Sitting of 13 February 1908

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

  PRIVATE BILLS (STANDING ORDER 62 COMPLIED WITH).
  Mr. SPEAKER Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bill, referred on the First Reading thereof, Standing Order 62 has been complied with, viz.:—Macclesfield and District Tramways (Abandonment) Bill.
  Ordered, That the Bill be read a second time.
  Margate Corporation Bill (by Order).—Read a second time, and committed.

  PEIVATE LEGISLATION PROCEDURE (SCOTLAND) ACT, 1899.
  The CHAIRMAN of WAYS and MEANS reported, That, after conferring with the Chairman of Committees of the House of Lords, for the purpose of determining in which House of Parliament the respective Bills, under The Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899, should be first considered, they had determined that the following Bills should originate in the House of Lords, viz.:—Leith Burgh; North British and Mercantile Insurance Company (Ocean Marine Insurance Transfer, etc.).
  Report to lie upon the Table.

PETITIONS.

  LICENSED PREMISES (EXCLUSION OF CHILDREN).
  Petitions for legislation: From Bin-field Heath; Bollington; Clerkenwell;
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  East London; Egremont; Finchley; Heaton Moor; Newbridge; Richmond; Sidcup; South Bristol; South Shields; Sunderland; Whitstable; Winchcombe; and Wolverhampton; to lie upon the Table.

  SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS ON SUNDAY BILL.
  Petitions in favour: From Birkenhead (two); Birtley; Caroline Lawson Lodge; Cottenham; Crediton; Devon; Godalming; Guildford; Haslemere; High Bentham; London; Newnham-on-Severn; Nottingham (two); Rochford (two); Shepherd's, Bush; Sidcup; Southwick-on-Wear; South Wigston; Topsham; Wandsworth; and West Stanley; to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  ARMY ESTIMATES, 1908–9.
  Estimate presented, of the sum required for the year ending 31st March, 1909, for the Effective and Non-Effective Services of the Army [by Command]; Referred to the Committee of Supply, and to be printed. [No. 49.]
  ARMY (ORDNANCE FACTORIES) ESTIMATES, 1908–9.
  Estimate presented, of the sum required for the year ending 31st March, 1909, to defray the Expense of the Ordnance Factories [by Command]; Referred to the Committee of Supply, and to be printed. [No. 50.]
  SHOP HOURS ACT, 1904.
  Copy presented, of Order made by the Town Council of the Borough of Taunton, and confirmed by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, fixing the Hours of Closing for certain classes of Shops [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CIRCULATED WITH THE VOTES.

  Ex-Private Thackeray's Pension.
  MR. JOYCE: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether his

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  attention has been called to the case of Arthur Thackeray, late driver Royal Field Artillery, discharged through injury received on duty on 1s. per day pension; and whether, if this pension cannot be increased, it might be compounded for a sum of money which would enable this man to set up in some little business which might give him a chance to make a living.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) This man was discharged after four years thirty-seven days service, on account of fracture of the left radius, due to an accident on duty. He is, as stated, in receipt of a pension of 1s. a day. The Commissioners of Chelsea Hospital have taken steps to have him medically examined with the view of ascertaining whether the effects of the injury are sufficiently severe to justify an increase of his pension. Under present regulations, as pensions of 1s. and under may not be commuted, he is not eligible to commute his pension.

  Longford Telephone Service.
  MR. J. P. FARRELL (Longford, N.): To ask the Postmaster-General if he will state when it is proposed to give a telephone service to Longford connected with Dublin and other towns; whether he is aware that this serivce was promised by Lord Stanley four years ago; and what is the cause of the delay, seeing that it has been given to Cavan, Mullingar, and Sligo.
  (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) I can find no trace of a promise by my predecessor to extend the trunk telephone system to Longford. The system has not as yet been extended to Cavan, Mullingar, or Sligo; but terms have been quoted for a guaranteed extension to Mullingar, and if these are accepted I shall be happy to quote terms for a further extension to Longford.

  Corn Exchange Post Office.
  MR. BARKER: To ask the Postmaster-General whether repeated complaints have been made by the staff at the Corn Exchange
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  post office regarding the absence of heating apparatus; whether promises of reform have been made on a number of occasions; and whether he will give instructions that the alterations shall be made immediately.
  (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) I have already had this matter under my personal consideration, but I am not aware that any promises have been made with regard to it. The office in question forms a small enclosure inside the Corn Exchange, and is occupied by one clerk only for four hours a day on three days of the week. I recently asked the Corn Exchange Company to arrange, if practicable, for the supply of a small oil-stove; and the company are giving the matter attention.

  Coastguard Service.
  MAJOR ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he can make any formal statement in regard to His Majesty's Government's intentions as regards the Coastguard service, so that in the event of the present system being abolished the men now employed may be able to make arrangements for their return to civil life.
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether, in the event of the present Coastguard service being abolished, it is the intention of His Majesty's Government to establish a new service; if so, whether the men now employed in the Coastguard service will be allowed to join; and whether the time served in the Coastguard service will be allowed to count for pension.
  (Answered by Mr. Edmund Robertson.) I cannot undertake to make any statement on the subject of the Coastguard until Vote A and Vote 1 are before the House.

  French-Canadian Treaty.
  MR. HILLS: To ask the President of the Board of Trade when the French-Canadian Treaty comes into

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  operation; whether Switzerland and other countries having most-favoured-nation treaties with Canada receive the benefit of the tariff reductions granted to France; whether the reduced tariff applies only to goods either shipped direct from French to Canadian ports, or which if they touch at a British port do so without breaking bulk; and will French goods re-exported from British ports also obtain the benefit of the reductions.
  (Answered by Secretary Sir Edward Grey.) The Convention in question will come into force as soon as ratifications are exchanged. Countries entitled to most-favoured-nation treatment will receive the benefit of the tariff reductions granted to France on conditions similar to those imposed upon that country. I am not in a position to give further information at present.

  Grading of Irish School Teachers.
  MR. O'DOHERTY: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he can state why, on the introduction of the grading system, national teachers with no un-favourable record were not placed in grades corresponding to their classification at that time; whether in schools where teachers after years of hard study succeeded in obtaining first division of first class, and where proficiency is recorded as good on every occasion, even very good on some occasions, the principal teacher has been placed and kept in the lower grade while assistants in the same school have been awarded increments on every occasion where they became due; whether, in such cases, the former classification does in any way aid in obtaining the corresponding grade; and whether the Commissioners can consider these matters with a view to the removal of what is an injustice to this hard-working body of teachers.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Commissioners of National Education have furnished me with the following statement in reply to this Question. When the system of payments of teachers by consolidated salaries was introduced in 1900, each teacher was, as a rule, awarded an initial income equal at least to his
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  average income from all State sources for the preceding three years. Cases in which this method of fixing initial income seemed to operate inequitably were specially considered by the Board. There were three grades of income recognised, namely, first, second, and third; and in the first grade there were two divisions. The teachers took rank in the grades in accordance with their initial incomes fixed in the method already indicated. In a large proportion of cases the grades of the teachers were found to correspond to their classification under the old rules, but this was not so in all cases, for many teachers of the first class (old regulations) had very small incomes, seeing that they were in charge of small schools, while a large number of teachers of the third and second classes had very large incomes. It is obvious, therefore, that to have placed all teachers in 1900 in grades corresponding to their classes would have been productive of grave injustice in numerous instances. Moreover, there was no real connection between classification and gradation, class salaries and grade salaries being entirely different. Promotion of teachers depends on a variety of circumstances, such as training, position in school, ability and general attainments, good service, seniority, average attendance at the school, etc., and if teachers of the first division of first class (old regulations) have not obtained promotion, some essential condition has not been complied with. But the Commissioners are always prepared to investigate any case of alleged hardship that may be brought under their notice, either in connection with refusal of promotion or refusal of increment. The promotion of principals and the award of increments to assistants are independent operations and may have no relation one to the other. No general Answer can be given to this part of the Question. High classification under the old rules is an element for consideration in connection with promotion. The Commissioners will consider any case of alleged grievance which may be submitted to them.

  St. George's Channel, Bermuda.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILLTo ask the Under-Secretary of State for

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  the Colonies whether the Secretary of State will confer with the Admiralty concerning the desirability of widening the channel of the waterway of St. George's Channel, Bermuda, so as to admit of the passage of vessels of deeper draught than those now able to use it with safety.
  (Answered by Mr. Churchill.) The question of improving the waterway of St. George's Channel in the manner suggested has already engaged the attention of the Secretary of State, but there are grave financial difficulties in the way of the scheme; and, even if these difficulties were removed, it is very uncertain whether alterations in the channel could be made sufficient to permit the entry of large Transatlantic vessels. The Secretary of State does not feel able at present to take up the matter again.

  Criminal Law Amendment Act Convictions.
  MR. WEDGWOOD: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he can say how many persons in the United Kingdom were, in 1906 and 1907, convicted under Section 5, Subsection 1, of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1885, in whose cases the girls were thirteen and fourteen years of age, respectively.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Gladstone.) The number of convictions in 1906, under the subsection mentioned by the hon. Member, was seventy-four. I cannot say how many of them related to girls of thirteen and fourteen years of age, because the calendars in describing the offence usually follow the words of the Act and speak of the girls as being over thirteen and under sixteen years of age. The figures for 1907 are not yet available.

  Factory Inspection.
  MR. W. T. WILSON: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many factory inspectors and assistant factory inspectors were appointed in
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  1907; and whether those appointed passed any examination prior to their appointment.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Gladstone.) Five men inspectors were appointed last year. One was taken from the list of successful candidates in the Home and Indian Civil Service examination; one was appointed after a competitive examination (limited to three inspector's assistants) in factory law and sanitary science; the remaining three were appointed after the ordinary competitive examination for factory inspectors. One lady inspector was appointed after the usual examination, and one of her competitors was also appointed temporarily, to supply the place of an inspector absent on leave. No inspector's assistants were appointed during the year.

  Ecclesiastical Commissioners' Estates— Public Houses Suppressed.
  MR. WEDGWOOD: To ask the hon. Member for the Crewe Division, as Church Estates Commissioner, if he will say how many public houses have been suppressed by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners upon their estates during the twelve months ending 31st October, 1907, and in how many cases the leases of public houses have been renewed by them during the same period; and if he will also state what have been the aggregate amounts received by the Commissioners in respect of public houses on their estates during each of the twenty official years last past.
  (Answered by Mr. Stuart-Wortley.) During the twelve months preceding 31st October, 1907, the Commissioners refused to renew the lease of one public house (expiring 1911), and, on the application of the lessee, allowed the discontinuance as licensed premises of another house, while a third was closed owing to the financial failure of the lessee. The leases of two public houses expired by effluxion of time and were not renewed. The lease of one existing public house was renewed, but this was agreed to as long ago as 1896, the applicants allowing the licence of a neighbouring public house to lapse in that year. Apart from the

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  question of the labour which would be involved, the Commissioners are not prepared to give the information asked for in the last paragraph of the hon. Member's Question.

  Greenwich Age Pensioners.
  MR. BRAMSDON: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty if he will say how many men are now eligible to become Greenwich age pensioners, and how many actually receive these pensions, what is the annual amount set apart from Greenwich Hospital funds for the purpose of paying these age pensions; how much additional money would be required annually if all eligible men were actually provided for; and what is the average age of the men now receiving these age pensions who have not belonged to the Seamen Pensioner Reserve.
  (Answered by Mr. Edmund Robertson.) Four thousand and eighty men are eligible for, but not in receipt of, the age pension. There are 8,820 actual recipients. The amount set apart from Greenwich Hospital funds for the payment of these pensions is £100,900. An additional sum of £31,000 would be required to provide for the men actually eligible at the present date. The average age of the recipients of these pensions, excluding those who have served in the Seamen Pensioner Reserve, is sixty-four.

  Portsmouth Dockyard Fire.
  MR. W. T. WILSON: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether the workmen who lost their tools in the fire that happened at the Royal Dockyard, Portsmouth, on 12th November last, have had them replaced; and, if not, is it the intention of the Admiralty to make good the loss sustained by the workmen.
  (Answered by Mr. Edmund Robertson.) The payment of compensation on account of the losses in question has been authorised, and the amounts awarded will be paid to the claimants in due course.

  Diphtheria in Wood Pigeons.
  MAJOR ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: To ask the hon. Member for South Somerset, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, whether his attention has been called to the prevalence of a disease called diphtheria in wood pigeons in several comities in England; whether he will take steps to form a Commission to investigate the matter and to ascertain whether it is a disease contagious to game, poultry, or other birds; and whether it is of a nature to be dangerous to man.
  (Answered by Sir Edward Strachey.) The Board are aware of the prevalence of the disease to which the hon. and gallant Member refers. They understand that scientific investigations are being made with respect to it, the results of which will be carefully watched. They do not think that the matter is one which could with advantage be made the subject of inquiry by a Commission. I shall be glad to bring the concludeing inquiry to the notice of the Local Government Board, by whom questions concerning the public health fall to be considered.

  Imports of Foreign Fodder.
  MR. COURTHOPE: To ask the hon. Member for South Somerset, as representing the Board of Agriculture, whether, having regard to the letter addressed on 15th November, 1907, to the Board of Agriculture from the Central Chamber of Agriculture, in which it was stated that the importation of hay and straw from Holland and Belgium was likely to convey foot-and-mouth disease to this country, and having further regard to the fact that this disease has broken out in close proximity to Leith, one of the ports through which the importation of Continental hay and straw takes place, His Majesty's Government will prohibit the future importation of hay and straw from all countries in which foot-and-mouth disease exists.
  (Answered by Sir Edward Strachey.) The matter to which the hon. Member refers is receiving very careful considera-

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  tion, but our information on the subject is not complete, and no decision can as yet be arrived at respecting it.

  County Wicklow Rural Deliveries.
  MR. JAMES O'CONNOR: To ask the Postmaster-General whether he will order a daily delivery of letters in the townlands of Askakeagh, Carnog, and other townlands in the rural district of Shillelagh, county Wicklow, instead of the present tri-weekly delivery, which causes considerable inconvenience to the inhabitants.

  (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) I regret to find that, as the cost of the existing postal service three times a week to the townlands in question is as much as the correspondence justifies, I am unable to comply with the hon. Member's wishes.

  Motor Car Trade Statistics.
  MR. COURTHOPE: To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that the Board of Trade Returns of the Import and Export of Motor Cars are misleading owing to the fact that complete chassis are not classified separately, but are included among parts; and whether he will give instructions that complete chassis shall be classified separately in future.
  (Answered by Mr. Kearley.) The imports and exports of motor chassis have been separately distinguished since the beginning of the current year, and particulars for January have already been published in the issue for that month of the "Monthly Accounts relating to Trade and Navigation."

  British Hop Industry.
  MR. COURTHOPE: To ask the President of the Board of Trade, whether he is aware that a syndicate of hop
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  growers has been formed on the Pacific coast of America with the object of destroying the British hop industry, and that this fact is seriously accelerating the grubbing of hops in this country, and is thereby causing the loss of employment to many thousands of persons; and whether, pending the Report of the Select Committee on the Hop Industry, he will take steps temporarily to safeguard British hop growers against the action of this syndicate.
  (Answered by Mr. Kearley.) The Board of Trade have received a Report from His Majesty's consul at Portland, Oregon, to the effect that an attempt is being made to form an association whose operations would include the exportation of hops from the Pacific Coast to the United Kingdom, but I have not yet heard that such an association has been actually formed. I understand that, generally speaking, such hops are not so suitable for making beer as the British, as the flavouring quality is inferior, and a larger quantity is required of these American hops to bring the flavouring power up to that of the British.

  Licensing Statistics.
  MR. CHARLES ROBERTS: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury what is the number, respectively, of alehouse, on-beerhouse, and on-beer-and-wine licences, whole-year, issued for each of the years ending 31st March, 1903, 1904, 1905, 1906, 1907, and 1908, stating separately for each year how many of each kind were new licences.
  (Answered by Mr. Runciman.) I have received the figures, which are given below, for the number of ale house, on-beerhouse, and on-beer-and-wine licences for the year, ended 31st March, 1903, 1904, 1905, 1906, and 1907. The figures include part-year licences, but the number of these is small. I regret that I have been unable to obtain any figures showing the number of new licences issued.

  Year ended 31st March.

  1903.

  1904.

  1905.

  1906.

  1907.

  England:

  Alehouses (publicans)

  67,055

  66,755

  66,239

  65,990

  65,863

  On-beerhouse (retailers of beer and cider on)

  29,184

  28,880

  28,522

  28,096

  27,514

  On-beer-and-wine (retailers of beer and wine on)

  4,919

  4,891

  4,845

  4,756

  4,714

  101,158

  100,526

  99,606

  98,842

  98,091

  Scotland:

  Alehouses (publicans)

  7,127

  7,084

  7,025

  6,991

  6,951

  On-beerhouse (retailers of beer and cider on)

  160

  174

  165

  168

  185

  On-beer-and-wine (retailers of beer and wine on)

  37

  37

  35

  34

  32

  7,324

  7,295

  7,225

  7,193

  7,168

  Ireland:

  Alehouses (publicans)

  17,749

  17,663

  17,571

  17,506

  17,496

  On-beerhouse (retailers of beer and cider on)

  181

  226

  210

  223

  224

  On-beer-and-wine (retailers of beer and wine on)

  16

  14

  14

  14

  14

  17,946

  17,903

  17,795

  17,743

  17,734

  United Kingdom:

  Alehouses (publicans)

  91,931

  91,502

  90,835

  90,487

  90,310

  On-beerhouse (retailers of beer and cider on)

  29,525

  29,280

  28,897

  28,487

  27,923

  On-beer-and-wine (retailers of beer and wine on)

  4,972

  4,942

  4,894

  4,804

  4,760

  126,428

  125,724

  124,626

  123,778

  122,993

  Judicial Administration in India— Mozufferpore Murder Appeal.
  SIR HENRY COTTON: To ask the Secretary of State for India whether he is aware that on 8th January an appeal was heard before the High Court of Calcutta from the order of the district judge of Mozufferpore who, differing from the opinion of both of the assessors in a murder case, had passed a sentence of death; that the counsel who appeared for the condemned man was stopped by the Court before he had finished his argument; that the Crown Prosecutor then said that he could not support the conviction as the sessions judge had implicitly believed the defence story, and that therefore the prosecution was bound to fail; that judgment was then reserved; that on 14th January the court dismissed the appeal and confirmed the sentence of death; and whether he proposes to take any action in the matter.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Morley.) I have seen a report to the effect stated in the newspapers. I will make inquiry as to its accuracy. I must remind my hon. friend that the Secretary of State has no power to revise the judgments of the High Court.

  Ballinamona Evicted Tenant.
  MR. WILLIAM ABRAHAM: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he will state whether the Estates Commissioners have yet succeeded in bringing about the restoration of Thomas Kent to the holding at Ballinamona, on the Kingston estate, Cork County, seeing that the farm in question is in the landlord's possession and the purchase of the estate nearly completed.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Estates Commissioners have not so far effected the restoration of Thomas Kent. The matter is at present in the hands of an inspector.

  Kells Labourers Cottages.
  MR. PATRICK WHITE: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether, at the recent inquiry into the scheme promoted
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  by the Kells Rural District Council for the erection of labourers cottages, the application of William Dooley, Fordstown, for a cottage and plot was rejected; and, if so, for what reason.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) This application was rejected by the inspector on the ground that the applicant did not appear to be an agricultural labourer within the meaning of the Labourers Acts.

  M'Donnell Estate, Galway.
  MR. HAZLETON: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland when the M'Donnell estate at Cappadarock, Lavally, county Galway, sold over three years ago to the Estates Commissioners, will be divided up amongst the tenants; and whether it is proposed to give any of the grass lands to Mrs. Burke, who already holds 70 acres on the estate.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Estates Commissioners have not yet purchased the property in question. They have had it inspected with a view to purchase, and the inspector's report is at present under their consideration. The manner in which the lands, if acquired, will be resold has not yet been considered

  Arrest of Councillor Kennedy.
  MR. HAZLETON: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the local head constable, accompanied by other policemen, disturbed the household of Mr. C. J. Kennedy, County Councillor, Dunmore, county Galway, on a certain night last November, about 12 o'clock, for the purpose of inquiring after the whereabouts of Mr. Kennedy; and, if so, what was the purpose of their action.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) Mr. Kennedy is a licensed publican. On 1st November, 1907, at 11 p.m., a police patrol, consisting of the head constable and a constable, visited and inspected the public house in pursuance of their powers under the Licensing Acts. The visit was not paid with the object of ascertaining Mr. Kennedy's whereabouts.

  Chaffpool Evicted Tenant.
  MR. O'DOWD: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Estates Com missioners received an application for reinstatement from Bartholomew Kearns, son of a tenant evicted on the estate of Captain Edward Armstrong, Chaffpool, county Sligo; and, if so, when was the application received, has it been considered, and what decision has been arrived at; and, in view of the fact that Kearns must emigrate in case he is not reinstated at an early date, will he ask the Estates Commissioners to make an order in his case as soon as possible.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Estates Commissioners received the application in question on 7th July last, but have not yet been able to have inquiries made in the matter.

  Irish Congested Districts Board.
  MR. STAVELEY-HILL: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state the amount spent in the various unions in the acquisition and improvement of land by the Congested Districts Board.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The expenditure of the Congested Districts Board is not recorded by unions. I may, however, refer the hon. Member to the last Annual Report of the Board (Cd. 3767, of 1907). In Appendices 31 and 32 he will find detailed abstracts of the Board's expenditure on estate improvement works and the purchase of estates.

  Attanagh Evicted Tenant.
  MR. DELANY: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Estates Commissioners have received a claim for reinstatement from Mr. James Revington, Grennan, Attanagh, Queen's county, estate of Lord Orkney, who claims as representative of his mother, who was evicted in June, 1882; whether he is aware that Mr. Revington's claim is supported by the Very Rev. Canon Barry, D.D., P.P., and the other clergymen of the parish; and
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  can he say what course the Commissioners propose to adopt in this case.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Estates Commissioners have inquired into the application received from James Revington, who seeks reinstatement as the representative of an evicted tenant, and have decided, after full consideration of the circumstances, that they can take no action in the matter.

QUESTIONS IN THE HOUSE.

  Artisan Ratings in the Dockyards.
  MR. MALLET: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether the present system of using the artisan ratings under the direction of the warrant officer carpenters to make good defects in the hulls and fittings of His Majesty's ships has proved satisfactory, and maintained the efficiency of the ships; whether this system has enabled the Vote for Maintenance to be in any way reduced; and whether the Admiralty will consider the advisability of improving the position and the conditions of service of the warrant officer carpenters, by whose efforts these results have been obtained.
  THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. EDMUND ROBERTSON,): Satisfactory work in making good minor defects and in maintaining general efficiency continues to be performed by the artisan ratings as hitherto, and the Vote for repairs is consequently less than it would otherwise be. In supervising these repairs, the carpenter warrant officers are only carrying out the duties for which they were appointed, and it is not considered that they are entitled to special treatment on this account.
  MR. JENKINS: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the warrant officers referred to in the Question have received no advance for twenty-five years?
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: I am not aware of that.

  Wages Petition from the Western District.
  MR. O'GRADY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether a petition from the operative masons and bricklayers employed in the western district, under the Director of Works, with regard to rates of pay and the abolition of the bonus system, has been received; and whether any and, if so, what reply has been given to the petition.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: A petition has been received at the Admiralty from a committee, and inquiry is being made into this committee's position.
  MR. JENKINS: Will the right hon. Gentleman cause inquiry to be made as to why the (Works Department have not conceded the advance to the labourers?
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSONasked for notice of the Question.

  Army Horses.
  *SIE CHARLES DILKE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he will state the reason which led the Army Council to omit the ages of cavalry and horse and field artillery horses from the General Annual Report on the British Army, published in March last; and whether, inasmuch as the number of horses of military age continues to be known to the Army Council, the policy can be reconsidered in publishing tables in the coming spring, and the number of horses fit for service given.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. HALDANB,): These tables were omitted from the General Annual Report after careful consideration, because they were not held to be of sufficient public or official interest to justify their retention. Owing to the recent reductions in the unit Returns, it would have been necessary to institute a special Return in order to obtain this information from India, as the Return in which it was formerly included has been abolished. At a time when every effort is being made to reduce
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  the labour involved in the preparation of Returns, I deprecate any reintroduction of such work. My right hon. friend will also doubtless recollect that a Committee of this House only recently urged strongly the necessity of reducing the size of Parliamentary publications, and the Return affords a case in point.
  *SIR CHARLES DILKE: The British part is quite separate from the Indian part, and the reduction of the contents by the change was a single page, and the Report itself was increased by three pages.
  MR. HALDANE: If the right hon. Gentleman wishes any particular information, and will ask me privately, I shall be glad to gratify him.

  Woolwich Arsenal.
  MAJOR ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether the reductions in His Majesty's arsenal at Woolwich have reached the normal point aimed at, or whether further reductions are now in contemplation.
  MR. HALDANE: The numbers in the arsenal have not yet reached the normal minimum proposed, but the gradual reduction to that minimum will be effected by wastage, and not by further discharges.
  MR. J. WARD: Will the right hon. Gentleman consult the Admiralty in view of the fact that some 2,000 men at Devonport Dockyard are working overtime? Cannot he find work for the Woolwich men there?
  MR. HALDANE: If the hon. Member will put down a Question I will look into it.

  Indian Marriage Laws.
  *MR. REES: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether he is aware that under the joint operation of the Indian Christian Converts Dissolution of Marriage Act and the Indian Penal Code, converts to Christianity suffer hardship, and particularly Roman Catholic Christians, who are at present by the Civil law deprived

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  of the benefit of the Pauline dispensation to which they are entitled by the Canon Law of their Church; whether he is aware that by this privilege of the Roman Catholic Church, and by immemorial usage in that behalf, the dissolution was permitted of a marriage subsisting between a convert and a spouse, who refused to live with him or her, because of his or her conversion, by a simple process outside the courts, lasting thirty days and costing nothing, whereas under the existing law the procedure is so dilatory and expensive as to make recourse to it impossible to the average Christian convert; and whether he will cause inquiries to be made into a position which results in such hardships to those concerned, in view of the substitution of some short and simple procedure in place of that now provided by law.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Mr. MORLEY,): The opportunity has been given to the authorities of the Roman Catholic Church in India of suggesting simplifications of the procedure laid down in the Act mentioned. I shall always be ready to consider such suggestions, but I am not prepared in any way to exempt the class of case referred to from the jurisdiction of the Civil Courts. I have no reason to suppose that the provisions of the Act are regarded as a hardship by the Indian Christian community generally, and I do not think it necessary to order a special inquiry.
  *MR. REESIs the right hon. Gentleman aware that it was represented that it was a grievance, and when I asked leave to introduce a Bill to remedy it, the answer of the Council was not that there was not a grievance, but that that was not the time to remedy it?
  MR. J. WARD: Would it not be much better for the right hon. Gentleman to assume there was a grievance?

