental Committee, the House of Commons can be given an opportunity of discussing the matter, in view of the proposal to revise the museum policy consistently followed for nearly fifty years.
    MR. RUNCIMAN: The reply to the hon. Member's Question is necessarily

    1865
    of some length; and if he will permit me, I will hand it in at the Table to be printed, sending him a copy; as this will, I think, better meet the convenience of the House.
    LORD BALCARRES: I am only asking that Parliament may have a voice in the policy reversing the uniform practice of the last fifty years.
    MR. RUNCIMAN: I cannot admit that there has been a departure from uniform practice, or that there has been any uniform practice of that period. Any Question as to the disposition of the time of the House must obviously be addressed to the Prime Minister.

    Holyrood Palace Picture Gallery.
    MR. GULLAND: I beg to ask the First Commissioner of works whether a plan is in existence for the redecoration of the picture gallery at Holyrood Palace; if so, whether he will exhibit it; and whether he will make provision in next year's Estimates for the work to be carried out.
    THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (Mr. L. HARCOURT,): The question of redecorating the picture gallery at Holyrood Palace has frequently been discussed; but I have not as yet been able to submit any definite plan to the King. I am not, therefore, making any provision in the Estimates for next year.

    Foreign Fed Meat.
    MR. REES: I beg to ask the hon. Member for South Somerset, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, whether the Government will consider the propriety of introducing a Bill next session making it compulsory for foreign-fed meat exposed for sale in this country to be marked as foreign-fed.
    THE TREASURER OF THE HOUSEHOLD (Sir EDWARD STRACHEY,): I am not in a position to make any statement as to what legislation, if any, will be initiated by the Board next session.
    MR. REES: May I ask whether under the circumstances free competition does
    1866
    not amount to protection in favour of the foreigner.
    MR. SPEAKER: That is a matter of opinion.

    Century Insurance Company Director.
    MR. WATT: I beg to ask the Lord-Advocate whether he is aware that one of the recently-appointed sheriffs in Scot and is an ordinary director in the Century Insurance Company, and that thot company is frequently engaged in litigation in the jurisdiction of the sheriff; and, if so, will he say whether this has the sanction of his Department, or whether he proposes to take any steps in the matter.
    THE LORD-ADVOCATE (Mr. THOMAS SHAW,): Sheriff Lorrimer is a director of this Company. The remainder of the Question is founded on error. The company is not frequently engaged in litigation in that sheriffdom; indeed I am informed that during the whole twenty-three years of the Company's existence it has never once had a case there which fell to be tried by the sheriff.
    MR. WATT: What is the course adopted in cases where sheriff's companies come into litigation? Does the sheriff vacate his seat and who takes his place?
    MR. THOMAS SHAW: That would be an important question when such a case arose, but I have not heard of one.

    Lanarkshire Miners and Fishing in the Tweed.
    MR. FINDLAY: I beg to ask the Lord-Advocate whether his attention has been called to the interdict cases raised by certain proprietors in Peebleshire prohibiting a number of Lanarkshire miners from having access to the banks of the Tweed and mulcting them in heavy expenses; and whether, in view of the unrest and indignation caused by this interference with immemorial custom, he will consider the advisablity of introducing legislation to secure right of access to river banks and freedom to fish for trout.
    THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (Mr. SINCLAIR,): My attention has not been drawn to the cases referred to. On behalf of the Prime Minister I received a deputation upon the subject of Tweed fisheries during the autumn recess, and I cannot at present do more than assure my hon. friend that the question is not being lost sight of by the Government.

    Scottish Churches Commission.
    MR. GULLAND: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland whether he is aware that many of the funds under the adjudication of the Scottish Churches Commission have been long ago allotted to the churches interested but have not been paid over, and that much inconvenience is thereby produced to the causes for which the money was given; and whether he will represent to the Commission the advisability of making forthwith a considerable, if not a complete, payment.
    MR. SINCLAIR: I am not quite sure that I understand the full purport of this Question. My hon. friend is aware that I have no power to interfere, and that the Commissioners are in all probability well acquainted with the circumstances. Such matters are left to their discretion and I am not at present disposed to make any such representation to the Commission as my hon. friend suggests.

    Cement for Irish Labourers' Cottages.
    MR. GINNELL: I beg to ask the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture (Ireland) whether his Department has tested samples of cement manufactured in Ireland and found any suitable for building labourers' cottages; and, if so, whether he will have the results communicated to the Local Government Board and to local bodies engaged in building cottages for labourers.
    THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. CHERRY,): My right hon. friend the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture informs me that there is only one cement factory in Ireland,
    1868
    and this is situated at Drinagh, near the town of Wexford. The Department have not carried out any tests on the cement manufactured at Drinagh. They are, however, advised that the cement in question is of good quality, and is suitable for use in the building of labourers' cottages and other work.

    Roscommon Instructress of Domestic Economy.
    MR. GINNELL: I beg to ask the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture (Ireland) whether he can state when and how the appointment of Miss Parr as instructress of domestic economy was terminated by the Department in the County Roscommon; up to what date was she paid salary; and what reason was assigned for refusing the sworn inquiry demanded by her into the conduct of a certain official in the employment of the Roscommon County Committee, a portion of whose salary is paid by the Department.
    MR. CHERRY: My right hon. friend the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture informs me that the lady referred to was employed by the County Roscommon Committee of Technical Instruction, and her appointment was determined by them and not by the Department. As regards the remaining part of the Question, I have to refer the hon. Member to the reply given to his Question of the 1st instant, in which it was stated that there has never been any information or evidence which would call for the Department's interference with the discretion of the Committee in the matter.

    Irish Dispensary Medical Officers.
    MR. GINNELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Local Government Board for Ireland or the local sanitary authorities have power to require dispensary medical officers to furnish a certificate of the specific cause of each death in their respective districts, and, when a dying person has been attended by another medical practitioner, to require a similar certificate from the latter; and, if such power exists will it be put in operation.
    THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. BIRRELL,): The matter is not regulated by Orders of the Local Government Board but by the Births and Deaths Registration Act (Ireland), 1880, which requires every registered medical practitioner to give a certificate as to the cause of the death of any person whom he has been attending.

    Irish Labourers' Cottages and Tuberculosis.
    MR. GINNELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the promoters of the anti-tuberculosis campaign in Ireland have yet had specimen labourers' cottages in actual occupation inspected by tuberculosis experts with a view to improving the prevalent designs in the interest of health, especially as regards damp, light, and air-space; and, if not, whether this will be done forthwith, in view of the large number of cottage schemes now in contemplation.
    MR. BIRRELL: The Local Government Board are not aware that there has been any such inspection of labourers' cottages. Before issuing their model plans and specifications for cottages to be built under the Labourers (Ireland) Act, 1906, the Board took into full consideration the matters indicated in the latter part of the Question.

    Promotion of Irish Teachers.
    MR. GINNELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he will state what reason and justification the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland offer for suspending the promotion to first grade of men who have thoroughly earned promotion, according to rules.
    MR. BIRRELL: The Commissioners of National Education inform me that they have not suspended the promotion of men who have earned it.

    Irish Education Rules.
    MR. GINNELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if the Commissioners of National Education for Ireland are now preparing new rides and regulations;
    1870
    whether he, remembering past friction in connnection with their rules, will ask them, before finally adopting new rules, to submit drafts of them to representatives of the respective organisations of managers and of teachers; when do the Commissioners propose to pay the supplementary grant for the year ending 31st March, 1909; do they intend to give annual increments of salary instead of triennial as at present; what is their intention regarding the quicker promotion of teachers; and will they enable teachers to reach the maximum of first-of-first grade before completion of thirty-six years of service.
    MR. BIRRELL: The rules of the Commissioners of National Education are revised annually. The Revised Code for 1908–9 is now being circulated. I do not propose to make any suggestion to the Commissioners as to the method of revision. The supplementary grant for the year ending 31st March, 1909, cannot be paid until after that date. The Commissioners do not intend to give annual increments of salary, they desire to accelerate promotion in suitable cases, and they would also be glad to enable deserving teachers to reach their maximum sooner, but the necesssary funds are not at present available for the purpose.

    Irish Land Purchase Securities.
    MR. BARRIE (Londonderry, N.): I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he will state in how many cases of applications under Section 1, subsection (1), of the Land Purchase Act, 1903, did the Estates Commissioners in the years 1906 and 1907 make, or direct to be made, inquiry into matters affecting the security.
    MR. BIRRELL: It is not the practice of the Estates Commissioners to inspect for security holdings in respect of which applications have been lodged under Section 1, subsection (1) of the Irish Land Act, 1903, but such holdings may have to be inspected for other purposes.

    Irish Land Purchase Finance.
    MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the

    1871
    Estates Commissioners are alone responsible for estimating the total amount of purchase money under the Land Act of 1903 at £183,568,396; whether they consulted the Registrar-General as to the various descriptions of land included in the tenement valuation of £10,061,667 on the basis of which the estimated amount of purchase money for unsold land was calculated; and, if so, will he lay upon the Table a copy of the correspondence that passed between the two Departments.
    MR. BIRRELL: The Estates Commissioners are responsible for the estimate of the total amount of purchase money under the Act of 1903. They consulted the Registrar-General as to the point referred to in the Question, but no correspondence passed between the two Departments.

    Rafeen Untenanted Lands.
    MR. CREAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Estates Commissioners have placed Henty Hosford in possession of untenanted land at Rafeen, County Cork; whether he is aware that in reply to a letter the Estates Commissioners informed the Parliamentary Member for the Division that they had fully inquired into the claim made by the Hosfords and had decided not to purchase the farm for them, as they had no title to the land; whether he is aware that the people claiming this land have already in their possession three large farms, one of these being a farm near Kinsale from which a farmer had been evicted, and for which the son of the evicted tenant has made a claim; and, whether in view of these facts and in the interest of peace in the district, the Commissioners will refuse to advance the purchase money.
    MR. BIRRELL: The Estates Commissioners purchased this farm in 1907. They at first intended it for a tenant from another estate, but ultimately decided to give it to the Hosfords, on whose behalf the hon. Member had approached them. The farm has now been sold to Henry Hosford, who is in possession. The Commissioner are
    1872
    aware that his stepfather holds other lands, but cannot say whether they include an evicted farm.
    MR. WILLIAM ABRAHAM: Did not the hon. Member for South-East Cork inform the Commissioners by letter that he had proof the Hosfords had no title to the land, and that the persons who recommended him had stated that they had been grossly deceived? Will the Commissioners reconsider their decision?
    MR. BIRRELL: I have no information, but it looks as if the hon. Member had better have left the matter alone.

    Tonlagee Grazing Farm.
    MR. CHARLES CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that Mr. John Beirne, having had his cattle driven more than once from his grazing farm at Tonlagee, near Ballinasloe, and after the Estates Commissioners had on 15th November, 1907, informed him that upon inspection they estimated the price of the farm at £3,090, exclusive of bonus, intimated his readiness to sell; that six months afterwards he was informed that the above-mentioned price was inclusive and not exclusive of the bonus, thereby reducing the price by £370; that on 23rd October, 1908, the Estates Commissioners informed him they were only prepared to give him £2,759 for the farm, or a sum of £700 less than the original sum at which they valued the farm; and, whether in view of the prevailing circumstances of the locality, the payment of the sum originally proposed will be made to Mr. Beirne.
    MR. BIRRELL: The Inspector-General of the Royal Irish Constabulary informs me that the cattle have not been driven off this farm, but on one occasion cattle on their way to the farm were dispersed. Owing to a clerical error in the office of the Estates Commissioners the word "exclusive" was used instead of "inclusive" in communicating their estimate of price. The owner's solicitor was informed of the mistake as soon as it was discovered. The correct amount

    1873
    was stated in the formal offer to purchase, and the Commissioners are not prepared to increase it.

    Royal Dublin Society.
    MR. KETTLE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the recent action of the Royal Dublin Society in refusing to admit to its library a book by Mrs. John Richard Green, entitled "The Making of Ireland and its Undoing;" whether he is aware that this book has been acclaimed in the world of culture as the most important contribution to Irish history published in recent years, and is in circulation in the National Library in Dublin, and in many other public libraries in Ireland and Great Britain; and whether he can state the grounds on which it was excluded by the Royal Dublin Society.
    The hon. Member had the following other Questions down on the same subject—
    I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that Members of the Royal Dublin Society enjoy the privilege of borrowing from the National Library books purchased with public money, and of retaining these books for an indefinite period in their own homes, to the inconvenience of the Dublin reading public; and whether he will make such alterations in the Charter as will deprive members of that society of the privilege of inconveniencing those citizens of Dublin who make use of the National Library for purposes of study.
    I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Royal Dublin Society was originally instituted by Royal Charter for the promotion not of literature but of agriculture; whether its chief public functions are three public shows every year of horses, sheep, pigs, and fat cattle; whether it enjoys any endowment from public funds; and, if so, whether, in view of its recent manifestation of political prejudice, he will take steps to withdraw such portion of the funds as is devoted to the maintenance of a literary censorship, for which
    1874
    no provision is made in the Charter of the society.
    I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether, in view of recent events, he will make such alterations in the Charter of the Royal Dublin Society as will limit the activities of that body to the improvement of agriculture.
    I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland who is the present President of the Royal Dublin Society; whether the Lord-Lieutenant is a vice-patron; and whether the action of the society in excluding important works on Irish history from its library was taken in consultation with the Lord-Lieutenant, and is to be regarded as enjoying his approval.
    MR. BIRRELL: The Royal Dublin Society was founded in 1731 for the promotion of husbandry and other useful arts and sciences. It does not receive any contribution from public funds, and I have no power to limit its action in the manner suggested. Lord Ardilaun is its President, and the Lord-Lieutenant its vice-patron. The selection of books for its library is not a matter which comes under the notice of His Excellency, and I have no information on the subject. In virtue of the agreement under which the society handed over its books and collections to the Government in 1877, members of the society elected before 1878 can borrow books from the National Library for one month. That agreement cannot be altered.
    MR. BYLESasked if the banishment of a book from a library was not the surest way to provide a circulation for it.
    MR. BIRRELL: I know nothing about that.
    MR. MOONEY: May I ask when the Estimate under which certain sums were paid to this Society for promoting the breeding of cattle was altered?
    MR. BIRRELL: Surely there is no connection between that and grants for the library.
    MR. MOONEY: But so long as money is voted for any purpose whatever to the Royal Dublin Society, surely the right hon. Gentleman has some power over that body?
    MR. BIRRELLsaid his information was, and it was not likely to be incorrect, that the Royal Dublin Society did not receive contributions from public funds. He could exercise no authority over the book committee of a lyceum or society of this kind.

    Charge against an Irish Member.
    MR. JOHN O'CONNORasked if there was any truth in the report that a Member for an Irish constituency was about to be brought before an Irish Judge on a charge of having published news in a newspaper concerning a matter of public importance.
    MR. CHERRY: Proceedings are being taken in the King's Bench Division of the High Court against a Member of the House, in reference to a publication of matter in a newspaper belonging to him. The case will be proceeded with on Monday or Tuesday next.
    MR. JOHN O'CONNORasked under what statute, and was it for publishing public news of local public interest.
    MR. CHERRY: Under the statute of Ed. III. and Common Law. I am afraid I cannot give the hon. Member any further information.
    MR. JOHN O'CONNOR: Is it the fact that the Irish Government are entering into competition with the Indian Government in the prosecution of newspapers?
    [No Answer was returned.]

    Irish Mail Service.
    MR. MOONEY: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General whether his attention has been called to the announcement that in the new year the steamers of the London and North-Western Railway Company sailing to Kingstown from Holyhead will start from that port at 4.10 p.m. instead of at 7.10 p.m., as at present, and that the incoming steamer
    1876
    will arrive at Holyhead at 2.30 p.m. instead of 5.10 p.m.; and whether, in view of the fact that if this alteration is made the steamers of the London and North-Western Company would arrive at Kingstown within the interval of the arrival at Kingstown of the day mail steamer and the departure of the night mail steamer, and owing to the limited accommodation might thereby impede the punctuality of the mail service, he will have careful inquiries made and have all necessary steps taken to prevent the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company being interfered with or prevented from carrying out the terms of their mail contract.
    MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: I am informed that the London and North-Western Railway Company do not contemplate any such alterations in the times of their steamer service between Kingstown and Holyhead.

    Scottish Government Departments.
    MR. AINSWORTH: I beg to ask the Prime Minister whether, when introducing legislation to give the Board of Agriculture a paid Under-Secretary with a seat in Parliament, he will, at the same time, consider the advisability of creating an Agricultural Department for Scotland with separate Parliamentary representation.
    MR. GULLAND: At the same time may I beg to ask the Prime Minister whether he will consider the advisability of appointing an Under-Secretary for Scotland who, in addition to administrative duties, would be responsible for Scottish business in the other House from that in which the Secretary for Scotland is a Member.
    MR. ASQUITH: All these suggestions will receive consideration, but I can say nothing as to how they will ultimately be decided.

    The Suspension of Mr. Grayson.
    MR. BELLOCreferring to Standing Order 18, asked Mr. Speaker if he was right in supposing there was no machinery provided for the return of a Member to the House after his suspension under subsection (2). Formerly, before

    1877
    February, 1902, the suspension was for a certain length of time.
    MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is quite correct. Until the Rule is altered or rather completed, no period is fixed for the time of suspension, but there has been one case or more of a Motion being made for the return of a Member after the lapse of a certain time, and that course might be followed.
    MR. BELLOCsaid he supposed it would be too late now, but he would take the earliest opportunity to move for the readmission of the hon. Member for the Colne Valley division.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Why does not the right hon. Gentleman propose to take the Hops Bill to-night?
MR. ASQUITH: In consequence of the fact that, judging from the appearance of the Order Paper, it has developed into a controversial measure.
MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Cannot the right hon. Gentleman use his great influence with his followers to withdraw their opposition to the measure?
MR. LAURENCE HARDYasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he would consider the possibility of proceeding in Committee on the Hops Bill so far as Clause 1 was concerned, even though the second part of the Bill should be dropped in view of the opposition of which notice had been given.
MR. LLOYD-GEORGEagreed it would be worth while saving that part of the Bill, but inquiry would have to be made to ascertain if that part would be non-contentious. The Prime Minister had said the Bill would not be proceeded with unless it could be considered as of a non-contentious character. If the clause could be so described then the Bill might be confined to that clause.
MR. BYLES: Pure protection.
MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: There appear to be nearly as many Amendments down to the Tuberculosis Prevention (Ireland) Bill which it is proposed to take.
MR. ASQUITH: But they are not of so menacing a character.

LOCAL REGISTRATION OF TITLE (IRE- LAND) AMENDMENT BILL.
Lords' Amendment to be considered forthwith; considered, and agreed to.

HOUSE OF COMMONS (ADMISSION OF STRANGERS).
Report from the Select Committee, with Minutes of Evidence, brought up, and read.
Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 371.]

PUBLIC PETITIONS COMMITTEE.
Eighth Report brought up, and read to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

APPLICATION OF SINKING FUNDS IN EXERCISE OF BORROWING POWERS.
Report from the Select Committee brought up, and read [Inquiry not completed].
Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 372.]
Minutes of Proceedings to be printed. [No. 372.]

HOUSE OF COMMONS (KITCHEN AND REFRESHMENT ROOMS).
Report from the Select Committee brought up, and read.
Report to lie upon the Table and to be printed. [No. 373.]

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
That they have agreed to: White Phosphorus Matches Prohibition Bill, without Amendment.
Education (Scotland) Bill; Prevention of Crime Bill; Perth Corporation Order Confirmation Bill; Ards Railways Bill, with Amendments.
Housing of the Working Classes (Ireland) Bill.—That they insist on one of their Amendments to which the Commons have disagreed and assign their Reason; they do not insist on one other of their Amendments, but propose an Amendment in lieu thereof; they agree to the Amendment made by the Commons to the Amendments made by the Lords with Amendments, to which they desire the concurrence of this House, and do not insist on their remaining Amendment to which the Commons have disagreed.

EDUCATION (SCOTLAND) BILL.
Lords' Amendments to be considered To-morrow, and to be printed. [Bill 407.]
PREVENTION OF CRIME BILL.
Lords' Amendments to be considered To-morrow, and to be printed. [Bill 408.]

PUBLIC ACCOUNTS COMMITTEE.
COLONEL R. WILLIAMS: In rising to move "That the three Reports of the Public Accounts Committee be now taken into consideration," I desire to thank the Government for giving the House this opportunity for helping to turn a precedent into a practice—a precedent set by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition in 1905, followed by the late Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman in 1906, and cordially continued by the present Prime Minister. These Reports differ in one respect from those of the previous year, in that most of the muddles arising out of the South African War have gradually been got rid of, after a great deal of perseverance on the part of the Comptroller and Auditor-General and his staff. I can only say, with regard to a certain outstanding claim between the Mother Country and one of the Colonies which has been abandoned, that in this one case at least the Treasury have felt that it was not much use making further representations, and have left the matter to the conscience of the Colony concerned. There are two questions in these Reports which are of considerable importance, and both of them requiring legislation. The first is a question which arises in paragraph 11 of
1880
the first Report, dealing with certain expenses which, though properly chargeable on the rates, have been paid by the Treasury. The question is as to whether it is possible for Parliament to override the provisions of the existing statutes. This question was raised last year by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition with regard to an educational grant of £100,000 which was given for the building of schools. You, Mr. Speaker, were appealed to on that occasion—it was on 22nd July, 1907—and your answer was that the question would come before the Committee on Public Accounts, and further that two questions arose out of it, the first as to whether the House of Commons could disobey an Act of Parliament, and the second as to whether the House of Commons ought to disobey an Act of Parliament. Your concluding remarks, Sir, were, with regard to the first question, that you thought it was obvious that the House of Commons could disobey an Act of Parliament, and with regard to the second question, that that was a matter which you must leave to the conscience of the House. The House will see that the Committee on Public Accounts has gone no further than you thought it right to do, because they say that there is no doubt that it is within the discretion of Parliament to override the provisions of an existing statute by a Vote, and they prefer to leave it to the conscience of the House and not to say whether that ought to be done or not. Personally, I must say that I am strongly of opinion that the House ought to obey its own Acts of Parliament and that, unless they are properly repealed, they ought to be obeyed, and that a mere reference in the Appropriation Act to a Vote ought not to be reckoned sufficient to override previous statutes. All your Committee have recommended has been that where any Vote does override any particular statute, it should be so stated on the face of the Estimate, with the reasons for adopting that course; and in the Estimates for 1908–09 the Acts which are overridden by this particular Vote are so stated, but the House will notice that the Committee think it of great importance that, should a service be continued and paid for by Parliament,

1881
the governing statutes should be repealed or amended, and I hope the Government will take that course into consideration. The other case calling for legislation is a very curious one arising on the next paragraph—paragraph 12—of the first Report. That deals with a most curious misprint in the revised edition of the statute where the Secretary of State for War can now cause any military lunatic to be committed on discharge to a lunatic asylum, and be chargeable to the rates. In Great Britain a man so committed does become a charge on the rates, and Votes of Parliament are only charged if the man had been a military prisoner at the time, and was committed as a military prisoner; and the charge on the Vote only lasts for so long as he is a prisoner. After he ceases to be a prisoner he becomes chargeable to the rates. There was a misprint in the Criminal Lunatics Act, 1884, and the word which in the English statute is "prisoner" in the Irish Act becomes "person." The consequence is that the soldiers committed to an asylum for dangerous lunatics, whether prisoners or not, are now charged on the Prison Vote instead of on the rates. Although Bills several times have been introduced with the object of overcoming this difficulty, they have so far failed to pass into law, I suppose, because the Irish authorities have restricted this small charge. As it is a point which needs amendment, I hope the Government will take this question also into their careful consideration. The question of Parliamentary control being made or kept more effective arises more than once in the Reports. It arises, I think, in all three Reports, in the first Report on the question of Revenue buildings, in the second Report on the question of triennial contracts, and in the third Report on the question of Admiralty contracts. The question of Revenue buildings is very important. In the Estimates there is a long list of a great many Revenue buildings, such as post offices, bankruptcy Courts, and all sorts of Courts, which are presented to be dealt with during the year. It often occurs that some accident happens which causes delay, so that a building cannot be completed. On the other hand, it often happens—and it did happen in one case last year—that a
1882
work which has never been put on the Estimates, but has been long desired, suddenly becomes possible, because, as in this case, land falls in which is very much wanted. The land was, very properly, purchased, and the work begun at once, but as a matter of fact, that particular work had never been sanctioned by Parliament, although expenditure on similar works had been so sanctioned. The Committee have given careful consideration to the question as to how this might be avoided and how works which had never received full Parliamentary sanction might be brought within the purview of Parliament. They did not see their way to recommend a large alteration in the system, and only recommend that a strong distinction should be drawn between the diversion of money to a building already sanctioned and the diversion of money to one that has never been on the Estimates. The Committee did at one time think it would be possible for two lists to be presented to Parliament, one for work intended to be undertaken during the year, and the other for supplementary works which could be undertaken if any one of the works in the first list fell through, but it was represented that there were so many difficulties in the way that it was not a practical proposal, and they had to content themselves to urging the Treasury to exhibit the utmost jealousy in this matter. Another subject which deals with the effective control of Parliament is the question of triennial contracts in paragraph 15 of the second Report. It was a War Office question where the Army Council had thought they were at liberty to vary the limits of triennial contracts without reference to the Treasury; but the Committee cannot see that this is a licence that ought to be granted to the Army Council. When once the limits of triennial contracts are fixed by the Treasury the War Office ought to abide by them until they can get Treasury sanction for the alteration, and can prove satisfactorily to the Treasury that the larger figure is really for the advantage of the public service. Another question arises out of that. It appears that in these triennial contracts, so long as there is a contract for any particular amount remaining, the contractor is bound to have any work which

1883
comes within the terms of the contract and within the amount of the contract, so that supposing a building had to be put up, and a builder had the contract for all the building work up to £400, and another contractor had the contract for all the foundation work up to £400, and another the contract for the glass and iron work, for roofing, etc., up to £400, although the building might amount in total to more than the limit to which the Army Council might go, it appears that the triennial contractors are bound to have these contracts given to them, and that thereby a building which costs £1,200 may be undertaken by the Army Council without the sanction of the Treasury because the contractors have the contracts for the amounts of £400 each. Your Committee have been obliged to say that they cannot agree with the arguments of the War Office in this matter, and that they consider the general rule to be in such cases that the thing should be put to open tender. The other case in which the question of Parliamentary control comes up is the question of Admiralty tenders. There, of course, the Committee were on more difficult ground. The question of putting large battleships out to contract, with new designs, is a very difficult one. In the Reports the Committee have done what they could to make it clear that they expect the Admiralty on every possible occasion to take counsel with the Treasury, and above all, not to undertake large works without giving them out to tender, unless in cases of really great national importance.
Now, turning to the Reports themselves, there is nothing of very great interest in them. I am glad to say that the demands of the Auditor-General with regard to the money spent in diplomatic services have been met, and that all sums passing through these channels are now brought under his purview. There is an interesting note from the Reports, and that is the continual progress of the Crown Colonies in Africa, which is evidenced by the fact that the six Crown Colonies in Africa required £100,000 less grants-in-aid last year than the year before, which is very satisfactory testimony to the administration of these Colonies by the officers there. It is
1884
curious that apparently nickel coinage is appreciated in West Africa before it is here, and that the Mint make considerable profit out of furnishing nickel coins in certain parts of West Africa. I am glad to notice that the issues from the Consolidated Fund on account of the Uganda Railway have now ceased. It is not contemplated to issue any further amounts for that purpose, and the Treasury have already made a Minute providing that this shall cease. Turning to the second Report, which deals with Army Accounts, both the first and the last paragraphs bear witness to the harmonious working of the War Office and Exchequer and Audit Departments generally. The Appropriation Accounts are rendered more rapidly than before, although I am afraid they have not much chance that they might be dealt with by 31st March. The Appropriation Accounts for the Army are now got out much earlier than before, and a more careful examination is applied to them. I am also glad to notice that the surplus in the Army Appropriation Account is getting smaller year by year. It is a gratifying result of the working of the new system, and the new staff are gradually getting ito their work. The thing to be avoided is the constant change of staff and the change of too many of the staff at once. It is the tendency of all men coming into a new office to over-estimate; their requirements, and therefore the less changes that can be made of these officers of the Army who have to frame the Estimates the better it is. The difficulty of estimating is a good deal increased by decentralisation, because there are in consequence of that a good many more officers concerned—general officers in command of districts and so forth—and they are all naturally anxious to estimate as highly as possible. The multiplication of estimating authorities is apt to swell the Estimate unduly, and therefore, to swell the surplus unduly. On the question of the Engineer Store Account the Committee have felt constrained to draw rather serious notice to it. This is to be found at Store Accounts of the Army, Paragraph 24, of the second Report. Your Committee are glad to know that the Treasury have sanctioned a new

1885
staff altogether, an expert store-keeping staff for these Royal Engineers stores, and moreover they hope that the responsibility of the officers is being gradually realised. I think it has been in times past, that officers have received a statement for the purpose of passing it on, but have not been careful to realise that the statement which they pass on to somebody else ought to be verified, and did not take that course. It is almost impossible in the hurry of war to do so, but it is very important that it should be very seriously understood that however small the statement is whoever passes that statement on makes himself responsible for it. There is one subject which runs more or less through both the Army and Navy Reports, and that is, the necessity of grave co-ordination and revision of the regulations. Over and over again there are cases where officers have misread the regulations, or else they have had regard to an obsolete regulation or one for which another regulation has been substituted, and it does seem to the Committee that more care ought to be taken in the constant revising of regulations, both of the Army and the Navy, and in co-ordinating the regulations of the various branches of the service, so as to make them perfectly intelligible, and not only intelligible but so clear—I will not say that it is impossible that they should be misread, because there is no getting to the bottom of human possibility of mistake, but unlikely that they should be misread and not acted on properly. In the Army Report there is one subject of very great importance indeed; I refer to what has been known as the Stock valuation return. The Report of the former excellent Accountant-General of the Army—the Director of the Finances of the Army—characterised that return "as a work of supererogation not worthy of the trouble bestowed on it"; but at the same time it is very necessary that Parliament and the nation should be assured that the stocks in hand are what they are reported to be, and that a proper reserve is kept up in the Army. That is quite easy because there is a reserve, known as the Mowatt Reserve, which is laid down as the minimum which ought to be kept in store, and your Committee are of
1886
opinion that the best way of dealing with the matter would be to do away with the stock valuation return, but to ask for a certificate to be rendered annually to Parliament, as early as may be, to the effect that the Mowatt Reserve is fully and duly kept up. The certificate is to be rendered by someone responsible to Parliament. It should be rendered with the Estimates, although I believe there is a further proposal on the question, and it will come before the Public Accounts Committee again, because the form of the certificate, the person by whom it is to be rendered, and the time at which it is to be rendered are still under consideration. But the change is one which your Committee consider to be eminently desirable in the interests of the public and in the interests of the nation. The last paragraph of the second Report, the Army Report, deals with the question of the Director of Army Finance, and the Secretary of State for War was good enough in answer to two Questions to say that in any modification which would be made in the position the principles laid down in the second Report of this year would be carefully and accurately respected, and the financial control of officers would be in no way weakened, but he would lay documents dealing with the duties of the Financial Secretary. I hope the time may come when that Paper will be laid, but it seems to me that the two functions of the Assistant Director of Finance should not be mixed up. He is the Assistant Financial Director, and as such is responsible to the financial member of the Army Council, but as Accounting Officer of the Army he is responsible to the Secretary of State for War alone, and he ought to be able to have direct access to the Secretary for War, because any alteration which he is authorised to make must be made on the authorisation of the Secretary of State and only of the Secretary of State. It is very important to keep clear the two functions. As Director of Army Finance and Accounting Officer; in one function he is responsible to the financial member of the Army Council, but in the other he is responsible to, and ought to be in contact with, the Secretary of State for War.