  The Agitation at Mymensingh.
  SIR H. COTTON (Nottingham, E.): I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether his attention has been drawn to a notification of the magistrate of Mymensingh, dated 3rd January,
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  which directs the local village authorities to report to the police any case of interference with the sale or use of any class of goods, any political demonstration, and the resort to any place within or passage through any village of any person for the purpose of political agitation, or of interference with the sale or use of any goods; whether this notification has been issued with the authority of Government; and whether he will indicate his disapproval of official action of this nature, which is directed against the popular movement in favour of using country products in preference to foreign imports.
  MR. MORLEY: I have seen a newspaper report of the nature indicated in the Question, but I have no knowledge of the matter from any other source. I will make inquiry on the subject. Meanwhile, it seems reasonable that the district officer should be acquainted with all the events (including those described in the Question) that take place in his district, and especially in view of the disturbances that have occurred in Mymensingh district.

  The Afridi Punitive Expedition.
  MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India if he will state the object of the proposed military expedition into Afridiland; how many men are to be employed; and what the estimated cost is likely to be.
  MR. MORLEY: The object of the punitive measures against the Zakka Khel is to put an end to the series of raids which armed bands of the tribe have been executing for some months in territory beyond tribal limits under the civil administration of the Government of India. I gave a full statement of these raids on Monday in reply to a Question from the hon. Member for Mid-Armagh. The force to be employed consists of two brigades, roughly speaking 6,000 men, with a third brigade in reserve. The cost must depend on the length of the operations. I have received estimates, but they are necessarily rough estimates, because, owing to the secrecy involved, estimates have not yet

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  been received from Comptrollers of Accounts.
  MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: With reference to the notice which I gave to call attention to this subject, I wish to say that action will not be taken by me in consequence of two blocking notices having been put down, one by a warlike Liberal and the other by a pugnacious Tory.
  *MR. REES: As a personal explanation the all-sufficient excuse for my action is found in the hon. Member's action two days ago when he thought fit soundly to abuse—
  *MR. SPEAKER: This is an irregular conversation.
  DR. RUTHERFORD: Will the right hon. Gentleman put the cost of this expedition on the British public instead of on the people of India?
  MR. MORLEY: If the House of Commons desires it, I will consider that matter.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: What is the proportion of Imperial troops to the native regiments in this expedition? Is it not a fact that while the expedition amounts roughly to 6,000 men on our side, the force of the tribesmen amounts all told to 4,000 men only?
  MR. MORLEY: I do not know how that is; but I hope that my hon. friend does not mean to say that we are only to employ exactly the same number of men as the tribesmen.
  *MR. BYLES: Can the right hon. Gentleman now say whether news correspondents will accompany the expedition?
  MR. MORLEY: I am in correspondence with the Government of India on the subject, and I have not yet decided as to my own views.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: If we are rightly informed, this expedition
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  has started. Surely the right hon. Gentleman could have found out from Lord Kitchener whether or not war correspondents were to be allowed to accompany the force.
  *MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member must put his interruption in the form of an interrogation.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I hope then that the right hon. Gentleman will take my interruption as an interrogation and answer it.
  MR. MORLEY: I cannot myself quite put it in the form of an interrogation.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Then I will try. Has this expedition started or has it not? Can the right hon. Gentleman not obtain precise information showing whether or not war correspondents have accompanied the expedition? If they do not accompany it we know its object.
  MR. LUPTON: I wish to ask whether is is not the fact that the late Lord Lawrence said that expeditions of this kind were unnecessary?
  MR. DELANY: Is this expedition supplied with explosive bullets?
  MR. MORLEY: I hope not.
  MR. BELLOC: The House
  *MR. REES: As a matter of personal explanation, may I say that the action of the hon. Member for Clare explains my own? Only two days ago he accused the Indian Government of wantonly making war on innocent tribesmen at the expense of its own starving subjects. Such an accusation could only proceed from abysmal ignorance or mischievous—
  *MR. SPEAKER: Order, order. Under the guise of a personal explanation, the hon. Member is not entitled to make an attack on another Member.
  MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: After what the hon. Gentleman has said, I think you will consider, Sir, that I am entitled to a word. I made no attack whatever on the Indian Government. I never mentioned it at all; and the statement of the hon. Gentleman is, therefore, quite unfounded. I still maintain that he is a warlike Liberal.
  *MR. REES: I have no objection to the hon. Member's representation, or misrepresentation, of myself. I believed that I quoted the hon. Member's words; but if in anything I have said there was a personal attack on the hon. Member I regret it. My anxiety was to defend the Government of India.
  MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: After what the hon. Gentleman has said, perhaps it is only right for me to say that, if I have said anything—I very readily withdraw the epithet "warlike"; and, for the rest, I hope the hon. Gentleman is a Liberal.
  MR. LYNCH: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India, whether a military expedition against the Afridis is in preparation by the Government of India; whether he will state to the House the reasons for this expedition; and whether, since the expenditure on this expedition may prevent the reduction of expenditure on the North-West frontier of India, he will appoint a Commission to inquire into the necessity.
  MR. MORLEY: I would refer the hon. Member to my Answer on Monday last to the hon. Member for Mid Armagh for the reasons of the punitive measures being taken against the Zakka Khel. There seems no reason on financial or any other grounds for appointing a Commission to inquire into the necessity for the punitive measures. It would be an abdication of the plain duty of His Majesty's Government.

  Anglo-Russian Convention and Indian Military Expenditure.
  MR. LYNCH: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India, what reduction in the military expenditure on the North-West frontier of
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  India will be made as a result of the signature of the Anglo-Russian Convention; and when he expects such reduction to take place.
  MR. MORLEY: I am not at present in a position to make a statement on the subject. The question is under our consideration.

  Swaziland—Native Reserves.
  SIR HENRY COTTON: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, having regard to the fact that under the Proclamation No. 28 of 1907 the whole of the Government concessions, which comprise about one-third of the Swazi territory, will be available for native occupation, in addition to the area of one-third of the land granted to the concessionaires for the exclusive use and occupation of natives, His Majesty's Government will take the necessary steps to secure to the natives the inalienable possession of the land which is available for native occupation.
  THE UNDER - SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. CHURCHILL,): Under he Proclamation the Special Commissioner has power to set apart areas of land for the sole and exclusive use and occupation of the natives. He has instructions to select ample land of good quality for the accommodation of the Swazis and for the reasonable expansion of the tribe. It does not, there ore, appear that any further measures are at present required.

  Swazi Administration.
  SIR HENRY COTTON: I beg to ask he Under-Secretary of State for the Monies, whether His Majesty's Government will take into consideration the advisablity of establishing the Swazi chief and council as an advisory council for native administration and legislation in Swaziland on similar lines to the advisory committee which has been organised in Basutoland.
  MR. CHURCHILL: This question was raised by the Swazi chiefs when they were recently in England, and the Secretary of State is in communication with the High Commissioner on the subject.

  New Hebrides.
  MAJOR ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, whether the Report of the French and English Commissioners to the New Hebrides, containing instructions for regulations, lately received by the Colonial Office, will be laid upon the Table at an early date.
  MR. CHURCHILL: The Report is not, in my opinion, of sufficient interest to justify the expense of an official publication; but I will arrange to have a typewritten copy placed in the Library for the use of Members who may care to study it.

  Tristan d'Acunha.
  MAJOR ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, what is the date of the latest Report received from Tristan d'Acunha; whether the trade foreshadowed in the correspondence published in September, 1907, has sprung up; and whether he can furnish any information as to the welfare of the inhabitants.
  MR. CHURCHILL: I have no further information upon this solitary island than is contained in the last Blue-book on the subject.

  Dinizulu-Alleged Ill-treatment of Natives.
  SIR HENRY COTTON: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, whether he has any official information showing that, since the voluntary surrender of Dinizulu to the civil authorities on 9th December last, the Government of Natal has closed Zululand to the outside world; that the lash has been freely used there; that unresisting natives have been shot dead; that hundreds of natives who were suspected of being likely witnesses for Dinizulu have been arrested and thrown into prison, and all information regarding their whereabouts kept absolutely secret; and whether His Majesty's Government will cause inquiry to be made into the matter.
  MR. CHURCHILL: I can say no more about these matters than that we are asking for information on many
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  points, and we hope that the Governor of Natal will be able to supply us with it on his return from Zululand. In the meanwhile I would advise the House to suspend their opinion. Very full accounts of all native affairs in Natal will be found in the Blue-book recently published, and they will be supplemented as soon as possible by a further publication.
  *MR. REES: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether, in regard to such charges as these brought against the governors of British Colonies and Possessions, it would not be simpler to assume that they are true?
  MR. CHURCHILL: I have not found anything to complain of in any of the questions.
  MR. JOHN ELLIS: When does the right hon. Gentleman expect to be in possession of the information mentioned in the earlier part of his Answer?
  MR. CHURCHILLsaid he did not quite know when the new information alluded to would be ready. The Government had already published a very full and comprehensive Blue-book on affairs in Natal. The information accumulated from time to time, and as soon as they got another batch of information it would be laid before the House of Commons,

  Chinese Labour in the Rand.
  MR. STAVELEY-HILL: I beg to ask the Under Secretary for the Colonies, whether he will state the number of Chinese labourers employed in and on the Witwatersrand mines, on 1st January, 1906, and 1st January, 1908, on skilled labour and on unskilled labour; the number of white men employed, on the same dates, on skilled labour and on unskilled labour; and the number of natives employed, on the same dates, on skilled labour and on unskilled labour, respectively.
  MR. CHURCHILL: The official Returns show the numbers employed on the last, and not on the first day of the month. The total numbers employed on the Rand gold-mines on 31st December, 1905, were: Whites, 17,248; natives,

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  84,254; Chinese, 47,267. On 30th November, 1907, the latest date for which official statistics are available, the numbers were: Whites, 16,918; natives, 116,832; Chinese, 40,055. It will be seen that an increase of 32,578 natives is to be set against a decrease of 7,212 Chinese. It is true that there has been a small reduction of 330 in the number of whites employed; but to appreciate the true significance of these figures it must be remembered that in consequence of the strike, the number of whites fell to 15,118 on 31st May, 1907, since when there has been a continuous increase, amounting to 1,800 in six months. All the Chinese employed are said to be engaged upon unskilled labour. In the cases of white men and natives the numbers employed on skilled and unskilled labour respectively are not distinguished.
  In reply to a further Question the right hon. Gentleman said the 31st May figures represented the low-water mark of white employment, but since then the increase had been steady.

  British Asiatic Subjects.
  SIR J. HANDLES: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, if he can make arrangements for the consideration, by the subsidiary conference contemplated by the resolution carried on 9th May at the Imperial Conference, of the desirability of uniformity, as far as practicable, in the treatment of natural-born subjects of Asiatic descent, as well as the conditions of naturalisation in one part of His Majesty's dominions being made effective in other parts.
  MR. CHURCHILL: The resolution of 9th May to which the hon. Member refers dealt solely with the question of naturalisation, and could not be held to include within its scope the distinct subject of the treatment of natural-born subjects of Asiatic descent.
  SIR J. RANDLES: Would it not come at any rate within the scope of the right hon. Gentleman's consideration whether this particular question should not be dealt with either by that subsidiary conference or by another? The reason
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  I mentioned the subsidiary conference is that there should be no question of naturalised Asiatic subjects being placed in a better position than natural-born Asiatic British subjects.
  MR. CHURCHILL: It is a serious point and it ought to be considered. The machinery of the new Secretariat no doubt lends itself to the consideration of such questions, but whether we can charge it with the specific duty of inquiring into this point I have no authority to pronounce. I will, however, see that the hon. Gentleman's suggestion is not overlooked.

  Indentured Labourers in Madagascar.
  MR. CLAUDE HAY: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, when Papers will be laid dealing with the recruiting of indentured labourers from the island of Madagascar.
  MR. CHURCHILL: I would refer the hon. Member to my reply to a Question by the hon. Member for North-West Lanark on 3rd February. No reply has as yet been received to the inquiry referred to in that Answer and I am not, therefore, in a position to lay Papers.

  East African Civil Service.
  SIR GILBERT PARKER: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether it is held as necessary by the Colonial Office that candidates for positions in the Civil Service in East Africa must have a university education; and whether retrenched civil servants from the Transvaal applying for a position in East Africa or Nigeria, have received no encouragement because they did not possess a university training.
  MR. CHURCHILL: It is not essential that candidates for the East African Civil Service should have had a university education, but a university degree is one of the qualifications which is taken into account in determining the respective merits of candidates. It is not the case that retrenched civil servants from the Transvaal have been discouraged on the ground suggested.

  Martial Law in Natal.
  MR. HERBERT: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, prior to the proclamation of martial law in Natal, or up to the present time, there has been any armed resistance to the law; whether the Petition of Right is part of the law of Natal; whether any sanction has been given by the Legislature of Natal, either before or since the proclamation of martial law, for the suspension of constitutional rights by the Executive; and for how long His Majesty's Government intends to be a party to the suspension of the constitution by the Executive Government without legislative sanction by continuing His Majesty's commission to the Governor.
  MR. CHURCHILL: No, sir, no armed resistance has, I understand, taken place, though it was apprehended. I understand that under the Roman Dutch Common Law, which is the common law of Natal, there is no Petition of Right, but in 1894 the Legislature passed an Act to provide for enforcement of claims against the Crown which substantially secures to the subject the same privileges. The Legislature of Natal has not been in session since martial law was proclaimed in Zululand. With regard to the attitude of His Majesty's Government I cannot at present add anything to the statements already made.
  MR. HERBERT: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether His Majesty's Government will press the Government of Natal to summon the Legislature without delay?
  MR. CHURCHILL: A matter which affects the assembly of the Natal Parliament must be a matter for the Natal Government to decide. The Government will no doubt be held to account by their supporters and opponents in their own Parliament.
  MR. HERBERT: Is not His Majesty's Government satisfied that the Constitution has been suspended, and is His Majesty's Government not responsible for that by maintaining the
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  Governor who gave his consent to that proceeding?
  MR. CHURCHILL: I do not think we can attempt to advise the Natal Government as to the method upon which they should deal with their own Parliament, to which they are responsible and by which they are controlled. I am not aware that the Constitution has been suspended.
  MR. HERBERT: Does the right hon. Gentleman lay it down that for the Executive Government in time of peace to announce that they will not proceed according to the law of the land is not a suspension of the Constitution?
  MR. CHURCHILL: I must explain that an Act of indemnity will have to be passed to cover the action taken under martial law. That Act has first to be passed in the Natal Parliament, and that is the moment when the people of Natal will be able to express any opinion they have formed on the conduct of the Executive. That Act will also have to receive the sanction of the Crown.
  MR. LUPTON: Before it is sanctioned by the Crown will the matter be brought before Parliament?
  MR. HAROLD COX: What does the right hon. Gentleman mean by "the people of Natal "?
  MR. CHURCHILL: I mean, of course, a more limited representation than would be conveyed by the words "people of Great Britain." I mean the people of Natal who elect the Parliament.

  The Pekin—Kalgan Railway.
  *MR. REES: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he can give the House any information regarding the progress of the railway from Pekin to Kalgan.
  THE SECRETARY or STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir EDWARD GREY,): As stated in my reply to the hon. Member on 3rd June last, trains are running as far as Nank'on, a distance of over thirty-four miles, out of a total of 125 miles to Kalgan.

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  Last September the following additional particulars were furnished by the engineer-in-chief. Beyond Nank'on, three miles of rails had been laid and two tunnels completed, besides which a third tunnel (1,200 feet long) and two-thirds of the remaining one (3,450 feet) had been driven through. On the north side of the Nankow Pass work had been begun and about two-thirds of the earthwork to Huailai (about half-way between Pekin and Kalgan) had been finished. The line was to be opened to traffic as far as Huailai as soon as the rails reached that place. It was estimated that the whole line would be opened in a semi-finished state in 1909, and would be completed in 1910.

  Shanghai Opium Dens.
  SIR H. COTTON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the retention of 1,600 opium dens within the British settlement of Shanghai is entirely dependent on the annual meeting of ratepayers of the settlement, which will be held in March next; whether the ultimate control over the municipal council and responsibility for the settlement rests with His Majesty's Government, under whose authority alone the settlement has any existence in China; and, if so, whether, having regard to the decision of His Majesty's Government to support and encourage the anti-opium policy of the Chinese Government, even though it may cost us some sacrifice, His Majesty's Government will now take steps, before the meeting of ratepayers in March, to ensure that the municipal council at Shanghai shall follow the example of the Chinese authorities in the native city of Shanghai and close all opium dens in the British settlement without delay.
  SIR EDWARD GREY: The retention of the opium dens in the settlement is, in the first resort, a matter for the decision of the municipal council, who are elected by the ratepayers. The ultimate responsibility for the good order of the settlement, which now has an international status, rests not only with His Majesty's Government, but with the other Treaty Powers in China. The council have already been informed
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  of the desire of His Majesty's Government that the bona fide efforts of the Chinese authorities to diminish the consumption of opium should be encouraged and supported as far as possible, and the council have decided to refuse applications for new licences. The council having intimated that they cannot go beyond the refusal of applications for new licences without the authority of the ratepayers, His Majesty's Government consider it advisable to await the result of the meeting to be held next month before taking further action in the matter.

  Turkey and Persia—Frontier Delimitation.
  MR. LYNCH: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can give the House any information as to the occurrences in connection with the occupation by Turkish troops of the Persian town of Suj Bulak; whether the Turkish troops have been removed from the town and district; and what progress is being made by the Governments of Great Britain and Russia in their efforts to secure a speedy delimitation of the frontier between Turkey and Persia.
  SIR EDWARD GREY: According to telegraphic reports received from His Majesty's Consul-General at Tabriz, who is at present at Urumia, the Persian Governor-General evacuated Suj Bulak on or about 25th January, and the Turkish troops entered the town the next day; but the accounts of the incidents which preceded and gave rise to these occurrences are conflicting. The Turkish troops are stated by the Porte to have evacuated Suj Bulak and to have retired on Lahidjan, but Turkish troops are still in occupation of Persian territory. A Turco-Persian Frontier Commission is at Urumia. Little progress has yet been made, and the question continues to engage the attention of His Majesty's Government.
  MAJOR ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: Have there been any disturbances recently at Tabriz?
  SIR EDWARD GREYasked for notice of the Question.
  MR. LYNCH: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs when he proposes to issue the map showing the respective spheres of Great Britain and Russia in Persia; and whether the line mentioned in Article 1 of the Anglo-Russian Convention as running through and including certain towns extends only to the town boundary in each case, or whether it has a larger extension.
  SIR EDWARD GREY: Two maps were placed in the tea-room early last week. The line includes in the Russian sphere the towns through which it is stated to run, but has no larger extension.

  Germany and the Anglo-Russian Agreement.
  MR. LYNCH: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will communicate to the House any correspondence which may have taken place between His Majesty's Government and that of Germany in connection with the Anglo-Russian Convention.
  SIR EDWARD GREY: There is no such correspondence.

  Opium Traffic with China.
  MR. ELLIS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs when the Papers promised respecting the opium traffic from India to China will be in the hands of Members.
  SIR EDWARD GREY: It is hoped that the Papers promised respecting the opium traffic from India to China will be presented to Parliament in the course of a week or ten days.

  British Trade with Turkey—English High School at Constantinople.
  MR. HERBERT: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, having regard to the value of British trade in Turkey and to the fact that various nations grant subsidies to commercial schools in Constantinople for the purpose of training boys of their own nationality to represent the interests of their trade, he is prepared to recommend the granting of a small subsidy to the English high school for boys in Constantinople.
  SIR EDWARD GREY: The question of making such a grant is now under consideration.

  Naval Programmes.
  MR. BELLAIRS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if the Naval Programme of this country has been communicated to any foreign countries in accordance with the intimation made at the Hague Conference.
  SIR EDWARD GREY: I presume the intimation to which the hon. Member alludes is a declaration made by the Senior British Plenipotentiary at the Fourth Plenary Meeting of the Hague Conference on 17th August. That declaration stated that His Majesty's Government would be prepared to communicate annually to Powers who would adopt the same course, what new ships of war they contemplated building, and the cost thereby entailed. It was based upon the assumption that in fact, if not in theory, the naval programmes of Great Powers are to some extent dependent upon each other. Until other Powers are ready to exchange information on this basis, there is no object in one Power communicating programmes in advance to another. But the offer of His Majesty's Government will hold good at any time.

  Tibet.
  MR. LYNCH: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether Article 4 of the provisions concerning Tibet of the Convention of 1907 between Great Britain and Russia cancels Article 3 of the Convention of 1906 between the United Kingdom and China respecting Tibet, by which Article it was arranged with the Chinese Government that Great Britain should be entitled to lay down telegraph lines connecting Gyantse, Gartok, and Yatung with India.
  SIR EDWARD GREY: Article 3 of the Convention with China of 1906, while modifying Article 9 of the Convention with Tibet, concedes to the British Government the right of telegraphic communication between India and the trade marts. Telegraphic communication with the marts, thus comes within

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  the terms of the Convention with Tibet, the fulfilment of which, under Article 1 of the Convention of 1906, Great Britain and China have engaged to secure. Article 2 of the arrangement with Russia regarding Tibet recognises the engagements entered into by Great Britain and China in Article 1 of the Convention of 1906.
  MR. LYNCH: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether he will state the names and status of the British agents appointed to watch over British trade at the trade marts of Gyantse, Gartok, and Yatung, in Tibet; whether it is proposed to make any change in their status; whether, under Article 9 of the Convention of 1904 between Great Britain and Tibet, it would be open to the Government of India or their subjects to obtain a concession for the improvement of the roads from India to these trade marts in case the Tibetan Government were to fail to keep them in order; and whether, under the Convention between Great Britain and Russia of 1907, the Government of India and their subjects are debarred from applying to the Tibetan Government for such concession.
  SIR EDWARD GREY: I am informed by my right hon. friend that the British trade agent at Gyantse is Captain W. F. T. O'Connor, C.I.E., an officer of the Indian Political Department. The trade agent at Gartok is Thakur Jai Chand. There is no British trade agent at Yatung. There is no immediate intention of changing the status of these officers. As regards the contingency contemplated by the hon. Member of a failure of the Tibetan Government to carry out their obligations as to roads under Article 5 of the Convention of 1904, the action to be taken in that event would be covered by Article 1 of the Convention with China of 1906, which, as explained in my Answer to the hon. Member's other Question, is again covered by Article 2 of the arrangement with Russia regarding Tibet. Article 9 of the Convention with Tibet does not apply to the contingency contemplated in the hon. Member's Question.

  Income-Tax.
  MR. YOUNGER: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that final notices were issued in Scotland on the 6th February demanding payment of arrears of income tax within seven days under penalty of distraint by the sheriff officer; and whether on the same date similar notices were issued in England.
  MR. CROMBIE: May I also ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that the I final notices, threatening distraint for non-payment of income-tax within seven days, were issued in Scotland in the middle of last week; and whether this has been done at an equally early date in I England.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EX-CHEQUER (Mr. ASQUITH, Fife, E.): Owing to the intervention of the sheriff-officer in Scotland, proceedings for distraint are somewhat slower than in I England, where the collector is empowered to distrain immediately on the expiration of the final notice. It is usual therefore for the final notice to be issued about a fortnight earlier in Scotland than in England.

  Jamaica.
  MR. CLAUDE HAY: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer what sums, if any, have been issued to Jamaica under Section 4 of The Public Works Loan Act, 1907.
  MR. ASQUITH: No issue has yet been made, as the Government of Jamaica have not up to the present found it necessary to apply for any part of the loan.

  Aldermanbury Explosion.
  SIR F. BANBURY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to the verdict of the coroner's jury in the recent inquiry into the fatal explosion which occurred at St. George's Avenue, Aldermanbury, in the City of London, on 1st January last, with a rider attached, pointing to the urgent necessity for an amendment

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  of the law relating to the storage of explosives, whereby local authorities could become licensing authorities instead of being bound to register the application of anyone tendering the sum of 1s., quite irrespective of the suitability of the premises registered; and whether he proposes taking any action in the matter.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. GLADSTONE,): My attention has been drawn to this verdict. I am awaiting a report from the Inspector of Explosives on this case which will deal with the question raised by the hon. Member, and the consideration of the point must be deferred until that report is ready. To prevent misunderstanding I may add that the registration in question applies only to the keeping of explosives for retail purposes in small quantities and under strict regulations.

  Roachburn Colliery Accident.
  MR. BURT: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if his attention has been called to the accident at Roachburn Colliery, on 28th January, by which three lives were lost through an inflow of water and moss into the workings of the mine; and whether, as the bodies have not been recovered and as no coroner's inquest has been held, and having regard to the exceptional nature of the accident and to the need for a searching inquiry, he will authorise a formal investigation into the whole circumstances, under Section 45 of the Coal Mines Regulation Act, 1887.
  MR. GLADSTONE: Yes, Sir. In view of the exceptional nature of the accident and of the fact that an inquest may very likely never be held, I think it is desirable that a special inquiry should take place under Section 45 of the Act of 1887, and I am taking the necessary steps for that purpose.