1887
The only thing which I need say on the Navy accounts is that it would seem to be of advantage if it were possible to get for the Navy some sort of Mowatt reserve as in the Army. The Navy are under a statutory obligation to furnish certain valuation returns, and with those, of course, we cannot interfere, but it is worthy of consideration whether it would not be possible that the Navy should be able to furnish to the House and to the Nation some sort of certificate in the same way as it is proposed for the Army. The only other question arising out of Paragraph 24 the Third Report is that the Committee of Public Accounts in the Second Report of 1898 recommended that with or without Supplementary Estimates Parliament should be informed at the earliest possible opportunity of any alteration of programme. In regard to the programme of 1906–1907 Parliament was only informed of the alteration of the programme by a statement by the First Lord of the Admiralty in Parliament in July, 1906, and though your Committee are informed that that statement was made in order to carry out the recommendation of the Public Accounts Committee, and while they appreciate the intention of carrying it out they think that a mere statement to the House is not sufficient, and an earlier presentation of a Paper, if not of a Supplementary Estimate, would be very desirable. I think that those are the only observations I need make on these Reports of the Committee, but I want to thank the Government once more for continuing the practice of recalling to the House the fact that its functions are not merely the control of the finances of the nation but also the control of the accounts as well. I also think, indeed I know, the Committee would like me to say how zealously they are served by the Comptroller and Auditor-General, by his Assistant and by his staff; how effectively and willingly all requirements are met by the officials of the Treasury who come before them, and how they think that there is a real desire on the part of the officers of the spending Departments to conform to the demands of Parliament and to keep their expenditure within reasonable bounds. At the same time, I think the functions of the Public
1888
Accounts Committee are very valuable, and I should like to take this opportunity of saying that I believe that the members of few Committees in this House attend so regularly, or when they are there take such a keen interest as the members of that Committee, and the House may be satisfied that the Committee does its best to carry out the functions entrusted to it. I beg to move "That the Reports of the Public Accounts Committee be now taken into consideration."
SIR D. GODDARDsaid he had much pleasure in seconding, and he should like to represent the gladness they all felt that the Government had again given them another opportunity of considering the Reports presented to the House, and bringing them directly under its attention. He should like also to add his testimony to the exceeding ability and thoroughness with which the Auditor-General and his Department carried out the important work which the House entrusted to them. The work of the Public Accounts Committee and the Reports which they presented were, he thought, a very important part of the control of Parliament over national expenditure, and he would like to take the opportunity to impress on the House the importance of maintaining as much control over the expenditure as it was possible to do. Of course the principal means of Parliamentary control over expenditure was through the Estimates which were regularly presented to the House, although he noticed that when they were considering them a great deal of time was devoted to the discussion of great principles involved, rather to the exclusion of some financial details which were bound up in those principles. He did not find fault with that, because after all, principles controlled expenditure, and details depended upon them. At the same time he regretted the growing tendency of the House in discussing Estimates to pay more attention to some great matter of principle rather than to the financial aspect of the question. Another matter was—he hoped in this session less than usual—the large number of Votes which escaped criticism altogether, and never came under the observation of the House, and to that extent the assembly lost control,

1889
Parliamentary control would be very greatly improved if the recommendations of the Committee on National Expenditure set up some years ago had been adopted. One was that there should be a Committee of Estimates as well as a Committee on the Appropriation Account. It was said that the Public Accounts Committee had not much control over expenditure because they dealt with accounts that had been voted and expended eighteen months or two years before; and that therefore it was useless to go into the question of extravagance with regard to them. But the Public Accounts Committee did exercise considerable influence over the expenditure of the nation. Many recommendations were made which led to the keeping of better accounts and to other improvements. There was, for example, an aggregate of contracts amounting to £261,000, and further expenditure of £163,000; that latter expenditure was undertaken without any competitive tender at all. The Committee had elicited that all these expenses occurred before the Report of the Public Accounts Committee in 1906, and that no such arrangements had been made since that time, nor were they likely to be made. He thought that was an illustration of the usefulness of the Committee. He agreed with the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee in his Minute in the Second Report, that in no circumstances should the War Office be permitted to lessen the financial responsibility of the accounting officer and his staff. That matter was carefully looked into, and the Committee considered it was essential for effective Parliamentary control over military expenditure that this Minute should be carefully observed. That was a matter the House should not lose sight of because there had been a tendency to make changes such as that which would have been made by the Army Council Bill that was introduced and afterwards withdrawn. There were several causes which helped to diminish the effectiveness of the control of Parliament. The most vital was the power, known as virement, given to the Treasury, to sanction variations in the Estimates passed by Parliament, and enabled surplus money unspent on one or more subheads of a Vote to be
1890
used to meet deficiencies caused by over expenditure on other subheads. In the case of the Army and Navy there was an extended power of allowing money unspent on a whole Vote to be transferred to meet deficits caused by over-expenditure on other whole Votes. Few Members of Parliament really realised how that power of the Treasury worked out. He was not at all sure that it could be avoided altogether; nevertheless the greatest vigilance ought to be exercised in guarding the use of that power. The Treasury, in reality, was empowered to revise the decisions of Parliament. In the accounts under review the Vote for the Navy was £33,500,000, under practically seventeen heads. Of these heads, eleven had surpluses amounting to over £1,000,000, while six had deficits amounting to £643,000. Under the power conferred upon them the Treasury consented to allow the surpluses to be used to cover the deficits. The effect of that was that the balances surrendered to the Exchequer were reduced from over £1,000,000 to £400,000. He was not suggesting that there was anything wrong in such payment of money, but it meant that the Navy spent on certain votes £643,000 more than Parliament voted for those purposes. It was quite conceivable that if this large amount had been added to the Estimates Parliament might have refused the expenditure, and, therefore, that large sum was lost to Parliamentary control. Great changes were effected in this way. On Vote 9 for the Navy (Armaments) there was a saving of £260,000, which was swallowed up by a deficit of £265,000 upon shipbuilding, Vote 8 (Material). He could not help thinking that this power went a little too far. As to the Army; on Vote 11 (Military Education) there was a deficit of £2,300; on Vote 15 (Non-effective Charges) a deficit of £32,700; but these were met out of a surplus on Vote 1 for Pay of Army, of £358,000. But the evil did not end with losing Parliamentary control. It resulted in bad Estimates. Of course, no one would suggest in connection with a Department that an over-estimate was put into an account for the purpose of finding money for something else; but, after all, they could not ignore human nature, and those who

1891
had the preparation of Estimates had great incentives before them in this matter. They all desired to avoid a deficit, which meant that a bad Estimate had been made, and one naturally fell back upon the people which made the Estimate. It also had the effect of requiring a Supplementary Estimate to be laid before the House, and those who were in charge of the Votes in the House did not like Supplementary Estimates because they involved bringing before the House of Commons the whole or the greater part of the Vote, thus causing discussion which might occupy a great deal of time. One incentive was that it was a very nice thing after all to have a little nest egg on which to draw. That was the first thing which arose from this plan. The second was that it involved very serious changes in the Estimates that had been passed by Parliament. The fact was that money voted for one purpose was either not spent or was only partly spent, and the object for which it was voted was either left undone, or was not completed, or was only done in a small way. Meanwhile the money voted for that object was spent on something else. In this way they started entirely new works, which often proved very expensive, without any Parliamentary sanction whatever, but merely done with Treasury sanction. ["No."] He would give illustrations to show that he was correct in what he was saying. Take the Army Account, Vote 10. There were six subheads in this Vote, and in respect of these there had been an expenditure of only £47,000. This meant that out of these six subheads four had a surplus amounting to £98,000, or about two-thirds of the whole amount voted. Take subhead (b) barracks and hospitals. The Vote was for £10,000, and the expenditure was £18,000. It was worth while looking at the evidence given in the Report. Four of these items were abandoned for one reason or another; four were not commenced during the year—that sometimes happened, and it could not be avoided—on eleven the progress was less than expected; one was a continuation from the previous year; one was considerably in excess of the Estimate; and there was one new item which was not in the Estimates
1892
at all, and which was begun with Treasury sanction. He knew there were difficulties which prevented the money being spent—doubtless difficulties in acquiring sites, or sometimes difficulties in regard to foundations for buildings as the Chairman of the Committee had pointed out. Take Subhead N, Vote 10, Fortifications. Here the Vote also was £100,000, and the expenditure £115,860. What was the reason of that excess of expenditure? One item was not proceeded with; on seven items the progress was less than anticipated; three items on which there was an excess of expenditure were carried out with Treasury sanction, and on ten items there was no estimate at all before the House—they were begun with Treasury sanction only. On the ten items begun with Treasury sanction, and not by control or vote of the House, £31,458 was expended during the year. There might be, and probably would be, further liabilities in regard to expenditure of that kind. In Navy Vote 10 they had examples of the variations in the estimates. For the public station, Portsmouth dockyard, the original estimate passed by the House was £11,600, which was revised and raised to £31,600. For Sheerness harbour protection the provisional estimate of £6,800 was increased to £11,000. Turning Granville Hospital into a Marine barracks was originally estimated at £3,000 in the first instance, then £7,500, and afterwards £8,300. These were the sort of variations which occurred in the estimates. He now came to the third heading showing the new works commenced with Treasury sanction only. In the Civil Service, Class I., Vote 5, in respect of the public works, Swansea, and the acquisition of the site and erection of buildings—he thought it was in connection with the Bankruptcy Court—no estimate was ever put before the House for that expenditure; Parliament had never had a word to say about that work at all. The sum of £1,267 was spent with the Treasury sanction out of the savings on other items. The building would involve a cost of, say, something like £7,500. That had been given in evidence he believed. Over that expenditure of £7,500 Parliament lost all control whatsoever. It would be said that it came up next year; that

1893
was perfectly true, but when they had spent £1,200 they were compelled to vote the balance of the money to complete the work.
MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Was the expenditure on the site?
SIR D. GODDARDthought it was the site and buildings. Then take Vote 8, the Revenue Buildings: there were seven new Works started during the year with Treasury sanction only. The expenditure during the year was £1,720, and there was of course much further liability upon all those works. There, again, he did not think it would be possible, since these works were started, for Parliament to withhold the balance. In the Navy Vote 10, there was an item as to a culvert from the river to the basils in Chatham dockyard, which was to cost £5,300, but no estimate had been before the House, and the work had been carried out. Another item of £2,900 for the training establishment, and additional accommodation for boy artificers, had not been before Parliament at all. He was not contending that these Works should not be carried out, for probably it was most desirable that they should be carried out; he was only dealing with the point that, so far as Parliamentary control was concerned, they never had an opportunity until after the money was spent of having a word to say in regard to them. He saw very little chance of reducing expenditure in respect of all these items if works could be carried out in this way without any Parliamentary sanction or control. He supposed that any suggestion of varying or reducing the power given to the Treasury would be met with the reply that if they did that it would inevitably lead to over-estimating in the Departments. He thought that would be the general answer to the proposition. At all events, if the Departments chose to put in overestimates, they would have to come before the House of Commons, which would have an opportunity of discussing them and of saying whether they agreed. He had felt that a number of Members of the House might not know all these details which really only came under
1894
the notice of members of the Public Accounts Committee, and this was the one opportunity they had of bringing them to the notice of the House. With these remarks, he had much pleasure in seconding the Motion.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Reports of the Public Accounts Committee be now taken into consideration."—(Colonel Williams).
MR. BOWLESsaid he should like to associate himself with everything the hon. Gentleman the Chairman of the Committee had said in expressing the obligation which they felt to the Government for having allowed them this opportunity of discussing the Report of the Public Accounts Committee. For his part, he wished it had been possible to give them the opportunity earlier in the session and before August, because that would, at any rate, have relieved to some extent the necessarily rather antiquated character of a debate of this description, and he hoped that in future it might be possible to allow the House a little more time for consideration of the Reports. The question was: "That the Reports of the Public Accounts Committee be now taken into consideration." The result of that form of putting the Question was that the moment the Motion was carried the House immediately proceeded to consider something else, the effect of which was, as it seemed to him, that the House never actually expressed its agreement with the Reports at which the Committee had arrived. Technically, this was the last link in the chain of Parliamentary control, and he would suggest whether it would not be better in future that there should be some expression of agreement of that sort. For some reason he had never understood, the Public Accounts Committee had always chosen to make its Reports on the accounts of the year in three parts, and it would be difficult to ask the House of Commons in one Resolution to agree to all three Reports containing very varying propositions. Consideration of this matter had led him to ask whether the better course in the general interests of this procedure would not be that the Committee should issue in fact as well as in

1895
name one Report on the whole Appropriation Accounts of the year, although perhaps in instalments and with interim Reports—that it should not be first, second, and third Reports, but one Report to which the House before the year was out should give its express assent. They were dealing here with both sides of the accounts for the financial year 1906–7, and they amounted to an examination by the Committee of a total raised and expended of no less than £166,986,719, and that was the true and real expenditure upon the Government services of the country during that period. There was one duty and one power which had always been admitted to be upon the Public Accounts Committee—that of considering any changes which might be proposed and, if necessary, of suggesting changes in the form of the account of the national expenditure. That really must be so, because it was only through accounts that the Committee could do its work and that Parliament would be informed what was the real situation with regard to finance in any particular year. He thought it was a most extraordinary thing that in a great commercial country-like this, and one in which national finance had been the subject of thought and care on the part of so many great men, there should be at this moment no single account presented to Parliament which gave or even pretended to give an exact true and complete statement of Imperial expenditure which had been undertaken for any one year. It really was literally true as could easily be shown. He had taken some trouble with this. There were six accounts presented to the House and the country of the expenditure of this particular year 1906–7 to which any taxpayer could go who wanted to find out how we stood in regard to any item. There was first of all the Budget statement made at the end of the year, there was the Finance Account, there was the Statistical Abstract, there was the Return of Public Income and Expenditure, there was the further Return which purported to be a Return of national expenditure for a particular purpose, and there were the Appropriation Accounts. It was a very remarkable thing that the first four of these gave one figure—they all agreed—the Fowler Return gave another, and the Appropriation Accounts
1896
gave a third, and in his belief the figures which were brought under the review of the Public Accounts Committee were different from each one of these and larger than any of them. According to the Budget statement, the Finance Account, the Statistical Abstract, and the Income and Expenditure Return, the cost of the Army was £27,765,000. According to what was called the Fowler Return, it was £26,878,477. According to the Appropriation Accounts it was £32,000,000 odd, and according to the Prime Minister in a speech he made to the House in direct contradiction to his own Budget statement, amusingly enough as he thought, it amounted to well over £32,000,000. In all cases the accounts were different, and it seemed to him that in the interest of the taxpayer and of the House and the country as a whole, the time might really have come when with the assistance of the Public Accounts Committee some attempt should be made to render to the country and to Parliament a real, full and complete statement of the expenditure on national services during the year. That was not done now, and it appeared to him that it ought to be done. He would like to deal with two points raised by the Report of the Committee of very great importance. The first was Paragraph 11 of the first Report. It dealt with the practice of overriding any existing Act of Parliament by means of a vote taken in Committee of Supply and supported by the Appropriation Account of the year, and the Committee unanimously laid down this rule.
"In cases where such an emergency arises, and there are reasons against the amendment or repeal of the statute governing the case, your Committee recommend that the fact that the proposed Vote overrides an existing statute should be clearly stated on the face of the Estimate, with the reasons for adopting that course, so that no doubt can exist of the deliberate intention of Parliament. The exceptional nature of the Vote should also be indicated in the Appropriation Act."
That matter was evidently one of importance, and it was not a new matter. It had certainly twice before been before the Public Accounts Committee and the Treasury, and the Committee had always been perfectly clear that this was constitutionally and financially an improper and dangerous thing, and the Treasury, he believed, had always agreed and heartily supported that view. He

1897
gathered the impression from the Treasury that they still held the opinion that to over-ride the provisions of an Act of Parliament by the Estimates was constitutionally and financially a dangerous proceeding. They might make in that way great changes in policy. They might alter the whole system of administration of a particular branch of the public service from beginning to end by altering the direction and the object of the various grants on which that service depended. If they were going to make administrative changes they ought not to do it otherwise than under the full and free discussion which alone could be secured if the change was carried out by means of statute in the ordinary way. The effect of doing it in this way was to deprive the House of any opportunity of adequately discussing the matter. That evidently, therefore, was a matter of considerable importance, and the Committee unanimously upheld the view which it had always held whenever this question had been brought before it that it was an improper and dangerous thing to do. This first Report was presented to the House, and was in the hands of the Government early in June last, but the Government, in fact, went on with proceedings of exactly that character, while it was perfectly open in the succeeding Appropriation Act in August to adopt the recommendation of the Committee by indicating what they were doing in the Appropriation Act. Where the entry under the Educational Vote occurred, the Government for one reason or another did not adopt that part of the recommendation by indicating in the Appropriation Act of last year the reasons for the course they were taking with regard to the £100,000 to which his hon. and gallant friend had referred. He did not refer to that particularly to complain of the Government, but they would be glad to know what view the Government took of their liabilities under the recommendation of the Committee in the future. Did the Government intend to adopt the recommendation of the Public Accounts Committee? Did they intend only to resort to this practice as rarely as possible, and only for a temporary emergency? If so, the House might be assured that this course would not be adopted for the third time during
1898
the forthcoming year. Might they take it, when this course was adopted in future, that it would only be because of temporary emergency, that in every case the fact of its being adopted would be clearly stated in the face of the Estimates, that it would be indicated in the Appropriation Act, and that in this particular case of the educational £100,000, and in the case referred to by the Report of the Committee, the statutes which were being over-ridden in this way would be amended or repealed in accordance with the plain recommendation of the Committee? That was a matter upon which, in view of the clear and distinct views of the Committee, the Government might properly be asked to give them their views. The other point was also of great importance, and was raised in Paragraph 39 of the second Report dealing with the position of the Accounting Officer of the War Office. They expressed a very strong opinion that under no circumstances should any change in the administration of the War Office be permitted to impair the independence of that branch or to lessen the direct financial power and responsibility of the Accounting Officer and his staff. The Committee regarded this independence and undivided responsibility of the Accounting Officer as essential to the proper discharge of their duties, and to the maintenance of effective Parliamentary control over military administration and expenditure. That dealt directly with the position of the Accounting Officer of the War Office, who came before the Committee to account for some £32,000,000 of expenditure in the year. It had been announced that changes in the title of this officer were being made, or had been made, and he desired, in view of the recommendation of the Committee, to ask the right hon. Gentleman for an assurance and explanation with regard to that matter. The House was well aware of the vital importance of the place of the Accounting Officer in the whole fabric of that system. It all depended on that. He was the vitally important man. He it was who was personally responsible, not to the Department but to Parliament, for the correctness of the accounts, and for the legality and the propriety of the expenditure.

1899
He might refuse to issue any money from his Department, even though it might be ordered by all the great authorities of the Departments, subject only to the power of the Secretary of State himself to discharge him from that responsibility. If the Accounting Officer in any Department was to exercise these vitally important functions as they should be exercised, he must necessarily have what every Accounting Officer hitherto had had, an absolute power to advise and guide the spending officer as to the legality and propriety of the expenditure. The Accounting Officer of the War Office was appointed by the Treasury, and he had been up till now the Director-General of Army finance. By Order in Council of 10th August, 1904, the powers and duties of that officer were defined, and they were told—
"The Director of Army Finance will act as Deputy and Assistant to the Finance Member of Council, and as the Accounting Officer of Army Votes, Accounts and Funds shall be charged with the allowance and payment of all monies for Army services; with the accounting for and auditing all cash expenditure, and preparing the annual accounts of such expenditure for Parliament; with the audit of all manufacturing expense, supply and store accounts, and with advising the administrative officers at the War Office, and in commands on all Questions of Army expenditure."
Under this system, which had existed up till now, the Accounting Officer of the War Office had been given directly and expressly by Order in Council the power of advising administrative officers at the War Office and in command on all matters affecting Army expenditure. That power was confined by the terms of the Order in Council to the Director of Army Finance. He understood it was now proposed that the Director of Army Finance should cease to exist.
THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE WAR OFFICE (Mr. ACLAND,): It is an alteration in name and nothing else.
MR. BOWLESsaid he understood the office had been abolished, and the Order in Council no longer really applied to anybody, because there was no Director of Army Finance, and the express duty and power given by the Order was withdrawn. If the change
1900
was made, and there was no new Order Council—
MR. ACLAND: There will be in another week.
MR. BOWLES: A new Order in Council exactly similar in terms?
MR. ACLAND: Exactly.
MR. BOWLESsaid that no doubt that met his point.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. HALDANE,): In every substantial and material respect the same.
MR. BOWLESsaid he did not know what that meant. The right hon. Gentleman went to the trouble of altering the name of an officer in the War Office who was entrusted with vitally important powers in the control of finance. He could not alter the name because he thought some other name would sound better or prettier. There must be some reason. In view of this paragraph in the Committee's Report what he wanted to know was whether this new officer with a new and more beautiful name would, in fact, be in the same position, and not merely substantially the same, in regard to his power of advising administrative officers at the War Office in questions of public expenditure.
MR. ACLAND: Absolutely.
MR. BOWLESsaid he should be glad to have that carried out, because if not the duties and responsibilities of this gentleman under the Treasury remained and yet the power to carry them out might under this new Order in Council be withdrawn. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would not think he was unduly suspicious, but he would remember that there had been repeated attempts in the War Office and in other Departments to relieve Spending Officers from Accountant's and House of Commons control. So lately as 22nd April, 1907, he had asked whether the right hon. Gentleman's attention had been called to the Army Order No. 28 of

1901
February, 1907, in which the Accounting Officer in command had had to be put on the staff and under the orders of the Spending Officer whom he was there to control. The right hon. Gentleman's reply was that his attention had been called to it, but that it was a misprint, or a slip. It was not the first slip of exactly the same character that had been made in Army Orders. That sort of misprint and slip following one another produced an impression that there was a desire in the War Office in some way or other to carry out what they knew were the wishes of a great many prominent persons connected with military administration, to exempt people who had the spending of money from Parliamentary control. In view of the Committee's recommendation on this matter, he desired to ask why the right hon. Gentleman wanted to change the name of this officer. What was the particular objection he had to the name of Director of Army Finance? What was the new name he proposed, and in what respect did he consider it more useful in the public service? If he insisted on changing the name of this officer on whose duties, functions, and independence the whole control by the House of military expenditure depended, he hoped he would be able to give them a definite assurance that the Order in Council defining his duties should not be merely substantially the same, but, in fact, the same as the duties of this important officer, and that, in fact, whatever the new name would be, he would have the same power in all respects as the officer whom he superseded. The points he had mentioned, whether the Government intended to accept the recommendations of the Committee with regard to overriding statutes and whether the right hon. Gentleman would give them the assurance with regard to the financial administration of the War Office for which he had asked, were, perhaps, the most important questions raised by the Reports of the Committee.
MR. KETTLEsaid he had had the honour to be a member of the Public Accounts Committee, and he had regarded hon. Members' continuous interest and attention on matters which came before the Committee as one of
1902
the most marvellous spectacles of unrewarded industry that had ever borne under his notice. The chief thing that struck him about the Committee was the entirely futile and illusory character of its pretended control over public expenditure. In these Reports they were dealing with expenditure that they could in no way check or prevent, but with the accounts of two years ago. The money had been paid, cheques had probably been burned, and some people who had paid, or to whom payments were made had gone to their reward in another world. He went on the Committee with the intention of being as industrious as the hon. Member for Norwood, but when he had attended four or five meetings, he realised the inequality of the terms on which a humble Member like himself approached the public officials who were present, and the completely illusory character of the control of the Committee over public expenditure, and he was led to the conclusion that he would be better employed if he gave his attention only to expenditure in Ireland. There were only two or three items of Irish expenditure to which the Public Accounts Committee were able to give any attention. One was a charge of £358 for the early delivery of letters to the Lord-Lieutenant. He did not mind when the Lord-Lieutenant's letters were delivered; it was with the letters sent out by the Lord-Lieutenant he was concerned. Another item related to the law charges for criminal prosecutions. The point to which the Committee drew attention was that the expenditure showed that there had been an overriding of the statutes on the subject. The other point was with regard to the maintenance in Irish lunatic asylums of soldiers and sailors who were afflicted with lunacy during the course of their service. That was probably the only case in which the English language misused had worked in favour of Ireland and against this country. Owing to a mistake in a revised Statutes Act, expenditure which would have fallen on Ireland fell on the Prisons Vote. His point was that out of a total expenditure for the home government of Ireland of £7,500,000, the items which came under the observation of the Committee made a total of £8,400. Could control of that sort over public expenditure be regarded as

1903
in any way effective? He wished to deal with the constitution, powers, and general policy of the Committee, and not with special points of detail. Under the present system if special points were raised it fell to the Secretary to the Treasury to reply, but in view of the limitations of the human intellect no Member of the House was really capable of answering for all the public services whose accounts came before the Public Accounts Committee. Some members of the Committee, including those belonging to the Labour Party, had come to the conclusion that for this House to have any real control over public expenditure there must be not one Committee, but that really every Minister ought to have a Committee of Members representing all parties to overlook the expenditure in his particular Department, The powers of these departmental Committees ought to be not merely retrospective. What could they do? The hon. Member for Norwood said they could disallow. He did not remember any case in which the Committee disallowed anything. If every Minister was—he would not say assisted, but hampered, by a Committee of the House which did not concern itself with questions of policy, but with questions as to how the best value was to be got for the taxpayers money, he was convinced that the House would have something like real control over public expenditure. He did not wish to make any unfavourable criticism of the heads of the various Civil Service Departments. Having listened to them when they were before the Public Accounts Committee, it struck him that they were in a position of undue advantage when a comparatively uninformed Member cross-examined them in regard to the details of expenditure. If there were departmental Committees sitting continuously during the session and examining the expenditure of each Department item by item there would be some sense in Members devoting a portion of their leisure time of examining the public accounts. He thought there was a great future before a Government of this country which would come into office on the programme that they would refuse to legislate for an entire year, and that they would scrutinise jealously every single item of expenditure. The
1904
present Government ought to favour that proposal. Their legislative programme this session had not met with any conspicuous success. If the House had devoted the weary weeks given to the Licensing Bill to the scrutiny of public expenditure they would have got better results for the time spent. He went on the Committee with a sincere desire to secure economy in public expenditure in Ireland. He did not possess the matchless energy of the hon. Member for Norwood, who always came up smiling after a futile encounter with a public official, but he had come to the conclusion that the Public Accounts Committee as at present constituted belonged to the region not of business but of illusion and make believe. He hoped the House would consider the suggestion he had made. The Reports of the Public Accounts Committee constituted a fresh argument for Home Rule and the devolution of the business of each country to the representatives of that country, but failing that and during the interregnum that must elapse before some Government went to the country on that policy [Laughter]—he believed hon. Members above the gangway were not unfavourable to that—but failing that, or pending that, he sincerely hoped the House would take into consideration the idea of establishing sub-committees of the Public Accounts Committee to each of which would be apportioned the work of supervising the expenditure in a given Department. He believed if that system were adopted a sum under the present Estimates of between £2,000,000 and £10,000,000 a year might be taken off the public expenditure.
THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. HOTHOUSE,): I wish to refer briefly to the remarks which fell from the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down. I can assure him that if I thought for a moment, or if any Member of this House who for the time represented the Treasury thought that the appointing of separate Committees, to examine the expenditure of the different Departments would result in greater economy than is secured at present, such a suggestion would be welcomed and accepted by the representatives of the Treasury in this House.

1905
On his own confession, he has only attended the meetings of the Committee three or four times, and I do not think he has attended a previous debate on this subject. I think he is under a misapprehension as to what are really the functions of this Committee. They are not appointed to control public expenditure, present or future, but rather to see whether the money which has been spent in the past has been properly spent and allocated to the proper heads of expenditure, and is in general accordance with the views of the Comptroller and Auditor-General. That is the function which has been, I know, given to them, and I think right hon. Gentlemen opposite will agree with me that is the sole function of the Public Accounts Committee. Having made this very brief statement of the proper questions to be raised in debate in this House, let me answer one or two points of the hon. Member for Norwood. He drew attention to the Report of the Public Accounts Committee, and he rather gave the House to understand that the Treasury had failed to act up to the understanding which they had come to with the Comptroller and Auditor-General, and they had not presented to the House a clear statement on the Estimates of how expenditure in regard to law charges and criminal prosecutions in Ireland was set out.
MR. BOWLESsaid he did not refer to law charges in Ireland particulaly. His point was that this recommendation had been made, but the Government went on dealing in the exact way which the Committee had condemned with the £100,000 grant for education, and failed to make any communication of the appropriation. It was perfectly open to them to pursue the course which the Committee recommended, and he wished to know whether, in future, they intended to carry out the recommendation.
MR. HOBHOUSE: I do not see the paragraph in this Report with which the hon. Member deals. I thought he was dealing with their expression of opinion in the first Report of the Committee, paragraph 11, with regard to expenses in connection with law charges and criminal prosecutions in Ireland. Upon that
1906
point I desire to meet him. For the first time in the Estimates of this year it is clearly set out in Class 3 of the Estimates how the prosecution expenses are met, and it sets forth in detail that they are grants-in-aid in relief of expenses under certain Acts of William the Fourth and seven or eight other Acts. These are grants-in-aid in relief of expenditure under those Acts, so that there can be no possible misapprehension of the intention with which the grant is made or the purposes for which it is used. That has been done for the first time in the Estimates of this year, and therefore I think the complaint of the hon. Gentleman is not a well-founded one.
COLONEL R. WILLIAMS: I think the point to which the hon. Member drew attention was the last sentence in the recommendation of the Committee to the effect that—
"The exceptional nature of the Vote should also be indicated in the Appropriation Act."
MR. HOBHOUSE: I will take care that in the next Appropriation Act that recommendation shall be attended to, but I think the real point is that the views of the Committee have been met for the first time on the Estimates this year. I do not think that there is any other point which the hon. Member raised for which I am responsible, and with which I need deal, but I would say, if one may speak from one's own private point of view, and from one's action in another Department, that I have felt, and I do feel, that it might be desirable to have set forth the total expenditure on the account. But the difficulty of doing that is complicated by the fact that nearly all these Returns look at the point from a different point of view, and the moment you do that the figures are so complicated by the aspect from which they are viewed that it is almost impossible to put them definitely. In the case of the finances of India, with which I was familiar for a short time, my recollection is that with far smaller sums to deal with, they have exactly the same difficulty to meet, and although they do present to this House of Commons a set of figures which is approximately,, and very closely approximately, correct yet there are discrepancies in the financial

1907
statement which are no greater and no worse than those in these accounts. That is only an opinion which I venture to express from that short experience, and from my own personal knowledge. I hope this explanation will meet the views of the hon. Gentleman.
MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: I am sure of what the hon. Gentleman said as to the divergencies of different financial statements, and coming to the present one a very simple explanation will show how these divergencies arose—for the reason the hon. Gentleman has referred to, namely, that in making the different statements you are approaching the figures from a different point of view, and are desirous of showing a different kind of thing. In the Fowler Return you see, for instance, the net proceeds of the Post Office; in the Budget statement you see the items constituting the whole particulars of those earnings on I the revenue side—the whole gross revenue. I do not think it is possible to avoid altogether discrepancies of that kind. I think that for different purposes we must, to a certain extent, have different Returns, and if we were to endeavour to reduce all these statements to one, I am quite sure there would develop the gravest disagreements in this House as to what that one statement should be. I only know of one in regard to which there has been anything like common agreement by those who have spoken, without party discussion or debate of a party nature, of: what would be an ideal statement of the kind. I am inclined to think that the statement which bears the name of Lord Wolverhampton—the Fowler Return—is the best statement for a person to consult in regard to our national expenditure. However that may be, I do not want to dwell upon it any further, but I wish to go to the other point with which the hon. Gentleman dealt. I think he misconceived altogether the Question which the hon. Member for Norwood put. It is quite true that the hon. Member referred to Paragraph 11 of the first Re ort of the Public Accounts Committee, and based Iris Question upon it, but the Question he asked was whether the Treasury intended for the future to accept the
1908
principles laid down by the Committee in that paragraph. He was not particularly concerned with the instances which were quoted in which what the Committee considers an undesirable practice took place, but he was very much concerned with the general principle advocated for the future, and which the Committee laid down—
"Your Committee, after hearing the evidence of the Comptroller and Auditor-General and of the representative of the Treasury are of opinion that while it is undoubtedly within the discretion of Parliament to override the provisions of an existing statute by a Vote in Supply confirmed by the Appropriation Act, it is desirable in the interests of financial regularity and constitutional consistency that such a procedure should be resorted to as rarely as possible and only to meet a temporary emergency."
What we want to know from the Government is whether they accept that principle so laid down by the Committee, and whether they will act upon it in future. If they do, it will naturally follow that the further recommendations of the Committee, that the exceptional nature of the Vote should also be indicated in the Appropriation Act, would find expression also. The hon. Gentleman says in regard to the particular matter of the particular Vote which was before the Committee at the time when they made that Report that the Government have accepted their views, and they printed on the face of the Estimates an indication of the character of the Vote, that it is making an exception to the Statute and that they are going to do that always.
MR. HOBHOUSEwas understood to say that he was informed that the Government had introduced a measure to repeal the various Acts which stood in the way of that orthodoxy being observed, and it had not been possible to proceed with that measure, but as soon as possible he would undertake to get the repeals made, necessary to observe what was called financial regularity.
MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: That is satisfactory as far as it goes, and I do not want to press the hon. Gentleman unduly about the legislative steps. I think that the irregularities date back for a very long time, and all Governments

1909
seem to have been willing when their attention was called to them to legislate whenever they could do so without waste of public time and without interference with legislative and other Parliamentary business that they had in hand; but it is one of the defects of our system that this kind of non-controversial measure, exciting no interest except among members of the Public Accounts Committee, and officials and ex-officials, gets crowded out in the competition. I presume I may understand, however, from what the hon. Gentleman says that he clearly recognises that the practice of doing by Vote what is in contravention of a statute is an irregular practice, not to be repeated and is only to be continued in those special cases where it is admittedly desirable until such time as early as possible when Parliament can legislate by repealing these Acts, and that consequently the Government would never think of using this power in order to drive a coach and six through an Act, when they have any doubt that Parliament would approve. That was what my hon. friend referred to; it was not to these little grants which really raised the question, but which are of no consequence except for the precedent which they create. My hon. friend called attention to the fact that the Government had, since this Report was in their hands, done something of exactly the same kind on a much bigger scale, and we think they had no pretence for saying they were waiting for an opportunity for a non-controversial Bill to pass. We think they have distinctly used this power, condemned by the Public Accounts Committee, in order to do that which we believe Parliament would not sanction. The hon. Gentleman has spoken and I do not know that I can press him further, but I should give way if he were inclined to speak again. But we have his admission that it is wrong, his statement that it is the intention of the Treasury in future to conform to the recommendation of the Committee, to resort to this practice as rarely as possible, and then, only to meet a temporary emergency, and when they do it, to call Parliament's attention to it. I think if this discus ion leads to no more than that, it will have justified the appropriation
1910
of time to debating these Reports. As regards the discussion in general on the Reports of the Public Accounts Committee, I feel what the hon. Gentleman the Member for Norwood said about the inconclusiveness of the Motion upon which the discussion now takes place, and I think it would be convenient sometimes if we could raise particular points, and take a vote, rather than discuss a Resolution which means nothing. I do not think it is possible to ask the House, after a single day's discussion and on a single Motion, to approve of and endorse every portion of the Public Accounts Committee's Reports. The bringing of the Public Accounts Committee's Reports before the House is a comparatively novel proceeding. It was followed in the last two years of the Government of my right hon. friend, and then discontinued for two or three years, and resumed last year. He hoped it would become an annual practice, but before that is done it would be convenient to consider whether at the time we discuss the Reports we could have the Treasury Minute before us, and see how far that agrees with the Committee's Reports. We should then have the satisfaction of seing how far there was agreement between the Treasury and the Reports of the Public Accounts Committee, and the opportunity of challenging at once any divergence between the Treasury and the Public Accounts Committee. With reference to the position of the new Accounting Officer under the War Office, I associate myself entirely with what my hon. friend has said as to the independence and authority of this officer if he is properly to discharge his duties to the House, the Secretary of State, and the Treasury. It is of the greatest importance that we should know that the authority under which he acts is definite, and that his power and his position have not been altered. In July of the present year the right hon. Gentleman, in answer to the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, promised to lay on the Table a document defining the responsibilities of this officer. But this officer's authority was going on all the time and we should like to know under what authority he is acting? He has to wait nine months before his responsibility is defined. A little later the right hon. Gentleman said

1911
it was intended to modify his duties to a slight extent in regard to contracts. I do not understand how the Accountant-General is going to discharge the duties of his office if someone else has power to make contracts without his knowing anything about them. It is the greatest safeguard we can have. It prevents mistakes being made, and prevents things being done in the wrong way when there is a right way of doing them. It calls our attention to conditions that we ought to observe and the responsibility we enjoy. Nothing could be worse than to place the financial officer in such a subordinate position to the military officers that he is not able to speak to them frankly and enforce strongly the financial obligations to which they, as much as every other servant of the State, are subject. For if you allow any officer to make contracts without the papers being passed to the Accounting Officer you will find that quite unwittingly mistakes are made and money expended without Parliamentary sanction or in other ways which are not proper. One word more I wish to say on another matter, which formed the subject of the speech of the hon. Member for Ipswich. I wish to say that unless you have some confidence in the officers at the head of the different administrative departments, and particularly in the officers controlled and checked by the Treasury, you will bring our financial system to ruin. It is not possible to carry out the financial operations that we have unless you allow variations to be made by responsible officers with the control of the Treasury. Take the case of the officials of Departments, the War Office, the Admiralty, or the Office of the First Commissioner of Works. Is there any private business which has to make its forecasts under such circumstances as are imposed on those who are in great public Departments? In a private business they consider from day to day, or from board meeting to board meeting, what fresh expenditure is necessary. They do not hesitate to sanction it on the spur of the moment if safe and good opportunity arises or some special emergency gives occasion for that fresh expenditure. But the officers of these great spending Departments are expected to foresee what is going to happen eighteen months
1912
or twenty months ahead. At the present time the Navy Department are hard at work on their Estimates. Probably by this time the Works Vote of the Office of Works has already gone to the Treasury; I should think, if it has not, that probably the Chancellor of the Exchequer will be wanting to see it and asking why he does not have it before him. This is for expenditure, none of which is to begin until 1st April next, and which is to comprise everything that may be wanted and to be set down in very great detail in order to satisfy Parliament, And that is not all. I speak of the Admiralty as having only just parted with their Estimates. But they must be dependent on the Reports of officers at distant stations, and even on home Reports, which ought to have been sent in three, four, or five, mouths ago. You are, therefore; asking the officers of the spending Departments to prepare Estimates for an expenditure which has to begin a year, eighteen, or twenty months after those Estimates have been sent in. No human foresight can foresee what will arise in that period. Necessarily such things happen as this. Take a distant station: the statement is made that a building is in a very dilapidated condition, and must be renewed by an estimated expenditure of £5,000. You do not accept that at once. That is as far as you have got. You have not been able to probe the matter to the bottom at the time you framed your Estimates and apparently" there is no urgent need for the expenditure of £5,000 put into the Vote. Between your putting that into the Vote and spending the money you send an inspecting officer to the spot to investigate the circumstances, and he says: "Oh, this is a mistake. By utilising another building we can save all the expenditure, or by some other plans we can adapt the old building to our needs at a very much less cost." If they spend only £2,500 on that account it is regarded as somewhat of a blemish on the Department instead of being something for which it should have credit. It only shows how careful the Departments are, once they have got Parliamentary sanction to spend money, not to spend it unless it is really necessary. Of course, there are other cases where

1913
there is even still greater difficulty in getting information. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Ipswich cited one case, that of the building of a county court in Swansea. I asked him, drawing my bow at a venture, whether the expenditure had been incurred on the site, and he said it had. The difficulty about the Government's purchasing land is that once it is known in a particular town that the Government want land for the building of a county court, or a post office, or a coal depot, the value of every available site, is at once doubled in the market. The only chance of buying a site at a reasonable price is to do so before it becomes known that the Government are needing it. If every place where the Government want land were published or scheduled, or if the purpose for which you are going to buy land is known, you have no chance of ever making a good bargain. I remember well a case in which I was concerned when I was at the Post Office. In a large Midland town—not my own—we had an admittedly insufficient and inadequate post office for the business done. A great firm, in pursuance of several amalgamations, had great business premises in a suitable position for sale. I had representations made to me by the landowner, and finally a deputation invited me, as Postmaster-General, to purchase those premises for the business of a post office. I inquired what the fair price was, and they told me the lowest price which the vendors were prepared to take, and they said as there very likely would be very few bidders I might even get it at a little less than that. I replied that I was very sorry; I admitted that we wanted a new post office, but the House of Commons had not provided us with any money to pay for this particular place; the House of Commons was very jealous of our spending money which it had not authorised, that the Public Accounts Committee were very much on the qui vive to discern expenditure of this kind, that the Treasury itself was very loth to sanction our exercise of any such power, and that was all I could say. I sent them away rather unhappy, I suppose, with our financial system. Having done that I sent a Post Office clerk down to bid for the premises, and he got them for
1914
very much less than the sum which they had named as being what they thought fair, I am afraid to state the figures, but the price was certainly less than a third part of the sum at which the property had been offered. That was done by sending down somebody who was not known in the town. When it came to the auction nobody knew that the Postmaster-General was represented, find when the clerk gave the name of the Postmaster-General, the auctioneer adjourned the auction to consult his clerk, because if he had known that he had sold to the Postmaster-General he perhaps thought that he would have got a little more out of him. That is the only way in which you can buy cheaply. If you insist on limiting too strictly the powers of the Treasury and the powers of the Departments to vary the purposes for which Parliament had voted money, though not to vary, I think, the policy of Parliament, or do anything contrary to the general sense of Parliament, you will make all this sort of transaction impossible. You will certainly increase the cost to the public of necessary services; you will certainly increase the temptation of the Departments to over-estimate, and, when they have over-estimated, the temptation to spend. You will deprive the Treasury of the checks it has on new demands presented in the course of the year as urgent by the great technical Departments. They hear technical arguments which they cannot possibly judge from such Departments as the Admiralty and the War Office. It must necessarily occur again and again that those Departments go to the Treasury and say: "We must have so much money for a matter which is urgent for the defence of the country;" but this is of such a technical character that the Treasury cannot set its authority against the Army Council or the Board of Admiralty. What can the Treasury do? It can test the bona fides of the spending department, and their real care about the particular matter in respect of which they make the demand for money by saying: "If you must have something more, and if you will forego something less urgent, you can then have the money for that which you declare to be more necessary." I suspect the

1915
Treasury will continue to pursue that practice. It certainly did in the days when I knew it, and when I was its victim or its representative. I am sure that that kind of authority works well for all the Departments, and therefore works well for the public service. As a matter of fact, the House has very little financial control except in the way of reductions. I have sat here for sixteen years, and I cannot remember any serious effort being made in Committee to reduce the Estimates. Time has been occupied over a rat-catcher's wages, but the efforts were to spend Parliamentary time and not to give the Government any money. Really, during the sixteen years I have been here I do not remember any serious attempt having been made to reduce expenditure. All the effort has been the other way. When we discuss the Estimates we try to increase them. The only attempt to check them at all is when the Chancellor of the Exchequer proposes to raise the money which is to be spent. No doubt it is natural that Members of the House, private Members especially, who have never been in office, and have never seen the working of the system, should seem to think that under such a system expenditure must be reckless and extravagant, and that it would be right to tie down all the Government officials much more strictly than they are tied down now. I think that may be easily carried too far. No private business is comparable in magnitude to the business of the Government, or even a portion of the Government, but if you make a comparison of the mistakes made by a private concern with those made by a Department of the Government, you will find that in proportion to size, no business is run with so few mistakes as that of the Government, in spite of the fact that the private business is managed under much more easy conditions of control than are public affairs. Though I do not deny that some mistakes are made, yet I believe that, on the whole, the system works well. I am certain that the best control that the House can have is, not in attempting to foresee every mistake that may be made, not in attempting beforehand so to tie down everybody that they cannot make a mistake, with the result that they cannot
1916
do anything at all, but that those who are responsible for the action of officials should make them understand that their responsibility is a reality, that if by investigations of the Treasury, of the Comptroller and Auditor-General, and of the Public Accounts Committee, they are adjudged not merely to have made pardonable errors, but to have been guilty of a serious lapse of duty, then they cannot expect mercy, either from the Government or from the House, and that we shall, while trusting them in the future as we have done in the past, expect that same high standard of public spirit in the discharge of their duties which their predecessors have shown.
MR. ACLANDsaid he would reply on the question of the powers of the successor of the late Director-General of Finance. The Order in Council, which would be published he hoped in a few days—the new officer only came into his Work in November, so there had been no very great delay in publishing the Order in Council—contained exactly word for word every sentence which was contained in the old Order of Council. The hon. and gallant Member for Dorsetshire said very rightly that the head of the Finance Department, who was appointed Accounting Officer by the Treasury, had two functions, and that it was necessary that both these functions should be defined, and that it was desirable that they should be kept distinct. One of the functions was that of financial advice to Members of the Council and to officers in command. The other was that of Accounting Officer, in which capacity he was personally responsible for the regularity of every payment which was made. The old Order in Council of 10th August, 1904, rather mixed up these two functions. The new Order in Council put in the first few sentences one of these functions, and in the final few sentences the other function. Every single sentence in exactly the same words would be contained in the new Order as in the old. They were only getting the two functions more clearly defined, and the different duties grouped more clearly under the two headings. He could quite understand that there had been a natural nervousness, and perhaps even suspicion,

1917
which had been the result of the change in title, but he could assure the right hon. Gentleman that it was a change in title only except that it was also a change in salary. The War Office wished last autumn to facilitate the utilisation by the Government of India of the services of Sir Guy Fleetwood Wilson, and in order that the necessary arrangements might be made at the Treasury it was found to be necessary that his successor should have a rather lower salary, and it was found advisable that he should have a Bather different title, but the difference which was made in title and salary was purely to facilitate the arrangement which it was desired to make with regard to Sir Guy Fleetwood Wilson's new appointment. There had been no alteration whatever in the powers of the officer, and he thought it was a good beginning for the officer who would have control over the whole finance of the Army that he should make a beginning with his own salary and cut that down a little. He was afraid the hon. Gentleman would want to make a continuation with his (Mr. Acland's), but he had shown no signs, he was glad to say, up to the present. With regard to contracts, the position was this—that every matter which involved variation in the terms of the contract, such as letting off the contractor from penalties in default, or from a fine which had been confirmed, or giving a higher price than that which the contractor had tendered, must come to him through the Assistant Financial Secretary. But the question of the making of the contracts seemed to him to be an administrative question, and he believed the Department was better served if all the members of the Contracts Department were civilians—it was a civilian financial staff directly under the Financial Secretary, and if that staff was charged with the financial consideration of the conditions under which they made the contract as well as the purely administrative making of the contract and issuing the tender and so on.
MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINsaid he did not mean that the Assistant Financial Secretary or the Director of Finance should make the contracts in any way at all. What he had in his mind was the case of a man making a contract
1918
without having any authority to buy anything at all, or any funds on which to draw. But before a man signed a contract which covered a charge on a particular Vote, or a particular subhead of a Vote, surely a member of the Financial Director's staff ought to have vised them, so to speak, to see that there was Parliamentary authority for charging it to that sub-head.
MR. ACLANDsaid that was so at present. There was oversight by men directly under the Director-General of Finance as to the issue of money out of which contracts were to be met. He should be glad to show the right hon. Gentleman the old Draft Order and the new one, but there was only a rearrangement and no alteration in wording whatever, and no alteration of powers except with regard to the administrative side of the contracts had ever been contemplated. Perhaps the Chairman of the Committee would desire that he should refer to some of the questions that he had raised. He had naturally referred to the possible loss of Parliamentary control in the matter of triennial contracts for repairs, and so on. That was a very important point, and two points arose out of it. One was a question of splitting up a certain order into such small parts that each part might be carried out by the triennial contractor without exceeding the amount of the order which could be given to him. That was a practice which was adversely commented on by the Public Accounts Committee, and he thought they were perfectly right. The practice, so far as it existed, was no doubt a bad one. But, if one looked through the instances which the Committee took, there seemed to be a fairly reasonable explanation of the cases which came before them in which a total exceeding the sum of any individual order had been made up out of separate orders carried out by the triennial contractor. For instance, there was the case of the explosion in February, 1907, at Woolwich, where it was a matter of very great urgency that the buildings which had been shattered should be replaced, and if they had not been replaced without the delay of issuing tenders and so on, the whole of the work of the Royal Laboratory might have been brought

1919
to a standstill. That was a very exceptional case, and the excess of the usual limits of triennial contractors' work was in that case justified. There was a case where separate orders were given to a triennial contractor for the foundations of a building and for the superstructure. He understood that was a very common practice even in ordinary house building, and it was particularly necessary at Woolwich where foundations were apt to be very bad, the ground was full of peat, and they could never judge of the sort of building they would be able to put up until they knew how firm the foundations were which they could lay. It had been found, quite apart from triennial contracts, absolutely necessary to make different tenders for the foundation and for the building itself. As to the extension of contracts, that was giving a further contract on the same terms for similar work to a man who had already had a contract; that was under careful consideration at present by the Treasury, the Admiralty, and the War Office. No conclusion as to how this matter should be kept on right lines had yet been come to, but there were two views. One was that they got better control by the House if all extensions beyond a certain point were referred to the Treasury for sanction. The other view was that the Ministers concerned, the Secretary of State for War or the First Lord of the Admiralty, would exercise more care, and really be in a more responsible position if they had to sign an authorisation in writing for these extensions than if they had to refer the matter to the Treasury and to come again if they were unable to get Treasury sanction. That matter was now being discussed. All cases, even the smallest, of extensions of contracts of course came to the Financial Secretary in person, and his view, so far as he had had an opportunity of forming it, was that in nearly every case it was far better to have a fresh contract than an extension of the old one. The reason so often urged that the builder had his materials on the ground and would, therefore, be able more easily to continue at the same price seemed, to his mind, to be a particularly good reason why he should be asked to tender at a lower price. The hon. and gallant Member had referred to the size of the surplus in the year under review of money voted
1920
by Parliament over that actually expended. He would be gratified to know that since the year in review a good deal of progress had been made in the direction of more closely estimating the expenses of the year. In that year there was a surrender of rather over £1,250,000, and if they included the Supplementary Estimate it brought it up to nearly £1,750,000. In 1907–8 the surrender also including the Supplementary Estimates was a little short of £1,000,000, and this year so far as he could see at present, excluding a windfall from India, which they did not expect in the financial year, the surrenders would be only about £300,000. There had been a reduction of surrenders from about £1,750,000 two years ago to between £300,000 and £400,000. The hon. Member had referred to the question of engineers' store accounts. They had had a good many cases where account keeping for the engineers' stores had not been all it should be, and a Committee was sitting considering this question, which was a very important one. The hon. Member had referred to the question of stock valuation returns, and he was glad he agreed that the keeping of that very elaborate Return was not really worth the amount of expense that it involved, and he thought he could tell him what was now proposed in that direction. First of all, of course, the Treasury had control and was bound to be informed whenever the War Office proposed to vary what was called the Mowatt reserve. The money was advanced originally from the Treasury, on that condition. They quite rightly laid down the condition that if it was proposed to increase or diminish its reserves the Treasury was to be communicated with, but they hoped to adapt something more than that. The Mowatt reserve did not include the whole of the war reserves. Certain important items, for instance, rifles, were not included in the Mowatt reserve at all. They hoped to be able to give a certificate with the Appropriation Accounts to somewhat the following effect—
"We certify that on the 31st of March last the authorised war reserves of store?, for the provision and maintenance of which we are respectively responsible were, in all respects, complete with the exception of temporary deficiencies of the agregate value of about £.—."

1921
It would then be seen how matters stood and they would have a personal certificate by two members of the Army Council concerned that the war reserves had not been depleted in order to mask an increase of expenditure in the order. As to the question of allowances by the Treasury in excess of certain Votes, so long as there was not an excess of the total Vote, the Office concerned was compelled in each case to show the real reason for the extra expenditure which they proposed. They were bound to show that the service was urgent, and if they could not do that to the satisfaction of the Treasury the service was not passed. No doubt if they were forced to adhere tightly to the total of any particular Vote—and of some Votes more than others this could be said—it would not be possible to make that close estimate as compared with expenditure so satisfactory as they hoped to make it. To be out by £300,000 in a total of £27,000,000 could not be regarded as a very bad estimate. It would be impossible to frame estimates for stores so close if it were not for this practice. A sudden necessity might arise, for instance, for a supply of mules or camels for an expedition in some distant part of the world, and of course, as things stood, the Treasury would sanction expenditure as a matter of emergency and the animals would be provided and one would hope that the emergency would pass before the matter had come before Parliament. But if the "War Office could never buy animals beyond the Vote without consulting Parliament, it would prevent them altogether from doing certain things which they were bound to do quickly and privately, and for which the sanction of the Treasury ought to be sufficient. As a newcomer into these domains he thought the careful consideration of the Public Accounts Committee and the discussion of their Report had a very good effecton the spending Departments concerned, and he joined in the hope generally expressed that these discussions, which brought to a head the valuable consideration of the Committee, would be of annual occurrence because he was sure they did a very great deal of good in the spending Departments concerned with the regu-
1922
larity of the expenditure which the Government trusted to their keeping.
MR. JAMES PARKERsaid it was with some small degree of trepidation that he spoke on the Report, of the Public Accounts Committee. He was a member of that body, and had taken some interest in its deliberations. He would like to associate himself with what had been said by the hon. Member for Tyrone, and he did not think that the work of the Committee was in any sense a check on expenditure for the purpose of Parliamentary control. The Secretary to the Treasury had twitted, possibly rightly, the hon. Member for only attending half the meetings of the Committee. That could not be said of him, because he had been present at nearly all the meetings, and he had come to pretty near the same conclusion as the hon. Member for East Tyrone. He gathered from the Secretary to the Treasury that the only purpose of the Committee was to see that the accounts were kept in proper order and presented in a proper manner before Parliament. If that was the work of the Committee, he submitted that there was better work which could be done. He could quite understand that the Gentlemen on the Front Benches were not desirous of the ordinary private Members of the House having any part, after the Estimates were passed, in dealing with the expenditure of money. Let them compare for a moment the action of this Committee with the action of a big city council. He admitted that the conditions were not exactly alike, but there were city councils that spent some millions of money in undertakings of various character almost as complicated so far as accounts were concerned as the undertakings of the Government. They managed them without harassing the officials at all. So far as he had met the officials of the various Departments, he had always been treated with the greatest respect, and they had always been willing to give him any information he had sought. But the function of an official was entirely different from the function of a Member elected by the people of the country to take part in the legislative and administrative work

1923
of the House. Might he quote a few words written by Lord Esher? He did not agree with all his conclusions, but he agreed with what he had to say with respect to the Public Accounts Committee. He said—
"Curiously enough the House of Commons, which has to vote these enormous sums, takes great trouble by means of a Standing Committee to see that every penny is applied to the service for which it is voted. This Committee overhauls accounts, call witnesses who are examined and cross-examined, and, in short, possesses very wide powers, which it exercises thoroughly with excellent results. But there is no Standing Committee to inquire whether the money voted is spent to the best advantage."
It seemed to him that that was practically what his hon. friend suggested, that what they required before they could be said to have any adequate control whatever of the finances was in some way to bring hon. Members into touch with expenditure, not two years after the money was spent, but before it was actually spent. After attending his first meeting of the Committee he happened to meet a very responsible Member of the Government, who remarked that the Public Accounts Committee was like Minerva's owl. He did not know what that meant, but he looked it up in the Library, and found it meant, to use a Yorkshire phrase, that it was always two years after the cart. They wanted some means of dealing with expenditure which would bring the private Member into touch with it, and give him some power to check it, without his trying to be at one and the same time a bureaucratic official and a representative. He would not be a party to any Member of any public body endeavouring to harass an official in the performance of his duty, but he submitted that there was a function which belonged peculiarly to the elected representative in regard to expenditure and another which belonged to the official, and if they passed over all expenditure after the Estimates had passed the House, and left it absolutely under the control of the official, the House had no real financial control. He had been amused on occasion at the work of the Committee. Once when the question of triennial contracts was before the Committee it was necessary to get some information from the War Office, and the reply they received in one case as to digging out the foundations of a building and the erection of the building in another
1924
place was that it was necessary that the foundation should be put in before the superstructure could be erected. It was worth being on the Public Accounts Committee in order to have a piece of information like that. He supposed there was no other institution in the world except the War Office where one could be supplied with information at first hand of that particular value. There were two items he wanted to refer to, as illustrations of the necessity of a check upon expenditure before it was entered into, in addition to the check which the officials possessed. The first was a case of compassionate gratuities for servants occupying positions abroad which were to be dispensed with. There were in the accounts certain charges for what were called compassionate gratuities. He found that it was the custom to pay these pensions three years ahead. That being so, if a recipient died soon after the compassionate gratuity had been paid the relatives had three years money to go on with. That was a good idea, and he would not mind being pensioned in that way himself. Looking at the matter from the business point of view the system was absolutely ridiculous, and he submitted that in all probability if there were Members of the House dealing with this expenditure they would prevent the occurrence of things of that character. There were also in the accounts charges amounting to thousands of pounds for overtime and extra remuneration. There were thousands of young men in the country who had received good education, and whose parents were anxious that they should obtain situations in the Civil Service. The money paid for overtime and extra remuneration was received by officials who already had high salaries while those men who desired to enter the public service could not get appointments in the offices of the State. He submitted that these charges should be reduced by the Government Departments as much as possible. There was ample scope for great reductions in the amount paid for overtime and extra remuneration. He believed the work of the Public Accounts Committee did good, but he submitted that before the general body of the House could claim to have any real check upon public expenditure the Committee would have

1925
to sit, not two years after the accounts had been paid, but before the expenditure was entered into. There ought to be several Committees if the check was to be really effective.
LORD R. CECILsaid the speech of the hon. Member who had just sat down was one of very great interest. The suggestion made was that there should be Committees to revise the Estimates in the interests of economy before the expenditure was incurred. Though it might be worth while trying the experiment he doubted very much whether it would be of great value. If they were to keep down expenditure, they could only do it by having very considerable knowledge of the actual Departments with which they were dealing. He very much doubted whether a Committee would have sufficient knowledge to enable it to deal with the experts who would come before them. The hon. Member had referred to the practice of municipal councils. He only knew of their work from the outside, and, judging from the results, he could not say that their procedure was a particularly good one, with the view of keeping in check the spending officials, and that was really what all these devices were intended to accomplish. He doubted very much whether a committee of a municipality did succeed in checking expenditure, and he had greater doubt whether a Committee drawn from the House would be able to check the very much larger and more complicated matters involved in the public expenditure of the country. There was only one point arising on the Report of the Public Accounts Committee to which he desired to refer. It had been mentioned more than once, and he was not quite sure that they had succeeded in making exactly clear to the Government what the point really was. Paragraph 11 referred to certain payments for law charges and criminal prosecutions in Ireland, and laid down the general principles of control of expenditure in the following terms—
"Your Committee, after hearing the evidence of the Comptroller and Auditor-General, and the representative of the Treasury, are of opinion that while it is undoubtedly within the discretion of Parliament to override the provisions of an existing statute by a Vote in Supply confirmed by the Appropriation Act
1926
it is desirable in the interests of financial regularity and constitutional consistency that such a procedure should be resorted to as rarely as possible, and only to meet a temporary emergency. In cases where such an emergency arises, and there are reasons against the amendment or repeal of the statute governing the case, your Committee recommend that the fact that the proposed Vote over-rides an existing statute should be cleary stated on the face of the Estimate, with the reasons for adopting that course, so that no doubt can exist of the deliberate intention of Parliament. The exceptional nature of the Vote should also be indicated in the Appropriation Act."
That was not an isolated expression of this particular Committee. It was not merely a casual expression of opinion; it represented the settled policy of the Public Accounts Committee. It was laid down as early as 1875, and it was repeated in 1883, 1885, 1886, 1887, 1888, and 1889. He did not mean that exactly the same words had been used on each occasion, but the Public Accounts Committee and the Treasury had repeatedly laid down the principle that it was unsound to over-rule express legislation by means of an Estimate afterwards confirmed by the Appropriation Act. What he felt anxious about was whether the Government full-heartedly accepted that view or not. He thought the House had a right to a plain and distinct answer on that point. The hon. Member for Norwood had referred to a particular case which had caused some hon. Members to doubt whether the Government accepted that principle. The particular case was the authorising in 1907 of an expenditure of £100,000 for the building of new schools throughout the country. There was no doubt whatever that that was in direct conflict with an existing Act of Parliament. It was a far stronger case than any with which the Public Accounts Committee had so far dealt. The Public Accounts Committee had hitherto dealt, not with a direct prohibition in an existing Act of Parliament, but merely with a case where an Act of Parliament had set a particular limit to expenditure, or something of that kind. Here they had a case where by the Act of 1870 there was an absolute prohibition against Parliamentary grants being made in aid of building, enlarging, or fitting up any elementary school, and what the Government had done, not once or twice, but oftener, was to over-rule the prohibition

1927
by Estimate for the purpose of building schools and to follow that by the Appropriation Act confirming the Estimate. He thought they had a right to ask whether the Government intended in future to abide by the fresh expression of the Public Accounts Committee as contained in the present Report in reference to this matter or not. Did they, in the first place, think they had complied with it? What was the temporary emergency which compelled them to make the grants and proceed in this manner? He did not think it would be suggested by any Minister that there was any temporary emergency in the ordinary sense of the word at all. It was a fresh departure in policy. There was no special emergency suddenly occurring which the Government had to meet. Let him take another test. Even if there was a certain emergency, the Committee recommended that certain precautions should be taken. They must first show a temporary emergency and some special reason against repealing the statute involved. What were the reasons against repealing the statute involved? He knew of none. He knew that one of the statements occasionally made from the Treasury bench was that they were able to defeat the interference of the other House. That, was seriously put forward as a reason for the use of the procedure, but the branch of the Legislature whose power was really taken away was not so much the other House as this House. It was the House of Commons which suffered by procedure of this kind. It involved the deliberate setting aside of an Act of the whole Legislature—of the House of Commons as much as of the other House. They had no security that they would be allowed to discuss the Estimate even. In this case, as a matter of fact, he did not think they did. When they came to the Appropriation Bill they could not raise the point effectively at all. They could not raise it in Committee. He thought he had ingeniously devised an Amendment by which it could be done, but found that he could not. They could not raise a specific point on the Appropriation Bill; all they could do was to object to the Second Reading of the Bill. That was an absolutely futile remedy. He did not think anybody said anything as to the desirability of making this grant,
1928
but, because they disapproved of the method, the only way they could control it was by rejecting the Appropriation Bill. That was a farcical control; indeed it was no control at all. He fully accepted that the great object of this Committee and of its Report and the discussion that afternoon was to enforce, the control of the House over the expenditure which had to be made. The hon. Member for Ipswich drew attention to the great difficulty of the control of the House, and that had been emphasised by other hon. Members, who had shown that there was nothing more ineffective than the detailed control of the House over Estimates. This particular action of the Government was one more infringement of their powers in regard to policy as well as expenditure. He ventured to say to the House and to the Government also that the House had a right to learn whether the Government intended to be bound by the principle-laid down by successive Public Accounts-Committees, or whether they intended to defy it. They ought to know that definitely and clearly.
MR. WEDGWOODsaid he felt great sympathy with the speech of the hon. Member for Ipswich and with his desire that the Treasury should no longer be able to transfer surpluses on one Vote to another Vote—to prevent an estimated saving on men; being applied to barracks. He thought, however, it was necessary to approach this question with a great deal of caution. He should deprecate, for several reasons other than those given by the ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer any further cramping of the heads of Departments by a prohibition to make good use of savings in their Departments. Everybody who knew the public services knew that towards the end of a financial year every single Department tried to spend money to the full extent of their Estimates, partly to justify them and partly that they might claim in the succeeding year a similar grant. Heads of Departments were anxious to run their Departments cheaply, but the chief incentive to making savings in one branch was that the money so saved might be spent in other branches. That incentive would disappear if transfer of savings from one

1929
Vote to another was prohibited. In order to spend all the money voted before the end of the financial year there was a rush of work, and everybody was put on overtime. That was the case in the War Office and Admiralty alike. An endeavour was made to spend travelling allowances so that those to whom they were granted might claim the same amount in the next year. For these reasons he deprecated an excessive desire for Parliamentary control. It was desirable that the heads of public services should have the incentive to practice economy. In the matter of grants-in-aid the Reports of the Public Accounts Committee showed a constant and progressive reduction in regard to certain of our Protectorates. The grant to British East Africa had fallen from the £251,000 of four years ago to £153,000; and that to Northern Nigeria had fallen from £465,000 to £295,000. There was a constantly increasing drop in the amount of money demanded from this country for the development of the Colonies. There were other cases where grants previously given had ceased altogether, notably in the case of the Gold Coast, Airhere the grant of £243,000 was reduced gradually until in 1905 it ceased entirely. He thought it was the duty of the Public Accounts Committee to see whether in cases of progressive Colonies it would not be possible to treat these grants-in-aid not as grants but as Imperial advances, which would, as soon as the Colony became solvent, bear interest, so that we might be ultimately recouped for the expenditure we had made, in order to develop these Colonies. In Northern Nigeria for instance we had an extremely valuable asset. The actual revenue this year was largely in excess even of the estimate, and in ten years that Protectorate would undoubtedly pay its way. It would only be right and fair to the taxpayers of this country that if and when such Colonies became prosperous we should have a prior lien upon them, and get the interest on the public debt incurred by us for their benefit, often in reproductive work.
He would pass on to another point concerning the Army. In the evidence before the Committee they came across the case of the foreshore off Shoeburyness. These sands, which were
1930
euphemistically called the foreshore of Shoeburyness were really the Maplin sands, which were covered by the sea at high-water. For forty years the War Office had had right of shooting their guns at Shoeburyness, and for this they had paid £10 a year to the owner of the sands; and £10 was also paid to the Commissioners of Woods and Forests, who also had a claim to a portion of these sands. Later on in 1892 the owner of these sands took it into his head that he was not getting full value for them and demanded, instead of a rent of £10, that he should be paid £265 a year. The War Office with that prescience which characterised them occasionally still, did not accept that offer of £265, and they had in consequence to buy 1,760 acres for a sum of over £10,000. Besides these 1,760 acres they had also to acquire the 900 acres belonging to the Commissioners of Woods and Forests, which for over forty years they had paid £10 a year rent for. No sooner did the question of buying up other portions of the sands arise than private owners chimed these other hitherto public portions of the sands from the Commissioners of Woods and Forests. The latter, thinking the sands were of no value, did not contest the title, and allowed these private people to clam without dispute; and the War Office bought this also for between £5 and £6 an acre at a cost of nearly £6,000. On this point bore one of the most startling pieces of evidence in the Report. The Woods and Forests Department said the land was of no value, and they would not contest the matter, and when the private owner demanded £5,500, the War Office never went to the Woods and Forests Department and urged them to fight the claim. They said they should—
"Have to pay the money in the end in any case, and if the Office of Works had proved their title they should have had to pay them for it."
That was the reason given for not establishing a public title, and if that sort of principle was carried on by the different departments of the public service, no doubt the public was bound to suffer. It really did not matter to the taxpayers of this