  First Aid Certificates for Masters and Mates.
  MAJOR ANSTRUTHER - GRAY: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether instructions have been given to oblige Scottish candidates for
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  master and mates first-aid certificates to qualify through St. Andrew's Ambulance instead of St. John; whether he is aware that the yearly St. Andrew's course consists of 144 lectures, while that of St. John is only 52; and that the St. Andrew's Ambulance course is, therefore, more expensive in time and money than that of St. John; will he say whether the St. John Ambulance classes, hitherto conducted on the East Coast of Scotland, have proved satisfactory; and if so, why a system involving more time trouble, and expense is enforced in Scotland, and an easier system deemed sufficient for English candidates.
  THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY TO THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. KEARLEY,): Before granting a certificate for master or mate, we require a man to have a knowledge of first-aid to the injured. This he can acquire through attending a course under either of the societies mentioned in the Question. We have been in communication with the two Societies, and as the St. John Ambulance Association inform us that they have centres at one or two Scottish ports only, we have arranged with the St. Andrew's Society that courses should be available at all the chief ports in Scotland. If the suggestion in the Question is that the Board impose attendance at one Society's course rather than the other the hon. and gallant Member is under a misapprehension.
  MAJOR ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: Is the St. John Ambulance course now giving place to the St. Andrew's course to the serious inconvenience of candidates? Is the St. John abolished in Scotland?
  MR. KEARLEY: Not at all—where it exists.

  Board of Trade—Commercial Intelligence Department.
  MR. MACLEAN: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he will take into his consideration the advisability of extending the Commercial Intelligence Branch of the Board of Trade to some of the principal commercial centres of the United, Kingdom.
  MR. KEARLEY: Without expressing an opinion on the proposal of my hon. friend, we are prepared to lay the suggestion before the Advisory Committee on Commercial Intelligence.

  Post Office Savings Bank.
  MR. BRAMSDON: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General, whether, considering the convenience it would be to depositors in the Post Office Savings Bank who receive remittances by cheques or postal or post office orders for odd amounts which they wish to deposit, and also in the accurate keeping of small accounts, and also seeing that there is already a pence column in the Savings Bank books, he can see his way clear to make arrangements whereby such depositors may pay fractions of a shilling into the Bank, provided that no deposit shall be received at any one time of less than a shilling nor any interest paid on such fractions for the time being.
  THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL (MR. SYDNEY BUXTON,): The refusal of the Post Office Savings Bank to take fractions of a shilling on deposit is based on the provisions of the Post Office Savings Bank Act of 1861; and no change could therefore be made without legislation. The hon. Member is no doubt aware that cheques, postal orders or money orders for odd amounts are received for deposit if the amounts are made up to complete shillings. The abolition of the rule forbidding the acceptance by the savings banks of odd pence over and above the minimum deposit of one shilling would enormously increase the cost of administration. As the hon. Member is aware penny stamps can be affixed to a form in order to make up a deposit of one shilling.

  American Mail Contract.
  MR. LONSDALE (Armagh, Mid.): I beg to ask the Postmaster-General, whether a new contract has been concluded with the Cunard Company for the carriage of the mails to America; and whether he can state the term for which the contract will run, and the amount of the subsidy.
  MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: No new contract for the conveyance of mails
  208
  between this country and America has been concluded with the Cunard Steamship Company. The present contract was concluded in 1903 and is to remain in force until 1927. The annual subsidy paid to the Cunard Company for the carriage of mails is £68,000.

  Hong Kong Mail Contract.
  MR. HAROLD COX: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General, whether, before submitting to the House any proposal for a renewal of the Hong Kong mail contract, he will issue a memorandum explaining in what way it is proposed to carry out the declaration made by the Prime Minister in the debate that took place upon this question last session.
  MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: If proposals for the renewal of the Liverpool-Hong-Kong Mail Contract are submitted to the House, full explanations of the proposals will be given, either by Memorandum or in some other manner.

  Shanghai Mails.
  *MR. HOLT: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General, whether, while letters if specially addressed are forwarded from this country to Shanghai viâ Siberia, the Post Office refuses to forward commercial papers by this route; and, if so, what is the reason for this refusal.
  MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: In consequence of the very high charges for the conveyance of mails via Siberia the British Post Office has been compelled, in common with other European Post Offices generally, to restrict the use of this route to specially addressed letters and postcards.
  *MR. HOLT: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether, considering the importance to British traders of getting their commercial papers forwarded by the best available means, he will see if he cannot arrange to allow those to use this route who are willing to pay a reasonable surcharge?
  MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: I do not know how far that comes within the terms of the Postal Convention, but if the hon. Member will speak to me I will consider the matter with him.

  Radiotelegraphic Convention.
  SIR J. DICKSON-POYNDER: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General whether any, and, if so, which, of the self-governing Colonies have informed the Government that they desire to adhere to the Radiotelegraphic Convention.
  MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: I am glad to say that all the self-governing Colonies have informed the Government that they desire to adhere to the Radiotelegraphic Convention, except Newfoundland, which has not yet communicated its decision, and the Orange River Colony, which, as an inland Colony, sees no necessity at present for adhering.

  Wages at the Holloway Factory.
  MR. SUMMERBELL: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General whether the introduction of piece-work at the Holloway factory has had the effect of materially reducing the wages of the men employed there; whether some of the employees are now receiving for the same amount of work as done at day-rate previously as much as £1 per week less; and, if so, whether it is his intention to reconsider the case of such employees with a view to an improvement in their conditions of labour.
  MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: The system of payment by piece-work has been in use at the Holloway factory ever since the factory was established. Occasionally of course there may be a loss on a piece-work job, but the average piecework earnings show a profit over the day-rates of pay of fully 30 per cent. The Select Committee on Post Office Servants did not recommend any change in the piece-work system.

  Wentbridge School, Yorkshire.
  MR. CARLILE: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Education whether he will state the reason why the Board of Education refused to sanction a council school at the village of Wentbridge, in the West Riding of Yorkshire.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Mr. MCKENNA,):
  210
  The Board did not refuse to sanction a council school, but suggested to the local education authority that, in view of assurances given by the managers of the existing voluntary school that rebuilding would be carried out forthwith, they should withdraw their proposal, which the Board understand was done.
  MR. CARLILE: Did the West Riding Education Authority on that occasion give the right hon. Gentleman incorrect information on the subject?
  MR. McKENNA: I cannot say from memory. I have no knowledge of it.

  Whitehall Palace.
  MR. CLAUDE HAY: I beg to ask the First Commissioner of Works what has been the total cost of the works of restoration recently carried out in Whitehall Palace.
  THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (Mr. HARCOURT,): £3,200.

  Court of Criminal Appeal.
  SIR WILLIAM BULL: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury what the procedure of the Criminal Appeal Act has cost the country in shorthand writers' fees for reporting all possible cases for appeal up to the end of January, 1908; and if a Supplementary Estimate will be presented.
  MR. J. A. PEASE: No cost has yet been incurred, as the Act does not apply to any persons convicted before 18th April, 1908.
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN (): Are any more Supplementary Estimates to be submitted?
  MR. J. A. PEASEwas understood to reply that that hardly arose out of the Question on the Paper, and he could not answer it.

  The Customs.
  SIR WILLIAM BULL: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, if he will state when the checking allowances

  211
  consequent on the increase of staff in the Statistical Office of the Customs will be made.
  MR. J. A. PEASE: These allowances were assigned on the 3rd instant.

  Superannuation.
  MR. CLAUDE HAY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury what is the number of ex-soldiers and ex-sailors affected by the decision of the Government under the Superannuation Act, 1859.
  MR. J. A. PEASE: My hon. friend has no information on this subject.
  MR. CLAUDE HAY: Will the hon. Gentleman get the information?
  MR. J. A. PEASE: To do so it would be necessary to circularise other Departments, and we do not think the advantage gained would be commensurate with the trouble and expense involved.
  MR. CLAUDE HAY: Then does the hon. Gentleman, as representing the Treasury, consider that ex-soldiers and ex-sailors are not worthy of attention?
  MR. J. A. PEASE: Not at all. I only say the information asked for is not worth the time and trouble which the collection of it would involve.

  Board of Works, Dublin.
  MR. DELANY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury if he is aware that an application was made to the Treasury a short time ago substantially to increase the salary of the staff officer-in-charge in the miscellaneous division of the Board of Works, Dublin; and, considering that this officer is by many years the junior of his grade in the secretary's department, and that his work is no more important than that performed by the other three senior staff officers, and its magnitude is very considerably less than that of the other staff officers in the secretariat, can he say whether this application is to be acceded to.
  MR. J. A. PEASE: The Treasury were unable to see any sufficient reason
  212
  for acceding to the application in question.

  Automatic Machines.
  MR. DUNDAS WHITE: I beg to ask Mr. Attorney-General whether his attention has been directed to the fact that many automatic machines are so constructed as to, and that they in fact do, continue to invite, receive, and retain coins after their contents are exhausted; and whether he will consider what steps should be taken to stop this fraud on the public.
  THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL (Sir W. ROBSON,): I have no-information on this matter and I am afraid I have no means of obtaining any. With regard to the practice suggested to be a fraud on the public, that depends on whether or not the persons who expose these machines do so knowing that they will have a fraudulent effect and that there will be no equivalent return for the money dropped into the slot. That would be somewhat difficult I to prove.

  Election Expenditure.
  MR. RAMSAY MACDONALD: I beg to ask Mr. Attorney-General whether his attention has been drawn to the habit which has become prevalent in recent years of political organisations spending money during Parliamentary contests on behalf of candidates; whether the law officers have given instructions that candidates' official statements of expenses should be examined to discover whether these payments have been included; and whether it is proposed to draw the attention of the Public Prosecutor to the matter with a view to action being taken.
  SIR W. ROBSON: Moneys spent by a political organisation during Parliamentary contests are not necessarily illegal payments nor payments coining within the statutory maximum allowed to a candidate. In order that they may be so treated they must be shown to have been spent not merely during the election but also in the conduct or management of the election. There may, for instance, be payments for purposes which are part of the general propaganda of the political organisation itself and made entirely without

  213
  reference to the expenses of the election. Whether they come under one class or the other is often a very difficult question of fact on which the decisions are not very easy to reconcile. No instructions of the kind suggested have been issued, but if the hon. Member is aware of anything which can be supported by definite evidence I will certainly draw the attention of the Public Prosecutor to it.
  MR. R. DUNCAN: Is any distinction made between political organisations and party organisations?
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: And tea party organisations?
  SIR W. ROBSON: I am not aware of any distinction that could be drawn between political organisations and party organisations. Most political organisations are party organisations.

  Small Holdings in Surrey.
  MR. MARNHAM: I beg to ask the hon. Member for South Somerset, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, whether his attention has been called to the form of application for a small holding recently issued by the Surrey County Council to parish councils within its area, wherein the provisions of the Small Holdings Acts of 1892 and 1907 are so intermixed as to mislead prospective applicants into the belief that, under the provisions of the Act of 1907 it is necessary for an applicant to guarantee one-fifth of the purchase money of such holding; and whether he will take steps to see that county councils are asked to issue immediately separate and distinct application forms relating to the two Acts.
  THE TREASUER OF THE HOUSEHOLD (Sir EDWARD STRAOHEY,): My noble friend has seen a copy of the form to which my hon. friend refers. He thinks it is better that separate forms of application for leasing and for purchase should be used, and he proposes to call the attention of county councils to the matter at an early date.

  Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
  MR. SUMMERBELL: I beg to ask the hon. Member for South Somerset, as
  214
  representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, if he is aware that a notice was recently given at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, to the effect that Constable Brennan would be stopped six days' annual leave for being improperly dressed while on duty, and that such improper dress consisted only of Constable Brennan having taken off his heavy coat to take up the ashes from the fire-grate and to sweep the paths; and, if so, whether, in view of the character of the offence committed, he will consider the advisability of reducing the punishment.
  SIR EDWARD STRACHEY: The form of punishment for offences generally at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, is receiving the attention of my noble friend, but as the particular case to which his attention is now drawn occurred last year and the punishment has been carried out, it is not possible now, even if it were thought advisable, to reduce or alter it in any way.

  Lammas Lands.
  MR. HERBERT: I beg to ask the hon. Member for South Somerset, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, whether Lammas lands can be taken compulsorily for small holdings; and, if so, whether, as a matter of policy, the Board of Agriculture would be prepared to put the powers of the Act in force for the purpose of taking such lands.
  SIR EDWARD STRACHEY: Lammas land can be acquired compulsorily under the Small Holdings Acts with the consent of the Board, but each case would have to be considered on its merits with due regard to the various interests concerned.

  Foot-and-Mouth Disease.
  MR. DELANY: I beg to ask the hon. Member for South Somerset, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, whether he can now state what steps the Board of Agriculture propose taking to prevent the further spread of foot-and-mouth disease through the importation of foreign forage.
  SIR EDWARD STRACHEY: The matter is receiving careful consideration,

  215
  but our information on the subject is not yet complete; and no decision has yet been arrived at.
  MR. DELANY: Is foreign forage being imported into Scotland at the present time, and if so, does the hon. Gentleman intend to allow it to continue?
  SIR EDWARD STRACHEY: I have said the matter is being carefully inquired into. It is not possible to say more at present.
  MR. DELANY: I beg to ask the hon. Member for South Somerset, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, whether the introduction of the foot-and-mouth disease into Scotland is traceable to the importation of foreign forage; whether he is aware that the military authorities are at present using quantities of this class of forage; and whether, with a view to prevent further spread of disease, he will make representation to the War Office Department on the subject.
  SIR EDWARD STRACHEY: Our inquiries as to the manner in which foot-and-mouth disease was recently introduced into Scotland are not yet complete. If it is found to be due to the importation of foreign hay, the suggestion made by the hon. Member will be carefully considered.

  Potato Disease.
  MR. SNOWDEN: I beg to ask the hon. Member for South Somerset, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, whether the Board are aware that a new and destructive disease of potatoes, known as black scab, has lately been introduced into England, and that outbreaks have now occurred in nine counties, in some cases causing serious losses in allotment gardens; whether the Board are aware that the disease is now being distributed in seed potatoes from affected areas; and whether the Board, in order to prevent this disease from spreading through the country, will deal with the matter at once under the powers conferred on them by the Destructive Insects and Pests Act. 1907.
  SIR EDWARD STRACHEY: Perhaps my hon. friend will refer to the replies I gave to similar Questions on the 4th and 6th instant.

  Tuberculosis in Scottish Cattle.
  MR. CATHCART WASON: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland if he is aware that in Scotland cattle in the last stages of tuberculosis are occasionally exposed for sale and food in the open market, with consequent risk of spread of the disease and danger to human life; and if he proposes to take any steps, by legislation or otherwise, in order that persons submitting dying diseased cattle for sale may be prosecuted.
  THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (Mr. SINCLAIR,): Section 43 (1) (a) of the Public Health (Scotland) Act, 1897, enables the officials of the local authority to seize animals that are intended for the food of man and are exposed for sale, if they are diseased or unsound or unfit for the food of man; and the person to whom the animal belongs is liable to prosecution. The officials of local authorities make use of this power and there does not seem need for fresh legislation in the direction suggested.
  MR. CATHCART WASONasked if the purchasers of these cattle were liable to prosecution.
  MR. SINCLAIRsaid that rested with the local authorities.
  MR. CATHCART WASON: Will the same steps be taken in this matter as in England?
  MR. SINCLAIR: I am not sure that the powers in England and Scotland are the same, but if those in Scotland are found to be insufficient, I shall be prepared to make further proposals.

  Trawling in the Moray Firth.
  CAPTAIN WARING: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland whether the trawlers detected in the Moray Firth, known to be British-owned though flying a foreign flag, have been registered in foreign countries for the

  217
  purpose of attempting to evade the Scottish Fishery Regulations; and, if so, whether it is his intention to take steps to prevent the evasion of the Scottish laws in this manner.
  MR. SINCLAIR: Certain trawlers British-owned have been registered in foreign countries and have subsequently trawled in the Moray Firth contrary to Scottish Fishery Regulations. My hon. friend can form his own opinions of the intention which prompted this registration. I am taking every step in my power to bring offenders to justice.
  MR. SUTHERLAND: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland whether he has any official information showing that many of the trawlers now reported to be at work within the Moray Firth under a foreign flag are mainly owned by British capital and managed by British subjects; and whether he is taking steps to vindicate the law.
  MR. SINCLAIR: I am satisfied from the information at my disposal that the facts are as stated by my hon. friend. I am taking every step in my power to bring all British subjects who are implicated in illegal fishing to justice.
  MR. PIRIE: Did not the right hon. Gentleman say last year every "possible" step had been taken, and were not the results absolutely nil? Is it possible to do more than take every possible step?
  MR. SUTHERLAND: How many prosecutions are pending?
  MR. SINCLAIR,asked for notice of the Question.
  MR. PIRIE: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer my Question?
  MR. SINCLAIR: Such steps as are in the power of the Government are being taken to bring the offenders to justice.
  MR. WATT: What are the steps that have been taken?
  MR. SINCLAIR: I cannot state them in the limits of an Answer to a Question.
  MR. PIRIE: If the steps already taken are found to be insufficient, will the Government obtain further powers?
  MR. SINCLAIR: My hon. friend may be assured that the Government will do all in their power to bring the offenders to justice.

  Burra Isles, Orkney.
  MR. CATHCART WASON: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland if he has received a petition from the inhabitants of Burra Isle, Orkney, complaining that they are rated by the local authority much higher than they agreed for when the work was first prepared; and whether, under all the circumstances of the case and the poverty of the island he will permit an officer of the Congested Districts Board to furnish a report on the subject, especially with reference to any scheme whereby the working expenses can be decreased or the revenue augmented.
  MR. SINCLAIR: I have received no petition on the subject referred to. The Congested Districts Board gave a grant of three-quarters of the total estimated cost of this work, which has been finished and must be maintained by the county council under the Orkney and Shetland Small Piers and Harbours Act of 1896. I do not think a report such as that suggested by my hon. friend would serve any useful purpose.

  Scottish Sheriffs and Sheriffs' Substitute.
  MR. WATT: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether there is any age limit for sheriffs and sheriffs-substitute in Scotland; if so, what is that limit, and how many are there now receiving salaries who have been granted extension; and, if not, will he introduce legislation to put this branch of the service on an equality with others where compulsory retirement is enforced.
  THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. SHAW,): The Answer to the first part of the Question is in the negative, which supersedes the second branch of my hon. friend's inquiry. The Answer to the third part is also in the negative.

  Ireland and Foot-and-Mouth Disease.
  MR. DELANY: I beg to ask the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture (Ireland) whether he is aware that the introduction of the foot-and-mouth disease into Scotland is alleged to have been traceable to the importation of foreign forage; and whether he can say what steps he proposes taking to prevent the spread of the disease into Ireland through this source.
  THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. CHERRY,): The Department are aware that the recent outbreak of foot and mouth disease in Scotland is alleged to have been caused by foreign fodder, but, so far as is known, no similar outbreak attributed to a like cause has ever occurred in Ireland. It would be a difficult matter adequately to enforce precautions against the possible danger of introducing disease through the medium of imported forage, especially in view of the circumstance that forage substances are also used as packing material for goods coming from abroad. The Department are not, in all the circumstances, at present prepared to say whether, so far as Ireland is concerned, any steps can or should be taken in the direction suggested in the Question. Need for steps of the kind would, moreover, seem the less apparent in view of the fact that the latest annual import returns show only one ton of forage as having been landed direct in Ireland from Belgium, the country supposed to be the source of infection in the Scottish outbreak.

  Army Forage Contracts in Ireland.
  MR. DELANY: I beg to ask the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture (Ireland), whether he is aware that the military authorities in Ireland use quantities of foreign forage; and whether, in view of the allegation that it was through the importation of foreign hay into Scotland that foot-and-mouth disease was introduced into that country, he will make representations to the War Office in connection with this matter.
  MR. CHERRY: Information as to the sources from which supplies of forage for
  220
  military purposes in Ireland are obtained has not reached the Department, but, in any case, having regard to the facts stated in reply to the last Question, the Department do not at present propose to address to the military authorities representations of the nature suggested in this further Question.
  MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY: Have not the Department power to prohibit the importation of this foreign fodder into Ireland?
  MR. CHERRY'Sreply was inaudible.

  Ballinagleva Eviction Notices.
  MR. M'HUGH: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether eviction notices have been served on fifteen tenants on the Marshal, Peyton, and West estates, in Ballinagleva, county Leitrim, by the agent, Mr. Hewson, of Dromahaire; is he aware that negotiations for sale and purchase are pending on these estates; will he have inquiry made into the circumstances before sending the forces of the Crown to assist at the eviction of these tenants; and will he request the Estates Commissioners to intervene, with the object of averting suffering and possible violence.
  MR. CHERRY: The Estates Commissioners inform me that they have no knowledge of any contemplated evictions on the estates referred to. No proceedings in respect of these estates are at present pending before the Commissioners. Early last year the Commissioners offered to intervene with the object of aiding in a settlement of the terms of purchase. The agent, however, replied that, in view of the wide divergence between prices offered by the tenants and those which the landlords were prepared to accept, the Commissioners' intervention would be futile. In these circumstances the Commissioners do not see that they can take any further action in the matter.

  Irish Local Government Audit Fees.
  MR. HUGH LAW: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he has received from the county council of

  221
  Donegal any communication relative to the sums charged for audit by the Local Government Board; whether such charge has been declared by the Courts not to be legally payable; whether the Local Government Board have refused to refund the money; and whether the Irish Government will take any steps in the matter.
  MR. CHERRY: I would refer to my Answer to a similar Question put by the hon. Member for East Donegal yesterday.
  MR. J. MACVEAGH: Has not the Court of King's Bench in Dublin decided that the money has been illegally collected, and will the right hon. Gentleman impress on the Irish Local Government Board the necessity—in the interests of law and order—of refunding the money?
  MR. CHERRY: The hon. Member had better put that Question down.
  MR. MACVEAGH: I am afraid that the clerks would not let me.

  Dummanway Labourers Cottage Scheme.
  MR. SHEEHAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that an Improvement Scheme, under the Labourers Acts, has been promoted by the Dummanway Rural District Council; and will he explain the delay in holding the local inquiry into the scheme, and state whether it is attributable to the district council or the Local Government Board.
  MR. CHERRY: The scheme in question has not yet been submitted by the rural district council to the Local Government Board for confirmation. The district council have had the matter in hand since 1st February, 1907.

  Drishane Desmesne Lands.
  MR. SHEEHAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether an inspector of the Estates Commissioners recently valued the desmesne lands of Drishane, Mill-street, County Cork, on the estate of H. A. B. Wallis; did this valuation take place with the object of acquiring these
  222
  lands for distribution purposes; and, if so, will the claims of local evicted tenants be considered in connection with the matter.
  MR. CHERRY: The Estates Commissioners had an inspection made of the property referred to, and upon consideration of the inspector's report formed the conclusion that the lands were not suitable for their purposes. The Commissioners, however, having been asked to reconsider the matter, have ordered a second inspection. If the lands should be acquired, the claims of local evicted tenants will receive due consideration.

  Grading of Irish Teachers.
  MR. O'DOHERTY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he can state why, on the introduction of the grading system, national teachers with no unfavourable record were not placed in grades corresponding to their classification at that time; whether in schools where teachers after years of hard study succeeded in obtaining first division of first class, and where proficiency is recorded as good on every occasion, even very good on some occasions, the principal teacher has been placed and kept in the lower grade while assistants in the same schools have been awarded increments on every occasion where they became due; whether, in such cases, the former classification does in any way aid in obtaining the corresponding grade; and whether the Commissioners can consider these matters with a view to the removal of what is an injustice to this hardworking body of teachers.
  MR. CHERRY: The Commissioners of National Education have furnished me with a very full statement which cannot well be compressed within the limits of an oral Answer. With the hon. Member's permission I will furnish a printed Answer with to-night's Votes.

  Medical Inspection of Irish School Children.
  MR. J. MACVEAGH: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the resolution of the Irish Committee of the British Medical Association, urging the necessity of the medical

  223
  inspection of school children in Ireland on the lines already adopted by legislation with regard to England; and whether, having regard to the fact that every argument for such inspection in England applies with even greater force to Ireland, he will consider whether steps can be taken to give effect to this recommendation.
  MR. CHERRY: I have received a communication from the Irish Committee of the British Medical Association to the effect stated in the Question. I have been in communication with the Commissioners of National Education upon the subject generally, and the matter is to be further considered by the Commissioners at their meeting next week. I would, therefore, ask the hon. Member to defer the Question for the present.

  Arrest of Mr. Thos. O'Donnell, C.C.
  MR. HAZLETON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland a Question of which I have given him private notice, viz., whether on Sunday night last at about ten o'clock, Mr. Thomas O'Donnell, county councillor, and two other persons were arrested and brought to the police barracks in Tuam; whether they were detained without a warrant in the barracks all night, and until four o'clock the following evening; whether the police authorities twice refused the request of Mr. Glynn, solicitor, to have a local magistrate, three of whom were available, sent for to take the depositions in the case; whether it was only after the police had failed in their efforts to secure the attendance of resident magistrates from Ballinrobe and Loughrea that they consented to allow a local magistrate to act; and, if so, can he state what is the explanation of this action on the part of the police, seeing that all that was required was to get a justice to give a remand to petty sessions.
  MR. CHERRY: I am afraid I have not the information enabling me to answer the Question, but if the hon. Member will put his Question down my right hon. friend will no doubt reply to it on Monday.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
*MR. BARKERasked when it was proposed to take the Vote which made provision for carrying out the recommendations of the Select Committee on Post Office Servants.
MR. A. J. BALFOURasked as to the course of business next week and specially when the debate on the Anglo-Russian Convention would be taken.
MR. ASQUITH: Monday will be devoted to the Irish Resolution: Tuesday to the Scottish Small Landholders Bill; Wednesday to the discussion of the Anglo-Russian Agreement; and Thursday to Post Office and other Supplementary Estimates. The Licensing Bill will not be taken next week.