1931
country whether the land belonged to the Commissioners of Woods and Forests or to the War Office. But it did matter that one Department should regard another as an alien body and pay £5,500 to private persons for that to which another Department had a claim.
Passing on to another question he pointed out that all Departments of the public service were entitled to inflict upon contractors who did not fulfil the terms of their contracts, fines and stoppages. He was rather surprised to see that the Admiralty, at any rate, considered themselves empowered to remit these fines and modify the terms of the contract without applying to the Treasury for sanction. He did not, however, think that applied to every Department in the public service, but there ought to be a certain amount of conformity in this matter, and if a contract was to be modified, and if the modification exceeded a certain sum, then he thought that Treasury sanction should be applied for, or, at any rate, that the spending Departments should all pursue the same practice in this respect. But this was part of a more important question than that of whether mere Treasury sanction should be obtained or not. He deprecated the increasing habit of the public service to make provision in their contracts for fines and stoppages, and then not inflicting them: because it frightened off the good contractor who did not know whether he had what was called "pull" enough to get his fine rebated. It led to nothing wrong no doubt, but to all manner of suspicion, grievances and complaints. Many contracts did not have these fines and stoppages, but if they were there they should be enforced remorselessly. He had come cross cases which showed that in the clothing trade contracts had been made three years ago, at ridiculously low prices just after the war. The contracts in question were with the Post Office or the War Office, and the contractors found later on that they could get better prices from other people. In consequence the bad class contractors pleaded that they could not and did not carry out their Government work. He hoped that when a contractor threw up Government work
1932
under those circumstances, that he would not be allowed to be let off say fine or to obtain the same work at a higher price.
There should be competition by open tender for Government work. He was opposed to the "list" system by which only prominent manufacturers were open to tender. There were, of course, a great number of such firms in each trade on the list, though not all were asked. He could assure the Government that when there were only a few big firms asked to tender, they charged a higher price because of the limitation. By allowing tenders to be open small manufacturers would undercut the established firms by offering articles at lower prices if merely in order to have the privilege of having had a Government contract that helped them to further contracts. Government Departments were especially able to deal with such small manufacturers, as they had the best inspectors in the world. No other buyer in the country could secure better value for his money than could the War Office and Admiralty. He wished he could persuade these two-Departments of the enormous savings-they could secure by giving work to the lowest tender which was likely to prove satisfactory. He believed these Departments could save 10 per cent. on their orders. There was another direction in which these Departments lost money and that was by insisting upon certain cast-iron specifications which were handeddown from year to year unaltered. Such rigidity prevented many firms from tendering. Here was one of the matters that the Public Accounts Committee ought to be able to deal with. They must see that the specifications were revised and were drawn up in conjunction with the trade. They would not get people competing when all their patterns and moulds were of an entirely different character from that required in the specification. He heard of a case the other day of a large firm of chemical manufacturers who were asked to supply-two chemicals in a mixed form. They offered to supply them separately as they supplied the rest of their customers. The Government said they wanted them, mixed. The firm did not want to go to the trouble of mixing them, so they supplied the mixed article at a price thirty times as high as they would have sold the

1933
chemicals separately for, and they were very much astonished when they got the contract. That was not the way to do business. That was where money was thrown away in the public service.
MR. MITCHELL-THOMPSONthought that the question of non-recovery of liquidated damages referred to by the hon. Member was a matter of supreme importance, because if the Government refused to pursue a course which they had given warning they would adopt they only discouraged the contractor who was disposed to act up to his contract. The Admiralty, he noticed, were the worst offenders in this matter. There was one case in the Report in which it was pointed out that out of 71 craft of all sorts on which final instalments were paid during the year, thirty-three were late in delivery. Of those there were only five on which liquidated damages were obtained and in four of those it was obtained in a modified form. He rose, however, not for the purpose of drawing attention to that point but to another specific point also in relation to the Admiralty, the question of "quantities in reserve." For the first time there was a divergency of practice between the War Office and the Admiralty in this matter. As a result of a conference between the representatives of the Treasury, the War Office, and the Admiralty, the War Office representative decided to abandon the provisions as to "reserve," and to adopt the recommendation made by the Committee in their second Report of this year, that was to say so far as giving a certificate by the Director-General of Ordinance was concerned as to the reserve and stores being up to standard. The Committee suggested that a quantity return should be given as well, but he could quite understand the War Office Minute that such a return was on public ground undesirable. The same view was held by the Admiralty, but they also held the view that these Departmental Stock Reports were of some value and that in regard to three Votes they were said to be of special value. He wished to know whether the representatives of the Admiralty could say that they would adopt the suggestion with
1934
regard to the other Admiralty Votes other than Vote 8. A certificate similar to that given by the War Office should be given by the Admiralty.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Dr. MAC-NAMARA,)said a statement was shown at the foot of the Store Votes in the Appropriation Account.
MR. MITCHELL-THOMPSONpointed out that when the hon. Gentleman was asked whether he would adopt that course he stated that the matter would require some further consideration. He hoped that it would receive that consideration, because where the Admiralty had not a statutory reserve he thought a certificate for these other Votes would give a security, financially and in speech, the value of which he thought the House would not fail to appreciate.
THE UNDER - SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Colonel SEELY,)said he did not think the Government could adopt the suggestion of the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme that all grants-in-aid should be treated as loans as soon as the Colonies receiving them had become solvent. That would put this country into a position which it did not want to take up. We should be money lenders pure and simple instead of being the centre of a great Empire. That they should feel that at the moment they became prosperous these grants-in-aid would become loans would be to place this country in a situation in which it would not wish to find itself and for which he did not think his hon. friend would really press. At the same time all these questions of grants-in-aid must be carefully scrutinised. He did not suppose the hon. Member desired to make this proposal retrospective. ["No."] Then he could say at once that the Treasury did very carefully scrutinise every proposal made to them for a grant-in-aid, and did not agree to it except in cases where it was shown to be absolutely necessary.
MR. BELLAIRSsaid a powerful appeal had been made by the

1935
hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme in favour of open tender. But owing to certain considerations that system could hardly be applied to every instance. The Admiralty would be continually cross-questioned as to whether they had accepted the lowest tender, but that Department were bound to consider the situation and ability of a firm to cope with a large order. They had to consider war preparations and if a firm suddenly failed the Admiralty would be brought to book for having placed an order with such a firm. He had on several occasions noticed, however, that the Admiralty had exceeded the necessities of the case in the number of firms they asked to tender. He believed that something like twenty-three firms had been asked to tender for Rosyth, and he did not think that any stone could be legitimately thrown at the Admiralty in respect of their confining the great works at Rosyth to particular firms. He associated himself with those hon. Members who had drawn attention to the ineffectual nature of a debate of this kind which concerned itself with the Estimates of 1906–7 in the financial year 1908–9. He wished they could have some system by which a Committee could really look into the Estimates in the year in which they were current, and cross-question the officials as to the principles on which those Estimates were based. He thought that both the French and the German Parliaments had derived great advantages from such a system. If necessary, the Committee could hold its meetings secretly and consider the evidence, dealing with it only in their Report, and keeping such portions private as the officials desired. The Committee, as it stood to-day, as far as he could make out from reading the Report and the evidence, considered the whole question from the point of view of the Auditor-General's Report. If the Auditor-General did not draw their attention specifically to any questions there was a tendency to gloss over those questions, and there was also a tendency to consider only the financial side. Anybody familiar with administration in this country would bear him out in saying that infinitely more economy was derived
1936
from the consideration of principle than of petty details of finance. Then there was the question of the "Invincible," for which no tenders were invited. The Committee in their Report drew attention to the value that lay in secrecy. Of course, the Committee might be diffident about discussing the question whether it was necessary to build ships secretly, but he believed that it was the opinion of many naval officers that it was not necessary to keep designs so absolutely secret, nor did they succeed in their purpose of maintaining secrecy, while at the same time they lost the whole advantage of the expert criticism of such a body as the Society of Naval Architects. Attention was drawn in the Report to the loss incurred in salving of the "Montagu." There again, a principle was involved on which the Committee was quite competent to pronounce in favour of or against the Admiralty. Any body of civilians must feel very strongly in reference to the salving of the "Montagu." People who were connected with salvage companies, and who devoted a lifetime to the work of salvage, must be better acquainted than naval officers with the salving of ships. The Admiralty had placed the whole of the salvage operations under the direction of a naval officer, so they were not able to judge whether a salvage company would have salved the ship for less money; but certainly the system which the Admiralty had tried had resulted in utter failure, and the failure was acknowledged soon after Parliament had adjourned. There was no way, therefore, of bringing the Admiralty to book at the time, and one necessarily relied on the Public Accounts Committee to look into the question if they considered it their duty to do so, as to whether the Admiralty were to blame for placing the operations under the direction of a naval officer instead of a salvage company. He believed that in the case of the "Gladiator" the work was done under contract by a salvage company, and the ship was salved. In the Report of the Committee many things were omitted which should have been considered if the Auditor-General himself had only drawn the attention of the Committee to them. Wherever there was a break in

1937
the ordinary rules of Parliament, and any question arose, he thought it was positively the duty of the Auditor-General to draw the attention of the Public Accounts Committee to it. By an Order in Council, dated 8th January, 1906, which, according to the invariable rule with an Order in Council, should certainly he published in the London Gazette, the salary of a distinguished naval officer was increased. It was an invariable rule also for an Order in Council to be laid on the Table of the House. But neither of these ordinary rules was followed in that case, so that the discovery was not made until a year after. He really did not know why the Admiralty or the Privy Council should have disregarded the two rules in this particular case, for he was perfectly certain that if the Admiralty had come to the House of Commons and said that they considered it necessary that this distinguished officer should have an increase of salary, the House would have unanimously granted it. He did not see the advantage of breaking the ordinary rule, and he thought the Auditor-General should have drawn the attention of the Public Accounts Committee to the fact that the ordinary rule had been broken. Throughout the year 1906, a couple of dredgers were lent to the Egyptian Government for the purpose of dredging the Harbour of Alexandria. They were lent without payment. One of these dredgers was built in the year 1904; it was a new one, and presumably was built because it was wanted. The Egyptian Government made no payment whatever. Alexandria was one of the richest and most rising ports in the Mediterranean; it had a rich and thriving trade, and was well able to pay for the services of the dredgers. There, again, he thought the Auditor-General should have drawn the attention of the Public Accounts Committee to the correspondence with the Admiralty in regard to placing the two dredgers at the disposal of Alexandria for nothing. There were many ports in this country where they would like to have dredgers placed at their disposal for nothing. On the estimates for the year there was a charge of £20,000 from Osborne College. There, again, was a case whore the Public Accounts Committee might have looked into the
1938
matter. They drew attention to the fact that the original estimate was something like £40,000. The Admiralty then went to the Treasury and asked that they might utilise the savings on other Votes and devote them to Osborne College. In that way the expenditure had been increased to £160,000—about four times the original cost—without the sanction of Parliament, and the Public Accounts Committee drew attention to the fact. In 1906, there was the item of £20,000 for the hospital, so that gradually and insidiously the cost of the scheme, in regard to which the Admiralty got praise for their wonderful economy, had turned out to be about four and-a-half times as great as the first Estimate. There was another point which illustrated a great scandal. An enormous scrapping of ships took place in the year 1902. Some of those ships, although they had recently been refitted before they were scrapped, the Admiralty in 1906 found it necessary to take to the dockyards and again refit at great expense. The "Philomel" had £23,000 spent on her refit during 1903–4, and just after the refit of that little cruiser the Admiralty fiat went forth that the vessel was to be put in "scrap" for a time. She was left without a maintenance crew on board. In 1905, the Admiralty determined to refit her, and they took her to Haulbowline, where she was refitted, and where she remained a great length of time—he did not know how long, nor at what expense, though it was considerable, and he believed that if the heads of Departments had not to look to the Treasury, who were putting a considerable check upon them, and were left to exercise their own judgment in effecting economies, it would be the better system. The whole thing depended on the character and capabilities of the heads of Departments. If they were men of considerable character, capable of estimating the value of evidence, they would undoubtedly arrive at conclusions as to what was vital, and what was not, to the country, and it was their bounden duty when the country wanted economy to check those things which were not vital and to refuse them if necessary, but never to refuse what, on the evidence of their official advisers, was vital. There were

1939
in this Report references to the Works Vote. He felt most strongly that if the First Lord and the Secretary of State for War had greater power given them and were made to look upon it as their business to provide economy as well as efficiency, the Works bill would never have reached such great dimensions. Before undertaking many of these naval Works, for instance, the fortifications of the West Indies, the works at Bermuda and Halifax, the backwater at Malta and Dover Harbour, the Admiralty should have asked their advisers if these particular works were vitally necessary for this country to win success in war. He was convinced that no body of soldiers or generals would have told them they were vitally necessary to win success in war, though they might have told them they were useful, and the result would have been that many of those naval works that had cost so much money, and which we now so deeply repented, would never have been built.
DR. MACNAMARAsaid everybody must agree that there should be the fullest possible control by Parliament over expenditure. They wanted the greatest measure of Parliamentary control consistent with prompt and efficient administration. The hon. Member for Ipswich took exception to the system under which the Navy and Army were entitled, supposing the aggregate of their Votes was not exceeded, to transfer a surplus on one Vote to meet a deficiency on another Vote. That was set up temporarily under Section 4 of the Appropriation Act and was confirmed by Parliament in Section 5 of that Act. The seconder of the Motion said that that system led to bad estimating. He should like to look into that from the point of view of the Navy Estimates. Having regard to all the difficulties our public officials laboured under, they certainly estimated the future requirements of their Departments remarkably closely. In this connection he had heard with pleasure the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Worcestershire. Their actuals came out very close indeed, having regard to all the circumstances. Estimates were effected, of course, by all sorts of unforeseen circumstances.
1940
They had industrial disputes, changes in price of materials, and delayed execution of contracts and there might be casualties such as the loss of the "Montagu" in 1903–7, and the "Gladiator" in 1808–9. But notwithstanding all these things, and the fact that they were estimated so long before the actual expenditure, it was remarkable that they came out so closely to Estimates. The Vote they were considering involved a ret Exchequer grant of £31,472,087. The seconder of the Motion before the House gave some instances in which Navy Votes had been exceeded and some in which they had a deficiency. Take Vote 1. Considering that the Vote for the pay of all ranks in the Navy amounted to £6,810,700, and had to be estimated eighteen months beforehand, it was remarkable there was not a larger deficiency than £254,137. Then on Vote 2, for the victualling of the Navy, which was £2,053,300, they had only a surplus of £187,206. The Vote for the "Royal Naval Reserve was £426,600 and they showed a surplus of £80,303. On the Vote for shipbuilding, the dockyard personnel, which came to nearly £2,500,000, it was remarkable there was only a deficiency of £82,848. On the Vote for dockyard material of £2,827,200 they showed a deficiency of £284,934 and on the Vote for contract work, for which there w-as an Excheqer grant of £8,588,400, they showed a surplus of £199,886. That was partly due to a revision of the programme of 1906–7, and his predecessor had stated specifically on 27th July, 1906, that they proposed to lay down three "Dreadnoughts" instead of four, two ocean-going destroyers instead of five, and eight submarines instead of twelve, and to that extent got Parliamentary sanction for a departure from the programme as set out in the original Vote. The Naval Armaments Vote was practically £3,000,000, and there was a surplus of £260,000. The Works Vote was nearly £2,000,000; the surplus under £200,000. The Vote for miscellaneous effective services was very nearly £500,000, and the suplus was £78,000. Having regard to all the difficulties referred to by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Worcestershire, these were remarkable approximations to the Estimates. The seconder of the

1941
Motion pointed out that on the net Estimate of £31,472,087 taken together they had surpluses of over £1,000,000, and deficiences of £660,000. They were entitled to wipe out their deficiences from their surprises so long as the aggregate total was not exceeded, and they had surrendered this year nearly £400,000. He gathered that the idea was that they should have water-tight Votes, that they might be able to transfer from and to a sub-head with Treasury sanction, but they must stick to the Vote as it stood, without assistance from any other Vote, if they exceeded it. If they insisted upon that the country would run a serious risk of Departments over-estimating, and then there would be the temptation to over-spend. As a sailor would say they were bound to have something to veer and haul with and they would probably take care that they had it in the interests of the service. Having largely over-estimated they would live up to their Estimates. His hon. friend said this system of transferring the surplus of one Vote to meet the deficiency on another meant that they had a nice little nest egg to deal with before the close of the financial year. But in this case, if there was any egg at all, it was a bantam's egg while under the hon. Gentleman's proposal he was afraid it might be an ostrich's egg. He did not think it practicable either in the interests of sound finance or of good administration. The question of non-competitive contracts and the question of the extension of contracts already entered into without Treasury sanction had been raised. The latter point was now receiving very serious consideration by the Admiralty, the War Office, and the Treasury, and he had better leave it there for the moment. The question of noncompetitive contracts arose in this particular case in connection with the three "Invincibles." The Admiralty held that as they were secret designs it was desirable to depart from the principle of competitive tender. He would make a short quotation from a letter to the Treasury on the point—
"My Lords cannot believe that it is the intention of the Public Accounts Committee, or the desire of their Lordships of the Treasury, to detract in any way from the full and unfettered responsibility which must rest upon the Admiralty for the administration of the business of His
1942
Majesty's Navy. They therefore consider it desirable to place on record that, in recognising the necessity for Treasury sanction in an exceptional case like that of the 'Invincibles,' involving a departure from the principle of competition, they cannot consent to an interpretation of that principle which would impair their responsibility, or impede their administrative action. At the same time they recognise that they must at all times be ready to justify to the satisfaction of Parliament any course of action on which they may decide in, this respect."
They concluded—
"I am also to point out that cases do, and must constantly occur in which competition is practically out of the question. In the exercise of their administrative functions the Admiralty alone can judge when such a case does or does not arise, and no useful purpose would be achieved by laying it down that Treasury sanction is required in such cases while delay and unnecessary correspondence must result."
He might add that the competitive tender was the rule at the Admiralty, and, where practicable, the open tender. It was only in cases like that of the "Invincibles," and where very highly specialised or patented articles were required and they had a list of firms who could supply them, that the Admiralty were bound to reserve a discretion, to depart, if necessary, from the system of competitive tenders. The Chairman and the seconder had referred to works undertaken without Parliamentary sanction. It was the rule that no new work of any magnitude, £2,000 and upwards, not specially approved by Parliament, should be begun without the prior sanction of the Treasury. But there were cases where there was a certain amount of urgency which did not fall within the definition of new works in the broader sense of the word. One was the case of making further provision for the boy artificers of Chatham. A hulk was requisitioned and it was found that the accommodation was not sufficient for all purposes, and it was decided to add certain further accommodation on shore, and they went on without coming to Parliament. The total involved was £2,900 and this year they spent as a matter of fact. £812 17s. 6d. With regard to the question of whether they should give a certificate, as the War Office did, the value of stock at the close of the year was arrived at by actual valuation at current market, rates of the whole of the articles on store charge. The stock was maintained in accordance with the authorised reserve approved by the Admiralty from time

1943
to time. A statement was included in the Appropriation Account under each Store Vote of the values of the stock at the beginning and end of the financial year. He was new to these matters, but he was giving very close personal attention to them. The Admiralty bad one system in regard to these matters, and the War Office another. With the information at his disposal he was considering the relative value of the two systems, and would continue to give the question his closest personal consideration. He did not think he need deal with more than one more point, the point namely of liquidated damages from contractors for failure to carry out the conditions of their contracts. All large Admiralty contracts contained a clause providing for the recovery of damages in connection with failure to complete by a certain date. Extensions of time were, however, allowed in cases such as where the Admiralty required a change of design, or had failed to supply to the contractor by the time specified such articles as they had undertaken to supply. In certain cases not covered by the terms of contract, they had waived, wholly or partially, the liability of the contractor where no loss had been sustained by the Crown in connection with the contract. That was a fundamental principle which had been laid down. In special cases, such as work of an experimental character, they dealt with the matter on its merits in considering whether or not they would waive damages. That was in regard to large contracts. With regard to ordinary store contracts the conditions were different, and the check they had on the contractor was that if ha failed he was face to face with the penalty of being struck off the Admiralty List, and that was not infrequently done. As to the extent to which liquidated damages had been waived, that was a matter with regard to which he had taken very great care. This year there had been twenty-six cases in which liability had been incurred and damages were recoverable, and of these they had waived nineteen, and had recovered in part respecting the remaining seven. The total amount of penalties waived was £8,000. Both he and the permanent officials, whom he could not praise too highly, took the
1944
greatest possible care to see that equity was satisfied and the interest of the public service safeguarded.
COLONEL R. WILLIAMS: I beg leave to withdraw the Motion standing in my name.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

CONSTABULARY (IRELAND) BILL.
Considered in Committee, and reported, without Amendment; to be read the third time To-morrow.

APPELLATE JURISDICTION BILL [LOBDS].
Considered in Committee.
(In the Committee.)
Clauses 1 to 3 agreed to.
Clause 4:
LORD R. CECIL LORD R. CECIL moved to omit subsection (1) which provided that the Lord Chancellor might request the attendance at any time of a Judge of the High Court to sit as an additional Judge of the Court of Appeal, and that any Judge whose attendance was so requested should attend the Court. He had no objection, he said, in principle, to Judges of the High Court being capable of being summoned to assist the Court of Appeal, but it must be obvious to the Committee and to the occupants of the Treasury Bench that that would throw additional work upon Judges of the High Court. The Attorney-General would know that there was a great deal to be said against any proposal which would add materially to the work of the Judges of the High Court. He could assure the Committee that this was really a matter of some seriousness. Before additional work was put upon the Judges of the King's Bench Division, the Committee ought to have some assurance that the Government fully realised the rather serious position of the work of that division at the present time. In 1870 there were eighteen Judges of the then Queen's Bench. Some few years later three Judges were taken away and given to the Court of

1945
Appeal when it was set up by the Judicature Act. In exchange it was provided that the Court of Appeal and Chancery should assist the Queen's Bench Judges by going on circuit. The Attorney-General recollected perfectly well, he was sure, that when that experiment was tried it was found that the Chancery Judges were not sufficiently familiar with the Criminal Law to be able properly to discharge the duties of circuit. The matter was, therefore, abandoned and the Queen's Bench had not yet got the quid pro quo in respect of the three Judges taken away to assist the Court of Appeal. The result had been that there had been very considerable delays in the transaction of the Common Law business of the Court; so great had been the delay in fact, that last year an additional Judge was appointed to sit on the King's Bench side, and that had no doubt, afforded some relief. Moreover, since 1870, when the three Judges were taken away, business activity had greatly increased and even if this had not given rise to a greater number of cases, it had certainly added to their complexity and thus thrown additional duties upon the Judges of the Kings' Bench Division. In 1883 bankruptcy business was given to this Division; and when the Railway and Canal Commission Court was established it deprived the Division of a great part of the services of a Judge. Then the Court of Criminal Appeal was established. He had been a great supporter of that measure, and he saw no reason so far as he had been able to watch its work, to regret giving that support, but its establishment had added considerably to the work of the Kings' Bench Division. Three Judges sat almost every week in that Court. He desired to submit to the Attorney-General that if additional work was to be thrown upon this Division by the Bill, the Committee should be given some assurance that the Government were alive to the serious state of the block in the work of the King's Bench, and that they would devote their attention to ascertaining whether something could not be done to remove the block by the appointment of additional Judges. Owing to the development of industry, it was becoming increasingly important that commercial disputes should be decided
1946
with great rapidity. He felt that the House had not been always quite alive-to the real failure of the State to meet the requirements of litigation. He did not believe that anybody was really satisfied with the system of arbitration. In his opinion, it was in many respects a thoroughly unsatisfactory system, and it was very largely resorted to, not because litigants liked it or preferred the rather haphazard decisions of the arbitrator to the scientific decisions of the Judge, but because they could not get their cases decided with the required rapidity by ordinary litigation. The existing system amounted to a denial of justice to many of his Majesty's subjects, and he pressed upon the Government the appointment of additional Judges as a method for redressing the grievance. The expense would be comparatively trifling. Court fees, according to some estimates, more than paid the salary of a Judge, or, according to a more moderate estimate, were sufficient to make that salary but a trivial addition to public expenditure. He was prepared for drastic reforms in the circuit system, but addition to judicial strength would be urgently necessary; it was unreasonable to suppose that we could do with less than was found necessary in 1870. He begged to move.
Amendment proposed—
"In page 2, line 10, to leave out subsection (1)."—(Lord R. Cecil.)
Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the clause."
MR. RAWLINSONearnestly, supported his noble friend. He had not the slightest objection to the clause, it was quite necessary, and it was not out of hostility to the Bill he had given notice to omit the subsection, but to call attention to the undesirability of taking Judges from the King's Bench Division. Last night further powers were given to the Lord Chief Justice to draw the Judges from the King's Bench to the Court of Criminal Appeal, and that would mean that the latter would sit in two divisions, making a great strain on judicial strength. When the Court

1947
of Criminal Appeal Bill was before the House it was stated that if it caused inconvenience to the King's Bench Division further Judges would have to be appointed. The Government were about to erect two new Law Courts, but unless they made further appointments there would not be Judges to sit in them. On 16th November ten King's Bench Judges were appointed to be on duty in London, but only five were able to keep those appointments, because they were actively engaged in work elsewhere. Judges were trying to do more work than they could possibly get through. The time had come for adding to the strength of the King's Bench Division.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL (Sir W. ROBSON,)said that if he were disposed to deal controversially with the facts and arguments put forward he would have a difficult task. He did not propose to do so, because to deal with the question of additional Judges for the King's Bench Division was beyond the scope of the Bill, though undoubtedly a legitimate opportunity for a discussion of the subject was offered by the clause. But on this measure he could give no undertaking that additional Judges would be provided. He was not in a position to pledge the Government to any course whatever. He fully admitted the justice of what had been said as to the additional strain put upon the Judges by the Criminal Appeal Act and in other ways. If the arrangements as to circuits and chambers did not afford any relief, undoubtedly the considerations urged would become more urgent. There was not much difference of opinion upon the points raised, it was a question for the Treasury. It was a legitimate question to bring before the Government, and well worthy of attention.
Amendment negatived.
MR. RAWLINSON MR. RAWLINSON moved to amend the clause by adding words to provide for the omission of the word "two" from the last paragraph of Section 1 of the Judicial Committee Act, 1883. He explained that the section of the 1883 Act referred to gave the Lord Chancellor power to appoint two Judges to sit on the Judicial Committee of the
1948
Privy Council. What he proposed by the Amendment was that the Lord Chancellor should have unlimited discretion. There was no reason why the number should be limited to two. No harm would be done by the Amendment, because it would rest upon the Lord Chancellor to make the appointments, and it certainly might in some cases do the greatest amount of good.
Amendment proposed—
"In page 2, line 22, at end, to add the words '(4) The last paragraph of Section 1 of the Judicial Committee Act, 1883 (3 & 4 Will. VI., c. 41), is hereby amended by the omission therefrom of the word "two."'"—(Mr. Rawlinson.)
Question proposed, "That those words be there added."
SIR W. ROBSONwas understood to say that there were some considerations which, perhaps, had not occurred to his hon. and learned friend, which made it undesirable to accept the Amendment. The effect of it might be that the Government of to-day might multiply Judges without limit or restriction in what was now the highest Court in the Empire. Without this limit any Government might create Privy Councillors, and then call upon them to sit in this Court, and it might appoint them with regard to important Imperial cases, and the majority might consist of persons who had not been Judges. He did not think that the suggestion would make for the dignity of the Court or that quasi political considerations should be allowed to enter into the matter.
MR. RAWLINSONthanked the hon. and learned Attorney-General for his courteous reply, and he felt his judgment must be better than his own. He would withdraw the Amendment, but he hoped the hon. and learned Gentleman would consider his previous Amendment in a better light, as it was on safer ground.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause agreed to.
Clause 5 agreed to.
SIR W. ROBSON, in moving a new clause, was understood to say that the

1949
reasons for it were very simple. The Judicial Committee Amendment Act of 1895 did not include the Chief Justice or a Justice of the High Court of Australia, as that Court had been formed since the Act, and that was also the case in regard to the Chief Justice or Judge of the Supreme Court of Newfoundland. The Schedule of the Act also did not include the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony, which had been added to the Empire since the date of the Act.
New clause—
"(1) Section one of the Judicial Committee Amendment Act, 1895, shall have effect as if the persons named therein included any person being or having been Chief Justice or a Justice of the High Court of Australia or Chief Justice or Judge of the Supreme Court of Newfoundland. (2) The schedule to the Judicial Committee Amendment Act, 1895, shall be read as if the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony were included therein as South African Colonies."—(The Attorney-General.)
Brought up and read the first and second time, and added to the Bill.
SIR W. ROBSONwas understood to say that his next new clause dealt with a very short and simple matter. Originally every appeal was specially referred to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Then there was an Act in 1841 by which the Privy Council were empowered to make an order for twelve months. It was now desired instead of an order being made for twelve months that the Privy Council should have power to make the order indeterminate to hear all cases of appeals as they arose.
New clause—
"His Majesty may from time to time, by Order in Council, make a general order directing that all appeals shall be referred to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council until the order is rescinded, and Section nine of the Judicial Committee Act, 1844, shall have effect as if any such general order for the time being in force were substituted, in the first proviso to that section, for the annual order therein referred to, and the time for which the order remains in force were substituted for the twelve months next after the making of the general order. The expression 'appeals' in this section means appeals on petitions presented to His Majesty in Council, and includes any complaints in the nature of appeals and any petitions in the matter of appeals."—(The Attorney-General.)
Brought up and read the first and second time, and added to the Bill.
Amendments proposed—
"In page 3, line 6, to leave out the word 'Colony,' and to insert the words 'of Good Hope.'"
"In page 3, line 8, to leave out the word 'Colony.'"—(The Attorney-General.)
Agreed to.
Schedule agreed to. Bill reported; as amended, to be considered to-morrow.

LUNACY BILL [LORDS].
Considered in Committee, and reported, without Amendment; read the third time, and passed, without Amendment.
STATUTE LAW REVISION BILL [LORDS].
Considered in Committee, and reported, without Amendment; to be read the third time To-morrow.
COMPANIES CONSOLIDATION BILL [LORDS].
As amended, considered; read the third time, and passed, with Amendments.
POISONS AND PHARMACY BILL [LORDS].
Consideration, as amended (in the Standing Committee), deferred till Tomorrow.
POST OFFICE CONSOLIDATION BILL [LORDS].
Considered in Committee, and reported, without Amendment; read the third time, and passed, without Amendment.

TUBERCULOSIS PREVENTION (IRE- LAND) BILL.
As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.
THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. BIRRELL,)in moving a new clause (extent and adoption of Part I of Act), was understood to say that he had, with some

1951
reluctance, consented to amend the clause as it originally stood on the Paper by the introduction of the words at line 4, "subject to the approval of the council of the county in which it is situated," but a fair proposal was made to him, and he had accepted it. The effect would be that the county council would have a veto in regard to the adoption of the Act by the sanitary authority of any urban or rural sanitary district.
New clause—
"(1) This Part of this Act shall extend to any urban or rural sanitary district in Ireland after the adoption thereof. (2) The sanitary authority of any such urban or rural sanitary district may adopt this Part of this Act by a Resolution passed at a meeting of the authority. (3) fourteen clear days at least before the meeting a summons to attend the meeting, specifying the business to be transacted, and signed by the clerk of the sanitary authority, shall be sent by post to, or delivered at the usual place of abode of, every member of the sanitary authority. (4) A Resolution adopting this Part of this Act shall be published by advertisement in a local newspaper and by hand-bills, and otherwise, in such manner as the sanitary authority think sufficient for giving notice thereof to all persons interested, and shall come into operation at such time (not less than one month) after the first publication of the advertisement of the Resolution as the sanitary authority may fix, and, upon its coming into operation, this part of this Act shall extend to the district.
Brought up and read the first time.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the clause be read a second time."
MR. MOONEYcongratulated the right hon. Gentleman on having met the wishes of the representatives of Ireland and put down a clause of this kind. The position they were in with regard to the Bill upstairs was that if it was passed in the form in which it then was, it would have been a coercive measure and no power was left to the elected body to decide whether the condition of the county did or did not require the adoption of the Act, but the right hon. Gentleman had met them in a conciliatory spirit, and he thought that the result of the clause that the right hon. Gentleman had proposed would be to make the Bill a much better Bill than it would have been if it had been passed in its original form. If the directly-elected representatives of the people were trusted
1952
it would give the Act a much better chance of success than it would have had if it had been passed in the coercive form in which it was presented upstairs, under which the local body were not to be consulted in any shape or form, and had to pay for the Act. He could only thank the Government for allowing the Bill to take this form.
MR. BARRIEexpressed the fear that the Amendment would have a different effect from what the right hon. Gentleman contemplated. They had to admit, however, reluctantly, that there were county councils in Ireland who were not so anxious to incur additional taxation with a view to preventing this terrible scourge, and his objection to the clause just moved by the Chief Secretary was that in such counties, the county councils largely composed of local people would not see there way to adopt the Act, whereas important urban county councils would be anxious to do so. Had the Chief Secretary seen his way to move the new clause in the form in which it stood on the Paper, it might have happened that a number of important county councils in the outward districts might have seen their way to provide sanatoria for the people of the poor rural areas.
MR. MOONEYpointed out that the provision of sanatoria did not come in here. They came on in Clause 2. This Amendment only dealt with Clause 1.
SIR W. J. COLLINSexpressed his satisfaction at the action of the Chief Secretary in placing this Amendment on the Paper. Its chief effect would be to bring the notification of tuberculosis into line with the notification of infectious diseases. If this clause had not been put on the Paper it would have led to the anomalous state of things that in one part of Ireland the medical man might have to notify a case of tuberculosis where he would not have to notify a disease like smallpox and typhus. He cordially welcomed the clause and hoped the Bill as amended would pass into law.
Question put, and agreed to.
Amendment proposed—
"In line 4, to insert the words 'subject to the approval of the council of the county in which it is situated.'"—(Mr. Birrell.)
Agreed to.
Clause, as amended, added to the Bill.
New clause—
"Any urban authority being a sanitary authority shall have power to provide that all meat killed outside the town and brought into the town for sale shall on the same day, before being exposed for sale, be brought into the abattoir or other place to be appointed by the council for inspection between the hours of eight o'clock a.m. and eleven forenoon, and shall not be sold or exposed for sale until after same has been inspected and passed as fit for human food, but no person shall be appointed or act as an inspector under this section who does not possess a certificate as a meat inspector."—(Mr. Mooney.)
Brought up and read the first and second time, and added to the Bill.
MR. BARRIE MR. BARRIE moved to leave out Clause 1 for the purpose of expressing the view that the Bill, in the shape it now came to the House, would be cordially welcomed in all parts of Ireland. He also desired to remove any misapprehension that might have arisen owing to the hostility with which the Bill was met, in its original shape, in Committee. He desired to give expression to their appreciation of the propaganda for the prevention of this scourge initiated by the Countess of Aberdeen, and of the work carried on by her and her co-workers, to which the Bill now before the House was due. It was a matter of regret that Ireland had suffered so much from this scourge in the past, as it had been proved that the climate had not been the cause of the high death-rate from the disease. He only moved this Motion in order to give hon. Members an opportunity of making their opinion on the subject plain, and to express the hope that the Bill now about to be passed would be cordially welcomed in all parts of Ireland.
LORD BALCARRESseconded the Motion in order that he might express his satisfaction that the Bill had been made quasi-permissive. Though it might not be of great and immediate benefit to the country, the Bill would
1954
strengthen and assist chit propaganda which in a very few years would bring public opinion to such a pitch that the measure would be made compulsory. When the Bill was in Committee the objections brought forward by hon. Members representing constituencies from every part of Ireland were so serious, and were pressed with such obvious sincerity and candour that the Government were obliged to give way on certain important points upon which they would not have given way if they had recognised at the outset that the Bill was to be made permissive. He thought, therefore, that when the Government made the Bill permissive they ought to have taken off the Paper some of the Amendments they put on at an earlier stage to placate the opposition. One particular portion of Clause 1 was objected to by the hon. Member for the City of London on the ground that it coerced the poor people. The representative of the Board of Agriculture saw the danger and said the Bill was only to be applied in serious cases. An Amendment was accordingly put in that cases should only be described as notifiable when infective discharges were liable to communicate the disease to other persons. Clause 1, therefore, was only going to apply where the patient was in an advanced stage of consumption. He agreed that they must do their utmost for these tuberculous people, but the problem in Ireland more than in any other country wanted to be dealt with at the beginning. They wanted to prevent the inception of these germs far more than to relieve the last months of men or Women who were suffering; and he could not help thinking it was a mistake so to limit the Bill as to prevent the initial stages of the disease being dealt with under the powers of Clause 1. It was apparent from the circular hey had issued, that it was the official view of the Local Government Board that the effort should be made at the beginning, and, that being so, how could it be contended that notifiable power should only be given in cases where infective discharges were liable to communicate the disease to other people? He wished to press upon the right hon. Gentleman that the Amendment which he had put in the Bill

1955
in order to placate opposition had no scientific basis; and he hoped he would co-operate with all good agencies in Ireland so that at the earliest possible moment, and when public opinion justified it, the power of notification would be extended to include cases of tuberculosis in their earlier stages. The present limitation was unwise and almost dangerous.
Amendment proposed to the Bill—
"In page 1, line 7, to leave out Clause 1."—(Mr. Hugh Barrie.)
Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out, to the word 'person,' in page 1, line 7, stand part of the Bill."
MR. BIRRELLsaid that the object of the Bill, of course, was to prevent the spread of the disease, but it was desirable, at all events in the first instance, that they should not go beyond public opinion. He quite agreed, however, with the noble Lord, and he hoped as time went on that people would recognise how important it was to deal with the disease at the earliest possible stage and would co-operate for that purpose.
MR. KETTLEhad no desire to be ungracious, but speaking with the sincerity and seriousness of a person two members of whose own immediate family had died from tuberculosis he was bound to say that the Bill was going to scare everybody and cure nobody in Ireland. He believed the medical men supporting the Bill had made pretensions to knowledge they did not possess; and, as the noble Lord had said, the disease, if it was to be compulsorily notifiable, ought to be notified in its early stages. He had, in his own experience, had the perfectly definite statement of a leading medical specialist to the effect that there might be no symptoms of tuberculosis in a person and yet he might be dead and buried four months afterwards. If they were going to make the notification compulsory, if they were going to make a physiological black list in Ireland, if they were going to make an attack upon family life, and if they were going to make those who were afflicted with the
1956
disease to be looked upon as lepers, then the State ought to have done something to help them; but it had done nothing to help by contributing funds for the estabishment of sanatoria or the making of provision for the treatment of tuberculous patients. Whatever satisfaction the Bill might give the Viceregal Lodge in Dublin, he did not believe it was going to cure a single person afflicted with tuberculosis. The problem was rather one of bad houses, under-feeding, and general depression than anything else. Certain Members were exalting the Bill as one of first-class importance, and he felt bound to make these remarks.
SIR W. J. COLLINScould not help feeling that the noble Lord was in error in saying that the words would necessarily apply merely to advanced forms of disease, and that they had no scientific, basis for putting them into the Bill. The distinction was not between the earlier and later stages, but between those forms of tuberculosis which were communicable, and those forms which were not communicable to other persons. The object of the Bill was to deal with those forms of tuberculosis which were communicable to other persons. There were many tuberculous diseases of the brain, of the glands, of the joints, and of other parts of the body which were in no sense communicable, and to notify such cases would be unnecessary expense and an unnecessary precaution. The distinction was between those forms of tubercle which were communicable and those which were not; and those which gave rise to infective discharges were communicable. The Bill would practically apply to all forms of communicable tuberculosis. He maintained there was ample scientific justification for the insertion of the words, and that it was not correct to say they would apply only to the later stages of the disease.
SIR CHARLES DILKEsaid the Bill must be looked upon as purely experimental, and he confessed that some of them who had read, as laymen interested in public health, recent scientific writings on the subject from foreign countries were inclined to say that we were

1957
two or throe years behind the age, and that the whole of the science on which this Bill rested was now extinct in the countries where the matter had been more carefully considered. He would not pursue that, because he spoke only as an amateur, and had no authority to put that view before the House, but no one could read recent literature without being aware of the fact, and they had it officially before them, because recent Reports on the health of the Army and Navy agreed in that view. In the final Report on the health of the Army the Director-General took a view entirely different from that on which this Bill was based, and he said at the conclusion that it was quite evident that in the present state of our scientific knowledge we must be most careful in laying down any principles, and he explained why the whole of these principles had been given up temporarily until further experiments had taken place. In the Navy the whole mode of treatment which was based on this scientific theory which came from Italy three years ago had been the cause of repeated deaths, and was a complete failure, and it had been abandoned at Netley Hospital.
MR. MOONEYsaid he would not have risen but for the remarks of the noble Lord on the front Opposition bench, who was against the insertion of the words which left it to the Local Government Board to prescribe the form, and who talked about the conciliatory methods with which they were met upstairs. He did not think he would accuse the Vice-President of conciliatory methods at all. He shared the views of the hon. Baronet and the Member for St. Pancras. He was never in favour of the Bill. Like the hon. Member for Tyrone, from personal knowledge he knew a good deal more about consumption than he wished he knew. In his opinion, the Bill would not do everything its promoters hoped. The housing of the working classes would do far more. He did not believe they could cure tuberculosis by notification. They had to stop it by giving more sanitary houses, and teaching people that pure air and fresh water were not going to do them any harm. If they
1958
were to take away what was inserted upstairs this would be a much more sweeping Bill than any Member had any idea of. People talked about tuberculosis when they meant something which was entirely different. Everyone was in favour of having some notification of consumption, but if they were to have notification of tubercular disease of the finger or the toe, they would be making the thing more of a farce than it was at present. He was very sorry to hear the right hon. Gentleman express his opinion that he had gone a little too far in putting the obligation on the Local Government Board. If he moved to leave that out in another place the Bill would become far more objectionable than in its original form.
Amendment negatived.
MR. BIRRELLsaid there were one or two Amendments on Clause 1. They had some little discussion upstairs on the language of the clause as originally drafted, which was rather vague. He thought it was perfectly intelligible with the Amendments he proposed.
Amendments proposed—
"In page 1, line 7, after the word 'person,' to insert the words 'within any district to which this part of this Act extends.'"
"In page 1, line 8, after the word 'suffering,' to insert the words 'in any prescribed circumstances.'"
"In page 1, line 9, to leave out from the first word 'any,' to the first word 'medical,' in line 11, and to insert the words 'prescribed form, or at any prescribed stage, the.'"
"In page 1, line 11, after the word 'days,' to insert the words 'after he becomes aware of the fact.'"—(Mr. Birrell.)
Agreed to.
Amendment proposed—
"In page 1, line 12, to leave out from the word 'health,' to the word 'a' in line 13."—(Mr. Birrell.)
Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the clause."
MR. MOONEYsaid he did not quite understand the Amendment. The effect would be to send the medical officer of health a certificate in the prescribed form.

1959
They had had a long discussion upstairs as to who was the medical officer who should get the notification. A doctor might not be satisfied that a patient was suffering from tuberculosis, and might send him to Dublin to consult a physician, and if he came to the conclusion that he was suffering from tuberculosis the Committee decided that the person who ought to have knowledge of it was the medical officer of the district in which the person resided, because there was no earthly good, as far as he could see, in notifying the medical officer in Dublin that a person who lived in Galway had been imported and was found to be suffering from tuberculosis. He should like some explanation why the right hon. Gentleman now put aside the considered judgment of the Committee upstairs.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. CHERRY,)said the explanation was simply this. Now that the Act had been made, not compulsory, but adoptive, if they left the words as they were in the Bill it might be necessary to send the notification to the medical officer of a district where the Act had not been adopted.
MR. MOONEY: Do I understand that suppose Galway puts the Act into force and Dublin does not, and a man comes up from Galway and consults a doctor in Dublin that doctor is not bound to notify anyone?
MR. CHERRYsaid it was the medical practitioner attending on the person, and not the specialist who was obliged to notify. The meaning was the same. The medical officer of health could only be the medical officer of the district in which the patient resided. If the district adopted the Act it was binding on all persons resident in the district, and the medical practitioner attending on the patient was bound to give notice to the medical officer of the district.
MR. COOPERsaid that if a man came up from Galway, which had not adopted the Act; to Dublin, which had, for advice, and then went back to Galway, it seemed hard that the people of Dublin should
1960
be compelled to pay half-a-crown for a notification to the medical officer in Dublin, where the man did not reside. Some words ought to be inserted to clear up that point.
LORD BALCARRESsaid these words were inserted to meet the objection of the hon. Member for Limerick, and to ensure that the notification should be charged to the district in which the man was ordinarily resident and not that in which the doctor lived, where the man might happen to go. The difficulty seemed to be entirely removed owing to the voluntary notification.
Amendment agreed to.
Amendment proposed—
"In page 1, line 15, to leave out from the word 'with' to the word 'shall,' in line 17, and insert the words 'the President of the Royal College of Physicians in Ireland and the President of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.'"—(Mr. Birrell.)
Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Bill."
LORD BALCARRESasked if this would prevent these two learned bodies nominating a member to serve. The President was changed frequently, and it often occurred, naturally enough, that one President was especially versed in a particular branch of science, and it might be most to the convenience of the two colleges and to the assistance of the Local Government Board particularly, if some latitude were given to the learned societies to select the most qualified member.
MR. BIRRELLreplied that he did not think it would prevent such nomination. The President in the exercise of his discretion could take the judgment of some learned colleague.
MR. COOPERsaid he was assured that the Irish Branch of the British Medical Council were quite willing to undertake the duty, but they were of opinion that it would be inequitable that the expenses incurred in the discharge of the duty should fall upon them. They hoped,

1961
therefore, the Government would introduce a clause providing the necessary financial aid.
MR. MOONEYsaid that Irish Members were quite willing to leave the matter to such competent persons as the Presidents of these two learned societies.
Amendment agreed to.
MR. COOPER MR. COOPER moved to leave out subsection (4). It was hard on medical men, he contended, that they should be fined if they did not notify cases of tuberculosis within seven days. It was not always easy to form a diagnosis. In some cases a diagnosis could be very easily made, while in other cases the opposite was the fact. Where the provision had been tried it had lamentably failed, and it only put the medical profession to a good deal of difficulty and annoyance.
Amendments not seconded.
Amendment proposed—
"In page 2, line 4, to leave out the words 'seven days,' and to insert the words 'the period specified in this section.'"
"In page 2, line 12, to leave out the word 'local,' and to insert the word 'sanitary.'"
Agreed to.
MR. COOPER MR. COOPER moved to insert after the word 'supply,' the words' all materials for the collection of the suspected discharges and send.'" He moved the Amendment, he explained, in order to raise the question upon whom was to fall the cost of sending the material to the bacteriologist to be examined. The sputum must be sent in a proper vessel, and if it was transmitted by post the half-crown fee for examination would be considerably depleted. He wished to know what means the Government had taken to secure that the sender should be able to send free of cost. He believed that the suggestion—
MR. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: Order, order. I find that this Amendment affects the question of rates, and so it is not in order.
Amendment proposed—
"In page 2, line 37, to leave out the words 'of the district.'"—(Mr. Birrell.)
Agreed to.
Clause, as amended, agreed to.
MR. MOONEY MR. MOONEY moved an Amendment designed to provide that where a local authority put people out of a house for purposes of disinfecting it, they should provide temporary shelter instead of sending the people to the poorhouse.
Amendment proposed—
"In page 3, line 5, after the word 'bedding,' to insert the words 'Section fifteen (which relates to temporary shelter).'"—(Mr. Mooney.)
Agreed to.
MR. COOPER MR. COOPER moved to leave out the words in Clause 2, "and Section seventeen (which relates to power of entry)." He said that this was a very powerful clause, and he did not think the House could really recognise what it meant. It meant that a medical officer of health on an order made by a Justice of the Peace might enter the house of anybody suffering from tuberculosis, between the hours of 10 a.m. and 6 p.m., and compulsorily remove him to a sanatorium or a workhouse. As it was improbable that there would be a sanatorium available, the clause practically meant that a man could be forcibly moved into the ward of a workhouse. This was not like the case of a man suffering from small-pox or typhus, as tuberculosis was nothing like so dangerous as these. He maintained that this forcible removal to a workhouse was a strong order and further than the Government had a right to go.
SIR W. J. COLLINSin seconding, said that as the work proposed was of an educative character he thought the Government would be well advised to leave out Section 17.
Amendment proposed—
"In page 3, line 6, to leave out the words 'and Section seventeen (which relates to power of entry).'"—(Mr. Cooper.)
Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Bill."
MR. CHERRYexpressed sorrow that the seconder held that view. He spoke with great deference in the presence of so great a medical authority, but he was afraid the hon. Member did not quite realise the conditions. In large tenement houses one patient might do an infinite amount of harm to the people who lived in the same room with him or in an adjoining room. If there were no power to enter for the purpose of removing a patient, the Bill, in his opinion, would be useless.
MR. MOONEYquite agreed. He did not think that the Bill was much good as it was, but if they left out this provision it would not be worth the paper it was written on. Without the subsection it would be impossible to carry out a single provision of the Bill in insanitary dwellings. They might as well withdraw the whole Bill, unless they gave this right of entry.
Amendment negatived.
Amendments proposed—
"In page 3, line 12, to leave out from the word 'apply,' to end of clause."
"In page 8, line 15, to leave out from the word 'hospital,' to end of clause, and to insert the words, 'provided under this part of this Act, or being treated in any dispensary so provided."
Agreed to.
MR. COOPER MR. COOPER moved: "In page 9, line 5, to leave out from the word
1964
'council,' to the word 'for' in line 8, and to insert the words 'shall appoint for their county a superintendent medical officer of health to carry out the provisions of this Act, the Housing Acts, the Public Health Acts, the Infectious Diseases Prevention Acts, and.'"
MR. MOONEY, rising to a point of order, asked whether the Amendment was in order, as it provided for the appointment of a superintendent medical officer, and would presumably impose a charge upon the rate.
MR. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: Nothing is said about paying. I do not think it is out of order.
MR. COOPERsaid he moved the Amendment in order to support the action of a conference of medical men in Ireland which asserted that it was absolutely useless to appoint a bacteriologist, and that it would be very much better to appoint for each county a superintendent medical officer of health. If the Act was to be a valuable and living one it was necessary that certain things should be done; he therefore urged that a superintendent medical officer should be appointed to carry out the provisions of the Act, exactly as medical officers were appointed in the counties of England. Anybody who knew the insanitary condition of a very large number of houses in Ireland would recognise that this was a very reasonable request and would, if carried out, do much to make the Act effective.
Amendment not seconded,
Amendments proposed—
"In page 10, line 5, to leave out the words 'superintendent medical,' and to insert the words 'medical superintendent.'"
"In page 10, line 6, to leave out the words 'superintendent medical,' and to insert the words 'medical superintendent.'"—(Mr. Cherry.)
Agreed to.
MR. CHERRY MR. CHERRY moved the insertion of Words in Clase 17 to provide procedure for the settlement of disputes with respect to the compensation to be paid for animals. He said the procedure for ascertaining the amount of compensation to be paid for a tuberculous cow which had been slaughtered was set forth in Section 274 of the Public Health Act. That section stated the compensation was to be ascertained by arbitration, provided that it was over £20, and by Court of Summary Jurisdiction if under that amount. It was suggested in Committee that arbitration should be made to apply to all cases irrespective of the value. He understood that objection was taken to that on behalf of the farmers, because in a case where a cow was valued at £15 there might be spent on the arbitration proceedings five or six times the value of the cow.
Amendment proposed—
"In page 10, line 25, after the word 'dispute,' to insert the words 'by arbitration.'"—(Mr. Cherry.)
Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
MR. MOONEYsaid he was astonished at the position taken up by the Attorney-General. He maintained that it the clause was left in its present form they would never get an arbitration at all. Section 274 of the Public Health Act proposed to be incorporated in this Bill provided that there was any doubt that full compensation should be paid, any dispute as to actual damage should be settled by arbitration in the manner provided by that Act, or if the compensation did not exceed £20 it should be ascertained by Court of Summary Jurisdiction, and then it went on to say that in no case could a larger amount than £10 be recovered. If those whose animals were slaughtered were to get their disputes settled by arbitration,
1966
some further Words must be put in. The Amendment proposed by the Attorney-General would make the clause worse. As the clause stood it did not carry out the intention of the promoters of the Bill, of the Committee upstairs, or, apparently, of the Attorney-General.
MR. CHERRYsaid that in a case where the amount was so small as £10 procedure by arbitration with counsel employed would be enormously expensive. The section as it stood would allow of the whole matter being dealt with by an arbitrator in half a day and at less trouble.
MR. MOONEYsaid it was the opinion of the Committee upstairs that a Court of Summary Jurisdiction was not the proper tribunal to deal with cases of this kind. He did not mean that in dealing with disputes the parties should bring in the complicated and expensive methods of arbitration. He meant that some provision should be made for the two parties agreeing between themselves as to the appointment of an arbitrator. If the hon. and learned Gentleman could undertake to introduce words which would achieve that object, he would be satisfied. The clause at present was vague and ambiguous. He did not think a divisional police magistrate in Dublin should be asked to decide whether a cow was Worth £10 or more.
MR. CHERRYsaid if they had arbitration they must have a form of arbitration whose decisions could be enforced. If the hon. Gentleman wanted him to consider the matter further he would do so.
MR. MOONEYsaid if the hon. and learned Gentleman left the clause in its present form he might add to the gaiety of the Press of Dublin when cases came before the magistrates, but he would not expedite justice.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendment proposed—
"In page 10, line 28, at end, to insert the words '(3) Where a milch cow has been slaughtered under this section, the carcase shall belong to the sanitary authority, and shall be buried or returned to the owner or otherwise disposed of by the sanitary authority according as the condition of the animal or carcase or other circumstances require or admit.'")—Mr. Cherry.)
Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
LORD BALCARRESsaid that according to his recollection of what took place upstairs there had been some misapprehension. What was put before the Committee was that where a tubercular beast was slaughtered and properly buried it would be a hardship if the owner were not allowed to take away his hide and horns which were not considered dangerous and might be sold. Now it was to be provided that where a milch cow had been slaughtered the carcase might be returned to the owner. That was the very thing the owner ought not to possess, because he was going to be compensated for it. The only question was as to whether the compensation was adequate. Upstairs it was claimed by hon. Members below the gangway that the carcase should be returned to the owner.
MR. MOONEY: No.
LORD BALCARRESsaid, of course, if the hon. Member corrected him he begged pardon. He thought it was only a case for the hide and horns being returned.
MR. CHERRYwas understood to say that he thought the noble Lord had been misinformed.
MR. MOONEYsaid the case they put forward was that in the majority of cases they were all agreed that the carcase should not be returned to the owner, but it was pointed out that there were a great many cases in which it would create great hardship because there was
1968
a certain form of tuberculosis which affected only portions of the carcase. Therefore, as the value of the whole animal would be a good deal more than £10 they thought it was only fair that if it could be proved that by the removal of a part of the carcase the rest was fit for human food the owner should get it, and that he should not lose the difference between the value of the animal and £10. They had already passed a clause giving the authority power to appoint a competent meat inspector, and he ought to be able to decide whether any harm would be done to the public health by returning any portion of the carcase to the owner.
MR. BARRIEfelt very strongly that under no circumstances should the reputation of Irish meat suffer from the possibility of the meat of any animal slaughtered under this Act finding its way into the market. He therefore, thought there was grave objection to the clause as proposed by the Government. It was certainly not carrying out the undertaking given to the Committee.
MR. COOPERsaid he understood that the carcase was to be left in the possession of the sanitary authority to be destroyed. It was so in London at the present day. He could hardly understand why the owner of an animal was compensated if after a cow was killed it came into his possession. If a cow was so seriously diseased as to have anything like tuberculosis of the udder, other portions of the body must be affected, and there were no means by which the carcase of an animal could be made immune. In Berlin they had a method and that was the only country where this meat was sold, of steaming the flesh in a very high temperature, and destroying the tuberculosis bacilli, but in England no such thing had been adopted, and it was doubtful whether it was wise that they should allow meat from a tuberculous animal to be sold to the public

1969
at all. In London they always destroyed the whole of the animal, and compensation was given while the horns and hoofs and those portions of the body which could be used for manufactures were handed over to the owner for sale. He certainly objected to leaving these words in. To return the flesh to the owner was very dangerous to the community, and was in direct contradiction of all the Acts which had been passed up to the present time.
MR. JOYCEreminded the House; that all these animals would be perfectly in the control of the medical superintendent of health of the district and the sanitary authorities in those districts would be advised what to do by their medical superintendent and would carry out the advice given by him. They had perfect confidence in their medical superintendents.
Amendment agreed to.
MR. CULLINANin moving to omit Clause 19, was understood to inquire whether under his clause half of the expenses of the medical officers' salaries and the cost of medicines would be contributed as heretofore under the Public Health (Ireland) Acts to the local authorities by the Treasury. They were performing a public duty, and this should be done. He drew the attention of the President of the Board of Agriculture to this subject, and he had hoped he would be able to meet the case.
Amendment proposed—
"In page 11, line 9, to leave out Clause 19."—(Mr. Cullinan.)
Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Bill."
MR. CHERRYwas very sorry that he was not informed on the subject. He certainly never heard of any such provision.
MR. MOONEYsaid they had not a representative of the Treasury present in Committee when his hon. friend raised his point, which was a very serious one for Ireland. As had been pointed out, prior to the Act of 1907, half of these charges were borne by the Treasury or the Local Government Board, but the expenditure incurred under this Bill would be borne wholly by the ratepayers, who would get no contribution whatever. It was rather a bigger question than the right hon. Gentleman seemed to think.
MR. CHERRYsaid he knew it was a very big question, but he did not wish to commit himself. He knew that it was a very large question.
MR. MOONEYwanted the right hon. Gentleman to give an undertaking that before the Bill passed through its stages in another place he would carefully consider the matter. The right hon. Gentleman shook his head, but it was a very important matter. If they passed the Bill they did not want it to be a dead letter, because no county council was going to appoint any officer if they were to be told that they lost the contribution. He thought the right hon. Gentleman might consider whether he could not make it clear that the sanitary authority and the county council were not going to be in a worse position if they adopted this Act while a neighbouring county might say they would let things go on and would not pay any expenses. At least the right hon. Gentleman should give an undertaking

1971
that before the Bill came from another place he would inquire and see if something could not be done, because otherwise he could assure him with the greatest possible desire to see this Bill Working if it was passed, in its present form, no local authority or urban sanitary authority would appoint a single officer.
MR. CHERRYsaid his right hon. friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer was present, and if he liked to give him authority to pledge the Treasury he should be glad to do so.
MR. BARRIEasked whether the right hon. Gentleman would not give an undertaking that he would make a reprsentation in the proper quarter that the proper sum should be provided. He agreed with the views put before this House by the hon. Member below the gangway that unless local authorities were encouraged to put this Act into operation by some grant providing halt of these salaries, the Act would be a dead letter in many counties in Ireland.
MR. CULLTNANsaid that was the reason why he brought the matter forward and urged it upon the Vice-President of the Board of Agriculture, so as to have the matter loked into. As the hon. Member for Newry said, the county councils of Ireland would not employ anyone to stamp out the disease and carry out the intentions of the Bill if they had to bear the entire burden. It was really such an important matter that, he asked for some undertaking that it would be considered, and the county councils told what their position was to.
Amendment negatived.
Amendment proposed—
"In page 11, line 24, after the word 'Acts,' to insert the words 'the expressions" veterinary
1972
surgeon" and "duly qualified veterinary surgeon," respectively, mean a person registered under the Veterinary Surgeons Act, 1881."'—(Mr. Birrell.)
Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
MR. MOONEYsaid the veterinary surgeons registered under the Act of 1881 had passed certain examinations in Edinburgh and London, but under an Act passed about six years ago they now had a college in Dublin. He did not know whether a person who had received the certificate of this Dublin college would be a person registered under the Veterinary Suregons Act, because the Veterinary College of Dublin was not in existence in 1881.
Amendment agreed to.
Bill read the third time, and passed.

COMMONS BILL [LORDS].
Read a second time.
Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House for to-morrow.—(Sir Edward Strachey.)

INCEST BILL.
Lords' Amendments considered, and agreed to.

PUBLIC MEETING BILL.
Read a second time.
Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House for to-morrow.—(Lord R. Cecil.)
Whereupon Mr. SPEAKER, in pursuance of the Order of the House of 31st July, adjourned the House without Question put.
Adjourned at eighteen minutes after Ten o'clock.

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
Ards Railways Bill. Standing Order No. 123 considered (according to order), and dispensed with in respect of the said Bill: Bill read 3a with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.
Edinburgh and Leith Corporations Gas Order Confirmation Bill [H.L.] Standing Order No. XXXIX. to be considered To-morrow, in order to its being dispensed with in respect of the said Bill.
Perth Corporation Order Confirmation Bill. Read 3a (according to order): Amendments made: Bill passed, and returned to the Commons.
North British Railway Order Confirmation Bill. Read 3a (according to order), and passed.

PETITIONS.
  COAL MINES (EIGHT HOURS) (No. 2) BILL.
  Petitions against; of a public meeting held in Aberdeen, 6th April, 1908; Aberdeen Chamber of Commerce Incorporated; read and ordered to lie on the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  BOARD OF EDUCATION.
  Report for the year 1907 on the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Royal College of Science and Art, the Geological Survey and Museum, and on the work of Solar Physics Committee.

IRISH LAND PURCHASE ACTS.
Diagram indicating up to the 30th April 1908, by counties and provinces (a) the area of land sold; (b) the estimated area of lands in respect of which proceedings had been instituted and were pending for sale under the Acts; also the estimated area of lands in respect of which proceedings for sale had not been
1762
instituted on that date under the said Acts. (In continuation of Command Paper No. 4412 of 1908.)

BOILER EXPLOSIONS.
Report to the Secretary of the Board of Trade upon the working of the Boiler Explosions Acts, 1882 to 1890, with appendices. (In continuation of Parliamentary Paper [Cd. 3627.])

WAGES AND EFFECTS OF DECEASED SEAMEN.
Account of the sums received and paid in respect of the wages and effects of deceased seamen in the year ended 31st March, 1908.
Presented (by command), and ordered to lie on the Table.

An account of the General Lighthouse Fund showing the income and expenditure for the year ended 31st March, 1908.
RAMSGATE HARBOUR.
Statement of the receipts and payments made by the Board of Trade for the year ended 31st March, 1908, together with an account of the receipt and issue of stores.

SEAMEN'S SAVINGS BANKS (MONEY ORDERS AND TRANSMISSION OF WAGES.
Account of all deposits received and repaid by the Board of Trade on account of Seamen's Savings Banks under the authority of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1894, during the year ended 20th November, 1907, and of the interest thereon; statement showing the number and amount of Seamen's Money Orders issued and paid at ports in the United Kingdom and at ports abroad from 1855 to 31st March, 1908; also statement showing the receipts and payments in connection with the transmission of seamen's wages, home and foreign, from 1878 to 31st March, 1908.
Laid before the House (pursuant to Act), and ordered to lie on the Table.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
Moved, "That Standing Order No. XXI. be suspended, and that Government business have precedence over other

1763
Notices and Orders of the Day for the remainder of the session" (The Lord Privy Seal (The Earl of Crewe))—agreed to; and ordered accordingly.

POST OFFICE SAVINGS BANK (PUBLIC TRUSTEE) (No. 2) BILL.
Read 1a; to be printed; and to be read 2a To-morrow (The Lord Chancellor.) (No. 263.)
POST OFFICE SITES BILL [H.L.]
Commons Amendments to be considered To-morrow.
CRIMINAL APPEAL (AMENDMENT) BILL [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons agreed to, with an Amendment: The said Amendment to be printed. (No. 260.)
LOCAL REGISTRATION OF TITLE IRELAND) AMENDMENT BILL.
Returned from the Commons with Amendment agreed to.
LOCAL AUTHORITIES (ADMISSION OF THE PRESS) BILL.
Returned from the Commons with the Amendments agreed to, with an Amendment: The said Amendment to be printed. (No 261.)

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I should be glad to know whether His Majesty's Government have any announcement to make as to the course of business to-morrow.
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE DUCHY (Lord FITZMAURICE): My Lords, in the absence of my noble friend the Lord Privy Seal, I wish to state for the convenience of your Lordships that it is proposed to-morrow that the House should meet at half-past three with the object of giving full time to my noble friend the Secretary of State for India to make the statement which was unavoidably postponed on Monday, for reasons with which your Lordships are acquainted. It is usual on these occasions for a statement of this character and importance to be made in both Houses of Parliament, and a statement will also be made, I am informed,
1764
in another place. But as the Secretary of State for India occupies a seat in your Lordships' House it is right and natural that his statement should be made at a time and under circumstances which will enable the full attention to be given to it which the circumstances of the case and his position as Secretary of State for India naturally demand.