NEW BILLS.
  NURSES (REGISTRATION) BILL.
  "To regulate the Qualifications and Registration of Trained Nurses," presented by Mr. Claude Hay; supported by Sir Arthur Bignold; to be read a second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 78.]
  CONVEYANCING BILL.
  "To amend the Conveyancing and Law of Property Act 1881," presented by Mr. Hills; supported by Mr. Beale, Mr. Buckmaster, Mr. Cave, and Mr. Micklem; to be read a second time upon Thursday next, and to be printed. [Bill 79.]
  SETTLED LAND BILL.
  "To amend the Settled Land Acts, 1882 to 1890," presented by Mr. Hills; supported by Mr. Beale, Mr. Buckmaster, and Mr. Micklem: to be read a second time upon Thursday next, and to be printed. [Bill 80.]
  PENSIONS (OLD AGE) BILL.
  "To provide Pensions for poor persons aver the age of 65 years," presented by Sir Walter Foster; supported by Sir Alfred Thomas; to be read a second time upon Thursday, 27th February, and to be printed. [Bill 81.]
  HOUSING OF WORKING CLASSES ACTS AMENDMENT BILL.
  "To amend the Housing of the Working Classes Acts, and otherwise to facilitate the building of houses for the Working Classes in rural districts," presented by Sir Walter Foster; supported by Sir Francis Channing, Mr. Soames, Mr. Hart-Davies, and Mr. Nicholls; to be read a second time upon Thursday, 27th February, and to be printed." [Bill 82.]
  FERRIES (IRELAND) BILL.
  "To confer on county councils in Ireland the power to establish and maintain Ferries; and for other purposes connected therewith," presented by Mr. Gwynn; supported by Mr. Clancy, Mr. John Roche, Mr. Duffy, Mr. O'Malley, Mr. Hazleton, and Mr. Fetherstonhaugh; to be read a second time upon Wednesday next, and to be printed. [Bill 83.]
  LUGGAGE (DEFINITION) BILL.
  "To define Luggage on Railways with respect to bicycles," presented by Mr. Thorne; supported by Mr. O'Grady, Mr. Parker, Mr. Jenkins, Mr. Gill, Mr. Tyson Wilson, Mr. Summerbell, and Mr. Thomas Frederick Richards; to be read a second time upon Friday, 8th May, and to be printed. [Bill 84.]
  VOTERS (QUALIFICATION AND REGISTRATION) BILL.
  "To amend the Law relating to the Qualification and Registration of Voters and for other purposes relating to Elections," presented by Mr. Hedges; supported by Mr. Brodie, Mr. Marnham, Mr. Micklem, and Mr. Rowlands; to be read a second time upon Friday, 28th February, and to be printed. [Bill 85.]
  URBAN DISTRICT COUNCILS (ADVERTISING) BILL.
  "To enable Urban District Councils to advertise the attractions and advantages of their districts," presented by Sir Thomas Roe; supported by Mr. Godfrey Baring, Mr. Illingworth, Mr. Nield, Mr. Herbert Roberts, and Mr. Luke White; to be read a second time upon Thursday, 2nd April, and to be printed. [Bill 86.]
  LOCAL AUTHORITIES (ADMISSION OF THE PRESS) BILL.
  "To provide for the Admission of representatives of the Press to the Meetings of certain Local Authorities," presented by Mr. Arthur Henderson; supported by Mr. Ramsay Macdonald, Mr. George Roberts, Mr. Charles Duncan, Mr. Clynes, Lord Robert Cecil, Mr. Lief Jones, Mr. Scott, Mr. Hodge, Mr. Summer-bell, Sir John Randles, and Sir Gilbert Parker; to be read a second time upon Tuesday, 10th March, and to be printed. [Bill 87.]
  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE (SUPPLY).
  Ordered, That the proceedings on the Motion for the Allocation of Time with respect to the Small Landholders (Scotland) Bill and the Land Values (Scotland) Bill have precedence this day of the Business of Supply.—(Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman.)

  SMALL LANDHOLDERS (SCOTLAND) BILL AND LAND VALUES (SCOTLAND) BILL (ALLOCATION OF TIME).
  Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Question [12th February], "That in the case of the Small Landholders (Scotland) Bill and the Land Values (Scotland) Bill, the Committee on the Financial Resolution (if any) relating to the Bill shall be deemed to have been set up as required by the Standing Orders of the House, and the Second Reading, Committee stage, and Report stage of the Bill (including the Financial Resolution (if any) relating thereto) and the Third Reading of the Bill shall be proceeded with in the following manner: (a) The Committee stage of the Financial Resolution (if any) relating to the Bill, and the Second Reading of the Bill, shall be proceeded with and brought to a conclusion on the first allotted day; and the Bill shall, when it has been read a second time, stand committed to a Committee of the Whole House without Question put; (b) the Report Stage of the Financial Resolution (if any) and the Committee Stage of the Bill, and, if the Bill is not amended in Committee, the Report of the Bill to the House, and the Third Reading of the Bill, shall be proceeded

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  with and brought to a conclusion on the second allotted day, and on the conclusion of the consideration of the Bill in Committee the Chairman shall report the Bill to the House without Question put; (c) if the Bill is amended in Committee, the Report Stage and the Third Reading of the Bill shall be proceeded with and brought to a conclusion on the third allotted day. After this Order comes into operation, any day (other than Friday) shall be considered an allotted day for the purposes of this Order on which the Bill is put down as the first Order of the day, or on which any stage of the Financial Resolution (if any) relating thereto is put down as first Order of the day followed by the Bill. On any allotted day on which proceedings on any business allotted to that day are to be brought to a conclusion, the Speaker or Chairman shall at 10.30 p.m. if the day is one on which Government business has precedence after 8.15 p.m., and at 7.45 p.m. if the day is one on which Government business has not precedence after 8.15 p.m. (if those proceedings have not already been brought to a conclusion), put forthwith the Question on any Amendment or Motion already proposed from the Chair, and shall next proceed successively to put forthwith the Question on any Amendments moved by the Government of which notice has been given, but no other Amendments, and on any Question necessary to dispose of the business to be concluded, and in the case of Government Amendments or of Government new clauses or schedules he shall put only the Question that the Amendment be made or that the clause or schedule be added to the Bill, as the case may be, and on the Committee Stage of the Bill the Chairman, in the ease of a series of clauses to which no notice of Amendment has been given by the Government, shall put the Question that those clauses stand part of the Bill without putting the Question separately as respects each clause. Proceedings to which this Order relates shall not on any day, on which any proceedings or business are to be brought to a conclusion under this Order, be interrupted under the provisions of any Standing Order relating to the Sittings of the House. In the case of an allotted day being a day on which Government business
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  has not precedence after 8.15 p.m., the time at which the proceedings or business to be brought to a conclusion are so brought to a conclusion shall, if that time is later than a quarter past eight, be substituted, for the purposes of Standing Orders relating to the precedence of business at different sittings and to the time for taking Private Business, for 8.15 p.m. On an allotted day no dilatory Motion on the Bill, nor Motion to re-commit the Bill, nor Motion for Adjournment under Standing Order 10, nor Motion to postpone a clause, shall be received unless moved by a Minister of the Crown, and the Question on any such Motion shall be put forthwith without any debate. Nothing in this Order shall: (a) prevent any business which under this Order is to be concluded on an allotted day being proceeded with on any other day, or necessitate a day being allotted to any such business if the business to be concluded has been otherwise disposed of; or (b) prevent any other business being proceeded with on an allotted day in accordance with the Standing Orders of the House after the business to be concluded on the allotted day has been disposed of."—(Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman.)
  Question again proposed.
  MR. FORSTERin moving to insert after the word "That" the words "this House declines further to curtail its liberty of discussion until the Government have laid upon the Table of the House their general scheme for dealing with Bills involving matters of controversy," said: The debate upon the Resolution which the Prime Minister yesterday submitted to the House has covered a wide field, and to a larger extent than usual the results have been fruitful, for it has given the Prime Minister an opportunity of making a statement of the greatest possible importance. The Prime Minister took the opportunity of telling the House and the country yesterday that in his opinion, an opinion formed with all the gravity and all the deliberation that characterises the statements of the Prime Minister in this House, the action which the House of Lords took with reference

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  to one at any rate of the Bills concerned in this Motion was an action which was entirely reasonable. That is a statement which we welcome and with which we agree, and I am bound to say that I for one welcome the unusual unanimity with which the Prime Minister and those who sit on these benches regard this point. I would assure the Prime Minister, if he were able to be present, that we should treasure the recollection of so fair-minded a statement. If I may make one further observation with reference to this point, I should say that I at any rate think I can at last understand the significant omission from the gracious Speech from the Throne of all reference to the vexed question of any possible conflict between the two Houses of the Legislature. I turn from that aspect of the Resolution moved by the Prime Minister and come at once to the Amendment which I have risen to submit to the House. The points with which I propose to deal in the few moments for which I shall ask the House to listen to me are necessarily narrower than the points covered yesterday, but while they primarily concern the House of Commons, they must necessarily affect the whole working of our Parliamentary machine. It will not be denied that during the two years of office which the present Government have enjoyed they have introduced sweeping changes into the procedure of the House of Commons. We may differ as to whether or not the result of these changes is to increase the efficiency of the House; we may differ as to whether or not it makes the lot of the private Member more or less tolerable than before; but we are all agreed that great changes in our procedure have been made, and I should like to remind the House what these changes have been. In the first place, the Government have revolutionised our system of Committees. They have substituted to a large extent the working of the Standing Committees for the working of the Whole House. While they have availed themselves of the great extension of the Standing Committees which they have set up, they have brought about a new method of using the Committees for the consideration of the Bills which they have brought into the House of Commons. All the experience we have been able to gather
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  of the Standing Committees has been that these Committees do useful work where the Bills they are called upon to consider are comparatively speaking, non-contentious, but that they break down hopelessly when the Bills sent to them involve a large amount of controversy. The hon. Member for the Leith Burghs expressed the same view yesterday, and I am happy to find myself in agreement with him. When the Government were inviting the House to sanction the creation of the new Standing Committees they distinctly gave us to understand that it was not their intention to submit to these Standing Committees the more important or the more controversial of the Bills which they brought in during the session. It was to a large extent, I think, on the assurance which the Government then gave to the House that these rules were passed. Our experience of the working of the Standing Committees and of these rules has disappointed the hopes and expectations of the House formed at that time. Anyone who knows the history of last session will know that the Government did exactly the opposite of what they said they were going to do when these rules were passed, and, so far from the main controversial Bills being kept in the House, and the minor and non-controversial Bills sent upstairs, we have had the experience of perhaps the most controversial measure of the whole session being sent upstairs to one of the Standing Committees, while the House was kept night after night to the small hours of the morning for the last few weeks of the session passing a large number of departmental Bills. I suppose it can hardly be contended that the Scottish Small Landholders Bill is improperly included in the category of the controversial Bills of the session. Its importance is admitted; its importance cannot be denied. No one will deny after the experience we have had of that measure that it is controversial to a peculiar extent. If it is one of the most controversial Bills of the session, then the Government violated the pledges which they gave to the House that these Bills would be kept downstairs. If, on the other hand, it is not one of the most controversial Bills of the session, then think the frenzied efforts made by hon. Gentlemen opposite to inflame the feelings of the people of Scotland against the House of Lords seem to lack point.

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  I should like to say one or two words upon the Government's method of dealing with the Bills after they have passed through the Standing Committees. Let me remind the House that there is no official means by which we can obtain a detailed report of the proceedings of the Standing Committees. That is one of their great defects when they are called upon to consider Bills of an important character. The hon. Member for Leicester, speaking last night on behalf of a minority section of the House, said they were bound to examine with minute care the question whether or not this proposal threatened danger to the rights of minorities and to free discussion, and the hon. Member found consolation in the fact that the Scottish Small Landholders Bill, at any rate, had been debated in the Standing Committee for twenty-two days. The hon. Member said that after that it was impossible to say that the Prime Minister's Resolution threatened any danger to the right of free discussion on the part of the minority. It seems to me that the hon. Member for Leicester left out of account the real value of free discussion. The value of free discussion is not the making of speeches. It is to a certain extent to influence the course of legislation, but the real value of free discussion is to enable the country to follow day by day, and hour by hour, the questions which are being threshed out in the House of Commons, and it is only by that means that the country is able to form a sane, sober, and reasoned judgment upon the various points involved. The debates in the Standing Committees give no opportunity whatever for the country to realise or to understand the points which are raised. They have no knowledge of them whatever, and neither has the House of Commons itself; and yet in spite of the fact that the country is not able to form a reasoned judgment as to the points involved, and in spite of the fact that the House of Commons, as a whole, has no moans of finding out what has taken place before a Standing Committee, the Government has settled for the first time in the history of the House of Commons that Bills coming down on report from the Standing Committees shall be subjected to a strict limitation of time. That is the second of the new departures in the matter of procedure which the Government have indulged in. I pass over the fact of the Scottish Small
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  Landholders Bill having been closured to a most extraordinary extent while it was before the Standing Committee. The figures were given yesterday. The Standing Committee considered the Bill on twenty-two days. I understand from a Return which was moved for last session that the closure was moved in that Committee no fewer than fifty-nine times, and I ask the House to compare that with the number of times the closure was moved in this House during the whole session. In this House and in Committee of the Whole House throughout the whole session the closure was moved only sixty-six times. It seems to me that it is absolately impossible in view of these figures to contend that the rights of the minority to free and full discussion, even in the Standing Committee, is adequately safeguarded. The Government are not content with a measure of closure so drastic as the guillotining on the Report stage of Bills which come back from the Standing Committees. They invented a new system of guillotine by which in respect of Bills the Committee stage of which they keep in this House before the Committee stage was entered upon at all, they laid down a strict limitation of the Committee stage, the Report stage, and the Third Reading stage. That was done in the case of the Territorial and Reserve Forces Bill of last session, so that we had to conduct the whole of our detailed discussions on that most important subject under the black shadow of the guillotine. Now they propose, in the Resolution which has been submitted to the House, to carry this thing a stage further still. "We shall, if we pass this Resolution, set up a strict limitation of the time which shall govern the whole of the discussion which is to take place on these two Bills. I am not arguing now whether they are justified in the peculiar circumstances of the case in treating these Bills in this way. What I am arguing is that they are increasing step by step the use of a new and drastic measure in respect to matters submitted to the House of Commons. It is as if the appetite had grown by what it fed on. I have read that a surgeon becomes more and more addicted to the use of the knife. I do not know whether that is true or not. I think the experience of the last twelve months—and all these innovations have taken place in the last twelve

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  months—leads me to suppose that the Government are becoming more and more addicted to the use of these drastic measures of closure. How far is it going to extend? Are the Government when they get this precedent going to apply this system to all their Bills throughout the session? The question was asked by an hon. Member opposite yesterday afternoon, and he suggested that the system which is to be applied to Bills in exceptional eases now is but a step to the extension of that system by which, immediately after the Address in reply to the gracious Speech from the Throne has been voted, the Government will lay before the House a detailed scheme for the whole session, allocating the time for each Bill they propose to bring forward. It seems to me that if they once get this precedent to refer to they will apply it to other Bills at other port ions of the session, and will advance the same reason for doing it, namely, to send Bills up to the House of Lords in such time as will give that House time to discuss them fully in all their bearings. I do not pretend for a moment that our Rules of Procedure are perfect. I grant, and it has been admitted over and over again from this side of the House, that the Government must have time for the legislation they think it right to pass. I do not doubt they would say in answer to our criticism, "After all, we are only using the weapon which you yourselves forged." But the question is not whether they are justified in using it, but how they use it. True we forged it; but we forged it for use only in exceptional circumstances. But if we are to judge by present methods of conducting the business of the House, it has become a matter of everyday practice by the present Government to use that weapon. It seems to me that there is a very great difference between a policeman who keeps his truncheon in his pocket for use in moments of emergency and a policeman who finds it essential to brandish his truncheon in the exercise of his duty at every moment of the day. If a policeman was to go with his truncheon always in his hands he would not be tolerated for a moment. The Prime Minister is the policeman with a truncheon always in his hands, as if it were impossible to conduct the business of the House without resorting to these exceptional measures. I say that the present system, or rather lack of system, cannot be satisfactory to
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  anybody. To my mind it impairs the dignity of the House, hinders the despatch of business, prevents the country being properly informed as to the proceedings of Parliament, and lends colour to the view that the objects of the Government are concerned more with the supposed benefit of the Party to which they belong than with the real interests of the country as a whole. The rights of private Members and the liberty of free discussion have been trampled under foot. The very Rules of Procedure under which our proceedings are conducted were guillotined time and again; and I venture to say that if we had been allowed to debate them fully and freely some of the difficulties from which we now suffer would have been obviated. We find our expectations disappointed; the situation is full of doubt, uncertainty and danger to the efficient conduct of the business of the House. Step by step barriers along the road of free discussion have been erected. Stop by step has it boon made more and more difficult to private Members to take any useful part at all in discussion or legislation. Let mo remind the House of the four points I have mentioned: The alteration of the system of Committees; the introduction of the guillotine on the Report and Third Reading stages of Bills when they come from Standing Committees; the introduction of the guillotine at all stages of Bills which are kept in Committee of the Whole House after the Second Reading; and, finally, the guillotining of all stages of Bills after they have been laid on the Table of the House. It is impossible to believe that the Government are content to drift along in this way without plan and apparently without the slightest care for the reputation and traditions of the House. I move the Amendment standing in my name in order to give the Government an opportunity of taking the House frankly into their confidence as to what they intend to do in regard to special Rules of Procedure. I hope that the Chancellor of the Exchequer will be able to give us definite information and assurance on that point. The House of Commons used to be a great debating Assembly in which proposed legislation was criticised, its faults exposed, and Amendments carried. But under the despotic sway of the present Government, debate is stifled and criticism is dead. Bills are withdrawn from the consideration of

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  the House altogether and sent to Standing Committees upstairs, where they disappear for months at a time. The House of Commons is deprived of the power of criticising and amending legislation. In a word, it exists merely to register the decrees of the Executive Government. Let the Government restore to the House of Commons some of that liberty and right of free discussion of which they have done so much to deprive it. If they will not do that, then I beg the House to pause before sanctioning this further inroad upon the rights of free speech, unless they are to abrogate altogether their rights for all future time. I beg to move.
  Amendment proposed—
  "In line 1, to leave out all after the word 'That,' and add the words 'this House declines further to curtail its liberty of discussion until the Government have laid upon the Table of the House their general scheme for dealing with Bills involving matters of controversy.' "—[Mr. Forster.]
  Question proposed, "That the words 'in the case of' stand part of the Question."
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. ASQUITH,): The hon. Gentleman has made an able and an interesting speech, though I confess I did not through the greater part of it trace any direct connection between his arguments and the Amendment. He indulged in some flights of imagination, as, for instance, in his picture of the mild and benignant figure of the Primo Minister violating all the best traditions of Parliament, and wielding, in truculent mood, a truncheon in order to belabour the heads and curtail the liberties of the Members of this House—a masterpiece of ingenious but infelicitous caricature. As regards the bulk of the hon. Gentleman's speech, I listened to it with that sort of feeling one sometimes has that poets have fancied—the dim imagination of what has happened to us in a previous sphere of existence, which comes sometimes like clouds of glory and sometimes, I am afraid, in a less inspiring form. But as I heard the hon. Gentleman I seemed to be listening to dim echoes of speeches which I am afraid I myself have made in previous years when other Governments were in power, when, as we thought, these sacred and time-
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  honoured liberties of the House of Commons were being just as much jeopardised and endangered as the hon. Gentleman thinks they are to day. I do not make the observation in any spirit of recrimination, but I think we all ought to agree that this is a very serious problem which ought to be confronted, if we can confront is, with something like a general consensus and general action. My right hon. friend told the House yesterday that the Government are seriously and most anxiously engaged in considering whether it is not possible to devise some procedure and some machinery by which we can get rid of the guillotine, the use of which has become increasingly common in late years, whatever Government was in power, and give to a tribunal which will command the general confidence of the House some discretion as to the proper allocation of our time as between different subjects, and, I will add, as between different parts of the same subject. That is a matter which, I entirely agree, is very urgent and eminently worth the consideration of all parts of the House. But I venture to think it has very little to do with the particular Motion which is now under discussion. We are not dealing here with fresh legislation of the present session. We are not dealing here with projects which have not already been submitted to the consideration and discussion of the House of Commons. If we were proposing arbitrarily to abridge the time which was to be given to the discussion of any proposal of that kind, then I quite agree that the great bulk of the hon. Gentleman's speech might be not only relevant, but very cogent. But that is not the case. We are dealing with the case of a measure which went through this House after more or less discussion last session, and one of the main reasons—I do not say the only reason—given by the House of Lords for not considering the Bill was that it arrived at that House at so late a period of the session that there was not adequate time to give it proper consideration. The object of this Motion is to enable the House to send these measures, which have already been discussed, to the House of Lords at such an early date of the session that they will have no reasonable ground for saying that there is not ample time to consider them in all their bearings. The whole point of the hon.

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  Gentleman's speech, in so far as it is relevant to the Motion, comes back to the point made by the Prime Minister yesterday, namely, Was an adequate opportunity, or was it not, offered last session for the discussion of these measures? As regards the Small Landholders Bill, what are the facts? I think that three days on Second Reading, twenty-two days in Committee upstairs, three clays on Report, and another day for Third Reading were allowed. Is that, or is that not, ample time for the discussion of this measure? Outside the walls of this House you could not got any audience in the country to listen for a moment to the suggestion that, if the proceedings were conducted, as people assume they are, in a businesslike fashion, there was not ample time for the discussion not only of the principle, but of the details of the measure. The only other point which the hon. Gentleman makes is that the Bill was improperly sent to a Standing Committee. The Government, he said, undertook not to send controversial measures to those Committees, and this was a controversial measure. I agree that, as a rule, it is not desirable that measures of a highly controversial kind should be sent to a Committee upstairs, but there was a special reason for dealing in this way with this particular Bill, which was that it affected Scotland and Scotland alone. No other part of the United Kingdom had any direct concern in any one of its provisions, and with the general assent of the House of Commons we created a Standing Committee containing the whole of the representatives of Scotland, and the very object of that Committee was that measures relating to Scotland alone should, so far as the Committee stage was concerned, be discussed where Scottish opinion was predominant. And when it is said that the proceedings of that Committee, where the closure was extravagantly used, from the fact of the Committee being held upstairs, were not known to the public, I have here a volume containing the detailed reports published in the Scotsman.
  MR. FORSTER: They are not official.
  MR. ASQUITH: No report of what goes on in Committees upstairs is official. The proceedings of this Committee were not reported at length in The Times because their readers had no concern in them
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  whatever; but the people mostly concerned were kept most minutely and accurately informed day by day of what was going on. Then, as regards the point about the use or abuse of the closure, I should like to read a sentence from the report of the proceedings which appeared in the Scotsman on Wednesday, 5th June—
  "The Standing Committee on Scottish Bills held their sixth meeting yesterday at West minster for the further consideration of the Small Landholders (Scotland) Bill. There was a large attendance of members. Mr. Walter Long resumed the debate on Mr. Munro-Ferguson's Amendment for the rejection of Clause 1, which applies the Crofters Act throughout Scotland."
  That was the sixth day of the Committee, and they were still engaged in discussing an Amendment for the rejection of Clause 1. Does anyone suppose that, if the proceedings had been in Committee of the Whole House, the closure would not have been applied by any Chairman? [Mr. CHAPLIN made an observation across the Table which did not reach the Gallery.] The right hon. Gentleman alludes to the days when there was no closure and when very little legislation was carried through; but the Government of which he was a member resorted to the closure with great freedom, and every Government, to whatever Party it belongs, will find the closure an indispensable instrument if any legislation at all is to be carried through. At any rate, the proceedings of this Committee show that the Government was not unduly precipitate in the application of the closure. I do not want to go over again the topics that were discussed so fully yesterday, and I submit to the House, in the first place, that we were thoroughly justified in sending the Bill to the Scottish Grand Committee; and, in the second place, that the length of time it occupied is a sufficient guarantee that ample publicity was given to all its details and that they were thoroughly thrashed out. With regard to the Land Values Bill, it is admitted that the closure was never applied during the whole of the discussion. Dealing, as we are, with measures not for the first time, but after ample discussion in the previous session, and dealing with them in a manner which gives the House an opportunity, first on the Second Reading of saying whether they adhere to the principle of the Bills, and then in Committee of moving reasonable Amendments, I submit

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  that this procedure, though I quite agree that it is exceptional, is thoroughly warranted by the special circumstances of the case, and that therefore the Amendment is one which cannot be justified.
  MR. WALTER LONG: The Chancellor of the Exchequer in the reply which he has just made began by saying that my hon. friend's speech, to which he paid a courteous and well-merited compliment, was in no way directed or closely directed to the Motion on the Paper. The Chancellor of the Exchequer himself has devoted most of his address to the House to giving an account of the proceedings which took place in the Standing Committee, and if he is justified in making that complaint of my hon. friend's speech, I can only say, as one who spent many days in that Committee, that a greater travesty of what took place than the account given by the right hon. Gentleman it is impossible to conceive. The right hon. Gentleman based his contention that the closure was justified and the debate was adequate, on one single instance; he says in tones of horror to the House, that on the sixth day of the Committee, Clause 1 was still under debate.
  MR. C. DUNCAN: The world was made in six days.
  MR. WALTER LONG: Yes, Sir, it is perfectly true that the world was made in six days and that Clause 1 was discussed for six days, but what the Chancellor of the Exchequer omitted to tell the House was that during those six days a much larger number of Members on the Government side of the House, than of Members of the Opposition, took part in the debate. He forgot to tell the House that that clause, by the admission of the Minister in charge of the Bill and of everybody who has studied the Bill, contains the main and to us the most objectionable principle in the Bill. That clause proposes to establish fixity of tenure in Scotland, and what experience have we in this country of fixity of tenure? We have only had it in its application to Irish land legislation. The right hon. Gentleman said that a small knot of English Members opposed the Bill, but he forgot that in the opposition to that Bill in the
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  Grand Committee there were Scottish Members concerned, who because they happened to sit on this side of the House are not apparently entitled to be called Scottish Members equally with hon. Gentlemen opposite.
  MR. ASQUITH: I did not say anything of the sort. What I said was that the delay was largely due to the action of a small knot of Members.
  MR. WALTER LONG: I do not wish to misrepresent the right hon. Gentleman, and possibly the language I used may have been incorrect. But I will put it in another way, and that is, that it seemed to me that the right hon. Gentleman entirely ignored the opposition of Scottish Members, one of whom who sits on his own side of the House is acknowledged to have certainly no equal in his knowledge of Scottish agriculture. Scottish Members took a part in this opposition, and English Members are to be blamed for discussing this Bill because it affected Scotland alone. I deny that absolutely. It is perfectly true that this Bill applies only to Scotland, and, as I have said once during this debate, for the first time in my life I rejoice that Scottish laws are not to be applied to England. I have envied Scotland many of her laws, but when it is sought by the Government to apply to the Scottish land system almost precisely the same principle that was applied to Ireland, then I rejoice that England is not to be placed under the same disability. But is the right hon. Gentleman justified in saying that this Bill only affects Scotland? What is our experience of the application of this kind of law to Ireland? Has that been an Irish question alone? Has not this country been called upon to make great sacrifices and to find large sums of money in order to carry out consequential legislation, which became necessary through the provisions which were enacted in the case of Ireland There is no proof and there can be no proof that if this system is applied to Scotland you will not have to apply the same process of legislation that has been found necessary in Ireland. And if that is so, then it ceases to be merely a question affecting Scotland, and becomes a question affecting the whole of the United Kingdom and the taxpayers who have to find this