PORT OF LONDON BILL.
Order of the day for the House to be put into Committee, read.
Moved, "That the House do now resolve itself into Committee."—(Lord Hamilton of Dalzell.)
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: My Lords, before your Lordships agree to the Motion it may, perhaps, be convenient that I should say a word or two upon an important principle contained in this Bill, which I can deal with better from this place than from the Chair. It is the question which was raised on the Second Reading by Lord Cromer, and is dealt with by Clause 6 of the Bill. Clause 6 was inserted in its present shape at a very late stage of the proceedings in the other House, and consequently it has not received the consideration, in that shape at any rate, of the Joint Committee which considered the whole Bill. The object of this clause is to shorten the time, to diminish the expense, and to make it generally more easy to execute certain works and to acquire land otherwise than by agreement. I will not enter into the question of the provision enabling the Board of Trade to issue an Order empowering the Port Authority to execute certain works, because that is not exactly the point to which I wish to direct your Lordships' attention, although it is one which I am quite sure will not be lost sight of by other noble Lords. What I want to draw attention to are the provisions to facilitate the acquisition of land otherwise than by agreement. At present that can only be done by the promotion of a private Bill or by a Provisional Order, which is very much the same thing, either of which may be referred, if Parliament so determines, to a Committee of both Houses, before whom all the parties can be heard. The few years experience that I have had of the office I now hold leads me to say that

1765
that is a most lengthy, cumbrous, and costly procedure, and though I should be extremely reluctant to see any operations of any magnitude of this kind, involving very large sums of money or areas of property, removed from the ken of Parliament I cannot help seeing that there is a desire on many sides that something should be done to cheapen the method of acquiring land. The clause, I think, has been very carefully considered, and although its drafting admits, perhaps, of some improvement to make it, especially the early part of it, more intelligible to those who will have to interpret it, yet I think that, generally, the main object is attained, namely, that land may be taken for the purposes of the Port Authority by an Order of the Board of Trade, which can only be made after an inquiry by an impartial person. I do not quite know what is meant by an impartial person. I daresay the noble Lord in charge of the Bill will be able to tell us what the Board of Trade mean by an impartial person; but, at any rate, I hope I may assume that what is meant is some I person in no way connected with the Board of Trade or any other Government Department. Then it proposes that the Board may make an Order, and that Order will, of course, have all the sanction of law if—and this is a very I important "if"—after it has lain on the Table of both Houses of Parliament for thirty days during the Session, there is no Motion for an Address from either House against its enforcement. That I look upon as a very valuable safeguard, because it does not entirely remove this matter from the ken of Parliament nor place it solely in the hands of a Government Department. It still leaves to Parliament the power of listening to complaints; and if Parliament thinks that injustice has been done, by an Address to the Crown the whole of the proceedings may be quashed. There is one proviso which I am glad to see my noble friend Lord Camperdown proposes to omit—namely, the proviso that the Board of Trade may by Provisional Order make such modifications and adaptations of the provisions of the Lands Clauses Acts to be incorporated in an Order under this section as may be specified in that Provisional Order. This, I venture to think, is not a safe proviso to place in a Bill, because it would give the
1766
Board of Trade power to bring in a Provisional Order making a general variation of the terms of the Lands Clauses Acts, which might be quite appropriate to some particular acquisition of land but not to all such purchases, and which, in my humble judgment, could not afterwards be varied except by another Provisional Order. If these Orders are to be made at all, they should incorporate the Lands Clauses Acts in their entirety, and there should be no power on the part of the Board of Trade to set aside any of the provisions of those Acts. I rather welcome this clause, altogether not on account of its utility in this particular Bill, of which I am not in a position to judge. But I cannot help thinking that there is such wide dissatisfaction with the present system, which has been in operation for many years, that it will not be inadvisable if your Lordships pass a clause of this kind, that perhaps, after watching the operation of it for some years we may be able to determine whether there is not some cheaper and less cumbrous method by which we can deal with the taking of small quantities of land other than by coming to Parliament by Provisional Order or Private Bill.
EARL CROMER: My Lords, I should like to say a few words on this subject. The whole question is much too important to be dealt with either at this period of the session or in connection with this one clause. There is one method by which these great delays in dealing with Private Bills could be avoided. As far as my experience goes, there is almost always in important Bills some vital question of principle and also a quantity of detail. I submit that it is the business of Parliament to deal with principles and not the business of Committees. Committees ought to deal merely with details. I would instance what happened in the case of the London Electricity Supply Bill. The expenditure in connection with that Bill almost amounted to a public scandal. Behind it lay the important principle whether this should be done by the municipality or by private enterprise, and I submit that that ought to have been decided by Parliament before the matter went to the Committee. I am at this moment sitting on the Staffordshire Potteries Committee. An important question of

1767
principle is involved—namely, whether these small towns should be federated, and also the extent to which it is justifiable on the part of Parliament to override local opinion. I submit that that is a question which Parliament ought to decide. In the case of the Port of London Bill a different practice was adopted, and a very wise one. In that case, too, there was a question of principle involved, and an instruction was given to the Committee. If that were done in other cases, an enormous amount of time and money would be saved. As regards the particular clause in this Bill, I heartily agree with what the noble Earl the Chairman of Committees has said. I think we ought to have some definition of an impartial person. I have not the smallest doubt that the Board of Trade will exercise their powers impartially. I have not put down an Amendment, because I hoped the noble Lord would deal with the point himself. I should like him to put in—
THE LOED PRIVY SEAL AND SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (The Earl of CREWE): I think, with great respect to the noble Earl, that until we come to the Amendments it would be wise to defer any observations upon them. At present we are dealing with the general principle.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: After what has just fallen from the noble Earl the Leader of the House I shall not discuss the details of this clause. I can quite understand why my noble friend the Chairman of Committees desired to address your Lordships at this stage, because, owing to his unfortunate disability, in a few minutes he will not be in a position to address your Lordships at all. It is very difficult to go into the details of a clause on the Motion to go into Committee, and after what the noble Earl has said I will reserve what I have to say until we reach the clause.
THE EARL OF CREWE: Perhaps I may, within the limits which I have ventured to lay down, say a word on what fell from the noble Earl the Chairman of Committees, because I think it must be agreed by all your Lordships that a certain new departure, possibly of a far-reaching character, is involved in the propositions contained in the clause under
1768
notice. I think most of us who have had experience in the rooms upstairs will be disposed to agree with what has fallen from my noble friend on the cross benches, and also from the noble Earl the Chairman of Committees. We have all felt, I think, those of us who have had much to do with those Committees, that they are very admirable tribunals for important matters, but I do not think that anyone who has spent the days and weeks and months that some of us have there can possibly deny that there is a considerable expenditure of time in relation to them which cannot be regarded as entirely profitable. And when I say time, that, of course, means money. I do not mean the time of those who sit on the Committees, but the very valuable and expensive time of the parties concerned. A Committee of your Lordships' House is like an elephant—it can pull down a tree and pick up a pin; but it is not an economical thing to keep an elephant in your establishment for the purpose of picking up pins. That is what I am afraid has sometimes been the case with regard to the work of the Committees of your Lordships' House. The noble Earl, Lord Cromer, mentioned a particular Committee in which the question of municipal trading came up, and he argued that the question ought to be settled by Parliament on a general principle and not settled in a particular case by a Committee on a Bill. That touches me rather nearly. I presided for two years over a Joint Committee on the question of municipal trading, and we were unable, I am sorry to say, to arrive at any general conclusions whatever. That so went home to the President of the Board of Trade—at that time Mr. Gerald Balfour—that he did not think it worth while to re-appoint a Committee. I, therefore, think that if the noble Earl sits upon many more Committees he will probably have to consider the principle of municipal trading in relation to particular cases, and he will not find the general principle so easily settled by Parliament as he seems to think.
EARL CROMER: My point was that private people ought not to be compelled to pay £100,000 because the principle had not been settled.
On question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The Earl of ONSLOW in the Chair.]
Clause 1:
THE EARL OF DARNLEY*THE EARL OF DARNLEY moved to amend Clause 1 by increasing the number of the appointed members of the new Port Authority from ten to twelve. He said the Amendment was designed to give representation to the two counties of Kent and Essex on the new Port Authority. As precisely the same arguments applied to the case of each county, the two counties had been put together in the consequential Amendment for convenience. The main argument for this representation rested upon the fact that the river, over which the new Board would be practically the sole Authority, flowed for over forty miles between the shores of these two counties, and that in each county the great industrial centres of population lay along the shores of the river. From Woolwich to Gravesend, on the Kent side, there was practically one continuous line of riverside towns, wharves and factories, all dependent entirely, or almost entirely, for their prosperity upon the proper working of the river. On the Essex side there was an estimated population of some 490,000 people in districts bordering on the river, all equally interested and dependent on the river for their livelihood. Under the Bill these enormous interests, including those of all the riverside manufacturers would be absolutely unrepresented on the new Authority Up to now each of the two counties had had a representative on the Authority that had managed the lower river—the Thames Conservancy—and the county representatives had been extremely useful on that body, not only to their own constituencies but also to the Conservancy Board itself in giving information as to local industries and questions affecting the river banks, river pollution, and other matters. Under this Bill the two counties to which he had referred would be entirely disfranchised. The maintenance of the sea walls was an especially important matter. There were many miles of sea walls in both counties, protecting thousands of acres of land and large and populous districts. It could hardly be supposed that the London representatives on the new Authority would be able ade-
1770
quately to protect these largo interests without any of that local information which a representative from the county would be able to give. The new Port Authority would also be the Authority under the Rivers Pollution Act, and there, again, would have powers which would very gravely affect the interests of the two counties, and of the health resorts along the shores, and the fisheries. As had been argued in the House of Commons, it seemed hardly just that the Authority which would have control over fifty miles of river should be entirely composed of representatives elected by people within the first eight miles. The case for Kent and Essex was further strengthened by the fact that the Royal Commission of 1900 especially picked out Kent, Essex, and West Ham for representation. Both the county council of Kent and that of Essex petitioned Parliament for representation, but the Joint Committee were not able to hear their arguments, and the matter was brought before Parliament in the House of Commons on the Committee stage of the Bill. The President of the Board of Trade agreed that an excellent case had been made out for the two counties, but wanted no additions made to the very compact and workable numbers of the Authority as proposed to be constituted under the Bill. He thought it would be difficult to sustain by argument that a workable and manageable body of twenty-eight would lose those desirable qualifications by being increased to thirty. One of the main grounds of refusal appeared to have been that there was to be nothing sectional about the representation on the Board. Mr. Rowlands, the Member for the Dartford division of Kent, a large riverside constituency, had declared it absurd to talk of sectional rights as applied to a county having 1,000,000 inhabitants and such vast interests in the river as the county of Kent. Other hon. Members agreed. He understood that this sectional or geographical basis of representation had been made use of in the constitution of every Port authority in the United Kingdom with one exception—namely, the Port of Liverpool; but he had been told that there was no possible analogy to be drawn between the case of the Mersey and that of the Thames. The Mersey Dock and Harbour Board already owned practically all the great interests

1771
concerned, and there were no miles of thickly - populated shores of the two counties of Lancashire and Cheshire to be unrepresented as in the case of the Thames. It had been stated by the Chairman of the Joint Committee that the Board was to be composed of representatives who would be anxious to promote the interests of the Port of London as a whole. Surely, from the lowest standpoint of self-interest alone, any improvement of the trading facilities of the Port of London would be so beneficial to the inhabitants of the riverside towns of Kent and Essex that it would receive the greatest support from the representatives of those two counties. In these circumstances, he hoped the Government would be able to accept the Amendment.
Amendment moved—
"In page 2, line 2, to leave out the word 'ten,' and to insert the word 'twelve.'"—(The Earl of Darnley.)
LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELLsaid the noble Earl had pleaded very eloquently for representation for his own native county and for that of the county of Essex, which occupied an analogous position on the other side of the Thames estuary. He was sorry to say he could not agree to the inclusion of a representative of either of these counties on the Port Authority. The matter had been considered before the Joint Committee, and the conclusion which the whole of the members of the Committee came to was that the number of appointed members of the body was quite large enough already. What they desired was to make this a business body to control a purely business concorn—namely, the Port of London. It was true that in the composition of the body representation was given to the London County Council and to the City of London, but he thought their Lordships would see that the interests of those two bodies, representing as they did the town of London, were altogether exceptional, and that no other public body could claim to have an analogous interest. The noble Lord had quoted the fact that the Royal Commission advocated the giving of representation to each of these counties. That was perfectly true; but it must be remembered that at that time it was
1772
contemplated that the Port Authority should consist of forty members and not of twenty-eight, and the giving of two members out of forty was not the same thing as giving two out of twenty-eight. Further, the composition of the body contemplated by the Royal Commission was different from the composition now proposed, in that the nominated element predominated largely over the elected element. That, of course, was because the scheme contemplated by the Royal Commission was one in which the finance was to be backed by the London County Council. In this case the Port was to stand in that matter absolutely on its own legs, and, therefore, as he had explained the other evening in moving the Second Reading of the Bill, a predominating influence on the Board was given to the representatives of the shippers and traders. The noble Earl had said that to include two extra members would not seriously affect the nature of the Board. But this was hardly a question of two members: it was a question of principle. If Kent and Essex were to be given these representatives, how were the Government to refuse similar representation to West Ham, Surrey, and Middlesex, to mention only three of the other applicants who were sure to come forward? If they did that, it would mean that the proportion between elected and nominated members, to which he had already alluded, would be upset, and if they were to restore it, it would mean making the body very much larger than was contemplated. The Government were most anxious to avoid that for two reasons. There was no doubt that a small body was generally recognised as being more businesslike than a large one. There was also no question that it would be difficult to find good men with sufficient leisure to devote to the work of the Port of London, and that difficulty would be enormously increased if they doubled the number of members of that body. Then the noble Earl alluded to the sea walls of the counties in question. In connection with that, he would point out that ample provision was made in the Bill against any damage that might be done to sea walls by the dredging operations of the Port Authority. On the grounds he had mentioned he hoped their Lordships would not support the Amendment.
THE EARL OF JERSEYdid not think the answer which had just been given on behalf of the Government could be considered quite satisfactory. Why should not the other authorities having jurisdiction along the banks of the river, such as the Middlesex County Council, to which he belonged, and the Surrey County Conncil be represented? After all, the great object ought to be to get a thoroughly representative body. There was another important point. This question of representation was not gone into at all by the Joint Committee. It was surely a new departure in the working of a joint committee, or of any committee, if the chairman was to decide beforehand that the question was one of principle and therefore was not to be gone into, and then refuse to hear the parties interested. He confessed that he read the Report of the proceedings of the Joint Committee on this point with great regret. It would be a great pity if it went abroad that an important principle could be settled beforehand by a Committee without allowing the parties to be heard.
VISCOUNT MILNERdid not think the Committee was animated by the somewhat autocratic spirit which the criticism of the noble Earl seemed to imply. Simply with a view of saving public time, the Committee did not hear the whole series of these applications for local representation—because it was put to them so convincingly by the promoters of the Bill that it was not desirable to make the numbers of the Port Authority much larger than the figure originally contained in the Bill. If the Government were right in thinking that a body of about twenty-five would be more workable than one of forty, it became necessary to scrutinise very closely every single plea for addition. So far from being opposed to the principle of representation, the Committee were very anxious to make the Port Authority even more representative, but representative of those directly interested. The changes made by the Committee in that respect went in the direction of strengthening the number of the elected as contrasted with that of the nominated members, and he would have liked to give even a more decisive preponderance to the elected members. The people in Kent and Essex who were interested
1774
in the river would be represented through the elected members. It was not from hostility to the various localities that the Committee took the action which they did.
THE DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLANDcould not understand the explanation of the noble Viscount. The noble Viscount had laid great stress on the necessity for keeping the appointed members to a limited number, and said that this necessity obliged his Committee to scrutinise very closely every single plea for addition. The way in which the Committee scrutinised those pleas was by giving the local authorities no opportunity of putting their pleas forward. He did not understand why the Committee refused to hear people who already had an interest in the river and already possessed representation on the Thames Conservancy. He could not agree that if they admitted one or two of these authorities, they must admit the whole number; but he did think Middlesex and Surrey should be admitted. He protested against putting a county council on exactly the same level with half a dozen other bodies. A county council was a body representing a large area, and it was representative, to a certain extent, of the smaller authorities. And if they were to take the line which it appeared the Government were very much inclined to take, that county councils were never to be trusted to represent anybody or to do anything, he really did not see why they created those bodies at all. There never had been a Government, he thought, who had fettered so much the discretion of county councils in various directions, and placed them so drastically under the authority of Government Departments. This was another instance, it seemed to him, of the distrust of county councils—a very extraordinary symptom on the part of a party supposed to have very great confidence in representative Government and in the democracy. He agreed with Lord Jersey that there were other county councils besides those of Essex and Kent, who had a claim to be represented on this body, but that was no reason for not including Kent and Essex; and by adding four or five to the number and satisfying the legitimate aspirations of the counties concerned, they would not be doing any harm to the efficiency of the new Authority.
LORD BELPERdisclaimed any interest in either of the two counties wishing for representation on the Board, but said it seemed to him that the Amendment embodied a very important principle. He thought he could best point out the importance of the principle by reading a resolution passed unanimously by the County Councils Association, not in connection with this Bill, but in regard to a measure of a similar character a year and a half ago. The resolution ran—
"That this council is in favour of the principle that county councils should be represented on boards of conservancy of rivers which pass through their areas."
That resolution was come to in consequence of strong representations made with regard to the important interests of people who live along the banks of rivers. He did not pretend to know the interests in this case as well as the noble Lords who spoke for the counties concerned, but this was not a merely sentimental proposal. There was an immense population in Essex living, he believed, on twenty-three square miles of land, the whole of which lay below high-water mark, part of it as much as ten or twelve feet below, and this part was only protected by the sea wall. Those who lived on the banks of the river might be materially affected by any works that were done in the river, and the object of having a representative of the riparian owners on the authority was that he might point out the possibility of damage being done before steps were taken, so that the damage might be avoided.
LORD HARRISsaid the remarks both of the noble Lord in charge of the Bill and of Lord Milner showed that the consideration by the Committee was far more largely, and quite naturally, given to the commercial side of the question than to the conservancy side. He admitted that if it had been a purely commercial question, the two counties concerned would not have such a strong case for representation as they undoubtedly had. But the principle of representation on the banks of the river was recognised in the Bill itself, and it was only when they came below the Port of London that the principle was ignored. He submitted that that was unreasonable. In a sense there was taxation without representation. It was most important, not merely in the interests of the dwellers on the banks, but
1776
in the interests of other large areas some distance from the banks, that the river walls should be maintained. Those walls were kept up by a system of taxation, and operations might take place in the river which might seriously affect those walls. The noble Lord in charge of the Bill considered that the counties were protected as regarded damage. If he remembered aright, the provision was that any dredging done within fifty yards of the bank was to be with the approval of the county engineer. But a great deal of damage could be done to a river wall by dredging at a greater distance than fifty yards. There were possibilities under the Bill of operations being undertaken in the river without the county possessing the opportunity of having a word said on its behalf on the board. It was most unreasonable that it should be possible for operations to be undertaken which might seriously injure property along the river without those concerned having any opportunity of knowing that the operations were to take place. He submitted that the principle recognised above the Port of London had been disregarded below it. Taxation did not go hand in hand with representation in this Bill. On these grounds he hoped the Government would reconsider the provision.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYcould not help thinking that the Members of the Joint Committee now realised the force of what he had ventured to urge upon their Lordships on Second Reading, that it was a pity the Committee did not hear the whole of the case before they reported, not because the conclusions of the Committee were distrusted, but because there was always a sense of injury left behind if people were not allowed to have their say. Although the Order of the House of Commons was that all the parties interested should be heard, when it came to the point as to representation the Committee decided that parties who were vitally interested should not be heard. That had left behind a sense of great grievance, and, moreover, it throw an obligation on their Lordships to consider the subject de novo, because it had never been considered at all. Wharves and other facilities for trade were being constructed along the shores of Essex and Kent, and this fact gave these counties what he should venture to describe as

1777
vital port interests, quite apart from the question of flooding. Lord Milner was of opinion that these interests were sufficiently represented by the franchise which the Bill gave to the payers of dues. What franchise had the county of Essex, or those interested in the development of the shore of Essex, in the Port Authority? They had a very small part of the voting power of those who paid dues outside the docks. The whole voting power of those who paid outside the docks was minute compared with the voting power of the docks, and only a small fraction of that fraction was the voice which Kent and Essex would have in the administration of the Port. What chance, therefore, was there of their interests being closely considered? Let them look at the composition of this body. There were eighteen elected representatives and ten nominated representatives. Of the eighteen elected representatives, the payers of dues outside the docks could only expect four.
LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELL: That is not proved.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: No, but the noble Lord did not deny it when I said it.
LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELL: I was not in a position to confirm or deny it. No one can say one way or the other until the register of payers of dues is in existence.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYsubmitted that he had sufficient grounds for assuming that his figure was accurate until the noble Lord brought forward a figure on the other side. Supposing he were right, of the eighteen elected representatives the interests outside the docks could only elect four. Let them imagine a case in which the whole of the ten nominated members considered a particular proposal in the interests of the docks unfair to the outside interests. They would all vote one side, and the representatives of the outside interests would, of course, vote with them, but, even then, they would not be able to carry their view against the representatives of the docks. The decision would depend upon the casting vote of the Chairman. That could not be considered ample representation for those interests outside
1778
the docks which were in direct competition with the docks. If the Committee were good enough to add these representatives to the Port Authority, the impartial members of the board would be in a larger proportion, and there would be much greater guarantee of fair consideration when the two competitive interests were in question. Lord Milner had submitted that the London County Council stood in a very special position. He admitted it did not stand in the same position as under the Bill previously before Parliament. On that occasion the direct financial responsibility of the County Council was involved.
VISCOUNT MILNER: There was a much larger number of representatives.
LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELL: And Kent and Essex had none.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYsaid that on that occasion a distinction was drawn between the County Council of London and other county councils because the former had a financial responsibility which the other county councils did not have. But that had now disappeared altogether, and, therefore, if they gave representation to the County Council of London there was, at any rate, a claim for some small representation for the other bodies. He suggested, very respectfully, to the Government that they should give way on this point. Naturally there was a certain amount of friction and jealousy in the passage of a great Bill of this kind, but the granting of judicious concessions such as this would add much to the smooth passage of the Bill.
THE EARL OF CREWE: In spite of the appeal of the noble Marquess opposite, I think it is not difficult to show why it is not possible for us to give way on this particular Amendment. It has been very truly pointed out, in the course of this discussion, that there is a real question of principle involved, and the desired giving way is not giving way in respect of adding one member for Essex and one member for Kent, but it is the abandonment of the entire principle on which this Port Authority is based. The Port Authority is based, not on a geographical principle at all, but on a principle of commercial representation,

1779
and if you add these members, it is not the addition of this or that gentleman to the body—it is the complete abandonment of the principle of commercial representation, in favour of the geographical plan; that is to say, you abandon the Mersey principle in favour of the principle which obtains at some other places, while it is the deliberate opinion of those who have looked into this question and have been in a position to adjudicate upon it, that the principle of the Mersey Dock Board is the one best suited to the conditions of London. If you go on the geographical plan you adopt a different system altogether. These gentlemen elected from the different counties will be free to represent the particular interests of those counties. It is not, I think, to be supposed that they can take the same interest in the general work of the board as is taken by the other members. I do not say that their attendance would be limited to the occasions on which the particular matter of the river banks was involved, but their interest, and consequently their attendance, would not be of the same character as in the case of those interested in the daily life of the Port. Then the noble Lord, Lord Belper, mentioned a case in which county councils had been represented in consideration of what took place in the upper reaches of the river, and Lord Harris pointed out very truly that in the third Schedule of this Bill there is a great deal of county representation. Those two statements appear to me to answer each other. The county representation exists in the upper reaches of the river because that is in the nature of a Rivers Board and not a Port Authority; and as that representation exists in the upper reaches of the river, which are looked after by the counties interested in them, the whole question of the upper reaches disappears in relation to this particular question of the Port of London. The noble Duke opposite said that we were operating in a direction hostile and adverse to county councils. I really do not know to what particular action of ours he alluded, and it seems hardly worth while to deny that we are actuated by any hostility towards the county councils of Kent and Essex. If it were a mere question of doing an obliging thing for them, we should be delighted to do it; but it is altogether impossible for us to
1780
accede to this Amendment without departing from the general principle of the formation of this body. As regards particular interested counties, it does seem to me that Section 44 safeguards them as far as they possibly can be safeguarded by an Act of Parliament and without immediate representation on the Board, and probably in practice it will protect them quite as well. The noble Marquess who has just sat down turned the argument into a somewhat different channel. He opened up the question of what he considered to be the inadequate representation of the riverside trader. That surely is an entirely separate question. If the proportion of members representing the commercial traders is insufficient, that is a point which can be argued separately, and a large representation can be devised for them.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Does the noble Earl wish to imply that the Government would favourably consider such an Amendment?
THE EARL OF CREWE: No. I meant so far as this particular Amendment is concerned the noble Marquess's argument did not seem to me to be particularly relevant. I do not see what reason there is to suppose that these special representatives of counties would specially interest themselves in the fate of the riverside trader. The noble Marquess did not himself go further than to say that they would at any rate be impartial, that they would not be biassed in favour of the docks. I confess that does not seem to me to be a very strong argument, and I repeat once more that this Amendment is really far more important and far-reaching than might appear from the terms of it as it stands on the Paper, because, as was so very clearly pointed out by the noble Viscount on the cross benches, it modifies almost to the point of destroying the principle of representation in the Bill.
LORD AVEBURYsupported the Amendment, and said he had listened with astonishment to the argument of the noble Earl. If the Port of London was to be managed by commercial authorities, how was it that among the nominated representatives they had the Admiralty,

1781
the Board of Trade, the County Council, and other bodies less or more in touch with commercial interests represented? The noble Viscount on the cross benches had defended the action of the Committee, but the Committee had been most unfair in having heard all the arguments against Kent and Essex and refused to hear any of the arguments in their favour. Lord Salisbury had, if anything, understated the case. The payers of dock charges would vote on £2,100,000 and the others on £320,000; it was, therefore, obvious that those who were interested in the docks would have an overwhelming advantage over those who were not so interested. He hoped the Committee would support the Amendment.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: We have been left such a lamentably short space of time in which to consider the intricacies of this Bill that I am inclined, so far as possible, to shelter myself behind the authority of the Joint Committee, and if I believed that this Amendment vitally affected the principles upon which the Committee have proceeded, I should hesitate to give it my support. But I cannot bring myself to believe that the addition of these two members to the Port authority really will have the effect of fundamentally changing the complexion of that Authority. If it were the case that by adding representatives of the Kent and Essex County Councils we should open a door through which a number of other similar representatives would have a claim to pass, I should concede at once that the Amendment was a very dangerous one. But surely the position of these two counties is exceptional. My noble friend has pointed out that they both include a large amount of the frontage of the river, and we all know that it is a part of the river in which commercial and industrial enterprise of all kinds is going ahead rapidly at the present time. They

CONTENTS.

Loreburn, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Beauchamp, E. (L. Steward.)

Shaftesbury, E.

Carlile, E.

Wolverhampton, V. (L. President.)

Carrington, E.

Althorp, V. (L. Chamberlain.)

Chesterfield, E.

Craven, E.

Milner, V.

Crewe, E. (L. Privy Seal.)]

Cromer, E.

Selby, V.

Fortescue, E.

Ripon, M.

Onslow, E.

Allendale, L.

have, therefore, a commercial interest in the river, and they have also, as has been shown, a very considerable territorial interest, inasmuch as a large acreage of the county lies below the tide level. It does seem to me that a case has been made out for giving representation to these two counties, which, let us not forget, have representation of some kind at the present time, and which are not only to be deprived of that representation, but to be deprived of it without having been given a hearing. That seems to me to give them a very strong case. It is suggested to us that this authority, if it is to be an efficient body, must remain of moderate dimensions. I quite agree with the noble Lord in charge of the Bill that as a rule the efficiency of bodies of this kind varies inversely with their size; but I am not quite convinced that efficiency ends at twenty-eight, and that the addition of two extra members makes the whole difference in that respect. I have listened to this discussion with a perfectly open mind, and I am bound to say that I have been convinced by the arguments in favour of the Amendment.
THE LORD CHAIRMANsaid the Amendment before the Committee was to leave out the word "ten" and to insert the word "twelve." The noble Earl who had moved this also had an Amendment later on to add to subsection (6), which provided the number of appointed members, one representative to be appointed by the Kent County Council and one by the Essex County Council. He presumed the Committee would accept the decision on the present Amendment as governing the subsequent Amendment.
On Question, that the word "ten" stand part—
Their Lordships divided:—Contents, 47; Non-contents, 90.

Armitstead, L.

Herschell, L.

Poltimore, L.

Burghclere, L.

Lochee, L.

Reay, L.

Courtney of Penwith, L.

Lucas, L.

Ritchie of Dundee, L.

Dawnay, L. (V. Downe.)

Lyveden, L.

St. Davids, L.

Denman, L. [Teller.]

Macdonnell, L.

Sandhurst, L. [Teller.]

Eversley, L.

Manners, L.

Shuttleworth, L.

Fitzmaurice, L.

Marchamley, L.

Swaythling, L.

Hamilton of Dalzell, L.

Monson, L.

Tenterden, L.

Hemphill, L.

Nunburnholme, L.

Welby, L.

Heneage, L.

O'Hagan, L.

Winterstoke, L.

NOT-CONTENTS.

Bedford, D.

Morton, E.

Colchester, L.

Newcastle, D.

Nelson, E.

Cottesloe, L.

Northumberland, D.

Powis, E.

Crawshaw, L.

Portland, D.

Vane, E. (M. Londonderry.)

Ellenborough, L.

Sutherland, D.

Waldegrave, E.

Fairlie, L. (E. Glasgow.)

Westmeath, E.

Forester, L.

Ailesbury, M.

Harris, L. [Teller.]

Bath, M.

Churchill, V.

Hastings, L.

Bristol, M.

Esher, V.

Hatherton, L.

Bute, M.

Falmouth, V.

Hindlip, L.

Hertford, M.

Hill, V.

Hylton, L.

Lansdowne, M.

Hutchinson, V. (E. Donoughmore.)

Killanin, L.

Salisbury, M.

Kintore, L. (E. Kintore.)

Zetland, M.

Portman, V.

Lawrence, L.

St. Aldwyn, V.

Leith of Fyvie, L.

Camperdown, E.

Middleton, L.

Carnwath, E.

Abinger, L.

Mowbray, L.

Cathcart, E.

Ashbourne, L.

Newton, L.

Cawdor, E.

Atkinson, L.

North, L.

Dartmouth, E.

Avebury, L.

Oriel, L. (V. Massereene.)

Darnley, E. [Teller.]

Barrymore, L.

Penrhyn, L.

Dartrey, E.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Ponsonby, L. (E. Bessborough.)

Denbigh, E.

Belper, L.

Doncaster, E. (D Buccleuch and Queensberry.)

Blyth, L.

Ranfurly, L. (E. Ranfurley.)

Boston, L.

Saltoun, L.

Eldon, E.

Brancepeth, L. (V. Boyne.)

Sandys, L.

Haddington, E.

Brodrick, L. (V. Midleton.)

Seaton, L.

Harewood, E.

Calthorpe, L.

Shute, L. (V. Barrington.)

Jersey, E.

Carew, L.

Stewart of Garlies, L. (E. Galloway.)

Lindsey, E.

Carysfort, L. (E. Carysfort.)

Lovelace, E.

Clanwilliam, L. (E. Clanwilliam.)

Waleran, L.

Malmesbury, E.

Willoughby de Broke, L.

Morley, E.

Clifford of Chudleigh, L.

Wynford, L.

Amendment agreed to accordingly.
LORD AVEBURY LORD AVEBURY moved an Amendment to reduce the representation of the London County Council on the new Port Authority from four to two members, who might or might not be members of the Council. This Amendment, he said, was not due to any want of confidence on his part in the London County Council. The fact was, the duties of the London County Council were enormously heavy. Years ago Lord Rosebery, a former chairman, expressed the earnest hope that they would not break the back of the Council; but since then not a year had passed without important additional duties being thrown on the County Council. He had often been asked whether some of the young and able men
1784
in the City could not be induced to serve on the London County Council, but it had always been found that there was reluctance to do so, owing to the great amount of time necessary to be given to the work. He maintained that it was impossible for any man to do his duty as a member of the London County Council and at the same time to be an efficient member of the Port Authority. In the previous Bill it was quite right that the London County Council should have more representation, because the Council were to be asked to give a guarantee. There was no question of guarantee in this Bill, and he therefore submitted that to give the London County Council two members would be to afford them adequate representation. If the Committee adopted his Amendment the number of

1785
members would again be reduced to the magical figure of twenty-eight, to which the Government had attached so much importance.
Amendment moved—
"In page 2, line 5, to leave out the words 'By the London County Council, being members of the Council, two.'"—(Lord Avebury.)
VISCOUNT MIDLETONtrusted that the Government would not accept the Amendment. The noble Lord was so well-known both for his knowledge of London and his work on the London County Council, that he would be acquitted of any desire to show any disrespect or unfairness to the London County Council, but by this Amendment he had a little dissembled his love. Previous Bills tried to place the whole responsibility of this enormous charge on the Council. He felt as strongly as anybody that the imposition of fresh duties by Parliament on that body had its drawbacks, and might end in overloading it. But, however undesirable it might be to charge it with the whole service of the river, it was indisputably desirable that there should be complete contact and harmonious working between the new authority and the Council. He agreed as to the difficulty of finding men able to discharge their municipal duties and duties of this character; but that difficulty was overcome in the case of the Thames Conservancy, and when they considered how the powers given under the Bill interlaced with the functions of the County Council, it would be seen that there was no incongruity in giving the Council the representation proposed in the Bill.
LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELLsaid that the fate of the London County Council in the matter of representation on the Port Authority resembled that of the ten little niggers. As the Bill was introduced, it was given five members, but the Joint Committee cut that representation down to four, and he hoped that their Lordships would keep it at that number. If the counties of Kent and Essex, which had comparatively small interests in the Port of London, were to have a member each, it was not making an excessive demand that the
1786
County Council, with its far greater interests, should find two of its number and appoint two other members.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendment moved—
"In page 2, after line 13, to insert the words 'By the Kent County Council, one. By the Essex County Council, one.'"—(The Earl of Darnley.)
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWNhad an Amendment on the Paper to leave out subsection (11).
"(11) The first elected members, instead of being elected as provided by this Act, shall be appointed by the Board of Trade after consultation with such persons and bodies having knowledge and experience of trade of shipping in the Port of London as the Board may think fit and the first chairman shall, if the Board think fit, be appointed by the Board, and shall, if appointed by the Board, be paid such salary (if any) as the Board may determine."
He did not propose to move the Amendment, but had placed it on the Paper in order to direct attention to the fact that under this subsection the first board was to be exclusively appointed by the Board of Trade, and under Schedule 1 they were to remain in office for four years.
Clause as amended, agreed to.
Clause 2:
LORD AVEBURY LORD AVEBURY moved to omit the provision that the Port Authority might "carry on the undertaking of any dock company transferred to the Port Authority by this Act." He said this was a most important part of the Bill and one which had received no consideration whatever by the Joint Committee. The Committee no doubt considered what the price should be, but the Chairman ruled out of order any consideration of the question of purchase. Experience showed that whenever businesses of this kind were transferred to a public body they were more expensively managed. The expense would be much greater than was estimated, and there would be little margin of income for the improvement of the river. This provision would impose an immense mass

1787
of detailed labour on the Port Authority in the management of warehouses which required great knowledge of business and a very careful supervision of details. It was most important that the authority should have time to consider large qusetions affecting the river, and should not be occupied with the petty but important details of the transaction of a business of this kind. Why was this body going to buy only certain wharves and warehouses? It would follow that it would have an interest in some and none in others. It would be very difficult for it to exercise fair play between the different parties on the river if it had a direct pecuniary interest in some wharves and warehouses and none in others. The Authority should have nothing to do with an immense business of this kind, which had no connection with the control of the waterway. To saddle the Port Authority with the management of great warehouses would divert their attention from more important duties and would raise considerable friction.
Amendment moved—
"In page 3, lines 20 and 21, to leave out the words '(a) carry on the undertaking of any dock company transferred to the Port Authority by this Act.'"—(Lord Avebury.)
LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELLsaid the noble Lord had complained that though the price to be paid for the docks had been discussed, the abstract question of whether or not they should be purchased had not come under consideration. So far as he himself was concerned, he did not feel at all guilty on that head, because of the time he had ventured to occupy in moving the Second Reading quite three-quarters was devoted to that particular question, which was undoubtedly the main point in the Bill. It was thoroughly before the House on that occasion, and it was almost on that alone that their Lordships gave their judgment in favour of the Second Reading. They had been told by the noble Lord that it was not necessary for the Port Authority to buy the docks. He did not propose to go into that question deeply, and he did not think their Lordships would wish him to. He would, however, point out that more than 100 years had elapsed since the first docks were
1788
made, and they were made because at that time, when the tonnage of shipping using the River Thames was not a tithe of the tonnage using it now, the congestion of the river had been found so intolerable that it was necessary to relieve it in some way. If that was the case then, it must be much more the case now. Therefore, they might assume that docks were necessary. Then if there was to be an authority set up which was to control the Port, but not to buy the docks, what was it to do? Was it to set up docks on its own in competition with existing docks, hampered as they would be by the Parliamentary restricttions placed upon them, and then starve them out of existence? He could hardly believe that their Lordships would approve of such a proceeding. Such a scheme would outrage a sense of common fairness. He did not think their Lordships would wish him to reargue the case in favour of purchase, though, of course, he would be perfectly prepared to do so if necessary.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYthought his noble friend's speech had been misunderstood. What Lord Avebury complained of was that the question of purchasing the docks was not allowed to be discussed before the Joint Committees. That he believed to be the fact. The question of purchase was not discussed before the Joint Committee although the question of price was. The shortness of the time allowed to their Lordships for the discussion of the Bill was very unsatisfactory and no opportunity was afforded of going into the very heart of this subject. He thought the great community of London and its commercial interests deserved better at the hands of the Government and of their Lordships' House than that they should slur over this most important matter. But so it must be. There was no doubt that if they were to decide, as Lord Avebury suggested, that the docks should not be purchased it would mean the wrecking of the Bill, and involve the postponement of a settlement of the question to a future more or less remote. On the Second Reading it was agreed on all hands that the time for settlement had arrived, and therefore, as the deletion from Clause 2 of the

1789
paragraph in question would mean the postponement of a settlement, he regretted he could not help his noble friend in carrying his object. Moreover, he was in favour of purchase, and, therefore, could not support the Amendment on the merits.
THE EARL OF CREWE: My Lords, on the point that this question of purchase was not discussed before the Joint Committee, being considered a closed question before it reached them, I may remind the House of what happened with regard to the London Water Board. I was a member of the Joint Committee which considered that matter, and we were not only not permitted to discuss the question as to whether the water companies should be bought out, but we were not permitted to discuss on that Joint Committee, over which Lord Balfour of Burleigh presided, being at that time a Member of the Government—we were not permitted to discuss who the authority should be to buy them. That being the case, I think we may fairly claim that in not permitting the Joint Committee to discuss this question of purchase we have not gone nearly as far as the former Government did on a somewhat similar occasion. The noble Marquess who has just sat down made a complaint which has been to some extent made before as to want of time for dealing with this matter. I do not think the noble Marquess is entirely justified in that complaint. We have never suggested that a discussion upon this Amendment or upon any other Amendment should be curtailed for want of time. I think discussion upon this Amendment useless because it is really a repetition of the discussion on the Second Reading, and on that account I certainly should be disposed to deprecate further discussion upon it. But as regards time for general discussion of the Bill, I should like once for all to say this. We have on several former occasions mingled our tears with those of noble Lords opposite in regard to the brevity of the time given to this House, unfortunately, as I think, for the discussion of important subjects. We shall not mingle them again after what occurred in this House with respect to the Licensing Bill. On that occasion the noble Mar-
1790
quess, in words which I am glad to believe will become immortal, stated that the amount of discussion which that measure had received both in and out of Parliament enabled noble Lords opposite to decide to throw it out before the Motion for its Second Reading here had been made. Therefore, I must warn noble Lords opposite that they will receive no more apologies from this Bench on the question of the amount of time given for the discussion of important measures.
LORD AVEBURYsaid he fully agreed as to the importance of establishing a Port Authority, but they might do that without purchasing the docks. He felt, however, that he could not carry the matter further, and would content himself with having made his protest.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
THE EARL OF JERSEY, on behalf of the Earl of Meath, moved to insert in the clause, among the duties of the Port Authority, the preservation of the rights and interests of the public in respect to the Thames, its backwaters, and its towpaths. Similar duties, he said, were laid upon the Conservancy Board as regarded the upper portion of the river.
Amendment moved—
"In page 3, line 30, after the word 'Act,' to insert the words '(e) preserve the rights and interests of the public in respect of the Thames, its backwaters, and its towpaths.'"—(The Earl of Jersey.)
LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELLpointed out that it was provided in the Bill that the Port Authority should take over the powers and duties of the Thames Conservancy Board, and any liability of the kind referred to in the Amendment would fall upon the new authority. The President of the Board of Trade had stated that he was willing to institute an inquiry into the question of public rights with regard to the matters mentioned in the Amendment. That was a promise with regard to the upper river, and on behalf of his right hon. friend, he would be willing to extend that promise to the lower river in the same sense.
THE EARL OF JERSEYasked whether the noble Lord meant that, if the result of the inquiry was to show that there were certain rights that ought to be preserved, the Port Authority would preserve them.
LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELLreplied that if there were found to be rights which ought to be preserved, steps would be taken to have them preserved.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawal.
Clause agreed to.
Clauses 3 to 5 agreed to.
Clause 6:
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYwished to call their Lordships' attention to one or two points in the clause. They were matters of detail. He was not sure whether the Government were really satisfied with the drafting of the clause, and if he called their attention to one or two things in it he thought it would save time because it might give them an opportunity of putting them right. The first subsection of the clause proposed that the Port Authority might make application to the Board of Trade for an Order under certain circumstances and in certain places. One was if they wanted an Order to construct works which would otherwise require statutory powers. That was simple enough, but when they came to the next case it was almost impossible to construe the Bill as it stood, because what was said was that the Port Authority might apply to the Board of Trade where the works were such in the opinion of the Board of Trade that they ought not to be constructed except under such an Order. How was the Port Authority to apply to the Board of Trade in the case of works which, in the opinion of the Board of Trade, ought not to be constructed except by an Order? How would they know what the opinion of the Board of Trade was before they made an application? It was evident there had been some confusion in the drafting, and it had got upside down. That was the first criticism he made
1792
on the drafting, and he would deal next with the substance of that point. What were the kind of works which in the opinion of the Board of Trade ought not to be constructed without an Order? He knew quite well that certain works could not be constructed without statutory power, but what works were they which depended as to whether they ought to be constructed or not upon the opinion of the Board of Trade? There was no indication in the whole length and breadth of the Bill to as to what those works were. He did not know whether it was actually proposed that there should be a kind of paternal oversight by the Board of Trade over all works proposed to be constructed by the Port Authority. If that was what was proposed he was not quite sure that it was of great public advantage. This great Port Authority, once it was established, ought to be allowed to have a free hand; he meant, of course, subject to other people's rights. Within their own rights they ought to have a free hand. The paternal care of the Board of Trade was probably a mistake. Then he would go a little further. There was another case in regard to when these applications might be made, and these Orders might be issued, when it was thought to impose charges not previously authorised. Authorised by whom? He supposed not previously authorised by the Board of Trade, but, if so, they ought to be sought, because otherwise there would be given to the Board of Trade power by these extra Parliamentary Orders to vary what had been settled by Act of Parliament, and he was quite sure the Government did not intend that. He recommended, therefore, all those points to the consideration of the noble Lord. There was just time before the Report stage to make some changes in the drafting if the noble Lord found it open to these criticisms. He would not go further into the clause because the other points would be raised by specific Amendments, but as he was dealing with the clause generally, he might say that in one respect only he could not agree with the noble Lord in charge of the Bill. He did not think that the provision at the end, which was supposed to protect private rights

1793
by laying these Orders before Parliament, was worth very much. That particular provision was a very valuable one when they were dealing with matters of public interest, but he thought it would require a very strong case indeed for Parliament to interfere in order to protect a small private owner by the cumbrous procedure of moving an Address to the Crown in consequence of injustice revealed by Papers laid upon the Table. In very few cases could that be availed of, so he did not think the provision amounted to very much. But he mainly rose in order to call attention to what he thought were mistakes in drafting. He would like to ask the noble Lord in charge of the Bill whether he would reconsider the drafting with a view to putting it right, and also to ask him specifically upon the first subsection what were the works which, in the opinion of the Board of Trade, ought not to be carried out by an Order from them.
LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELLsaid he Would, of course, consider the points which the noble Marquess had brought forward, and if the ambiguities which the noble Marquess detected in the clause were really there in the opinion of their draftsman, they would gladly follow his advice and be thankful for the indication he had given them. He had a form of words which he thought would meet the objections, which he would hand to the noble Marquess so that he could consider them and bring the matter up again on Report.
LORD ELLENBOROUGHproposed an Amendment to insert the words "of longitude" in the subsection providing that no land should be authorised to be acquired compulsorily which was situate to the westward of the Meridian six minutes east of Greenwich. He pointed out that confusion frequently took place between minutes of time and minutes of longitude.
Amendment moved—
"In page 6, line 19, after the word 'minutes,' to insert the words 'of longitude.'"—(Lord Ellenborough.)
THE EARL OF JERSEY*THE EARL OF JERSEY, on behalf of the Earl of Meath, moved an Amendment to add a proviso that nothing in the Act should authorise the appropriation or the utilisation for the purposes of the Act of any common, or commonable land, or any recreation grounds, village green, or other open space dedicated to the use of the public, or any disused burial ground, fuel, or other allotments, or any land held on trust which prohibited building thereon. The object of the Amendment was, he said, to prevent common land or recreation grounds which were now regulated by existing legislation from being taken away compulsorily for other purposes instead of being brought before Parliament. He thought the House would understand that it was not desirable that when the public had common land or recreation grounds, and had gone to the expense of having them governed by Act of Parliament, these should be taken away without the direct sanction of Parliament.
Amendment moved—
"In page 6, line 29, after the word 'requisite,' to insert the words '(c) nothing in this Act shall authorise the appropriation or the utilisation for the purposes of this Act of any common or commonable land or any recreation ground, village green, or other open space dedicated to the use of the public, or any disused burial ground, fuel, or other allotments, or any land held on trusts which prohibit building thereon.'"—(The Earl of Jersey.)
LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELLsaid that this was a matter in which the noble Earl in whose name the Amendment stood was well-known to be interested. The noble Earl moved a simlar clause in a Bill which was lately before their Lordships' House, the Irish Housing Bill. There had been certain negotiations in regard to, and, he thought, some exception taken to, that clause in the other House, and what he would suggest would be the adding of a new subsection instead of the one the noble Earl had on the Paper and which would read: 'That nothing in this section shall, without the consent of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, authorise the acquisition of any common or commonable land, or any recreation ground, village green, or other open space dedicated to the use of the

1795
public or any disused burial ground." He would hand those words to the noble Earl in order that he might consider the matter before the Report stage.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN moved to omit the proviso dealing with the case of land which was taken compulsorily, on the ground that the procedure proposed was not only cumbrous, but in certain cases unsatisfactory. The proviso was that the Board of Trade might by Provisional Order make such modifications and adaptations of the provisions of the Lands Clauses Acts to be incorporated in an Order under the section as might be specified in the Provisional Order. The procedure proposed was very singular and perhaps he might be allowed very briefly to explain it. If land was required to be taken compulsorily, it might be done under the Lands Clauses Acts. Then supposing that the Board of Trade wished to modify any conditions which were found in the Lands Clauses Acts, either as to arbitration or anything else, they must introduce a Provisional Order into Parliament in which they would have to specify the particular respects in which they wished to modify the Lands Clauses Acts. That was the first procedure. After the Provisional Order had passed through and received the assent of Parliament, there came the second procedure. This was that they must go to Parliament for an Order (at least they had to make an Order which must lie on the Table of both Houses of Parliament for thirty days) which would embody the Lands Clauses Acts as modified by their previous Provisional Order. On this matter there arose two questions. What could a Provisional Order do? Would it be in the power of the Board of Trade to modify once and for all the clauses in the Lands Clauses Acts? He submitted that if it were in the power of the Board of Trade to do that by a Provisional Order, it was a most improper way of altering a Statute. But let them suppose that that was not the case, but that in each individual case the Board of Trade must apply for a Provisional Order. He did not see such a great objection to that, because in each case
1796
they would have to plead that owing to some particular reason the Lands Clauses Acts ought to be modified. But even in that case it seemed to him that this proviso was an inadvisable one. He would remind their Lordships of the history of this clause. It was not in the Bill as originally introduced. There was a clause in the Bill which empowered the Board of Trade simply by an Order to take land compulsorily. The Joint Committee declined to accept that, and modified the clause and said that it should be necessary to apply to Parliament for a Provisional Order. On that the Government said they did not propose to proceed with the clause and so they dropped it, but when it got back to the House of Commons in Committee the President of the Board of Trade introduced this very obscure clause which, to a certain extent, contradicted the decision, or went against the decision, of the Joint Committee. Therefore, it was that he proposed to omit the proviso. The result would be that if they required to take land compulsorily they would have to take it under the Lands Clauses Act simpliciter.
Amendment moved—
"In page 6, to leave out lines 34 to 37 inclusive."—(The Earl of Camperdown.)
VISCOUNT MILNERsaid the Joint Committee desired that the protection of the Lands Clauses Act should be given to persons whose land was going to be taken away and it was in consequence of the Amendments made by the Committee with that object that the Government withdrew the Clause.
LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELLsaid the intention in introducing the clause was to simplify and cheapen the process of acquiring land as far as possible; not that they wished to cheapen it in the sense that they wanted to pay less to the owner, but that they wanted to pay less in the expense of acquiring it. They wanted to avoid as far as possible the expenditure of money in legal and other expenses necessitated by coming continually to Parliament for the acquisition of very small patches of land. That had been the principle which had guided his right hon. friend all through the discussions which

1797
had taken place on this question, and the right hon. Gent 1cmin had, he thought, met all the opposition to this clause manifested by different parties in the fullest and most generous way. It was designed in order to get some cheapened procedure without any suspicion that they were wishing in any way to damage the interests of the owners of land. He was, however, given authority to accept the proposal of the noble Earl and to omit this proviso from the Bill. In doing so it was very much in the hope that they would not have further alterations made in the clause during its passage through the House.
LORD AVEBURYsaid he had on the Paper an Amendment to subsection (3) so as to provide that "if the order of the Board relate to authorising the purchase and the taking otherwise than by agreement of land" the Order of the Board should be provisional only and should not have effect unless confirmed by Parliament. He had put down the Amendment at the request of the London Waterside Manufacturing Association, many members of which owned various tracts of land between Barking and Tilbury. The clause as it stood entirely altered the presumption which had hitherto held good. He was not quite sure, however, how fir the case was modified by the Amendment which the noble Lord has just accepted. If the noble Lord would tell him that the point raised by those he was representing was met, then he would not press the Amendment at this stage and would consider whether it ought to be brought forward on Report.
LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELLthought any reasonable objection to the clause had been met by the Amendment he had just accepted. Of course, if the noble Lord did not agree with him, it would be open to him to raise the matter again at a later stage.
LORD AVEBURYsaid he was quite content to accept that assurance, and would not press the Amendment. He was sure the noble Lord would not complain if he found it necessary to raise it again at a later stage.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWNpointed out that subsection (3) to this clause ought to come before subsection (2). The first thing was that before making an Order the Board of Trade were to appoint an impartial person to hold an inquiry, and if he reported that the land ought not to be acquired compulsorily, the Board issued a Provisional Order. That was the first procedure. But if the person appointed reported that it ought to be acquired compulsorily, then the procedure under subsection (2) followed, so that subsection (2) really came after subsection (3).
LORD FITZMAURICEsaid the point was a very fair one to raise, and the Government would consider it before the Report stage.
EARL CROMERasked the noble Lord in charge of the Bill whether he had considered the point raised as to providing that the "impartial person" appointed to hold an inquiry should not be in the service of the Government.
LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELLsaid he had an Amendment which was proposed to meet that point. It was to insert after the words "impartial person" the words "not otherwise in the employment of any Government Department." He thought that would meet the noble Earl's wishes.
THE EARL OF CROMERassented and thanked the noble Lord in charge of the Bill for the spirit in which he had met him.
LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELLintimated that he would move the Amendment on Report stage.
Clause, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 7 agreed to.
Clause 8:
Drafting Amendment agreed to.
Clause, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 9 to 12 agree 1 to.
LORD NUNBURNHOLME LORD NUNBURNHOLME moved an Amendment standing in the name of Lord Inverclyde. The object of the Amendment was, he said, to put on the new Authority the lighting and the beaconage in the River Thames. The shipping community of the country felt that the new Authority could carry out the lighting and the beaconage of the Thames with economy and much better than the present authority.
Amendment moved—
"To insert the following new clause: 'Provisions as to Lighting, Buoyage, and Beaconage.—(1) As from the appointed day there shall be vested in the Port Authority the management and control of the lighting, buoyage, and beaconage of the Port of London and of the estuary of the River Thames westward of imaginary straight lines drawn from the Neptune Tower on the North Foreland, in the County of Kent, to the eastern extremity of the Sunk Sand, and thence to the eastern extremity of the Gunfleet Sand, and thence to the Naze, in the County of Essex, and in respect of such area the Port Authority shall be the local lighthouse authority within the meaning of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1894. (2) The Port Authority shall within the said area have the following powers (namely): (a) To erect or place any lighthouses with all requisite works, roads, and appurtenances; (b) to add to, alter, or remove any lighthouse; (c) to erect or place any buoy or beacon, or alter or remove any buoy or beacon; (d) to vary the character of any lighthouse or the mode of exhibiting lights therein; (e) to maintain any lighthouse, buoy, and beacon; (f) To make such surveys and do all such things as are expedient or necessary for effectually lighting, buoying, or beaconing the Port of London and the estuary of the River Thames within the said area. (3) As from the appointed day the Trinity House shall cease to manage or control the lighting, buoyage, and beaconage of the Port of London and of the estuary of the River Thames within the said area, and the expense of such lighting, buoyage, and beaconage shall cease to be paid out of the General Lighthouse Fund, but nothing herein contained shall be construed to take away or limit the powers of the Trinity House as general lighthouse authority under Sections six hundred and fifty-two to six hundred and fifty-four, inclusive, of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1894. (4) As from the appointed day the property in all lighthouses, buoys, and beacons within the said area and in the appurtenances and equipment thereof, together with the freehold or leasehold lands whereon any of the same are situated, and all rights, easements, and choses in action relating thereto or enjoyed therewith which immediately before the appointed day belong to, or are vested in, or enjoyed by the Trinity House shall be, and the same are hereby transferred to and vested in the Port Authority to the same extent, and for the same estate and interest as the same were immediately before the appointed day vested in the Trinity House,
1800
and may be held, recovered, used, and enjoyed by the Port Authority accordingly. (5) In respect of any of the lighthouses, buoys, and beacons so transferred to the Port Authority, and in respect of any new lighthouses, buoys, and beacons to be hereafter erected or placed by the Port Authority, His Majesty may, by Order in Council, fix such dues to be paid to the Port Authority in respect of every ship which enters the said area, and which passes the lighthouse, buoy, or beacon, or derives benefit therefrom as His Majesty may think reasonable, and such dues shall be deemed to be local light dues within the meaning of, and shall be paid by the same persons, and may be recovered in the same manner as light dues under Part XI,. of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1894. (6) For the purposes of this Act the expressions 'lighthouse' and 'buoys and beacons' shall have the same meaning as in the Merchant Shipping Act, 1894.'"—(Lord Nunburnholme.)
LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELLsaid there was several reasons, apart from the merits of the proposed new clause, why their Lordships should not agree to the proposal. In the first place, it would transfer to the Port Authority the property and rights of Trinity House without giving the latter an opportunity of being heard, as this was not in the notices of the Bill. Another reason was that when a similar clause was moved in the other House of Parliament, the Speaker ruled it out of order and he did not think their Lordships would wish to pass a clause which must inevitably meet a similar fate when it went back to the other House. He did not think that in the circumstances their Lordships would think it necessary to discuss the clause.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 13:
LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELL LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELL moved an Amendment which he hoped would meet the wishes of Lord Ritchie as expressed in a proposal on a later portion of the Bill. The Amendment was to the third subsection and was intended to limit the contribution paid by the river interest towards the revenue of the Port Authority in Port dues to one three-thousandth part of the total value of the imports and exports passing beyond the seas during any one year. This might sound a rather complicated process, but it was on the same line as the provision already in the Bill which limited the contribution on

1801
account of Port dues to one one-thousandth part. The Amendment would provide that the contribution made by the river interests should not exceed one three-thousandth part. He hoped that the Amendment would, at all events, go a very long way towards removing, if it did not altogether remove, the apprehensions which noble Lords had so frequently expressed with regard to the fate of the river interests under the Bill.
Amendment moved—
"In page 19, line 15, after the word 'year,' to insert the words' or if the amount received from Port rates on goods discharged from or taken on board ships within the premises of the docks of the Port Authorityexceeds one three-thousandth part of the said aggregate value.'"—(Lord Hamilton of Dalzell.)
LORD RITCHIE OF DUNDEEsaid he was very much obliged for the concession. It did not, however, go very far to meet the wishes of those whom he had been representing, but it did, to a certain extent, meet those views. It was a small crumb of comfort for which he was very much obliged.
LORD AVEBURYasked what would happen supposing the one three-thousandth part was not enough to provide the interest on the Port Stock. Would the interest be reduced?
LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELLsaid the interest could, in no case, be reduced. It was a definite bargain. If there were not sufficient funds it would be necessary for the Board to go to Parliament again and to have the maximum scale revised.
LORD AVEBURYasked what, in that case, became of the concession? Although it was reduced in the first instance, if there was not enough money to pay the interest on the Port Stock, then the river would have to contribute as much as before.
VISCOUNT MILNERsaid that, as he understood it, there was no guarantee. The promoters of the Bill believed, and he thought they were right, that with the powers of taxation contained in the Bill the Port Authority would be able to meet the interest on the Port Stock. There was an absolute limit under this
1802
clause to what it could raise in dues on goods, and now there was a double limit because it could only raise something over £300,000 in all, and it could only raise about £100,000 or a little over from the river interests outside the docks. That was an absolute limit and was a perfect protection to these interests. They could not be taxed any more unless a fresh Act was passed. Until a new law was passed their liability appeared to him to be absolutely limited by the clause which the Government had brought in and which certainly ought to be a great reassurance to the persons whom the noble Lord represented.
LORD AVEBURYsaid the question was a complicated one, and it was very desirable that the matter should be made perfectly clear. The noble Lord in charge of the Bill said the interest upon Dock Stock could not, under any circumstances, be reduced, but Lord Milner had said that the contribution from the river could not, under any circumstances, be increased. He hoped the amount might be sufficient, but supposing it were not, what would happen? Either the interest on the Port stock must be reduced or somebody must find more money, and he did not quite understand how the matter stood.
LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELLsaid if there was not enough money, any owners of the £500,000 of Dock Stock could apply to the High Court for the appointment of a receiver and manager of the Port Authority's property.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWNsaid that under another clause the Port Authority had, at the beginning of every year, to submit an estimate of their receipts and expenditure, and if the Board of Trade found the receipts were not sufficient to meet the expenditure they were empowered to make higher rates.
LORD FITZMAURICEthought that clause covered the point. The point raised was one which contemplated, no doubt, a state of things which theoretically might take place, but the Government believed that the calculations

1803
they had made, as stated on the Second Reading, were abundantly clear, and that there was a sufficient margin. In connection with this matter, he would remind the Committee of what the noble Viscount, Lord Milner, had previously stated, namely, that in all this mass of calculations, they must lake into account the great undeveloped property possessed by the Port Authority. That property represented a value which the Government believed would go on increasing every year.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYwas confident that the noble Lord in charge of the Bill was quite right. If the Amendment were put in it would be impossible to raise the maximum exacted from the river interest above this one three-thousandth part of the aggregate amount. It was an absolute bar, and the river interests might be quite confident that short of another Act of Parliament, nothing could exact more money from them than that fraction represented.
LORD FITZMAURICEsaid that no doubt if there was a deficit money would have to be found somehow, but the interests alluded to were protected from being charged in any way above that amount.
Amendment agreed to.
Clause, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 14 to 18 agreed to.
Clause 19:
Drafting Amendment agreed to.
Clause, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 20:
Drafting Amendment agreed to.
Clause, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 21 and 22 agreed to.
Clause 23:
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN moved to insert a new subsection providing that
1804
an Order made by the Board of Trade under the preceding section should not take effect until a draft thereof had lain for thirty days on the Table of both Houses of Parliament, and if either House during those thirty days presented an Address to the Crown against the draft no further proceedings should be taken thereon, but without prejudice to the making of a new Order. The noble Earl said the clause concerned was a very important one. It gave power to the Board of Trade to increase dues. The Port Authority was in every case to submit to the Board of Trade an estimate of their receipts and expenditure, and if the Board of Trade were satisfied that the receipts were likely to be insufficient to meet the charges they might make an Order requiring the Port Authority to levy any additional or increase any easting dues which they were authorised to levy to such an extent and for such period as the Board might specify. Therefore, not only was it made legal for the Board of Trade to increase the dues but they might do so for such period as they might specify. That meant that although an estimate was for the year only, the Board of Trade might say that additional dues were to be paid for two, three, or four years, or whatever period they might specify. That, of course, was giving to the Board of. Trade a very large additional power in deed. It seemed to him that this was one of the cases in which the Order of the Board ought to be laid on the Table of both Houses of Parliament, and be subject to an Address. What he was pressing was in exact conformity with Clause 6. Clause 6 said that where any works were proposed, or where it was proposed to make any additional charge, any Order made under the section must be laid on the Table of both Houses of Parliament. Much more ought to be done in this instance, because this was a question of imposing additional dues, and, as they knew, the river traders had greatly complained that they were being hardly dealt with in the Bill and that they had not been heard. If in any particular year they were going to authorise the Board of Trade to raise additional dues, clearly the persons who were to be affected ought to have an appeal of

1805
some sort, and it seemed to him that the appeal given by laying the Order upon the Table of both Houses of Parliament was the least they could do in that direction.
Amendment moved—
"In page 28, line 5, after the word 'law,' to insert the following new subsection: '(3) An Order made by the Board of Trade under this section shall not take effect until a draft thereof has lain for thirty days during the session of Parliament on the Table of both Houses of Parliament, and if either House during those thirty days presents an Address to His Majesty against the draft, no further proceedings shall be taken thereon, but without prejudice to the making of a new Order.'"—(The Earl of Camper-down.)
LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELLsaid he quite understood the noble Earl's point, but he appeared to have forgotten a very important limitation which was imposed by subsection (2) of Clause 13 By that subsection the maximum rates which might be levied upon goods in the Port would have to be fixed by a Provisional Order and any increase in dues which the Board of Trade might sanction under the section to which the noble Lord had alluded must keep within the maximum which had already been fixed by Parliament. There was no power whatever in the clause to vary the maximum dues as fixed by Provisional Order. He thought that that should remove the apprehension of the noble Earl.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWNsaid he was afraid that that did not touch his point at all. He quite agreed that under Clause 23 as it stood there would be no power to the Board of Trade to exceed the maximum, but within the maximum the Board of Trade might charge more or less as it saw fit. It was to prevent an additional charge being imposed upon either the directors of the docks or the river traders that this ought to be laid on the Table of both Houses of Parliament. River traders had complained very much and had said that their interests had not been duly attended to, that they had not been heard, and that they had no right of appeal. What could be the objection to saying that this was to be laid upon the Table of both Houses of
1806
Parliament? If it were right in Clause 6 it was much more right in the present case. The mere question of a maximum did not touch the point at all.
LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELLsaid there was a grave question to which he had not alluded before but which would certainly arise under the proposed subsection. Parliament might possibly abandon the habit it had developed of late years and might not sit continuously, and there might be a period of six months during the year when Parliament would not be sitting, and the proposal of the noble Earl might act in an extremely inconvenient way in that case.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWNcould not admit that the argument of inconvenience applied. It was a much more important thing than inconvenience. The question was whether the Board of Trade was to have power to impose additional charges to those which were being levied now. That was the point, and it seemed to him that the clause, as it now stood, gave very large powers to the Board of Trade. It gave the Board the power of making additional charges, and there ought to be some opportunity of protesting against those charges, whether by the dock owners, the river traders, or any persons who were affected. He objected to making Boards independent of Parliament. They had had an instance in connection with the Old-Age Pensions Act. It was only because it was necessary that the Orders in respect of that Act should lie on the Table that they had had an opportunity of stopping what clearly was illegal. In this case a great injustice might be done.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYsaid that as he understood it the rates to be charged were secured by Provisional Order under Section 13. They were maximum rates, and the effect of fixing those maximum rates by a Provisional Order was that the Port Authority could charge anything up to the maximum and there was no necessity to go to Parliament again so long as they kept within the maximum. But the Post Authority might elect not to charge up to the maximum, and the result might be that persons to whom they owed money