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  money. Therefore the small knot of Members were absolutely justified in their action. The Chancellor of the Exchequer in defending the proceedings in Committee upstairs told us that those proceedings were reported at great length in the Scotsman. That reminds me that during the discussion of the new rules last session, I ventured to assure the Government that if they were going to make the Grand Committees take upon their shoulders a considerable share of the work which had hitherto been done down here, they must take a different view of the word "controversial" from that which was taken on either side of the House, and they must see that there was a full and official record of what took place in those Committees. But what says the Chancellor of the Exchequer? He produces a bundle of papers and points in triumph to an abundant report which I gratefully acknowledge, and which I believe to be an accurate report, which appeared in the Scotsman; but if during the course of the proceedings we quote the Scotsman as a record of information, do hon. Gentlemen opposite accept it? We ask them to accept it, and they say "where did that come from." We state that it is from the Scotsman, and they receive it in a very different way from that in which they received the right hon. Gentleman's speech to-day when he quoted the reports of the Scotsman as a reliable account of what took place in the Grand Committee. My hon. friend who moved this Amendment asks the House to affirm that the Resolution is an undue abridgment of the liberty of discussion of this House and ought not to be made without a full diselosure of the nature of the general scheme of the Government for dealing with Bills involving matters of controversy, and he seemed to me to justify his case entirely by the arguments he used. The right hon. Gentleman only gave one answer to his contention. He argued that the closure was not unfairly imposed. I am one of those who look upon the closure as having long become part of our procedure. I remember the closure being moved again and again when we were in office, and I do not suppose the Opposition thought that it was properly moved; it is generally the case that the Opposition do not agree with its being moved by their opponents. Our contention in this case was not that the closure was moved improperly; certainly our contention was not
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  and is not that the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill exercised his powers with any desire to deprive us of our rights or to act unfairly towards us. We never made any suggestion of the kind, and if last session the right hon. Gentleman derived some such impression from the speeches we made, I can only say it was never intended by any one of us. What we urged as regards these Grand Committees is what we urge now, that here on the floor of the House of Commons, with the Speaker or the Chairman, who are the officials of the House charged directly with the exercise of the right to say whether the closure shall be used or not, in the chair,—here in full gaze of the public eye the use of the closure is bound to be subject to a check and a control which is impossible and does not exist in the Committees upstairs. I appeal to anybody who has ever been responsible for the conduct of a Bill in this House to think what are the reasons which would lead him to decide that the closure shall be moved. What is the first consideration he puts before himself? It is, at what stage can the closure be used so as to advance business, to secure necessary debate, and to insure that the time shall be properly applied. Clause 1 contained an important part of the Bill—fixity of tenure applied to the whole of Scotland, irrespective of whether a case was made out for amending the Crofters Act or not; and the Chancellor of the Exchequer says that Members of Parliament are fully protected when it has been discussed for something less than twenty-four hours. The right hon. Gentleman talks about six days. We used to meet at half-past eleven and were supposed to return in time to come down to the House, but so anxious were they to hurry their work through that they forced us ultimately to sit there when the House was sitting. Six days then means twenty-four hours, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer thinks that an adequate and full discussion for the application of a principle which nobody so far as I know pretends has been really satisfactory in the only case where it has been applied, and for the application of which, to this part of the United Kingdom, so far as we know no reason had been given. The closure was not moved with any sort of improper motive nor, so far as I know, in any way which could be described as

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  unjust, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer has some foundation when he says six days were given to Clause 1, though on many subsequent parts the closure was moved when far less time had been given to important questions. During these debates the closure was moved frequently when in our judgment very grave questions had not been discussed at all—the constitution of the Court, the setting up in Scotland of a Land Court, which is another question altogether, quite distinct from fixity of tenure and was discussed only in the most meagre fashion. I am not blaming the Secretary for Scotland for his management of the business, but the proceedings in the Committee proved conclusively that if you are going to exercise, as you did for the first time last session, the same rights of closure that you exercised here, you ought to have at all events the same protection for the minority in the publicity of your proceedings and a record of what takes place. It is for that reason and on these grounds that we object to the powers of closure given in Grand Committee. Does not this therefore mean that the change which the Government propose is one which curtails the liberties of this House? Bills which have hitherto been debated here are to go to Grand Committees to be forced through by a purely party majority, and if they meet with non-acceptance they are to be sent up again in the next session. The Leader of the Opposition dwelt with some sarcasm yesterday upon the attitude of the Government who proposed to send up these Bills after three days discussion, to be passed practically as they are. I do not believe there is another man who has ever been responsible for a Bill which has not passed—I do not care how long he has had for its preparation—who would not if he had the opportunity gladly take it back and largely alter it before re-offering it to the House of Commons. And yet this Ministry of all the talents are so confident that they cannot go wrong that they, in the early hours of the session, ask us to take, in exactly the same form as it was introduced last year, a Bill which, I am convinced, if they were to approach its re-consideration now, they would find could from their point of view be materially improved without affecting its main principle. Is this not a
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  curtailment of the liberties of the House of Commons? The Valuation Bill was brought in at the end of the session and discussed in the early hours of the morning. It was a Bill of extraordinary complexity, in regard to which its own promoters did not agree, either as to what its effect would be or how that effect was to be carried out. That Bill is now again brought in in exactly the form in which it was last session and no advantage is taken of those debates to amend it so as to meet in some way the views of those who criticised it. I believe there are very few cases in which any Government, however big its majority or however strong in intellectual power the Government itself has been—and in these respects the Government is fully entitled to claim that it enjoys both to the fullest extent—has ever yet succeeded in forcing legislation through the Houses of Parliament unless it was prepared to have some regard for the views and criticisms of those who differed from it. Has there been any such regard in this case? Has any concession worth talking of been made to the Opposition? Here and there something was conceded, but generally after prolonged debate. If those conclusions had been made at the beginning they would have saved a great deal of time. If the time was long the responsibility does not rest with the Opposition, but with those who were responsible for the Bill, and who if they had made their concessions earlier would have saved considerable debate. I have no hesitation in supporting the Amendment, not only for the reasons which have been given, but because if we are going in the future to have useful and practical legislation which, when it is passed into law, will be accepted by the people, it must be legislation which has been discussed in the full light of day. The public mind will not have been able to follow it in its passage through Parliament if this procedure is adopted. I believe the change is a far more serious one than the Chancellor of the Exchequer seems to believe. He says the Amendment is only a revival of the old argument often used here in days gone by. I differ. This is a change which has never been proposed before, as the Prime Minister admitted yesterday. It is a change of a far-reaching kind. The right hon. Gentleman is going to transfer work in regard to many of our Bills from the floor of the House to the

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  Committee rooms upstairs. It is going to effect an extraordinary revolution in the business of Parliament. It is because I believe that revolution to be a bad one, and because I believe it will result possibly in more work, but if so, in bad work, that I heartily support the Amendment.
  *MR. BARNESsaid he understood that his colleague the Member for Leicester had already voiced the position of the Labour Party in regard to the constitutional issues involved in the proposals of the Prime Minister, and also in regard to the proposal to carry over a Bill to the next session in the event of its not having found its way on to the Statute book. He would like to endorse what his hon. friend had said on that point, and to express the opinion that it was absurd to expect them to listen to a great many speeches, most of them of a repetition character, in passing the Bill again. But he was a Scottish Member, as well as a member of the Labour Party, and therefore it fell to his lot to have opportunities of getting to know what was denied to the hon. Member for Leicester, first, as to the time spent upon the Small Landholders Bill and the use made of the time, and, secondly, as to the feeling in Scotland in regard to the two Bills under discussion. He was astounded to read in the Press that morning a statement by the Leader of the Opposition that full and adequate time had not been devoted to the Small Landholders Bill last session, and he could only conclude that the right hon. Gentleman was actually in ignorance of the time spent and the use made of it. It seemed to him that the three days devoted to the Second Reading were ample for the occasion. Most of the speeches at the end of the debate at all events came from one side of the House, and it actually fizzled out, for even if longer time had been devoted to it little use would have been made of it. The right hon. Member for South Dublin had said that the six days that were devoted in Committee upstairs to the first clause of the Bill were devoted to the most important principle in the Bill. That was perfectly true, but the principle of the Bill was assented to, or at all events sufficiently discussed in the House, and what was left for the Committee was not to re-discuss the Bill and the principles
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  involved in it, but to try to shake themselves down and frame the Bill in such a way in detail as to make it workable in its practical details. He had no hesitation in saying that adequate time was given. The Committee discussed every clause of the Bill. In the early stages they had discussed every sentence and every line, and he was inclined to think some would have discussed every word. The talk was mostly on the part of those who were not Scottish Members at all, and the freedom that was allowed was carried almost, if not quite, to the point of abuse. As to the feeling of the people of Scotland in regard to the Bill, could there be any doubt about it? He thought it was sufficient to take the attitude of the Scottish Members, by the bulk of whom the Bill was not opposed. It was opposed by Gentlemen who, following the lead of the hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London, had during his (Mr. Barnes) two years in the House opposed every single measure that had been proposed, of economic, political, or social freedom. So far as they were concerned he took little stock of their attitude in regard to this Bill. With the exception of the hon. Member for Leith Burghs, the Scottish Members were friendly disposed towards the Bill, and that was sufficient to indicate the feeling of the people of Scotland. If anything else were needed he would remind the House of the most significantly representative meeting held at Perth at the time the Bill was under discussion, at which representatives from all parts of Scotland gave their adhesion in no uncertain sound, and indicated that they were sincerely anxious that the Bill should become law It had been said that the other Bill, the Land Values Bill, was one of extraordinary complexity. To his mind it was extremely simple, and it was because of its simplicity that they had the justification for its being submitted to the House so late as it was. The Small Landholders Bill was submitted early so as to allow ample time for its discussion there and in another place. He hoped the Government would stick to its guns in regard to this Resolution. If they did one of two things would happen. Either the Bills would be passed or they would be faced with a constitutional crisis that he wanted

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  to avert. If that issue were raised, he did not believe the people of the country would be content to take it in the moderate form in which it was proposed by the Government. He had sufficient faith in his fellow countrymen to think that once the issue was raised they would not be content to lie down and allow an irresponsible and unrepresentative body to hang up the decisions of Parliament. He wanted, however, to avert the issue and to have some much needed social legislation adopted. He hoped Gentlemen above the gangway would allow Scottish Members to exercise the right that they thought they had of managing their own business in their own way, interpreting better than others possibly could the feelings, interests, and aspirations of the people of Scotland.
  MR. MUNRO FERGUSONsaid he held an opposite view to that of the right hon. Gentleman opposite with regard to the Scottish Grand Committee. He held it to be the only way they could manage their business short of having separate Parliaments for separate parts of the Kingdom. The system had not had a fair trial. He had already given his reasons for supporting the Resolution, but he would like to say a few words with reference to the assumption of the Chancellor of the Exchequer that because a certain number of days was given to a Bill in Grand Committee, therefore the Bill was thoroughly discussed. That was not so. If a Bill was passed without an excessive use of the closure, or without the use of the closure at all, as was the case with the Land Values Bill, it might certainly be taken that it was fully and fairly discussed. But where the closure had been moved fifty times, and where no concessions had been made, the presumption was that the objections raised to the Bill had been evaded rather than met, and that, he maintained, was the case with the Small Landholders Bill. They had had one most eloquent speech from the Lord-Advocate, to which he had listened with interest as an antiquarian; and that was the only speech to the point that he had listened to during the whole time the Bill was before the Grand Committee. It was an admirable speech. If they could have had a speech like that upon the introduction of dual ownership,
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  or the giving of an independent valuation, or the fixing for Scotland of a new standard of economic rent, or for the abolition of one Board of Agriculture without making any provision for another, the discussion would have been materially shortened. It was not the arguments used against the Bill which wasted time, but the fact that the Government did not produce a case for the Bill, because it was introduced practically without inquiry, and it was difficult for them to find reasons for it. It was because the Government had to avoid giving reasons for the Bill that the discussion was so indefinitely prolonged. It was said that a knot of English Members wasted time, but he did not think that was so. Some English Members might have been innocent of agriculture like a great number of his Scottish colleagues, but three or four English Members were extremely well informed in agriculture, and no one could say that their contributions to the discussion were without value. They were the best fitted of the Members to debate upon agricultural affairs. The Chancellor of the Exchequer no doubt thought a great many of the points discussed were of very little significance, but they were of immense significance. The first clause which they had taken five or six days in discussing was destructive of the whole agricultural system in Scotland. Under the Bill no landlord in his senses would have continued to furnish equipment for farms as at present. That was what the Chancellor of the Exchequer called a method. All the vital principles underlying the Bill were described by the Chancellor of the Exchequer as so many methods between which they had to choose in preferring the English or the Scottish Bill, but they were vital, and that was the reason why the debates were prolonged. The cost of the establishment under the Bill was a thing they had never had a discussion on yet, and on which he did not suppose they ever would. He protested against the idea that time was wasted in the Committee upstairs, and he did that in order to urge that it must not be assumed in defending the Small Landholders Bill that it was adequately discussed there, because he was perfectly clear that it was not.
  MR. A. DEWARsaid the hon. Member for Leith Burghs

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  had complained that the Small Landholders Bill had been mismanaged by the promoters. When he complained that there was no one but himself and one or two hon. Gentlemen opposite on the Committee who had a sufficient knowledge of agriculture to deal with the Bill, he would remind him that the greatest and most beneficial agricultural measure ever introduced into Scotland, the Crofters Act, was carried through the House by a lawyer who never knew farming and never owned an estate, the late Lord Kinross. The plain fact of the matter was that the hon. Member for Leith and those who agreed with him came to the Committee determined to obstruct and destroy the Bill—["Oh"]—because it was founded on a principle to which they had a rooted dislike. He admitted that that was fair political warfare. He understood, though he did not agree with the argument of the right hon. Member for South Dublin, that the Landholders Bill was not discussed sufficiently to enable Scotland to understand it; but what, then, became of the argument of the Leader of the Opposition that Scotland had been so instructed in this matter that it had actually made up its mind to have nothing to do with the Bill? Scotland had been instructed, for the debates in Committee were reported in the Scotsman, Glasgow Herald, Dundee Advertiser, and the Aberdeen papers. Many Members of both Houses of Parliament had addressed meetings in Scotland in the autumn; the Bill had been discussed in every Scottish newspaper; it was talked of in the market place and workshop to the exclusion of other political topics; and on occasion every large landowner had invited his tenants to dinner, and the reporter was called in so that the views of the landholders might be made known. Some landowners took the occasion for the first time to remit arrears of rent, on account of the bad season, of course, and they saw to it that it was advertised in the newspapers. He had never known Scotland so agitated and so earnest about any important measure. He agreed with the Leader of the Opposition that Scotland had made up its mind upon this question, but not in the direction which was claimed by the right hon. Gentleman, and he claimed to know the mind of Scotland a great deal better than some hon. Members opposite. It was not
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  after all so difficult for Scotsmen to understand the opposition to this Bill, and especially the opposition offered by the Scottish landowners. In Scotland they had had for the last 25 years in the Crofters Act a working model of this very measure. Scotsmen knew thoroughly well what they were doing. The Scottish small landholder knew very well that when this Bill passed he would possess security in his holdings, and that was enough for him. The agricultural labourer knew that he was a prospective small holder and would have a chance which he never had before, and that was enough for him. These were the classes who were longing for the Bill. Of course they did not hear them making long speeches, and it was necessary to go amongst them to find out their views, because they were not reported in the newspaper. He urged hon. Members not to delay this Scottish Small Landholders Bill unduly, because the people of Scotland were most anxious that it should pass into law. He would remind the House that the Second Reading was carried by 491 to 239; so that the principle of the measure had been affirmed by the House and thoroughly discussed. With regard to the other Bill, no one had said that it had not been sufficiently discussed, the objection raised being mainly that it was a complicated measure. To his mind it was a short measure and to those who had studied it the Bill was simple enough. It had been discussed not only in this House but in the country for a good many years, and it was supported by a majority of the municipalities in Scotland and England. A Committee sat for eighteen months upstairs considering the matter and they had made their recommendations. In conclusion he urged hon. Members on both sides of the House to give their support to the Resolution.
  MR. LAMBTONsaid he objected to some of the observations which had been made by hon. Gentlemen opposite. Of course it was very convenient to argue that upon this question Scotland had made up its mind. The point he had to consider was that this was a British House of Parliament and that the Resolution had not simply to be passed by Scotsmen alone. To pass measures in that way they would have to wait until Home Rule for Scotland, as

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  well as for Ireland, was passed. Until that time arrived he maintained that English Members had a perfect right to discuss all measures which came before the House of Commons, no matter whether they were Scottish or English Bills. The hon. Member for Glasgow had objected strongly to what he called the misuse of the time of the Committee. Two hon. Members had also stated that full reports of the proceedings in Committee upstairs had appeared in the Scottish newspapers. He was one of those who took part in those discussions, and he was one of those who liked to see his speeches in print. He had looked at the Glasgow Herald and the Scotsman, but he had never seen a single word of his reported. The Scottish Members were reported, but the reports given to English Members were few and brief. If they were to judge of the proceedings in the Standing Committee by the reports in Scottish papers, they would find that English Members occupied exceedingly little time. He challenged the hon. Member to prove that any English Member on the Opposition side of the House occupied undue time in the Committee. The hon. Member for the Black-friars Division of Glasgow had said that Scotsmen could take care of themselves, and that if they were left alone they would arrange their affairs. He contended that the English Members of the Committee were very useful, and that they fulfilled their old function of keeping the peace in Scotland. On more than one occasion they saved the Government from being defeated by their own followers. The hon. Member for Ross and Cromarty brought forward a number of Amendments which would have been carried against the Government but for the support of the English members of the Committee. He thought the Government were most ungrateful. The remark that hon. Members above the gangway on the Opposition side of the House were always opposed to freedom was hardly worthy of the hon. Member who made it. What they wanted was freedom of discussion. The hon. Member well knew that more than half the Bill was closured without any discussion at all. The hon. Member for the Leith Burghs had pointed out that the reason why the closure was so frequently moved was that those representing the Government were unable to give an answer to the questions which were asked. They would not give suf-
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  ficient information to the Members of the Committee. That was why the proceedings took so long. When there was a difficult point which ought to be explained, the discussion was closured. The Solicitor-General for Scotland spoke half a dozen times in Committee, and the Lord Advocate only made one speech which had much bearing on the Bill. He himself had asked for information, and it had been refused. He supposed the hon. Member went on the principle—
  Gin a body ask a body,
  Need a body tell.
  He asked the learned Solicitor General a question and was told it would be answered when they came to Clause 14. The Clause was closured, and when it was brought up in the House it was closured again. The charges brought forward by the hon. Member for the Blackfriars division were actually grotesque. They had been told of a famous meeting at Perth. What had they to do in that House with the meeting at Perth? What had the House to do with landlords' dinners? These Bills should be discussed on their merits. The Government could not speak for them selves last year upstairs on the Small Landolders Bill, and now the Bill was brought forward in the same form. The hon. Member had pointed out that English Members did not know much about Scottish agriculture. He claimed to know something of Scottish agriculture. He lived within sight of Scotland, in I Northumberland, where agriculture was the same as in Roxburgh and Berwickshire. It was grotesque to say that English Members did not know. It had been said that the Crofters Act of twenty-one years ago, which was passed by a lawyer, had been most successful, and that it ought to be applied to the lowlands. The hon. Member was not satisfied with the Report of the Douglas Commission.
  MR. A. DEWAR: The Chairman of the Commission was a moral philosopher.
  MR. LAMBTONsaid that in regard to agriculture he would just as soon have the opinion of a moral philosopher as that of a lawyer. The moral philosopher at the head of the Commission had the assistance of five other Commissioners who were not moral philosophers. They were

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  acquainted with agriculture in every branch, and they reported on the system of crofter legislation which the hon. Member was so proud of. They proved that crofting conditions were all very well in crofting districts, but that they would not apply to the lowlands. No reply had ever been given to that contention. To talk of applying the Crofters Acts to Berwickshire and Roxburghshire was the greatest nonsense in the world. The Douglas Commission proved that crofters could not live without other occupation. The charges which had been brought against English Members with respect to their action in the Standing Committee with relation to the Small Landholders Bill were unjustified, and that would have appeared from a full report of the proceedings if such had been available. He understood from the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the Second Heading of the Bill would be passed in four hours on Tuesday next. That would be a most unjustifiable and arbitrary proceeding, and it would not redound to the credit of the Government.
  *SIR J. JARDINEsaid that hon. Members on the other side of the House had gone into the great constitutional questions raised by the debate. He would like to state some of his reminiscences of what happened during the twenty-two sittings of the Scottish Grand Committee when the Small Landholders Bill was before it. He was present at all but one of the sittings, and the speeches of the English Members were listened to by the Scottish Members with that patience which was one of their national characteristics. Many of those speeches were of the nature of Second Reading speeches. It seemed to him that hon. Members representing agricultural counties in Scotland had to put considerable restraint on their desire to speak in order to enable hon. Members for England to express their views. While Members representing Scottish constituencies were occasionally firing stray shots in skirmishing order, they were attacked on all sides, bombarded, and enfiladed not only by Members of the regular Opposition but by the hon. Member for the Leith Burghs and others who were opposed to the Bill. The supporters of the Bill in the Committee could not be charged with any undue haste. As to the mind of Scotland regarding the Bill,
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  he attached great weight to the meeting at Perth which was attended by about 600 delegates from all parts of the country. The resolution passed by that meeting in favour of the creation of small holdings was a sufficient answer to the hon. Member for the Leith Burghs who said that there was no demand whatever for small holdings. Having discussed this matter for six or seven years with people in Roxburghshire, especially with the farm servants, whose connection with the land was simply that of wage-earners, he could state very distinctly that there was a great demand for small holdings in the Lowlands. The proceedings of the Grand Committee were watched with the keenest interest, and many people came from Roxburghshire and elsewhere in Scotland to listen to the discussions. He thought he had a right to say that the people of Scotland were supremely interested in this matter.
  SIR FRANCIS POWELLhoped an English Member would be permitted to say a few words, because this was a question which could not be confined to the northern part of the United Kingdom. The proposal in the Small Landholders Bill was to adopt in Scotland a scheme of land tenure which the Government were entirely abolishing in Ireland. If that was the case, it was a reason why the House of Commons should be very careful in allowing such a Bill to pass without criticism. He did not intend to offer any observations on the Bill itself which had been so fully discussed already. He rather looked with favour and not with suspicion on Bills affecting Scotland, which were approved by hon. Members for Scotland. He remembered taking part in the discussions on a Scottish Police Bill in Committee. The work of that Committee was perfectly satisfactory to the House, and although it was corrected in a few details on the Report stage the Bill was practically passed as it had left the Committee, and it now stood part of the statute law of Scotland. He wished to make a passing reference to the Report presented at the end of last session by the hon. Member for Lanark on the Standing Committee. The figures given in that Report amply justified the criticisms which some hon. Members had ventured to pass on the Standing

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  Committees. Where a Bill was non-contentious that tribunal was eminently fitted to perform its work. True, there was sometimes a difficulty in forming a quorum and afterwards of securing the attendance of a quorum during the whole of the sitting. Nevertheless, where a Hill was non-contentious the Committee vas equal to the occasion and performed its duties in a satisfactory manner. But where they had a contentious Bill, such as the Small Landholders Bill, the same conditions did not obtain. There were long sittings, the closure was applied, and the proceedings were not regarded as satisfactory. It seemed to him that bringing in the two Scottish Bills on the present occasion was very much the same as carrying forward Bills from one session to another. The procedure was so similar, and would be so quick, that the House would have no opportunity of proper discussion. For his part he could feel no security that Bills so discussed really did represent the latest condition of the Scottish mind. They knew to their pleasure the character of the Scottish intellect, its fervidness, agility, and fertility, and, therefore, he could not suppose that during the last autumn when, according to the observations made by more than one speaker, the attention of Scotland was concentrated on this Bill, Scottish ingenuity and intelligence had no further proposals to make in regard to it, and that the Scottish people had no desire for its modification, or had discovered no means for its improvement. All opportunity, however, of modifying or amending the Bill would be lost by the course of policy which the Government were now proposing to adopt. There was one circumstance in connection with the proposal now before the House to which attention ought to be called. It was to be observed, although no notice had been taken of that circumstance in the debate, that when the Government had only a demand on one half of an evening, that was to be regarded as an "allotted day." That was an additional curtailment of the time of the House for discussion of the Small Landholders Bill next Tuesday. That could not be looked upon as in any degree a proper mode of conducting the business of the House. He thought that the Amendment of his hon. friend would lead to some information being given on the part of the
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  Government as to the procedure which they intended to submit hereafter for the consideration of the House. Reference was made in a recent debate to a suggestion that there should be procedure first of all by Resolution. The Resolution dealing with the general outline or principle of the Bill, having been adopted, the Bill might be then introduced and proceeded with, and time saved. In his own experience last century the House of Commons had to deal with one of the most difficult problems ever submitted to Parliament—the duty of passing a Bill relating to India. There were great difficulties to which some reference was made in the "Letters of Queen Victoria." The Government of that day escaped out of the difficulties by submitting a series of Resolutions—he forgot how many—and when they considered that these had been sufficiently discussed, the Bill was introduced and passed, comparatively without difficulty. The points of controversy had been decided in the course of the debates on the Resolutions. He recommended the example of those days to the sympathetic consideration of the Government. If the House would allow him, he desired, with every respect, to utter a few words of caution. Were they quite sure that they were not too much under the influence of party loyalty? He would be the last person to complain of that; but were they quite sure that they were not passing unconsciously and insensibly to the surrender of those great rights and privileges of the House of Commons? Surely it was a dangerous thing that their debates should be so curtailed. It was a dangerous thing in itself, but it was far more dangerous when they found debate of Bill after Bill, session after session, curtailed. There was an increase of this curtailment, and a corresponding diminution of the liberties of the House of Commons. He had ventured on more than one occasion to express his greave regret at the increased power of the Executive in this Parliament. He believed that it was a dangerous growth, and might bring about grave consequences; and instead of being continued as now, it ought to be arrested. Unless some change took place, the House would become a mere machine for the registration of the fiat and decrees of the Government of the day. He did not believe that this was in any degree a party