1807
would not be paid. Then this clause gave power to the Board of Trade not to vary the decision of Parliament, but to compel the Port Authority to charge up to their full powers in order to satisfy their creditors. That did not seem to him to trench upon the prerogatives of Parliament, because it was all within the maximum which the Provisional Order had laid down. If that were so, he did not think that even the greatest purist need find any fault with the clause. Provided always it did not give to a Department power to vary the decision of Parliament, he did not think they need question it. Where they had proposals to vary the decision of Parliament he was the first to protest, but as he understood the clause he did not think that objection applied in this case.
LORD FITZMAURICEsaid that, putting aside the technical point of the relative position of that and the other House, the powers which the Board of Trade had were not nearly so extensive as they might imagine from the rather alarming and a little exaggerated language of the noble Earl. Those powers could only be used within the maximum laid down by the Act and the maximum was specially limited with a view to meeting a possible deficiency. There was no power given to the Board of Trade to act as a sort of commercial Cæsar and order arbitrarily a great increase of these rates which had been determined by Parliament to be kept within certain limits. The rates could only be raised within those limits, and for a specific purpose, namely, to meet a deficiency. If the words as to a deficiency were not sufficiently clear or accurate, the Government were quite willing to consider the point upon Report, but he was bound to say that the words appeared to him to be quite sufficient for the purpose.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWNsaid there could be nothing objectionable in the Order lying on the Table, but it would have the result that there would be an appeal for any persons who felt aggrieved.
LORD COURTNEY OF PENWITHsaid there was precisely similar power vested in
1808
the same Department in respect of another part of their duties, and it worked with perfect ease and without any complaint. In respect to light dues the Board of Trade had power within defined limits to increase or lower the light dues upon shipping, and it worked without any difficulty.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause agreed to.
Clauses 25 and 26 agreed to.
Clause 27:
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN moved to amend subsection (1) so as to provide that the Port authority should "forthwith" submit to Parliament reports as to attempts to settle differences between persons interested, and the Port authority instead of "from time to time," and should submit a special Report with regard thereto instead of reporting as they thought fit. The noble Earl said the Board of Trade in this clause was attempting to make an arrangement to settle differences. Under the clause as it stood it seemed that unless they thought fit to submit anything to Parliament nothing could make them do so. Would it not be better to say that they should forthwith submit to Parliament a special Report in regard thereto?
Amendment moved—
"In page 31, line 9, to leave out the words 'from time to time,' and to insert the words 'forthwith,' and to leave out from the word 'such' to the word 'fit' in line 10, and to insert the words 'a special Report with regard thereto.'"—(The Earl of Camperdown.)
LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELLsaid the effect of the Amendment would be that every trivial complaint which might possibly be made to the Board of Trade without any foundation whatever, would have to be made the subject of a special Report to Parliament. He thought that would cause an enormous amount of trouble not only to the officials of the Board of Trade, but also to their Lordships, and that the words as they stood gave a very sufficient protection.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWNdirected the noble Lord's attention to the last two lines of the clause. The Board of Trade, if unable to settle a difference, was to make such order as in their opinion the circumstances required. That gave the Board of Trade absolute and full authority over the whole tenancy.
LORD FITZMAURICEsaid that if the noble Earl would consult other Acts of Parliament bearing on this question he would find that if a conciliation clause was to be worth anything at all some power and authority must be vested in the Government Department unless they were going to relegate all these things to the expensive proceedings in a Court of Appeal. The whole object of these conciliation and arbitration clauses was to avoid litigation and to get a cheap, easy, and rapid tribunal for the benefit of the parties concerned. The only alternative was to relegate everything to a Court of Law where, no doubt, after great delay, and some expense, the parties might possibly get a legal decision of very great value. That was not the intention of this Bill. It they took the analogy of the Education Department it would be found that that Department had an enormous jurisdiction which was very carefully and beneficially exercised in matters of what might be called conciliation.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWNsaid that supposing he were one of the parties to a difference and wished to go to law on the matter, under this clause he would be debarred from appealing to a Court. There was power given to the Board of Trade to say "We will try and settle the matter for you, but if you will not agree we will settle it for you compulsorily, and you must put up with what we say."
LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGHasked whether any obligation was imposed upon the Board of Trade to report from time to time.
LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELLsaid the Board of Trade were certainly to
1810
report. The nature of the Report remained within their discretion.
Amendment, by leave, Withdrawn.
Clause agreed to.
Clauses 28 to 30, agreed to.
Clause 31:
Drafting Amendment agreed to.
Clause, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 32 to 37, agreed to.
Clause 38:
Drafting Amendment agreed to.
Clause, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 39 to 48 agreed to.
Clause 49:
Amendment moved—
"In page 39, lines 10 and 11, to leave out the words 'first day of January,' and to insert the words 'thirty-first day of March'; in line 11, after the word 'such,' to insert the word 'earlier or.'"—(Lord Hamilton of Dalzell.)
Clause, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 50:
Amendment moved—
"In page 40, line 28, after the word 'schedule' to insert the words 'Provided that the repeal of the words in Section seven of the Thames Conservancy Act, 1905, mentioned in that schedule which limit the period during which the increased duties of tonnage authorised by that Act may be demanded and received shall take effect as from the first day of January 1909, and notwithstanding that the powers of the Conservators are not transferred to the Port Authority until a later date.'"—(Lord Hamilton of Dalzell.)
Clause, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 51 to 56 agreed to.
Clause 57:
Drafting Amendments agreed to.
Clause, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 58 to 63 agreed to.
First Schedule:
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN moved an Amendment to provide that the first Port Authority nominated by the Board of Trade should go out of office on 1st April, 1911, instead of on that date in 1913. The noble Earl said their Lordships would remember that the first Port Authority was to be nominated by the Board of Trade. The appointed day was 31st March, and therefore, the first authority would enter upon office on 1st April, 1909, and the clause as it stood proposed that they were to continue in office until 1913, a period of four years. The normal term of office of a Port Authority was to be three years, and therefore, although the authority was to be entirely changed the first body which was to hold office during the transition period was actually to hold office for a year longer than their successors would do. He thought some very good reasons ought to be given for that. When they were making a change of local government or anything else the persons who were in office at the time of transition continued in office for a short period and then handed over the office to their successors; but these gentlemen were to continue in office for four years. What had they got to do? On 1st April, 1909, they entered upon office, and within six months they had to prepare and submit a schedule of rates. That must be done by 1st October. Then the Board of Trade had to insert those rates in a Provisional Order and obtain the consent of Parliament. How long should they be given for doing that? They received the schedule on 1st October, and surely by the 1st August of the next year they would have had plenty of time to pass the schedule and to get the Provisional Order. Within thirteen weeks of that time the schedule came into force. What reason could there be for the Authority continuing in office for nearly three years after that?
1812
He supposed he would be told that it was necessary to prepare a register, and that until persons had paid dues they could not be placed upon the register. But what was going to happen during the next two years? There would surely be people paying dues, and if so, why was it necessary that they should have to wait up to the year 1913? They would have plenty of time if they were given only until 1st April, 1911. He thought they would all be of opinion that in establishing a new authority it was desirable that that authority should take up its duties as quickly as possible.
Amendment moved—
"In page 56, line 24, to leave out the word 'thirteen,' and to insert the word 'eleven.'"—(The Earl of Camperdown.)
LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELLsaid that in the first place he did not admit that the authority which would be appointed under the provision for the appointment of members who were afterwards to be elected by the Board of Trade would differ very materially in its composition from the body that would be elected subsequently. These gentlemen were to be appointed by the Board of Trade after consultation with the various interests involved, and he thought that was a matter in which the Board of Trade might receive a little confidence that they would appoint men who would be really representative of those interests. Therefore he did not think that any serious harm was likely to arise from those gentlemen continuing in office for four years instead of three, but that of course was not the reason for the proposal in the schedule. The reason was that if they laid down in black and white in the Bill that the election had to take place in the year the noble Earl mentioned, 1911, they would certainly find that was impossible. They did not believe that the election could take place on 1st April, 1912. The Port Authority came into existence oil 31st March, 1909. They thought it would not be unreasonable to give them two or three months to settle down before they actually commenced framing their register of payers of dues. They thought it was likely that the appointed day for that purpose would probably be 1st June, and from that date

1813
the six months would count. That would bring them up to 1st January, 1910. Then the register was to be left with the Board of Trade who had to examine it and submit it to Parliament. That was not likely to be done before 1st April. Then that Provisional Order had to come before Parliament. They had only consumed a week or two of Parliamentary time up to now before the order came before Parliament. It then had to be considered, and it was highly probable that all matters connected with docks being very contentious it would not pass into law before 1st September, 1910. The Port rates would commence on 1st December of that year, probably, and the completion of the first year of those rates which was necessary before they could even begin to form a register of payers of dues would not be completed until 1st December, 1911. Then there would be the work of forming a register, and it seemed hardly reasonable to suppose that that could be done before 1st April, 1912. That register had to be carefully scrutinised by the Board of Trade, and it had to be seen that the different interests in the river, in the docks, in regard to shipping and in regard to merchants each received proper representation. Time must be taken over that, and provision was also made for the register being varied by Provisional Order. He did not think all that could possibly be done with any degree of certainty under another year, which brought them to 1st April, 1913.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWNsaid he did not mind altering his date to 1912, but he really thought their Lordships had never heard of a case in which a body took four years to prepare for its successor.
LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELLsaid the Government could not consent to the modified proposal.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
Drafting Amendment agreed to.
First schedule, as amended, agreed to.
Second schedule agreed to.
Third schedule:
LORD DESBOROUGH, on behalf of Lord Heneage, moved to amend the
1814
schedule by inserting a provision that one of the two conservators to be appointed by the Board of Trade after consultation with such persons and associations concerned in the use of the river as a place of recreation as the Board might think fit should be specially selected for his knowledge and experience in Thames Fishery Preservation. The noble Lord referred to the enormous number of bank anglers whose legitimate recreation should be looked after. It was a very healthy recreation and for the most part innocuous for the fish. It was important that somebody with knowledge of fish culture should be represented on the Board.
Amendment proposod—
"In page 63, line 38, after the word 'fit,' to insert the words 'and one of such two shall be specially selected for his knowledge and experience in Thames fishery preservation.'"—(Lord Desborough.)
LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELLpointed out that the provision of the Bill was that two appointments made by the Board of Trade were to be made after consultation with persons using the river as a means of recreation. This was a new provision as far as the Thames Conservancy was concerned, for although the rowing interest had been very efficiently represented on the Thames Conservancy of late years that has not been done officially by an Act of Parliament. What was proposed to do was to consult the great rowing clubs, the persons who held regattas, and the members of angling associations, and he hoped the noble Lord would be content with that assurance without asking them to be absolutely bound down to a certain appointment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Third and fourth schedules agreed to.
Fifth schedule:
THE EARL OF JERSEY*THE EARL OF JERSEY moved to amend the schedule by extending the area of control of the Thames Conservancy from the boundary line between the parishes of Teddington and Twickenham to a point 100 yards above the south-west corner of the entrance to the

1815
Brentford Docks. The noble Earl said the Amendment was of considerable importance to the town of Richmond. The object of the Bill was to create a Port Authority for London, and to look after the commercial undertakings along the bank of the river. There were no docks or quays of any kind higher up the river than Brentford. The town of Richmond was very much afraid that if the control of the river in front of Richmond were handed over to the Port Authority their particular interest in the river would not be looked after so well as by the Thames Conservancy. He could not imagine that docks or quays or railways were likely to be made between Richmond and Teddington Lock, but at the same time this Bill would give the Port Authority the power to construct such works. He admitted his Amendment came rather late in the day. The Corporation of Richmond ought to have moved earlier in the matter, but after all there was great justice in their claim that this portion of the river, not needed for commercial purposes but for purposes of amusement, recreation, and health, should be under the Thames Conservancy and not under the authority which was solely to deal with commercial matters. The Amendment would mean that the Thames Conservancy would come down to 100 yards the landward side of Brentford, below that and were the docks and quays which would be under the Port of London Authority.
Amendment moved—
"In page 65, line 6, to leave out the words 'the boundary line between the parishes of Teddington and Twickenham,' and to insert the words 'at a point situate one hundred yards or thereabouts above the south-west corner of the entrance to the Brentford docks.'"—(The Earl of Jersey.)
LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELLsaid this matter was never raised before the Joint Committee. He did not, however, press that so much against the inhabitants of Richmond, but it would be unfair to alter the scheme now, because the whole of the financial arrangements as between the Thames Conservancy and the Port Authority had been undertaken on the understanding that the river was to
1816
be divided at the point set out in the Bill.
THE EARL OF JERSEYasked whether the noble Lord could tell them whether the duties and obligations under the Richmond Bill of 1890 would be carried out by the Port of London authority, or whether any of the provisions of that Bill were repealed by the present Act?
LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELLassured the noble Lord that every general obligation of the Thames Conservancy Board was also taken over by the new Port Authority, and there would be no change of the law in that respect.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Schedule agreed to.
LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELL: I propose with your Lordships' permission to put down the Report stage of this Bill to-morrow.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Of course, we have no objection to that course if it suits the other arrangements of business. The noble Lord has been very kind in promising to consider certain points on which he is going to move Amendments to-morrow. What we on this side would like to know is shall we be able to see these Amendments in print, or will they be manuscript Amendments?
LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELLsaid he would endeavour to have them in print.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I am sure the noble Lord will do his best, and perhaps the authorities of the House will be a little more rapid in printing than is sometimes the case.
LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELL: If I am able to expedite it I will. I should be glad to learn whether it would meet the convenience of the House if I took the Third Reading to-morrow.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: We raise no objection.
Standing Committee negatived: The Report of Amendments to be received to-morrow, and Standing Order No. XXXIX. to be considered in order to its being dispensed with. Bill to be printed as amended. (No. 259.)

HOUSING OF THE WORKING] CLASSES (IRELAND) BILL.
Commons' Amendments to Lords' Amendments and Commons' reasons for disagreeing to certain of the Lords' Amendments considered (according to order.)
LORD DENMAN: I think it would perhaps be for the convenience of the House if I state that after consultation with noble Lords opposite we have settled all except one of the outstanding points that were at issue between us, and I think if it will meet with the approval of the noble Viscount opposite, Lord Midleton, whose Amendment is first dealt with, I will formally move the Amendments as they ought to be read into the Bill.
Lords' Amendment—
"In page 4, line 10, to leave out the words 'compulsory purchase,' and to insert the words 'acquisition.'"
LORD DENMAN: I beg to move that this House do insist on its Amendment.
Lords' Amendment—
"In page 4, line 14, after the word 'Board to insert the words '(a) If land is not proposed' to be taken compulsorily; or (b) if, although land is proposed to be taken compulsorily, the Local Government Board, before making an absolute order, are satisfied that notice of the draft or Provisional Order, as the case may be, has been served as required as respects a Provisional Order by subsection (5) of Section 8 of the Act of 1890, and also that the draft or Provisional Order, as the case may be, has been published in the Dublin Gazette, and that a petition against it has not been presented to the Local Government Board by any owner of land proposed to be taken compulsorily within two months after the date of the publication and the service of notice, or having been so presented, has been withdrawn.'"
The Commons disagreed to these Amendments for the following reason: Because
1818
it is undesirable to restrict the operation of an Order of the Local Government Board under the clause.
LORD DENMAN: I move that this House do not insist on its Amendment, with which the Commons have disagreed, but inserts in lieu thereof—
"In page 4, lines 5 and 6, to leave out the words 'an order of the Local Government Board' and to insert the words 'where, a petition is presented by a local authority to the Local Government Board for an order.'"
"In page 4, to leave out lines 12, 13, and 14, and to insert the words 'The provisions of Section 6 of the Labourers (Ireland) Act, 1906, shall, with the necessary modifications, apply in the case of the petitioners to such proceedings and orders therein in like manner as they apply in the case of an improvement scheme under the Labourers (Ireland) Acts, 1883 to 1906. The Lord-Lieutenant in Council may make such adoption of those provisions as appear to him to be necessary or expedient for carrying this section into effect.'"
"In page 4, line 15, to leave out subsection (2)."
Lords' Amendment—
"In page 4, line 31, after the word 'published,' to insert the following new subsections: '(4) If an order of the Local Government Board, which, if no petition were presented would take effect without confirmation, is presented against, the Local Government Board may, if they think fit, on the application of the local authority, make any modifications in the scheme to which the order relates for the purpose of meeting the objections of the petitioner and withdraw the order sanctioning the original scheme, substituting for it an order sanctioning the modified scheme. (5) The same procedure shall be followed as to the publication and giving notices and the same provisions shall apply as to the presentation of petitions and the effect of the order, in the case of the order sanctioning the modified scheme, as in the case of the order sanctioning the original scheme, but no petition shall be received or have any effect except one which was presented against the original order or one which is concerned solely with the modifications made in the scheme as sanctioned by the new order. (6) The provisions of this section shall extend to orders of the Local Government Board made after the passing of this Act upon petitions of local authorities presented before the passing of this Act.'"
The Commons proposed to amend this Amendment by leaving out subsections (4) and (5).
LORD DENMAN: I beg to move that this House doth agree with the

1819
Commons in their said Amendment to the Lords' Amendment, that subsection (6) be struck out and in lieu thereof, the following words be inserted after the word "published" in line 31, "The provisions of this section shall extend to all petitions which are pending at the passing of this Act."
Lords' Amendment—
"In page 7, line 11, after the word 'Woods,' to insert the words '(4) Provided that nothing in this Act shall authorise the appropriation or utilisation for the purposes of the Act of any common or commonable land, or any recreation ground, village green, or other open space dedicated to the use of the public, or any disused burial ground, or any land held on trusts which prohibit building thereon, or held in trust for some charitable purpose, or for some particular public purpose specified or defined, as distinguished from the general purposes of a municipality or township or the general benefit or advantage of the inhabitants thereof.'"
The Commons proposed to amend this Amendment by leaving out the word "Act" in line 1 and inserting the word "section," and by leaving out from the word "ground" in line 5 to the end of the subsection.
LORD DENMAN: I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment to the Lords' Amendment. The subsection, as amended, will read—
"(4) Provided that nothing in this section shall authorise the appropriation or utilisation for the purposes of the Act of any common or commonable land, or any recreation ground, village green, or other open space dedicated to the use of the public, or any disused burial ground."
LORD ATKINSON: I now beg to move the insertion of certain words in lieu of the words struck out by the Commons at the end of subsection (4) of Clause 13 which was inserted by the Lords. The original Amendment absolutely prohibited the local authority from parting with lands held in trust, but this will enable them to do so provided they get the sanction of the Court of Chancery.
Amendment moved—
"To insert in lieu of the words struck out by the Commons, the following words, 'Or, without the sanction of the Chancery Division of the High Court of Justice in Ireland, obtained in manner hereinafter provided, or any land held in trust for a specific charitable purpose to which it is reasonably capable of being effectively applied, or held in trust for a particular and specific public purpose to which it is reasonably capable of being similarly applied. The said Chancery Division on a petition being by the local authority presented to it in manner prescribed by rules, which the said Division is hereby authorised to make in that behalf, may make an order sanctioning the proposed appropriation or utilisation of the said land so held for charitable or public purposes as aforesaid, or of a part thereof, on being satisfied that the objects of the trusts on which the said land is hold will not be thereby substantially defeated or prejudiced.'"—(Lord Atkinson.)
LORD DENMAN: I am afraid I am obliged to oppose this Amendment, and I really hope the noble and learned Lord will not feel compelled to press it. I think it will be in the recollection of the House that the Government have given way on almost every point that has been at issue on this particular Bill, and, therefore, I hope the House will not consider it necessary to pass into law the Amendment which the noble and learned Lord proposes. In this matter again I cannot help feeling that I am placed at a great disadvantage, because it is almost purely a legal question and one with which only lawyers can deal. But I am bound to say that to the ordinary lay mind the Amendment which the noble and learned Lord desires to propose at this stage does appear to be of a rather formidable character. I leave out any mention of its length, but will go on to read one or two things it says. For instance it says—
"Obtained in manner hereinafter provided, of any land held in trust for a specific charitable purpose to which it is reasonably capable of being effectively applied, or held in trust for a particular and specific public purpose to which it is reasonably capable of being similarly applied."
That may be perfectly clear to the legal mind, but to the lay mind I submit it is absolutely perplexing. Then you will notice at the end of the Amendment—
"The objects of the trusts on which the said land is held will not be thereby substantially defeated or prejudiced."

1821
It must be fair to ask what is "substantially prejudiced."
LORD ATKINSON: It is a common Word. It means in this case substantially injured or damaged.
LORD ASHBOURNE: It makes the provision more elastic.
LORD DENMAN: I pass from these extracts and come to the effect of the Amendment, which will be this. The local authority, in order to allow any land to be taken out of trust for the purpose of erecting workmen's dwellings, may be obliged to face all the difficulties which will be imposed by the Amendment of the noble and learned Lord of coming to the Court of Chancery in order to obtain the sanction of the Court. Is it reasonable to suppose that any local authority would face such an undertaking as that? Really the effect of this Amendment will be to render the entire clause nugatory, and I am instructed to say—I do not say it is my own opinion—that it would be far better to omit the clause altogether than to insert the Amendment, because it would really be entirely superfluous if the Amendment were put in. I therefore hope that the noble and learned Lord may not think it necessary to press his Amendment at this stage.
LORD ATKINSON: I regret to say I am entirely unable to agree with the appeal the noble Lord has made to me. He says that this Amendment would practically destroy the clause. I should not be sorry if it did; but that is not my object. There was a clause exactly similar to this introduced by the Government into the Town Planning Bill for England, and it was so bad that it was withdrawn by the President of the Local Government Board. The clause as it originally stood in the Bill was in my judgment iniquitious. To say that any local body which holds land upon trust, often bound by statute, may, with the mere consent of the Local Government Board, divert it altogether from the purpose for which it was entrusted to them is to enable the local authority to become fraudulent trustees. That is a short way of describing the position, but it is a true one. My Amend-
1822
ment does not prohibit them from alienating land held in trust where they can get the consent of the Court of Chancery to do so, provided they do not interfere substantially with the purpose for which the land was originally entrusted to them. There are many instances I could give where land has been entrusted to local authorities for the purpose of public gardens, recreation grounds, open spaces, and so forth. It would be shameful if they were allowed to cover all that land with workmen's houses, though I admit it might be reasonable for them to take away an acre or two acres, if they were absolutely necessary, to carry out some particular scheme. I am willing to give them the greatest possible latitude consistent with protecting the interests of the public, and it is in order that they may not substantially interfere with the trust that has been imposed on them that I have framed this Amendment.
LORD DENMAN: I note something which fell from the noble and learned Lord, and I will see if I can take him at his word. He said he would not be sorry if this clause were omitted from the Bill altogether. I will ask him then in that case whether he will consent to the omission of the clause altogether.
LORD ASHBOURNE: It could not be done.
LORD DENMAN: I have taken advice on the point.
LORD ASHBOURNE: How can it be done? Both Houses have agreed to the clause down to a particular point, and we are only at liberty now to deal with this Amendment. We cannot clear ourselves of the part of the clause agreed upon by both Houses.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Surely it is quite competent to do so. What has happened is that the House of Lords proposed to amend the clause in the Bill. The House of Commons subsequently proposed to leave out part of the Amendment, and you have agreed to that. You can surely go a step further by leaving out the whole of the clause.
LORD ATKINSON: I should like to point out that my noble frend Lord Meath moved an Amendment to the clause as it originally stood in the Bill. That Amendment was accepted, and it has been agreed to by the House of Commons. I should be quite willing, so far as my own Amendment is concerned, to see the clause dealt with in the manner suggested by the noble Lord opposite.
LORD DENMAN: My only object on behalf of the Government is to prevent what we consider a purely superfluous clause being put into an Act of Parliament. I have taken advice on the subject. I have consulted the clerks at the Table and other competent authorities, and I am told that it is perfectly possible to omit the clause altogether at this stage if the House consents to do so. Therefore, I think that would really be the simplest course for us to adopt.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: The House is placed in a position of some difficulty, and I should welcome any means of extricating ourselves from it. I understand the suggestion now made by His Majesty's Government is that the difficulty should be solved by getting rid of the whole of Clause 13. Some doubts are raised as to the regularity of the procedure, but if His Majesty's Government are satisfied on the point and will recommend that this course be taken on their responsibility, we shall raise no objection on this side.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD DENMAN: Before moving to omit the clause, are we not obliged first of all to agree with the Commons' Amendment?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I do not think we are bound to do so at all. It is sufficient for us to move that we now omit the clause.
Moved, "To leave out Clause 13."
Lords' Amendment—
"In page 7, line 15, after '1890,' to insert the [words] 'of any town, the population
1824
of which, according to the last census exceeds two thousand.'"
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following reason: Because it is undesirable to limit the powers of dealing with unhealthy dwelling-houses in towns whose population exceeds two thousand.
Moved, "That this House doth not insist on its Amendment with which the Commons have disagreed."—(Lord Denman.)
A Committee appointed to prepare a reason for the Lords insisting on one of their Amendments: The Committee to meet forthwith.

SUMMARY JURISDICTION (SCOTLAND) BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order).
LORD HERSCHELL: The whole of the Amendments I have to move are of a drafting or trivial nature with one exception, namely, the Amendment to Schedule A which has been agreed upon with the parties concerned.
Drafting Amendments agreed to.
Amendment moved—
"In Schedule A, page 35, after line 29, to insert the words '40 & 41 Vict., c. 193, the Greenock Police Act, 1877, Sections 136, 243, 244, and 257.'"—(Lord Herschell.)
Standing Committee negatived. The Report of Amendments to be received to-morrow, and Bill to be printed, as amended.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT (SCOTLAND) BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order).
Clauses 1 to 10 agreed to.
Clause 11:
Drafting Amendments agreed to.
LORD HERSCHELLsaid the proposed new subsections were put in at the instance of the Post Office.
Amendment moved—
"In page 10, after line 30, to insert two new subsections: '(7) Nothing in this section contained shall authorise any ferry rates or tolls to be demanded or received by a county council for the conveyance of any person when on duty in the service of the Crown or any Government Department, or of any goods for the service, or being the property of the Crown, or any Government Department, or of any postal packets within the meaning of the Post Office (Protection) Act, 1884. (8) Section 28 of the Harbours, Docks, and Piers Clauses Act, 1847, shall be incorporated in this section.'"—(Lord Herschell.)
Clause, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 12 to 14 agreed to.
Clause 15:
Drafting Amendment agreed to.
Clause, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 16 to 25 agreed to.
Clause 26:
LORD HERSCHELL: I have now to move a series of Amendments to Clause 26. They simplify the powers of the county councils and add to certain powers which they possess in regard to machinery in quarries. They were suggested by Lord Camperdown.
Amendments moved—
"In page 17, line 8, after the word 'quarry,' to insert the words 'or for carrying away materials therefrom and power to store materials therein.'"
"In page 17, line 17, after the word 'used,' to insert the words 'or materials are stored as aforesaid.'"
"In page 17, line 20, to leave out the word 'them,' and to insert the words 'such engines appliances, or apparatus, or to store such materials.'"
"In page 17, line 21, after the word 'used,' to insert the words 'or materials stored.'"
"In page 17, line 23, to leave out the words 'their use,' and to insert the words 'the use of such engines, appliances, or apparatus, or the storing of such materials.'"
1826
"In page 17, line 25, after the word 'use,' to insert the words 'or materials are stored.'"
"In page 17, line 27, to leave out the words 'their further use,' and to insert the words 'the further use of such engines, appliances, or apparatus, or the storing of such materials.'"—(Lord Herschell.)
Clause, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 27 agreed to.
Clause 28:
LORD HERSCHELLin moving an Amendment with regard to the fees payable under the Petroleum Acts, said that owing to the licensing powers under the Petroleum Acts being transferred from the justices of the peace to the county council clerks of the peace were deprived of certain fees to which they had been entitled, and this Amendment provided that they should be compensated for them.
Amendment moved—
"In page 18, line 16, at end of line to insert the words 'and all fees payable in respect of the powers and duties so transferred shall be pababe to the county council. Section 120 of the principal Act which relates to compensation to existing officers shall apply in the case of clerks of the peace affected by this subsection.'"—(Lord Herschell.)
Clause, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 29:
LORD HERSCHELL LORD HERSCHELL moved two Amendments inserted at the instance of the Office of Works, who, he said, were desirous to bring in land as well as structures in the case of Crown lands, as was the case in England.
Amendments moved—
"In page 18, line 19, after the word 'work,' to insert the words 'and all land.'"
"In page 18, line 22, after the word 'any,' to insert the word 'land.'"—(Lord Herschell.)
Clause, as amended, agreed to.
Standing Committee negatived. The Report of Amendments to be received To-morrow, and Bill to be printed as amended.

PREVENTION OF CRIME.
Amendments reported (according to order).
EARL BEAUCHAMP: There are two small Amendments which I wish to move consequent upon what took place in this House last night, and I think your Lordships will see that neither is of great importance. The first Amendment, in Clause 6, page 5, line 3, is meant to deal with the case of the Borstal institutions. The point dealt with was raised by the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Alverstone, and this Amendment has been settled upon by agreement between him and the Home Office. I therefore move.
Amendment moved—
"In page 5, line 3, after the word 'recall,' to insert the words 'and that a person so recalled shall not in any case be detained after the expiration of the said period of six months supervision.'"—(Earl Beauchamp.)
EARL BEAUCHAMP: The only other Amendment is consequent upon an Amendment moved by Lord Ashbourne last night and which was agreed to by His Majesty's Government, assimilating the procedure in Scotland to the procedure in England. Under the circumstances the subsection dealing with Scotland becomes unnecessary.
Amendment moved—
"In page 11, line 27, to leave out subsection (5)."—(Earl Beauchamp.)
Then Standing Order No. XXXIX., considered (according to Order), and dispensed with. Bill read 3a with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.

BUXTON CHARITY BILL.
  LONG ASHTON CHARITY BILL.
    ABBOTS BROMLEY CHARITY BILL.
    Read 3, and passed.

CROFTERS COMMON GRAZINGS REGULATION BILL.
[SECOND READING.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD HERSCHELL: This is a very short Bill, and its provisions are extremely simple. I will, therefore, not detain your Lordships long, but will just recite what is the object of the Bill. In effect the Bill proposes to amend Section 4 of the Crofters Common Grazings Regulation Act, 1891, in the first place by enabling the Crofters Commissioners to appoint a committee, and make regulations without any request from a landlord or from crofters interested, such a request being necessary under the Act of 1891. Secondly, it amends the Act of 1891 by rendering a person committing a breach of any regulations made under the Act of 1891 liable to a penalty on conviction before a sheriff under the Summary Jurisdiction Acts without prejudice to the existing powers under Section 5 of the Act of 1891 to deal with a breach of regulations by petit ion to the sheriff, the power last-mentioned having been found inadequate. It is also proposed to give power to a person appointed by the Crofters Commission to summon and attend any meeting of a Commons Grazing Committee for the purpose of advising the committee or otherwise assisting them in administering the Act of 1891. It is anticipated that under this power the same person might, with advantage, summon and advise several committees in this connection. These are really all the provisions contained in this Bill, which I ask your Lordships to read a second time.
Moved that the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Herschell.)
LORD LOVAT: I should like to lodge a protest against this Bill being sprung upon us at this late period of the session. I applied at four o'clock for a copy of the Bill and I was surprised to find that it was not then printed. I do not think that business can be carried on with advantage if Bills have to be brought up from another place, and be printed, and given a Second Reading in this House two hours afterwards. This has been

1829
described by the noble Lord as a short Bill, and I should like to add that it is a rather useless Bill. It amends an Act which did not come to very much in the first place, because it has been shown that the Crofters Common Grazings Regulation Act, 1891, was not used either by landlords or tenants. This Bill is intended to enable further use to be made of that Act, but it will probably not be used to a much greater extent when the Crofters Commission come to administer it. The whole question of common grazings certainly needs investigation by His Majesty's Government, and it is a great pity that a Bill dealing with the subject should be rushed through the House at the last moment as this Bill is to be. Crofters common grazings have an importance entirely outside their intrinsic value in the agricultural system of Scotland from the fact that they are the home of contagious diseases among sheep in the North. In Inverness, of twenty-three cases of sheep scab in a short period of years, twenty were found to exist on the common grazings of crofters. On the island of Lewis, and I believe on the West Coast of Ross-shire the same state of things prevails. This is, as the House will see, a matter of great importance to agriculturists, because if these areas should be scheduled it means the total prohibition of the export of sheep from them while the Order remains in force, thus involving a very considerable loss to all the sheep farmers in the district. There is, I understand, no great hurry for this Bill to pass, and the matter should be once more considered with the Board of Agriculture in order to find out when committees are appointed to draw up regulations whether they might not at the same time do something to deal with sheep scab. I can imagine nothing more useful than to have committees who could deal, not only with the number of sheep on the ground, but also with this question of sheep scab, which is a veritable curse throughout the western part of the Highlands. It is very obvious that in the case of these crofters common grazings, where each man has from a dozen to twenty sheep, the same care is not exercised as in the case of larger holdings which are fenced, and in which each man is responsible for his own
1830
flock. I think it would be well if His Majesty's Government would consider whether there is any great urgency for carrying this Bill through, and whether it might not be left over until next session and introduced in another form which would enable the Board of Agriculture to co-operate with the Secretary for Scotland. The Highland counties at the present moment are very heavily taxed to meet the cost of extra veterinary experts who are introduced to deal with outbreaks of contagious disease, which, with a little careful legislation, might be entirely prevented.
LORD HERSCHELL: I feel that an apology is certainly owing to the noble Lord for the fact that the Bill had not been printed, and he was unable to have access to a copy of it until a late hour. Nobody who has listened to the noble Lord's speech could possibly fail to be impressed, not only with his intimate knowledge of the particular question he dealt with, but also with the great value of his observations on the subject of contagious diseases among sheep. All his remarks on this subject I shall certainly convey to the Secretary for Scotland, and I feel sure that if legislation dealing with this matter should be introduced his opinions will receive every attention. As a matter of fact, however, this particular point could not really be introduced in the present Bill for two reasons. In the first place, the question is one that rests with the Board of Agriculture, and, of course, as I need hardly tell the noble Lord, it does not come under the Crofting Acts. Secondly, the Crofter Commissioners cannot make regulations, because they could only do this under the Crofting Acts, and this Bill merely seeks to repeal one section of the Crofters Common Grazings Regulation Act. I hope, in view of the fact that it would really be impossible to insert in the Bill a provision with regard to this particular point, the noble Lord may perhaps, be content to allow the Bill to receive a Second Reading.
LORD LOVAT: I think it would be very much better to take up the whole of this question in one Bill, and I do not think that the present measure will be of very much value in the Highlands.
THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES (Earl CARRINGTON): May I join in the appeal of my noble friend that the noble Lord opposite will allow this little Bill to go through? I agree with every word that he has said about the horrible curse of sheep scab. No two farmers, however, think that the same time is convenient for them to undertake the dipping of their sheep. The question of sheep scab is a very large one, and I can promise him that if he will allow this Bill to go through, and will give us the valuable advice and counsel which he is able to do on the bigger question, we shall be perfectly ready to consider that question. I do not think, however, that he will be assisting in any way to deal with the question of sheep scab if he stops the passage of this Bill through your Lordships' House.
LORD LOVAT: I can assure the noble Earl that I am not going to raise any objection to the Second Reading, but I hope at the same time that the Government will bear in mind what I have said in reference to the question of sheep scab.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House for To-morrow.

CHILDREN BILL.
Returned from the Commons with several of the Amendments agreed to; several others agreed to with Amendments, and with consequential Amendments to the Bill; and several others disagreed to; with reasons for such disagreement. The said Amendments and reasons to be printed. (No. 262.)
LOCAL AUTHORITIES (ADMISSION OF THE PRESS) BILL
Commons Amendments to Lords Amendments to be considered To-morrow.

CRIMINAL LAW AMENDMENT BILL.
Commons Amendments to be considered To-morrow.
House adjourned at twenty minutes before Nine o'clock, till To-morrow, half-past Three o'clock.