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  question. It was a Parliamentary question, a national question, an Imperial question; and if the House parted with its privileges he was certain that it would cease to command the confidence of the people of the country. He was sure that its efficiency as a great Parliamentary machine and agency would be terribly, almost fundamentally, impaired.
  SIR GILBERT PARKERagreed with what his hon. friend had said concerning the restriction of the liberties of the House. If the Government representing the Party to which he belonged brought in a Resolution like that moved by the Prime Minister, he declared deliberately that he would criticise the action of that Government and would oppose it. To pass Resolutions such as that now under consideration for curtailing discussions in the House in future, might be advantageous to the Government, in order that they might got credit from their supporters for securing the passage of an individual Bill, so that it would look as if more work was being done. But there was something more important than work being done. Once interfere with its fundamental rights, as his hon. friend had pointed out, and they drew upon the House itself trouble, which must eventually mean disaster. Much had been made that afternoon of twenty-two days discussion on the Small Landholders Bill upstairs, but the fact that there were twenty-two days discussion was to his mind an argument that there should be forty-two. The Chancellor of the Exchequor, for instance, said the Land Values Bill passed without the closure; but why did it pass without it? It did not receive the same opposition, because there was not the same fundamental objection to it that there was to the Small Landholders Bill. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said that on the first clause of that Bill six days were occupied. That was a very serious thing, and it was a matter which the Government ought to recognise as representing a strength of feeling, that should have compelled them to reconsider the introduction of the Bill itself, and when upstairs in the Standing Committee six days were taken to discuss this Clause as introduced, it proved that to have sent that Bill to a Standing Committee at all was really an infringement of the free right of debate. His
  258
  hon. friend who moved the Amendment said that surgeons grew to like the use of the knife, and it became a dangerous habit with them. One unfortunate thing was that the right hon. Gentlemen opposite did not apply the knife to themselves. The Government reaped an advantage for the moment from the course they were pursuing, but there would come a time when the very precedents which they had been setting would almost necessarily be followed by succeeding Governments, and he did not trust a Conservative or Unionist Government any more than he trusted a Liberal Government in this respect. He thought the temptation of every Government was to get its business done at almost any cost, and in permitting the Government now in power to pass these Resolutions, the House was only laying up for itself a store of trouble in the future. When a Unionist Government was in power and, wanting to gets its work done, applied a similar Resolution to this, bringing the closure into force, would not the hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway object, and very strongly, to the autocratic methods, as they would call them, of the Government of that time? They in that part of the House objected to Resolutions of this sort because they represented an increase of autocratic power on the part of the Executive. It was assumed in regard to these Bills that all the discussions had been completed; because nobody could say that there could be any discussion under the rules proposed. But was it certain that discussion was completed? Several months had passed since these Bills were brought in before; the country had had time to consider them, the representatives of the people had had time to consider them; the Scottish Members had been to their constituencies, and the English Members had had time to read the debates. Would anyone suggest that when these two Bills came up again the discussion which had occurred would be adequate to the occasion? He did not think so. It had been pointed out by hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on that side of the House that questions of principle were not discussed at all in the Standing Committees, the questions most serious to the welfare of the landed interests of Scotland were completely passed over, and by the falling of the closure fifty nine times these grave questions were consigned to the oblivion

  259

  which the Government had prepared for them. As he had said, the precedent was a dangerous one. The Government by it would choke discussion, and he ventured to say they would do so only for party purposes. It was a party purpose, and that was the cruel part of it. In order to see these Bills through at any cost the Government had proposed this Resolution, and if they received the support of the vast majority of the Liberal Members of the House they would once more demonstrate the helplessness of the minority, and once more show that their rights must be sacrificed. It was much better to allow over discussion than curtail discussion. He had been eight years in the House and he did not believe that on any Bill of importance there had been too much debate. It was only by constant discussion, by constant threshing out of clauses that they got at the bottom of the weakness of each individual clause, and judged its strength. There came to his mind a Bill which was passed, almost with a consensus of opinion and support from all quarters of the House. He referred to the Workmen's Compensation Bill, and he had always believed that that measure went through the House too quickly. He did not, moreover, believe that there was a single Member who had watched the working of that Bill, since it became law, who was not convinced that if it were again discussed, each clause would receive graver attention than it did. He thought there was the greatest danger, because feeling was in favour of its principle, in allowing a Bill to pass without fighting every clause of it, in order to find out what the meaning of it was, and what its effect would be. The Workmen's Compensation Bill was only one of a number to which he could refer, if there were time, and he opposed this Resolution because it would destroy adequate discussion. Even if the House had made up its mind upon these Bills, he believed that the Resolution was dangerous in principle and tyrannous in practice. The House of Commons was a body that had extravagantly generous instincts, and liked, when it was possible, to unite on the principle of a measure; indeed it was constantly shown to the Treasury Bench how eager the Opposition was to be generous when opportunity occurred. The danger was, when there was a good feeling concerning a Bill or
  260
  measure, to allow that Bill to have a freedom of movement to which the whole history of the House was opposed, and the business of the House and the business of its Committees was to tear every Bill in pieces in order that when it became law it should offer no opportunities to the members of the legal profession to tear it to pieces. It would be far better to carry over Bills and deal with over discussion when it occurred than to pursue the present course. The fault he found was that the Prime Minister and those who sat on the Treasury Bench prepared for over discussion. They assumed that the Opposition would not properly, in an orderly fashion, and with a due sense of responsibility for the time they occupied, deal with these Bills, and they had acted in a most ungenerous and unmanly fashion. It was almost an insult to the House to say to Members of the Opposition that if these Bills were brought in they would not treat them fairly, but would over discuss them. If the Government were going to attempt to carry out the principle that before a Bill was brought in they would assign a time to it, what guarantee had the House in the future for liberty of speech and for due and proper discussion? Slowly and steadily the Government during its two years of office had taken from the House discussion in Committee, and in the second year they deliberately took from a Committee of the Whole House the right of discussion of Bills which ought to have been discussed in the Whole House. He opposed entirely the idea that because the Bill was a Scottish measure it should be relegated to Scotsmen. They had heard the statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the Bill in question would have passed in half the time if English Members had not been on the Committee. What an extraordinary statement from a right hon. Gentleman of his experience in the Parliament of this country They might as well break the Union and devolve the business of the Legislature to separate Parliaments for Wales, Scotland, and Ireland at once, as say that questions which concerned Scotland should only be dealt with by Scotsmen, and that they only should be allowed to sit on the Standing Committee and be responsible for passing a Bill through it. Such a proposition was wrong in principle and

  261
  wrong in practice. There should be in the House the widest kind of criticism and discussion, and they were surely not going to descend to that parochialism, of a cramping and injurious kind, which relegated to certain sections of the House certain questions which belonged to the future and welfare of the United Kingdom. He strongly protested that the arguments which had been used indefence of the carrying of the Small Landholders Bill were unsound, unfair, and unwise, and he objected to the localising of the discussions upon certain portions of the Kingdom. The intentions of the Government he agreed were honourable, and they desired to facilitate business legitimately. He would, however, like hon. Members to think for a moment of the methods adopted for cramping, crushing, and stifling legitimate discussion in their desire to advance business legitimately. The course they had adopted was not the basis upon which Liberal Governments in the past had gone to work. The Parliamentary records of the House showed that Liberal Governments in the days of Mr. Gladstone kept up a very high standard of their duties and responsibilities on the one hand, and the opportunities and liberties of hon. Members upon the other. He regretted that he could not trust right hon. Gentlemen opposite upon this question. He did not think they ought to be led into temptation, and they were at present leading themselves and their followers into temptation. Human nature was much the same the world over, and no Cabinet was exempt from it. The Government had been casuistic in regard to this Bill, and they had cited the merits of the particular case in their own defence. The Government had no right to take any one Bill as an illustration of the value of a principle which they were trying to establish. If it was only one case of opportunism one would perhaps be inclined to let it go, but it was not so. What was being done now would be taken as a precedent to be followed in the future, and the same principle would be applied to other Bills. The proposal was wrong altogether. The funnel of legislation was choked in this House, and there was far more business to do than there was twenty years ago, although the machinery for doing it was very little better. Their responsibilities had increased, but they would not cure
  262
  the choking up of the funnel by boring holes in it, and that was exactly what they were doing now. They were actually attempting to cure the evil by injuring the machinery. There was a fundamental defect in the Resolution, which he hoped the House would realise. They would not be wise in attempting to facilitate business at the expense of the rights of Members and the liberties of the representatives of the people, or by choking off discussion in the House of Commons. A revolt against such procedure would ultimately come from both sides of the House. There was scarcely an hon. Member in the last Parliament who did not lift his voice against the guillotine when it was applied by the late Government. He thought this Government or any future Government would find the safest and most liberal course the best. Nothing was to be gained by saying to men who had a due sense of their responsibility, "We will not let you talk too long upon this question." They would have to proceed upon entirely different lines. He contended that the Resolution was fraught with great danger to the freedom of debate in the House, and the future would justify the action of those who were now raising their voices against it. Never before in the history of the House of Commons had any Government done what this Government was now proposing; that was, to bring in a Resolution applying the closure to measures before they had been discussed, and defining the limits under which the representatives of the people should express their views upon what were really national questions. He believed that if the House properly considered the question at issue and voted according to its conscience, the Resolution would be sent to the limbo of undesirable legislative acts. That was the only hope which could animate one's breast in the face of a Ministerial Party so intent upon having their own way at any cost.
  *SIR EDWARD SASSOONsaid the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in replying to the speech of the hon. Member for Sevenoaks, had treated in a light-hearted vein the misgivings which animated the Opposition with regard to the successive encroachments and inroads upon freedom of debate, which had been made by His Majesty's Government

  263
  during the short period they had been in power, and which had now culminated in this series of Resolutions to which the Amendment of his hon. friend was directed. Some of the most cherished objects of a constitutionally governed people, viz., the unrestricted liberty of debate and the unhampered observance of the rights of minorities, were at stake, and this in connection with two Bills of first class importance introducing and involving a novel principle of a wide and far-reaching character. What was it that the House was asked to deal with in this summary fashion? One of the Bills was the Scottish Small Landholders Bill, the main principles and not the less important details of which had been remitted to a Committee upstairs. With all due respect he wished to state that by taking that course the measure had been wholly removed from the purview of that consideration which alone it could receive by a full and comprehensive discussion before a Committee of the Whole House. When this session was only a few days old the House was asked—in fact it was bidden by the Government, with a pistol aimed at its head—to pass within the short span of an allotted day Bills of the utmost importance involving vital principles. In one day the House was expected to pass the financial stage of the Resolution, the Report stage and the Third Reading of an important measure. Not satisfied with making this great demand upon the patience and energy of this House, so voracious seemed to be the appetite of His Majesty's Government for hasty legislation, that they were introducing by a side wind the principle of carrying measures from one session to another. At the present moment he was not concerned to discuss the expediency or desirability of adopting that principle, but he wished to point out that it was a principle against which, under the doughty championship of political leaders such as Mr. Gladstone and Sir William Harcourt, Governments in the past had set their faces against like Hint. If His Majesty's Government desired to benefit from the advantages which were likely to accrue from this new principle of carrying over measures, the proper and fairest way for the House of Commons was to bring forward a matured plan to be submitted for the reasoned and considered judgment of Parliament. When by the changes of political strife hon. Members came to
  264
  occupy a position of less responsibility and greater freedom they would find that they had created by this Resolution a Frankenstein monster, the inconvenient antics of which they would have put themselves out of court to denounce. The hon. Member below the gangway, with the eloquence and vigour usually associated with his utterances, had given his benediction on behalf of the Labour Party to these Resolutions.
  MR. JOHN WARD: Hear, hear!
  *SIR EDWARD SASSOONsaid he noticed that the hon. Member for Stoke endorsed that view. Upon what grounds were they supporting these Resolutions? On the ground that they would injure the position of another place.
  MR. JOHN WARD: Business.
  *SIR EDWARD SASSOONsaid hon. Members from Ireland were also chuckling at this treatment of the Parliamentary machine at the bidding of the Liberal Party. Everything that was likely to conduce to the impotence of the Second Chamber was sure to be welcomed by hon. Members below the gangway, who welcomed anything which was likely to lead in the direction of Home Rule. He submitted to the two important sections of the House which he had alluded to that in acceding to the demand made by the Government they were taking rather short views. If the experience of the past was any guide, the effect of the establishment of a Land Court in Scotland apart from the usual tribunal of the realm and the establishment of fixity of tenure and fair rents on the basis of dual ownership was infallibly bound to lead to that very deadlock with which they were now confronted in Ireland. He ventured to predict that some day a future Government would have to come down to the House of Commons and do what his right hon. friend the Member for Dover had to do in 1902—that was, ask for the credit of the Imperial Exchequer, not for 120 million pounds, but for something nearer 700 or 800 million pounds in order to undo the mischief, the germs of which, the Government were now

  265
  sedulously planting. What evidence was there that the people of Scotland desired to have these Bills passed? Their agricultural conditions were exactly similar to that of their competitors on the other side of the Tweed, and they did not require dissimilar treatment. The Opposition never had any desire to obstruct sane and sober legislation, and in support of that contention he would mention the fact that the English Land Bill was passed last year without the closure being imposed. As regarded the alleged enthusiasm which had been excited in the breasts of Scots men by these measures, His Majesty's Government had already been told by an eminent agricultural expert, who sat on the benches opposite, what he thought of the Small Landholders Bill. The Leader of the Opposition had had good opportunities of ascertaining the views and aspirations of the people of Scotland, and he had assured the House that there was no demand for the Small Landholders Bill in Scotland. Then, again, Lord Rosebery had riddled the measure through and through in the Upper Chamber. It was this under-fed and stunted bantling that the Government were desirous of passing without discussion. With regard to the Land Values Bill, they all knew that that measure had had practically no discussion in the House. The Resolution showed that His Majesty's Government were rather infected with a desire for resorting to the extra-constitutional methods which seemed so dear to the heart of the President of the Board of Education. In conclusion, he said the Opposition were determined to give these Resolutions and their underlying idea their most strenuous and uncompromising resistance, and he would have great pleasure in voting for this Amendment.
  *MR. SUMMERBELLsaid that those who sat on the Labour Benches were going to support the Resolution because they wanted to see some work done in the House of Commons. They had heard a lot of arguments about stifling discussion, and people outside were asked to believe such statements.
  He ventured to dissent entirely from that view, for in his opinion there was too much opportunity given to the Opposition to prevent legislation. To come down night after night and see the benches of the House of Commons from 7 o'clock to 9.30 with probably only about twenty-five Members present, and then at 11 o'clock to hear hon. Members crying out "Gag, gag, gag," was to his mind something entirely wrong. If they really wanted to discuss these questions, why did they not attend in the House? What he had been impressed with in the speeches from both sides was that it did not seem to be a question of stifling discussion, but of preventing the Opposition from stopping the Party in power from carrying out legislation. He asserted that the object of the Opposition was to prevent the Government from carrying legislation, in order that they would be unable to go to the country and state that they had done certain things. He remembered the discussion in the House in regard to the land question, and they all viewed with regret that the land of the country was going out of cultivation. When discussing the Land Bills those opposed did not discuss the problem of the cultivation of land in the interests of the people, but principally the rights of the landlords in regard to the preservation of game. During those discussions it was not the people's rights but the rights of the landlords which the House was asked to think about. He contended that the Bills dealt with in this Resolution had been fully discussed, and in giving their support to the Government be thought they were doing that which was right and were not restricting the liberties of anybody in the House so far as the consideration and discussion of those measures was concerned. He denied that the Labour Party by their action upon this question were animated by any desire to provoke a conflict with the House of Lords.
  Question put.
  The House divided:—Ayes, 332; Noes, 83. (Division List No. 9.)

  AYES.

  Abraham, William (Cork, N. E.)

  Agnew, George William

  Allen, A. Acland (Christchurch)

  Acland, Francis Dyke

  Ainsworth, John Stirling

  Allen, Charles P. (Stroud)

  Agar-Robartes, Hon. T. C. R.

  Alden, Percy

  Armstrong, W. C. Heaton

  Ashton, Thomas Gair

  Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne)

  Kettle, Thomas Michael

  Asquith, Rt. Hn. Herbert Henry

  Dunne, Major E. Martin (Walsall

  Kilbride, Denis

  Astbury, John Meir

  Edwards, Clement (Denbigh)

  Kincaid-Smith, Captain

  Baker, Sir John (Portsmouth)

  Edwards, Enoch (Hanley)

  King, Alfred John (Knutsford)

  Baker, Joseph A. (Finsbury, E.)

  Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor)

  Lamb, Edmund G. (Leominster

  Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight)

  Elibank, Master of

  Lambert, George

  Barker, John

  Ellis, Rt. Hon. John Edward

  Lamont, Norman

  Balrow, Sir John E. (Somerset)

  Erskine, David C.

  Lardner, James Carrige Rushe

  Barlow, Percy (Bedford)

  Esmonde, Sir Thomas

  Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, W.)

  Barnes, G. N.

  Evans, Samuel T.

  Layland-Barratt, Francis

  Beale, W. P.

  Everett, R. Lacey

  Lea, Hugh Cecil (St. Pancras, E.)

  Beauchamp, E.

  Fenwick, Charles

  Leese, Sir Joseph F. (Accrington)

  Beaumont, Hon. Hubert

  Ferens, T. R.

  Lehmann, R. C.

  Bellairs, Carlyon

  Ferguson, R. C. Munro

  Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich

  Belloc, Hilaire Joseph Peter R.

  Ffrench, Peter

  Lever, W. U. (Cheshire, Wirral)

  Benn, Sir J. Williams (Devonp'rt

  Findlay, Alexander

  Lewis, John Herbert

  Benn, W (T'w'r Hamlets. S. Geo.

  Flynn, James Christopher

  Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David

  Bennett, E. N.

  Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Walter

  Lough, Thomas

  Berridge, T. H. D.

  Freeman-Thomas, Freeman

  Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester)

  Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon)

  Fuller, John Michael F.

  Mackarness, Frederic C.

  Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine

  Fullerton, Hugh

  Maclean, Donald

  Black, Arthur W.

  Gill, A. H.

  Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

  Boland, John

  Gladstone, Rt. Hn Herbert John

  MacNeill, John Gordon Swift

  Boulton, A. C. F.

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

  MacVeagh, Jeremiah (Down, S.

  Brace, William

  Glover, Thomas

  MacVeigh, Charles (Donegal, E.

  Branch, James

  Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford

  M'Callum, John M.

  Brigg, John

  Gooch, George Peabody

  M'Crae, George

  Bright, J. A.

  Greenwood, G. (Peterborough)

  M'Kean, John

  Brodie, H. C.

  Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward

  M'Micking, Major G.

  Bryce, J. Annan

  Griffith, Ellis J.

  Mallet, Charles E.

  Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn

  Gwynn, Stephen Lucius

  Manfield, Hairy (Northants)

  Buckmaster, Stanley O.

  Haldane, Rt. Hon. Richard B.

  Mansfield, H. Rendall (Lincoln)

  Burke, E. Haviland-

  Hall, Frederick

  Marnham, F. J.

  Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas

  Halpin, J.

  Mason, A. E. W. (Coventry)

  Buxton, Rt. Hn. Sydney Charles

  Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Lewis

  Massie, J.

  Byles, William Pollard

  Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Worc'r)

  Masterman, C F. G.

  Cameron, Robert

  Hart-Davies, T.

  Meagher, Michael

  Carr-Gomm, H. W.

  Haslam, James (Derbyshire)

  Menzies, Walter

  Causton, Rt Hn. Richard Knight

  Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)

  Micklem, Nathaniel

  Cawley, Sir Frederick

  Haworth, Arthur A.

  Mond, A.

  Cheetham, John Frederick

  Hayden, John Patrick

  Montagu, E. S.

  Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R.

  Hazel, Dr. A. E.

  Montgomery, H. G.

  Clarke, C. Goddard (Peckham)

  Hazleton, Richard

  Mooney, J. J.

  Cleland, J. W.

  Helme, Norval Watson

  Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall)

  Clough, William

  Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

  Morley Rt. Hon. John

  Clynes, J. R.

  Henderson, J. M. (Aberdeen, W.

  Morrell, Philip

  Cobbold, Felix Thornley

  Henry, Charles S.

  Morton, Alpheus Cleophas

  Collins, Stephen (Lambeth)

  Herbert, Col. Sir Ivor (Mon., S.)

  Murphy, John (Kerry, East)

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

  Higham, John Sharp

  Murphy, N. J. (Kilkenny, S.)

  Compton-Rickett, Sir J.

  Hobart, Sir Robert

  Murray, James

  Condon, Thomas Joseph

  Hodge, John

  Myer, Horatio

  Corbett, C. H. (Sussex, EGrinst'd

  Hogan, Michael

  Napier, T. B.

  Cotton, Sir H. J. S.

  Holden, E. Hopkinson

  Nicholls, George

  Cowan, W. H.

  Holt, Richard Durning

  Nicholson, Charles N (Doncast'r

  Cox, Harold

  Hope, W. Bateman (Somerset, N

  Nolan, Joseph

  Crombie, John William

  Horniman, Emslie John

  Norton, Capt. Cecil William

  Crosfield, A. H.

  Horridge, Thomas Gardner

  Nugent, Sir Walter Richard

  Crossley, William J.

  Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

  Nussey, Thomas Willans

  Curran, Peter Francis

  Hudson, Walter

  Nuttall, Harry

  Dalziel, James Henry

  Hyde, Clarendon

  O'Brien, Kendal (Tipperary Mid

  Davies, M. Vaughan (Cardigan)

  Idris, T. H. W.

  O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W.

  Davies, Timothy (Fulham)

  Illingworth, Percy H.

  O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

  Davies, W. Howell (Bristol, S.)

  Jackson, R. S.

  O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

  Delany, William

  Jacoby, Sir James Alfred

  O'Donnell, G J. (Walworth)

  Dewar, Arthur (Edinburgh, S.)

  Jenkins, J.

  O'Grady, J.

  Dewar, Sir J. A. (Inverness-sh.)

  Johnson, John (Gateshead)

  O'Kelly, Conor (Mayo, N.)

  Dickson Poynder, Sir John P.

  Jones, Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea

  O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N

  Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles

  Jones, Leif (Abbleby)

  O'Malley, William

  Dillon, John

  Jones, William (Carnarvonsh.

  O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

  Donelan, Captain A.

  Jowett, F. W.

  Parker, James (Halifax)

  Duckworth, James

  Joyce, Michael

  Partington, Oswald

  Duffy, William J.

  Kearley, Hudson E.

  Paulton, James Mellor

  Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness)

  Kekewich, Sir George

  Pearce, Robert (Staffs., Leek)

  268

  269

  Pearce, William (Limehouse)

  Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford)

  Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent

  Pearson, W. HM. (Suffolk, Eye

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

  Ward, W. Dudley (Southampt'n

  Perks, Robert William

  Sheehan, Daniel Daniel

  Wardle, George J.

  Philipps, Col. Ivor (S'thampton)

  Sheehy, David

  Waring, Walter

  Philipps, Owen C. (Pembroke)

  Shipman, Dr. John G.

  Warner, Thomas Courtenay T.

  Phillips, John (Longford, S.)

  Silcock, Thomas Ball

  Wason, Rt. Hn. E (Clackmannan

  Pirie, Duncan V.

  Simon, John Allsebrook

  Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

  Power, Patrick, Joseph

  Sinclair, Rt. Hon. John

  Waterlow, D. S.

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

  Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie

  Watt, Henry A.

  Price, Robert John (Norfolk, E.)

  Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.)

  Wedgwood, Josiah C.

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

  Snowden, P.

  Weir, James Galloway

  Pullar, Sir Robert

  Soames, Arthur Wellesley

  Whitbread, Howard

  Radford, G. H.

  Soares, Ernest J.

  White, Sir George (Norfolk)

  Rainy, A. Holland

  Stanger, H. Y.

  White, J. D. (Dumbartonshire)

  Raphael, Herbert H.

  Stanley, Albert (Staffs, N. W.)

  White, Luke (York, E. R.)

  Rea, Walter Russell (Scarboro'

  Stanley, Hn. A.Lyulph(Chesh.)

  White, Patrick (Meath, North)

  Redmond, John E. (Waterford)

  Steadman, W. C.

  Whitehead, Rowland

  Redmond, William (Clare)

  Stewart, Halley (Greenock)

  Whitley, John Henry (Halifax)

  Rees, J. D.

  Strachey, Sir Edward

  Whittaker, Sir Thomas Palmer

  Rendall, Athelstan

  Straus, B. S. (Mile End)

  Wiles, Thomas

  Richards, Thmoas (W. Monm'th

  Stuart, James (Sunderland)

  Williams, Osmond (Merioneth)

  Richards, T. F. (Wolverh'mpton

  Summerbell, T.

  Williamson, A.

  Ridsdale, E. A.

  Sutherland, J. E.

  Wills, Arthur Walters

  Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)

  Taylor, Austin (East Toxteth)

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

  Robertson, Rt. Hn. E. (Dundee

  Taylor, John W. (Durham)

  Wilson, John (Durham, Mid)

  Robertson, Sir G Scott (Bradf'rd

  Tennant, Sir Edward (Salisbury

  Wilson, J. H. (Middlesbrough)

  Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside)

  Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen, E.

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

  Robinson, S.

  Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.)

  Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

  Robson, Sir William Snowdon

  Thorne, William

  Winfrey, R.

  Roe, Sir Thomas

  Torrance, Sir A. M.

  Wood, T. M'Kinnon

  Rogers, F. E. Newman

  Trevelyan, Charles Philips

  Yoxall, James Henry

  Rose, Charles Day

  Ure, Alexander

  Rowlands, J.

  Verney, F. W.

  TELLERS FOR THE AVES—Mr. Whiteley and Mr. J. A. Pease.

  Rutherford, V. H. (Brentford)

  Villiers, Ernest Amherst

  Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)

  Wadsworth, J.

  Scott, A. H. (Ashton-und.-Lyne

  Walters, John Tudor

  Seddon, J.

  Walton, Joseph

  NOES.

  Acland-Hood, Rt Hn. Sir Alex. F

  Craik, Sir Henry

  Mason, James F. (Windsor)

  Anson, Sir William Reynell

  Cross, Alexander

  Morrison-Bell, Captain

  Anstruther-Gray, Major

  Dalrymple, Viscount

  Nield, Herbert

  Arkwright, John Stanhope

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

  Parkes, Ebenezer

  Balcarres, Lord

  Duncan, Robert (Lanark, Govan

  Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington

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

  Faber, George Denison (York)

  Percy, Earl

  Banbury, Sir Frederick George

  Fell, Arthur

  Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

  Baring, Capt. Hn. G (Winchester

  Fletcher, J. S.

  Randles, Sir John Scurrah

  Beach, Hn. Michael Hugh Hicks

  Gardner, Ernest

  Ratcliff, Major R. F.

  Beckett, Hon. Gervase

  Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West)

  Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel

  Bowles, G. Stewart

  Hamilton, Marquess of

  Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)

  Boyle, Sir Edward

  Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashf' rd

  Sandys, Lieut.-Col. Thos. Myles

  Bridgeman, W. Clive

  Harrison-Broadley, H. B.

  Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert

  Bull, Sir William James

  Hay, Hon. Claude George

  Sloan, Thomas Henry

  Butcher, Samuel Henry

  Helmsley, Viscount

  Smith, F. E. (Liverpool. Walton)

  Carlile, E. Hildred

  Hill, Lord Arthur (West Down)

  Staveley-Hill, Henry (Staff'sh.

  Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.

  Hill, Sir Clement (Shrewsbury)

  Stone, Sir Benjamin

  Gave, George

  Hills, J. W.

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

  Cavendish, Rt. Hn. Victor C. W

  Houston, Robert Paterson

  Thornton, Percy M.

  Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

  King, Sir Henry Seymour (Hull)

  Tuke, Sir John Batty

  Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.)

  Lambton, Hon. Frederck Wm.

  Walrond, Hon. Lionel

  Chamberlain, Rt Hn. J. A (Wore.

  Law, Andrew Bonar (Dulwich)

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

  Clark, George Smith (Belfast, N.

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

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

  Clive, Percy Archer

  Long, Col. Charles W. (Evesham

  Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm

  Coates, E. Feetham (Lewisham

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

  Younger, George

  Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow)

  Lowe, Sir Francis William

  Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

  Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Viscount Valentia and Mr. Foster.

  Courthope, G. Loyd

  M'Arthur, Charles

  Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S.

  Magnus, Sir Philip

  Main Question again proposed.
  MR. ASQUITHrose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put;" but Mr. Speaker withheld his assent, and declined then to put that Question.
  LORD R. CECILmoved an Amendment to provide that the various stages of the Bills should be proceeded with "in the manner prescribed by a Select Committee." He said that the result of that would be to leave the settlement of the time to be occupied, not to the Government, but to an independent tribunal of this House. He had good reason to believe that at any other time his Amendment would be accepted by the Government, because both the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer had said in the past that they did not approve of the Government coming down and settling the time to be given to any particular Bill. But now it was said that this Motion was of a special character, because its object was to enable these Bills to be sent to the House of Lords at such a time as would give that House a more reasonable time to discuss and decide on them than was given last year. But if that was the only object why should not the Bills be introduced in the House of Lords? To that Question he ventured to think no Answer could be given. But if the course was not acceptable to the Government he could not see why they allotted any days at all. Why should not they follow a little further the precedent which they had set in this Motion? They said "the Committee on the financial resolutions shall be deemed to be set op." Why should they not go a little further and say "The Bills shall be deemed to have been passed through all their stages"? If the only object of the Motion was to get the Bills before the other House, he could not see why the Government gave this farcical time for their discussion. If the Scottish Small Landowners Bill required discussion at all, nobody would pretend to say that it would be adequately discussed in two days. As he understood, the Labour Party thought it ought not to be discussed; that it was discussed sufficiently last year, both in the House and in the country. But if it was
  272
  thought it required to be discussed, it was grotesque and farcical to give only two days to the discussion. It was said it was difficult to induce the electors to understand or to take an interest in a debate upon the privileges of the House, or to take any interest in its internal arrangements. But that made it all the more necessary for Members of the House to take adequate precautions to see that its liberties were preserved. How long were they to go on submitting to these guillotine Resolutions, always deplored by the Minister proposing them, to whatever Party he belonged, and always proposed again the next time he desired to pass a measure? Unless the unofficial Members of the House found the courage to rebel against the official Members these things would go on time after time, always with promises that at some distant period definite arrangements for the business of the House would be set up. He hoped that one of these Committees would be set up, and that it would not be left to the ipse dixit of the Government of the day; but that would never be fulfilled until they reasserted the liberties of the House, until they impressed on the Government that these perpetual acts of attainder against the liberties of the House were really resented by the House, and until they enforced their opinions by their votes in the lobby. He made this appeal because in his judgment the danger of tyranny was not less under a democratic form of government than under any other. On the contrary, it was greater. Under other forms of government they had an appeal to another and greater power than the Government, namely, the power of the people who would resist in the last resource if the Government acted tyrannically; but under a democratic government that resource was removed. Once they had persuaded the majority to support their view, however tyrannical to the minority and however un acceptable it might be, there was no-appeal at all. The only resource they had to prevent the democracy from working out the worst tyranny in the world was for those who administered the democracy, who guided it, and who represented it in this House, to take care that they would never give their assent to an act that was really tyrannical. The Amendment did not destroy the

  273
  Prime Minister's Resolution, but merely proposed to refer it to an impartial Committee to see whether it was really just and fair to all parties in the House.
  MR. BOWLESseconded the Amendment.
  Amendment proposed—
  "In line 7, to leave out from the second word 'the' to the end of line 22, and to insert the words 'manner prescribed by a Select Committee.' "—(Lord Robert Cecil.)
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  MR. ASQUITHassured the noble Lord that he supported the main Motion without any crocodile's tears, with dry eyes, with a clear conscience, and with no twinge of remorse. If these Bills were now being introduced for the first time the periods assigned for their various stages would be wholly inade-
  quate.That, however, was not the case, for they were dealing with one specific case, which could not legitimately form a precedent if hereafter proposals were made with reference to legislation introduced for the first time. Why should they refer to a Select Committee—which was more or less a microcosm of the House, and which would have the same vice of partiality as they in the House suffered from—the duty of determining how many days the House should give to these Bills when the House was quite capable of determining the matter there and then for themselves? There could be only one answer—delay. The Amendment was dilatory, and it did not go to the real merits of the question, and he asked the House therefore to adhere to the original Motion.
  Question put.
  The House divided:—Ayes, 332; Noes, 85. (Division List No. 10.)

  AYES.

  Abraham, William (Cork, N. E.)

  Bryce, J. Annan

  Dewar, Arthur (Edinburgh, S.)

  Acland, Francis Dyke

  Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn

  Dewar, Sir J. A. (Inverness-sh.)

  Agnew, George William

  Buckmaster, Stanley O.

  Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P.

  Ainsworth, John Stirling

  Burke, E. Haviland-

  Dillon, John

  Alden, Percy

  Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas

  Donelan, Captain A.

  Allen, A. Acland (Christchurch)

  Buxton, Rt. Hn. Sydney Charles

  Duckworth, James

  Allen, Charles P. (Stroud)

  Byles, William Pollard

  Duffy, William J.

  Armstrong, W. C. Heaton

  Cameron, Robert

  Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness

  Asquith, Rt. Hon Herbert Henry

  Carr-Gomm, H. W.

  Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne)

  Astbury, John Meir

  Causton, Rt. Hn. Richard Knight

  Edwards, Clement (Denbigh)

  Baker, Sir John (Portsmouth)

  Cawley, Sir Frederick

  Edwards, Enoch (Hanley)

  Baker, Joseph A. (Finsbury, E.)

  Cheetham, John Frederick

  Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor)

  Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight)

  Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R.

  Elibank, Master of

  Barker, John

  Clarke, C. Goddard (Peckham)

  Ellis, Rt. Hon. John Edward

  Barlow, Sir John E. (Somerset)

  Cleland, J. W.

  Erskine, David C.

  Barlow, Percy (Bedford)

  Clough, William

  Evans, Samuel T.

  Barnes, G. N.

  Clynes, J. R.

  Everett, R. Lacey

  Beale, W. P.

  Cobbold, Felix Thornley

  Fenwick, Charles

  Beauchamp, E.

  Collins, Stephen (Lambeth)

  Ferens, T. R.

  Beaumont, Hon. Hubert

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

  Ferguson, R. C. Munro

  Bellairs, Carlyon

  Compton-Rickett, Sir J.

  Ffrench, Peter

  Belloc, Hilaire Joseph Peter R.

  Condon, Thomas Joseph

  Findlay, Alexander

  Benn, Sir J. Williams (Devonp'rt

  Corbett, C. H (Sussex, E. Grinst'd

  Flynn, James Christopher

  Benn, W. (T'w'r Hamlets, S. Geo.

  Cotton, Sir H. J. S.

  Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Walter

  Bennett, E. N.

  Cowan, W. H.

  Freeman-Thomas, Freeman

  Berridge, T. H. D.

  Cox, Harold

  Fuller, John Michael F.

  Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon)

  Cremer, Sir William Randal

  Fullerton, Hugh

  Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine

  Crombie, John William

  Gill, A. H.

  Black, Arthur W.

  Crosfield, A. H.

  Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herbert John

  Boland, John

  Crossley, William J.

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

  Boulton, A. C. F.

  Curran, Peter Francis

  Glover, Thomas

  Brace, William

  Dalziel, James Henry

  Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford

  Branch, James

  Davies, M. Vaughan-(Cardigan

  Gooch, George Peabody

  Brigg, John

  Davies, Timothy (Fulham)

  Greenwood, G. (Peterborough)

  Bright, J. A.

  Davies, W. Howell (Bristol, S.)

  Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward

  Brodie, H. C.

  Delany, William

  Griffith, Ellis J.

  Gwynn, Stephen Lucius

  M'Crac, George

  Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradf'rd

  Haldane, Rt. Hon. Richard B.

  M'Kean, John

  Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside

  Hall, Frederick

  M'Kenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald

  Robinson, S.

  Halpin, J.

  M'Micking, Major G.

  Robson, Sir William Snowdon

  Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Lewis

  Maddison, Frederick

  Roe, Sir Thomas

  Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Worc'r)

  Mallett, Charles E.

  Rogers, F. E. Newman

  Hart-Davies, T.

  Manfield, Harry (Northants)

  Rose, Charles Day

  Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale)

  Mansfield, H. Rendall (Lincoln)

  Rowlands, J.

  Haslam, James (Derbyshire)

  Marnham, F. J.

  Rutherford, V. H. (Brentford)

  Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)

  Mason, A. E. W. (Coventry)

  Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)

  Haworth, Arthur A.

  Massie, J.

  Scott, A. H. (Ashton under Lyne

  Hayden, John Patrick

  Masterman, C. F. G.

  Seddon, J.

  Hazel, Dr. A. E.

  Meagher, Michael

  Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford)

  Hazleton, Richard

  Menzies, Walter

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

  Helme, Norval Watson

  Micklem, Nathaniel

  Sheehan, Daniel Daniel

  Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

  Mond, A.

  Sheehy, David

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

  Montagu, E. S.

  Shipman, Dr. John O.

  Henry, Charles S.

  Montgomery, H. G.

  Silcock, Thomas Ball

  Herbert, Col. Sir Ivor (Mon., S.

  Mooney, J. J.

  Simon, John Allsebrook

  Higham, John Sharp

  Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall)

  Sinclair, Rt. Hon. John

  Hobart, Sir Robert

  Morley, Rt. Hon. John

  Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie

  Hodge, John

  Morrell, Philip

  Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.)

  Hogan, Michael

  Morton, Alpheus Cleophas

  Snowden, P.

  Holden, E. Hopkinson

  Murphy, John (Kerry, East)

  Soares, Ernest J.

  Holt, Richard Durning

  Murray, James

  Stanger, H. Y.

  Hope, W. Bateman (Somerset, N

  Myer, Horatio

  Stanley, Albert (Staffs, N. W.)

  Horniman, Emslie John

  Napier, T. B.

  Stanley, Hn. A. Lyulph (Chesh.)

  Horridge, Thomas Gardner

  Nicholls, George

  Stewart, Halley (Greenock)

  Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

  Nicholson, Charles N. (Doncast'r

  Strachey, Sir Edward

  Hudson, Walter

  Nolan, Joseph

  Straus, B. S. (Mile End)

  Hyde, Clarendon

  Norton, Capt. Cecil William

  Stuart, James (Sunderland)

  Idris, T. H. W.

  Nugent, Sir Walter Richard

  Summerbell, T.

  Illingworth, Percy H.

  Nussey, Thomas Willans

  Sutherland, J. E.

  Jackson, R. S.

  Nuttall, Harry

  Taylor, Austin (East Toxteth)

  Jacoby, Sir James Alfred

  O'Brien, Kendal (Tipperary Mid

  Taylor, John W. (Durham)

  Jenkins, J.

  O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

  Tennant, Sir Edward (Salisbury

  Johnson, John (Gateshead)

  O'Connor, James (Wicklow. W.)

  Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen, E.

  Jones, Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea

  O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

  Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.)

  Jones, Leif (Appleby)

  O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

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

  Jones, William (Carnarvonshire

  O'Donnell, C. J. (Walworth)

  Thorne, William

  Jowett, F. W.

  O'Kelly, Conor (Mayo, N.)

  Torrance, Sir A. M.

  Joyce, Michael

  O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N

  Trevelyan, Charles Philips

  Kearley, Hudson E.

  O'Malley, William

  Ure, Alexander

  Kekewich, Sir George

  O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

  Verney, F. W.

  Kettle, Thomas Michael

  Parker, James (Halifax)

  Villiers, Ernest Amherst

  Kilbride, Denis

  Partington, Oswald

  Vivian, Henry

  Kincaid-Smith, Captain

  Paulton, James Mellor

  Wadsworth, J.

  King, Alfred John (Knutsford)

  Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)

  Walters, John Tudor

  Lamb, Edmund G. (Leominster

  Pearce, William (Limehouse)

  Walton, Joseph

  Lamb, Ernest H. (Rochester)

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

  Ward, John (Stoke upon Trent

  Lambert, George

  Perks, Robert William

  Ward, W. Dudley (Southampt'n

  Lamont, Norman

  Philipps, Col. Ivor (S'thampton)

  Wardle, George J.

  Lardner, James Carrige Rushe

  Philipps, Owen C. (Pembroke)

  Waring, Walter

  Law, Hugh A. (Donegal. W.)

  Phillips, John (Longford, S.)

  Warner, Thomas Courtcnay T.

  Layland-Barratt, rancis

  Pirie, Duncan V.

  Wason, Rt. Hn E. (C'lackmannan

  Lea, Hugh Cecil (St. Pancras, E.

  Power, Patrick Joseph

  Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

  Leese, Sir Joseph F. (Accrington

  Price, C E. (Edinb'gh, Central

  Waterlow, D. S.

  Lehmann, R. C.

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

  Watt, Henry A.

  Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich)

  Pullar, Sir Robert

  Wedgwood, Josiah C.

  Lever, W. H. (Cheshire, Wirral)

  Radford, G. H.

  Weir, James Galloway

  Lewis, John Herbert

  Rainy, A. Holland

  Whitbread, Howard

  Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David

  Raphael, Herbert H.

  White, Sir George (Norfolk)

  Lough, Thomas

  Rea, Walter Russell (Scarboro'

  White, J. D. (Dumbartonshire)

  Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester)

  Redmond, John E. (Waterford

  White, Luke (York. E. R.)

  Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk B'ghs

  Redmond, William (Clare)

  White, Patrick (Meath, North)

  Mackarness, Frederic C.

  Rees, J. D.

  Whitehead, Rowland

  Maclean, Donald

  Rendall, Athelstan

  Whitley, John Henry (Halifax)

  Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

  Richards, Thomas (W. Monmth

  Whittaker, Sir John Palmer

  MacNeill, John Gordon Swift

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

  Wiles, Thomas

  MacVeagh, Jeremiah (Down, S.

  Ridsdale, E. A.

  Williams, Osmond (Merioneth)

  MacVeigh, Charles (Donegal, E)

  Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)

  Williamson, A.

  M'Callum, John M.

  Robertson, Rt. Hn. E. (Dundee)

  Wills, Arthur Walters

  276

  277

  Wilson, Hon. G. G. (Hull. W.)

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

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr. Whiteley and Mr. J. A. Pease.

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

  Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

  Wilson, John (Durham, Mid.)

  Wood, T. M'Kinnon

  Wilson, J. H. (Middlesbrough)

  Yoxall, James Henry

  NOES.

  Acland-Hood. Rt Hn. Sir Alex F.

  Darlymple, Viscount

  Morrison-Bell, Captain

  Anson, Sir William Reynell

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

  Nield, Herbert

  Arstruther-Gray, Major

  Duncan, Robert (Lanark, Govan

  Parkes, Ebenezer

  Arkwright, John Stanhope

  Faber, George Denison (York)

  Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington

  Balcarres, Lord

  Fell, Arthur

  Percy, Earl

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

  Fletcher, J. S.

  Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

  Baring, Capt. Hn. G (Winchester

  Forster, Henry William

  Ranldes, Sir John Scurrah

  Beach, Hn. Michael Hugh Hicks

  Gardner, Ernest

  Ratcliff, Major R. F.

  Beckett, Hon. Gervase

  Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West)

  Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel

  Bowles, G. Stewart

  Guinness, Walter Edward

  Roberts, S. (Sheffield. Ecclesall)

  Boyle, Sir Edward

  Hamilton, Marquess of

  Sandys, Lieut.-Col. Thos. Myles

  Bridgeman, W. Clive

  Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashford

  Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert

  Bull, Sir William James

  Harrison-Broadley, H. B.

  Sloan, Thomas Henry

  Butcher, Samuel Henry

  Hay, Hon. Claude George

  Smith, F. E. (Liverpool. Walton

  Carlile, E. Hildred

  Helmsley, Viscount

  Stavcley-Hill, Henry (Staff'sh.

  Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.

  Hill, Lord Arthur (West Down)

  Stone, Sir Benjamin

  Cave, George

  Hill, Sir Clement (Shrewsbury)

  Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

  Cavendish, Rt. Hon. Victor C. W.

  Hills, J. W.

  Thornton, Percy M.

  Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

  Houston, Robert Paterson

  Tuke, Sir John Batty

  Chamberlain, Rt Hn. J. A. (Wore

  Keswick, William

  Valentia, Viscount

  Charming, Sir Francis Allston

  King, Sir Henry Seymour (Hull)

  Walrond, Hon. Lionel

  Clark, George Smith (Belfast, N.

  Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm.

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

  Clive, Percy Archer

  Law, Andrew Bonar (Dulwich)

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

  Coates, E. Feetham (Lewisham)

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

  Wolff, Gustay Wilhelm

  Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow)

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

  Younger, George

  Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

  Lowe, Sir Francis William

  Courthope, G. Loyd

  Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Lord Robert Cecil and Sir Frederick Banbury.

  Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S.

  M'Arthur, Charles

  Craik, Sir Henry

  Magnus, Sir Philip

  Cross, Alexander

  Mason, James F. (Windsor)

  Main Question again proposed.
  MR. ASQUITHrose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."
  Question put accordingly.
  The House divided:—Ayes, 331; Noes, 84. (Division List No. 11.)

  AYES.

  Abraham, William (Cork, N. E.)

  Bellairs, Carlyon

  Buxton, Rt. Hn. Sydney Charles

  Acland, Francis Dyke

  Benn, Sir J. Williams (Devonp'rt

  Byles, William Pollard

  Agnew, George William

  Benn, W. (T'w'r Hamlets. S. Geo.

  Cameron, Robert

  Ainsworth, John Stirling

  Bennett, E. N.

  Carr-Gomm, H. W.

  Alden, Percy

  Berridge, T. H. D.

  Causton, Rt. Hn. Richard Knight

  Allen, A. Acland (Christchurch)

  Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon)

  Cawloy, Sir Frederick

  Allen, Charles P. (Stroud)

  Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine

  Cheetham, John Frederick

  Armstrong, W. C. Heaton

  Black, Arthur W.

  Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R.

  Asquith, Rt. Hon Herbert Henry

  Boland, John

  Clarke, C. Goddard (Peckham)

  Astbury, John Meir

  Boulton, A. C. F.

  Cleland, J. W.

  Baker, Sir John (Portsmouth)

  Brace, William

  Clough, William

  Baker, Joseph A. (Finsbury, E.)

  Branch, James

  Clynes, J. R.

  Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight)

  Brigg, John

  Cobbold, Felix Thornley

  Barker, John

  Bright, J. A.

  Collins, Stephen (Lambeth)

  Barlow, Sir John E. (Somerset)

  Brodie, H. C.

  Collins, Sir Wm. J. (Spancras. W

  Barlow, Percy (Bedford)

  Bryce, J. Annan

  Compton-Rickett. Sir J.

  Barnes, G. N.

  Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn

  Condon, Thomas Joseph

  Beale, W. P.

  Buckmaster, Stanley O.

  Corbett, CH (Sussex. E. Grinst'd

  Beauchamp, E.

  Burke, E. Haviland-

  Cotton, Sir H. J. S.

  Beaumont, Hon. Hubert

  Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas

  Cowan, W. H.

  Cox, Harold

  Horniman, Emslie John

  Nicholson, Charles N. (Doncast'r

  Cremer, Sir William Randal

  Horridgc, Thomas Gardner

  Nolan, Joseph

  Crombie, John William

  Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

  Norton, Capt, Cecil William

  Crosfield, A. H.

  Hudson, Walter

  Nugent, Sir Walter Richard

  Crossley, William J.

  Hyde, Clarendon

  Nussey, Thomas Willans

  Curran, Peter Francis

  Idris, T. H. W.

  Nuttall, Harry

  Dalziel, James Henry

  Illingworth, Percy H.

  O'Brien, Kendal (Tipperary Mid

  Davies, M. Vaughan-(Cardigan

  Isaacs, Rufus Daniel

  O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

  Davies, Timothy (Fulham)

  Jackson, R. S.

  O'Connor,. Tames (Wicklow, W.

  Davies, W. Howell (Bristol, S.)

  Jacoby, Sir James Alfred

  O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

  Delany, William

  Jardine, Sir J.

  O'Donnell, C. J. (Walworth)

  Dewar, Arthur (Edinburgh, S.)

  Jenkins, J.

  O'Kelly, Conor (Mayo, N.)

  Dewar, Sir J. A, (Inverness-sh.)

  Johnson, John (Gateshead)

  O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N.

  Dillon, John

  Jones, Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea

  O'Malley, William

  Donelan, Captain A.

  Jones, Leif (Appleby)

  O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

  Duckworth, James

  Jones, William (Carnarvonshire

  Parker, James (Halifax)

  Duffy, William J.

  Jowett, F. W.

  Partington, Oswald

  Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness

  Joyce, Michael

  Paulton, James Mellor

  Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne)

  Kearley, Hudson E.

  Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)

  Edwards, Clement (Denbigh)

  Kekewich, Sir George

  Pearce, William (Limehouse)

  Edwards, Enoch (Hanley)

  Kincaid-Smith, Captain

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

  Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor)

  King, Alfred John (Knutsford)

  Perks, Robert William

  Elibank, Master of

  Lamb, Edmund G. (Leominster

  Philipps, Col. Ivor (S'th'mpton)

  Ellis, Rt. Hon. John Edward

  Lamb, Ernest H. (Rochester)

  Philipps, Owen C. (Pembroke)

  Erskine, David C.

  Lambert, George

  Phillips, John (Longford, S.)

  Esslemont, George Birnie

  Lamont, Norman

  Pirie, Duncan V.

  Evans, Samuel T.

  Lardner, James Carrige Rushe

  Pollard, Dr.

  Everett, R. Lacey

  Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, W.)

  Power, Patrick Joseph

  Fenwick, Charles

  Layland-Barratt, Francis

  Price, C. E (Edinburgh, Central

  Ferens, T. R.

  Lea, Hugh Cecil (St. Pancras. E.

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

  Ferguson, R. C. Munro

  Leese, Sir Joseph F. (Accrington

  Pullar, Sir Robert

  Ffrench, Peter

  Lehmann, R. C.

  Radford, G. H.

  Fiennes, Hon. Eustace

  Lever, A. Levy (Essex. Harwich)

  Rainy, A. Rolland

  Findlay, Alexander

  Lever, W. H. (Cheshire, Wirral)

  Raphael, Herbert H.

  Flynn, James Christopher

  Lewis, John Herbert

  Rea, Walter Russell (Scarboro'

  Foste, Rt. Hon. Sir Walter

  Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David

  Redmond, John E. (Waterford

  Freeman-Thomas, Freeman

  Lough, Thomas

  Redmond, William (Clare)

  Fuller, John Michael F.

  Macdonald, J. R, (Leicester)

  Rees, J. D.

  Fullerton, Hugh

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

  Rendall, Athelstan

  Gill, A. H.

  Mackarness, Frederic C.

  Richards, Thomas (W. Monm'th

  Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herbert John

  Maclean, Donald

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

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

  Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

  Ridsdale, E. A.

  Glover, Thomas

  MacNeill, John Gordon Swift

  Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)

  Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford

  MacVeagh, Jeremiah (Down. S.

  Robertson, Rt. Hn. E. (Dundee)

  Gooch, George Peabody

  MacVeigh, Charles (Donegal, E.

  Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradf'd

  Greenwood, G. (Peterborough)

  M'Callum, John M.

  Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside)

  Grey, Rt Hon. Sir Edward

  M'Crae, George

  Robinson, S.

  Griffith, Ellis J.

  M'Kean, John

  Robson, Sir William Snowdon

  Gwynn, Stephen Lucius

  M'Kenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald

  Roe, Sir Thomas

  Haldane, Rt. Hon. Richard B.

  M'Micking, Major G.

  Rogers, F. E. Newman

  Hall, Frederick

  Maddison, Frederick

  Rose, Charles Day

  Halpin, J.

  Mallet, Charles E.

  Rowlands, J.

  Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Lewis

  Manfield, Harry (Northants)

  Rutherford, V. H. (Brentford)

  Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Wore'r)

  Mansfield, H. Rendall (Lincoln)

  Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)

  Hart-Davies, T.

  Marnham, F. J.

  Scarisbrick, T. T. L.

  Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale)

  Mason, A. E. W. (Coventry)

  Scott, A. H. (Ashton under Lyne

  Haslam, James (Derbyshire)

  Massie, J.

  Seaverns, J. H.

  Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)

  Masterman, C. F. G.

  Seddon, J.

  Haworth, Arthur A.

  Meagher, Michael

  Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford)

  Hazel, Dr. A. E.

  Menzies, Walter

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

  Hazelton, Richard

  Micklem, Nathaniel

  Sheehan, Daniel Daniel

  Helme, Norval Watson

  Mond, A.

  Shipman, Dr. John G.

  Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

  Montagu, E. S.

  Silcock, Thomas Ball

  Henderson, J. M (Aberdeen, W.)

  Montgomery, H. G.

  Simon, John Allsebrook

  Henry, Charles S.

  Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall)

  Sinclair, Rt. Hon. John

  Herbert, Col. Sir Ivor (Mon., S.)

  Morley, Rt. Hon. John

  Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie

  Higham, John Sharp

  Morrell, Philip

  Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.

  Hobart, Sir Robert

  Morton, Alpheus Cleophas

  Snowden, P.

  Hodge, John

  Murphy, John (Kerry, East)

  Soares, Ernest J.

  Hogan, Michael

  Murray, James

  Stanger, H. V.

  Holden, E. Hopkinson

  Myer, Horatio

  Stanley, Albert (Staffs, N. W.)

  Holt, Richard Durning

  Napier, T. B.

  Stanley, Hn. A. (Lyulph (Ches.)

  Hope, W. Bateman (Somerset, N

  Nicholls, George

  Stewart, Halley (Greenock)

  280

  281

  Stewart-Smith, D. (Kendal)

  Wads worth, J.

  Whitley, John Henry (Halifax)

  Strachey, Sir Edward

  Walters, John Tudor

  Whittaker, Sir Thomas Palmer

  Straus, B. S. (Mile End)

  Walton, Joseph

  Wiles, Thomas

  Stuart, James (Sunderland)

  Ward, W. Dudley (Southampt'n

  Williams, Osmond (Merioneth)

  Summerbell, T.

  Wardle, George J.

  Williamson, A.

  Sutherland, J. E.

  Waring, Walter

  Wills, Arthur Walters

  Taylor, Austin (East Toxteth)

  Warner, Thomas Courtenay T.

  Wilson, Hon. G. G. (Hull, W.)

  Taylor, John W. (Durham)

  Wason, Rt. Hn. E. (Clackmannan

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

  Tennant, Sir Edward (Salisbury

  Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

  Wilson, John (Durham, Mid)

  Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen, E.)

  Waterlow, D. S.

  Wilson, J. H. (Middlesbrough)

  Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.)

  Watt, Henry A.

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

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

  Wedgwood, Josiah C.

  Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

  Thorne, William

  Weir, James Galloway

  Wood, T. M'Kinnon

  Torrance, Sir A. M.

  Whitbread, Howard

  Yoxall, James Henry

  Trevelyan, Charles Philips

  White, Sir George (Norfolk)

  Ure, Alexander

  White, J. D. (Dumbartonshire)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr. Whiteley and Mr. J. A. Pease.

  Verney, F. W.

  White, Luke (York, E. R.)

  Villiers, Ernest Amherst

  White, Patrick (Meath, North)

  Vivian, Henry

  Whitehead, Rowland

  NOES.

  Acland-Hood, Rt. Hn. Sir Alex. F

  Cross, Alexander

  Mason, James F. (Windsor)

  Anson, Sir William Reynell

  Dalrymple, Viscount

  Morrison-Bell, Captain

  Anstruther-Gray, Major

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

  Neild, Herbert

  Arkwright-, John Stanhope

  Duncan, Robert (Lanark. Govan

  Parkes, Ebenezer

  Balcarres, John

  Faber, George Denison (York)

  Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington

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

  Fell, Arthur

  Percy, Earl

  Banbury, Sir Frederick George

  Fletcher, J. S.

  Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

  Baring, Capt. Hn. G. (Winchester

  Gardner, Ernest

  Randles, Sir John Scurrah

  Beach, Hn. Michael Hugh Hicks

  Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West)

  Ratcliff, Major R. F.

  Beckett, Hon. Gervase

  Gretton, John

  Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel

  Bowles, G. Stewart

  Guinness, Walter Edward

  Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)

  Boyle, Sir Edward

  Hamilton, Marquess of

  Sandys, Lieut.-Col. Thos. Myles

  Bridgeman, W. Clive

  Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashf'rd

  Sloan, Thomas Henry

  Bull, Sir William James

  Harrison-Broadley, H. B.

  Smith, F. E. (Liverpool, Walton

  Butcher, Samuel Henry

  Hay, Hon. Claude George

  Staveley-Hill, Henry (Staff'sh.

  Carlile, E. Hildred

  Helmsley, Viscount

  Stone, Sir Benjamin

  Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.

  Hill, Lord Arthur (West Down)

  Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

  Cave, George

  Hill, Sir Clement (Shrewsbury)

  Thornton, Percy M.

  Cavendish, Rt. Hn. Victor C. W.

  Hills, J. W.

  Tuke, Sir John "Batty

  Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

  Houston, Robert Paterson

  Walrond, Hon. Lionel

  Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.)

  Keswick, William

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

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

  King, Sir Henry Seymour (Hull

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

  Clark, George Smith (Belfast. N.

  Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm.

  Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm

  Clive, Percy Archer

  Law, Andrew Bonar (Dulwich)

  Younger, George

  Coates, E. Feetham (Lewisham)

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

  Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow)

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

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Viscount Valentia and Mr. Forster.

  Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

  Lowe, Sir Francis William

  Courthope, G. Loyd

  Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred

  Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim. S.

  M'Arthur, Charles

  Craik, Sir Henry

  Magnus, Sir Philip

  Question put, and agreed to.

  Ordered, That in the case of the Small Landholders (Scotland) Bill and the Land Values (Scotland) Bill, the Committee on the Financial Resolution (if any) relating to the Bill shall be deemed to have been sot up as required by the Standing Orders of the House, and the Second Reading, Committee stage, and Report stage of the Bill (including the Financial Resolution (if any) relating thereto) and the Third Reading of the Bill shall be proceeded with in the following manner:—(a) The Committee stage of the Financial Resolution (if any) relating to the
  282
  Bill, and the Second Reading of the Bill, shall be proceeded with and brought to a conclusion on the first allotted day; and the Bill shall, when it has been read a second time, stand committed to a Committee of the Whole House without Question put; (b) The Report stage of the Financial Resolution (if any) and the Committee stage of the Bill, and, if the Bill is not amended in Committee, the Report of the Bill to the House, and the Third Reading of the Bill, shall be proceeded with and brought to a conclusion on the second allotted day, and on the conclusion

  283
  of the consideration of the Bill in Committee the Chairman shall report the Bill to the House without Question put; (c) If the Bill is amended in Committee, the Report stage and the Third Heading of the Bill shall be proceeded with and brought to a conclusion on the third allotted day. After this Order comes into operation, any day (other than Friday) shall be considered an allotted day for the purposes of this Order on which the Bill is put down as the first Order of the day, or on which any stage of the Financial Resolution (if any) relating thereto is put down as first Order of the day followed by the Bill. On any allotted day on which proceedings on any business allotted to that day are to be brought to a conclusion, the Speaker or Chairman shall at 10.30 p.m. if the day is one on which Government business has precedence after 8.15 p.m., and at 7.45 p.m. if the day is one on which Government business has not precedence after 8.15 p.m. (if those proceedings have not already been brought to a conclusion,) put forthwith the Question on any Amendment or Motion already proposed from the Chair, and shall next proceed successively to put forthwith the Question on any amendments moved by the Government of which notice has been given, but no other amendments, and on any question necessary to dispose of the business to be concluded, and in the case of Government Amendments or of Government new clauses or schedules he shall put only the Question that the amendment be made or that the clause or schedule be added to the Bill, as the case may be, and on the Committee stage of the Bill the Chairman, in the case of a series of clauses to which no notice of Amendment has been given by the Government, shall put the Question that those clauses stand part of the Bill without putting the Question separately as respects each clause. Proceedings to which this order relates shall not on any day, on which any proceedings or business are to be brought to a conclusion under this order, be interrupted under the provisions of any Standing Order relating to the sitting of the House. In the case of an allotted day being a day on which Government business has not precedence after 8.15 p.m., the time at which the proceedings or business is to be brought to a conclusion, are so brought to a conclusion shall, if that time is later than a
  284
  quarter past eight, be substituted, for the purposes of Standing Orders relating to the precedence of business at different sittings and to the time for taking Private Business, for 8.15 p.m. On an allotted day no dilatory Motion on the Bill, nor Motion to re-commit the Bill, nor Motion for Adjournment under Standing Order 10, nor Motion to postpone a clause, shall be received unless moved by a Minister of the Crown, and the Question on any such Motion shall be put forthwith without any debate. Nothing in this order shall—(a) prevent any business which under this order is to be concluded on an allotted day being proceeded with on any other day, or necessitate a day being allotted to any such business if the business to be concluded has been otherwise disposed of; or (b) prevent any other business being proceeded with on an allotted day in accordance with the Standing Orders of the House after the business to be concluded on the allotted day has been disposed of.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—(Mr. Whiteley.)

  THE IMPRISONED WOMAN SUFFRAGISTS.
  SIR WILLIAM BULLsaid he wished to ask the Home Secretary a question, of which he had given private notice, or, in the absence of the right hon. Gentleman, anyone representing the Government, whether it was the fact that that afternoon Mrs. Pankhurst was arrested at Caxton Hall on her return from the South Leeds election, and, if so, by whose orders.
  MR. CLAUDE HAYasked why the suffragist ladies who were sent to prison as political offenders were not as well treated as men when they were imprisoned as political offenders.
  MR. T. L. CORBETT (Down, N.)desired to know why the Home Secretary, who was specially informed half an hour ago that these questions would be asked, was not in his place. He also asked whether the ladies now in prison were being treated as first class misdemeanants or whether they were being treated more

  285
  harshly than the hon. Member for North Westmeath (Mr. Ginnell).
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. GLADSTONE,),who entered the House at this moment: I understand that the hon. Member has asked me two questions. The first is with regard to several arrests this afternoon. As to that I have boon in my room all the afternoon, and have not heard anything about the arrests referred to, but I will, of course, make inquiries. I am also asked with regard to the treatment of the women who have been committed to prison. I understand that the question is asked why they have been sent to the second division and not to the first.
  MR. T. L CORBETTsaid that perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would like the question asked again. It was whether the ladies now in prison were being treated as first-class misdemeanants or whether they were being treated more harshly than the hon. Member for North Westmeath. [An HON. MEMBER: What does he know about Westmeath?]
  MR. GLADSTONE: I have nothing whatever to do with the hon. Member for North Westmeath, whose case has been cited as an example of the treatment of a certain class of prisoners. I have no responsibility at all in that matter. It was the decision of the High Court in Ireland. With regard to the imprisonment of these women, I have to say that in my opinion it is a question for the discretion of the magistrate, and it is no part of the duty of the Home Secretary to interfera with that discretion when he considers it has been properly used upon the responsibility of magistrates or Judges in the public interest.
  LORD R. CECILsaid he did not think the Home Secretary quite appreciated the question. They had now a set of political prisoners in England and a political prisoner in Ireland. The hon. Member for North Westmeath, who had been arrested and put into prison by the order of a Judge of the High Court of Ireland after hearing everything that the hon. Member had to say, was being treated as a first-class misdemeanant, while in this country certain ladies who, in con- 286
  sequence of their attempt to enforce what they considered to be their political rights, whether wisely or unwisely, dicereetly or indiscreetly, were sent to prison and treated not as first-class, but as second-class misdemeanants. He did not say that the hon. member for Westmeath should be treated in the second class. But the contrast in the treatment of the two classes of prisoners was striking and required an explanation. Perhaps the Homo Secretary would allow him to remind him that although the matter very materially rested in the discretion of the Court which sent a person to prison, it was quite possible for the Home Secretary, and he had often done it, to intervene in such cases and direct that prisoners sent to the second division should be treated in the first. It was done in the cases of Mr. Stead and the present President of the Local Government Board (Mr. Burns). At any rate it had been repeatedly done, and he thought the House was entitled to something more than the ipse dixit of the Home Secretary that he regarded the discretion of the police magistrate as having been properly exercised and that he would not interfere. He thought they were entitled to hear from the right hon. Gentleman some reason why these ladies should be treated in this way.
  MR. DILLONsaid the Irish party had always consistently supported the view that political prisoners should be treated as first class misdemeanants. He did not see why the name of the hon. Member for North Westmeath should have been brought into the discussion at all. The hon. Member had been referred to as a political prisoner for the purposes of comparison. But that was not the case. The hon. Member was a contempt of court prisoner, and therefore was entitled to be treated, not as a first-class misdemeanant, but as a debtor for contempt of court and they had a very serious grievance about his case, but he did not think anything was gained by bringing in his name. Whenever these cases had been raised in this House, notably in regard to the Jameson raiders, a Member of the Government which the noble Lord supported, came and asked him if the Irish Members would oppose a proposal to treat them as first-class misdemeanants. Although they were opposed to the raiders, he said the

  287
  Nationalist party considered that they were political prisoners and ought to be treated as such. At any rate, he held that these ladies ought to be treated as political prisoners. He trusted that the next time an Irish political prisoner was committed to gaol the noble Lord and his friends would remember to apply the principles to which they had given expression.
  LORD R. CECIL: I did not intervene in this debate on the ground of any principle. I merely wished to extract from the Home Secretary his reason for treating these women as second-class misdemeanants.
  MR. DILLON: Then are we to understand that the noble Lord has no desire to see these ladies treated as political prisoners?
  LORD R. CECIL: The hon. Member is anxious, if he can, to misrepresent what I said. [NATIONALIST cries of "Oh."] I have expressed no opinion in this matter. My only desire is that nobody should be punished more severely than they ought to be punished; and certainly I think that unless we are given some good reason for the treatment of these women in the second-class they ought to be placed in the first.
  MR. DILLONsaid that Members of the House of Commons and the people outside it were entitled to know what the noble Lord's opinion was. Everybody knew what the offence of these ladies was, and the noble Lord could not shelter himself by saying he did not know. The Nationalist party held that these ladies were political prisoners, and said that men or women who founded themselves on political motives ought to be treated on a different footing from ordinary criminals. He was afraid the true interpretation of the noble Lord's attitude was that in England political prisoners, whether men or women, should be treated as first-class misdemeanants, and in Ireland as criminals.
  MR. BRIGHTsaid he visited one of these prisoners at Holloway, a very worthy woman, however mistaken, and it was distressing to him to see one whom he had known for twenty years dressed in the degrading costume of prisoners in the second division. He thought such treatment was an unnecessary degradation of women who, whatever they might think of their actions, were actuated by the highest motives.
  MR. A. C. CORBETTthought the condemnation of these ladies to the second class amounted to political tyranny.
  MR. GLADSTONE: May I point out that these ladies can come out of prison whenever they like by giving sureties for their good behaviour. Surely they cannot have it both ways. Last year I did take certain action, and I made certain representations. The offences then committed were committed for the first time, and I hoped that the most lenient treatment would have a good effect. The lenient treatment, however, was used, because of the privileges it conferred in prison, simply for the purpose of encouraging the commission of further offences of the same kind. The magistrates in the exereice of their discretion, having experience in these matters for the last year and a half, came to the conclusion that action on their part was necessary in the interests of the public, and exercising that discretion fairly they have delivered their judgment. To my mind it is no part of the Home Secretary's duty to be constantly interfering with the discretion of the stipendiary magistrates, who are capable and experienced men doing their duty as well as they can in time of difficulty. I further say that if I were to interfere in this case, because of any opinion I myself might hold in regard to the offence, it would be a most serious discouragement to the stipendiary magistrates in doing what they think necessary in the discharge of their duty.
  Adjourned at a quarter before Eight o'clock.

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
The Lord Chancellor The Lord Chancellor acquainted the House, that the Clerk of the Parliaments had laid upon the Table the Certificates from the Examiners, that the further Standing Orders applicable to the following Bills have been complied with. Barry Railway [H.L.]; Highgate Hill Tramways [H.L.]; Rochester Bridge [H.L.]; Aire and Calder Navigation [H.L.]; Cardiff Railway [H.L.]; Rhymney Railway [H.L.]; London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway [H.L.]
Also the Certificate that the Standing Orders have not been complied with in respect of the Petition for additional provision in the following Bill. London County Council (Tramways and Improvements) [H.L.].
The same were ordered to lie on the Table.
Argentine North Eastern Railway Bill—Petition of Messrs. Durnford and Company, of. 315, Caxton House, Westminster, London, praying that Standing Order No. 86A may be dispensed with, and that the Bill may be read a first time; read, and ordered to lie on the Table, and Standing Order No. 86A to be considered on Monday next, in order to it being dispensed with.
Interoceanic Railway of Mexico Bill [H.L.]; Metropolitan Electric Tramways Bill [H.L.]. Presented, read 1a, and referred to the Examiners.

RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  CROWN JEWELS COMMISSION (IRELAND).
  Appendix to the Report of the Viceregal Commission appointed to investigate the circumstances of the loss of the Regalia of the Order of St. Patrick, and to inquire whether Sir Arthur Vicars exercised due vigilance and proper care as the custodian thereof; minutes of evidence. Presented (by Command), and ordered to lie on the Table.
  SHOP HOURS ACT, 1904.
  Order made by the town council of the borough of Taunton, fixing the hours of closing for certain shops within the borough. Laid before the House (pursuant to Act), and ordered to lie on the Table.
  PUBLIC BILLS.
  Return respecting: Laid before the House (pursuant to Order of the 30th January last), and to be printed. (No. 12).
NEW BILL.
  SMALL HOLDINGS AND ALLOTMENTS (SCOTLAND BILL) [H.L.]
  A Bill to amend the law with respect to small holdings and allotments in Scotland. Was presented by the Earl of Camperdown; read 1a, and to be printed. (No. 13)

THE TERRITORIAL ARMY SCHEME.
*LORD AMPTHILL: My Lords, I rise to ask the Under-Secretary of State for War—(1.) Whether he is yet in a position to define exactly the duties of secretaries of County Associations under the Territorial and Reserve Forces Act in view of the prevailing uncertainty as to whether those duties are to be purely administrative or partly executive; (2.) Whether each unit of the Territorial Army will be obliged to hold its annual camp within the area of the County Association to which it belongs, or whether inland corps will still be allowed to go to seaside camps; (3.) Whether recruiting for each unit will be restricted to the area of the County Association to which that unit belongs, or whether the present custom will be allowed to continue at least so far as the preference of individual recruits is concerned; (4.) Whether it is finally decided that separation allowances will only be granted to noncommissioned officers. My Questions need a little explanation, but a very few words will suffice. They have to do with certain points concerning which doubt exists or apprehension has arisen, to which, as chairman of a County Association, I have had my attention called. The existence of those doubts and of that apprehension is, so far as the

159
experience of my own small county shows, a very material hindrance to the proper development of the Territorial Army scheme.
The first Question relates to the duties of the secretaries of County Associations, and its importance lies in the fact that it is very difficult to select a man for an appointment unless and until you can tell him what his duties will be. Now, in regard to the duties of secretaries of County Associations two sets of opinion exist. There are some who, interpreting very literally the phrase in the Act which says that the County Associations are to raise the Territorial Army, regard the secretaries as recruiting officers, and have an idea that the secretaries will have to do very much what was done by individuals at the time of the South African War. They conceive that the secretary will be a species of itinerant recruiting officer, for, since they believe it to be the duty of the Association to find, enlist, and keep the men—and it is pretty obvious that the members of the Association cannot go about in a body to perform this duty—that duty will devolve on the secretary.
Those who hold a different view regard the County Association as an administrative body, the deputy of the War Office, in fact a miniature War Office for the county to which it belongs, and believe that it will exercise purely administrative functions analogous in every way to the functions of the War Office from which they are delegated. Those who hold this view regard the secretary merely as a scribe, the right-hand man of the chairman of the Association, and they hold that he will have nothing more to do personally with the actual enlisting of men than the clerk of a county council has to do with the inspection of insanitary areas or the inspection of the schools within his county. The House will readily believe—and I feel sure most of your Lordships have met with a similar experience—that it is extremely difficult, indeed impossible, to decide upon the choice of a secretary until this doubt has been removed and we are in a position to say exactly what the secretary will have to do.
It is possible that the noble Earl the Under-Secretary will tell me that this is
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a matter which will be left to the discretion of the County Associations, and that if they like to choose an active man, who will run about every day and all day and assist in the work of recruiting, they will be at liberty to do so; but I very earnestly hope that this will not be his answer. I hope that the conception of the Territorial Army scheme which exists in the mind of the Secretary of State is so consistent and so clear that homogeneous principles will be laid down for the whole country. The want of a clear understanding in regard to the line between administrative and executive functions in military matters has led to more than one great controversy, and notably to that great controversy which convulsed the whole system of government in India a few years ago, and led to deplorable results, of which it will take a long time to remove the traces. I can well imagine that there might be many very serious storms in tea-cups in the various counties if a similar confusion on a small scale were to exist in regard to the duties of the secretary.
My next Question is a simple one, but one of considerable importance. To many Volunteers the only attraction of volunteering, the only circumstance which enables them to make the sacrifices necessary to discharge this patriotic duty, is the complete change of air which they get at a seaside camp, or in some place of which the climate and surroundings are entirely different from their own place of residence. To many Volunteers the annual training is the only holiday, and unless that holiday can be made a real holiday it would not be worth their while, or, to put it, perhaps, in the more correct way, it would be impossible for them to make the necessary sacrifices which are entailed by joining the Volunteers. In my own county there is a very fine Engineer Volunteer Corps, and it is a fact that at the present time resignations are coming in far more quickly than they ought to be at this period of the year, and there is a considerable hesitation about transferring to the Territorial Army, solely on account of the doubt which exists as to whether the seaside camp will be allowed to continue, or whether they will have to go to some inland brigade camp. That is my justification for troubling the Under-Secretary and for detaining your Lordships. I have

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endeavoured to obtain information from less exalted sources, but I find that nothing short of an authoritative statement from the fountain head will satisfy those who are addressing their inquiries to me.
The third Question is an analogous one, which, perhaps, I may best illustrate by an example. In my own county of Bedfordshire one of the companies of the Infantry Volunteer Corps is recruited partly in the neighbouring county of Buckinghamshire. The men of these two counties belong to a homogeneous district, which is kept together by considerations entirely independent of county boundaries. It has been the custom for these men to associate together for volunteering and a species of comradeship has sprung up. Besides that, there is the habit they have got of doing their drill in certain places to which they have convenient access. Here, again, a doubt has arisen as to whether this arrangement will be allowed to continue, and whether Buckinghamshire men will be permitted to join the Bedfordshire Volunteers. The result of this feeling is that many men are already declaring that they will be unable to join the Territorial Army if they are taken away from their old comrades, and not allowed to do their training under the same conditions.
Lastly, I ask whether it is finally decided that separation allowances will be granted only to non-commissioned officers. I need hardly detain your Lordships by pointing out that the conditions of service in the Volunteers are necessarily so different from those which obtain in the Regular Army, that it is not possible to enforce those distinctions between the non-commissioned rank and the privates which are desirable and which raise no question in the Regular Army. The non-commissioned officer in the Volunteers is not, necessarily, the best man. Other circumstances come into the consideration, and the very conditions of service make it impossible for a large number to look forward to regular promotion to the non-commissioned ranks. To these men who are privates in the infantry, or sappers in the Engineers, it is difficult to discern a reason why a married man who has four or five children should not get the separation allowance just the same as his comrade who happens to be a non-commissioned officer, and who may
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not have served for a longer period. That is all I have to say, and I hope that the noble Earl will be able to give definite replies to these Questions, for I can assure him that, at any rate so far as my own county is concerned, the existing doubt is causing a good deal of disquietude in regard to the success of the Territorial Army scheme.
THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (The Earl of PORTSMOUTH): My Lords, in reply to Question 1, regarding the duties of the secretaries of County Associations, I would like to point out to my noble friend that the relations between the Army Council and the Associations preclude the exact definition by the Council of the secretary's duties. The Army Council, in their desire to give the Territorial Force as free a hand as possible, have decentralised its administration so far as is compatible with military efficiency. They have laid down at some length in Chapter 2 of the Act the duties of County Associations. The secretary, though his appointment must be approved by the Army Council, is the servant not of the Council but of the County Association. We look upon him, so to speak, as the special machine to carry out effectively the resolutions and decisions of the Association in the exercise of their functions.
The duties of the various Associations naturally must differ very materially in various details, and I do not think it would be possible for the Army Council or for the Secretary of State, or for any central authority, to attempt to lay down any hard and fast rules. I should be sorry to see such a task imposed upon the Army Council. Even if the Army Council were desirous of doing this, they could not do so with any satisfaction or with any reasonable chance of success. The circumstances of each Association are different, and we should be immediately accused of just that kind of undue War Office interference which has been, I think rightly, resented by the Volunteers in the past. The very semblance of this we are anxious to avoid as far as possible. Each association, in our opinion, must order its own affairs. It is a self-contained organisation with certain defined powers and responsibilities, and it is for each Association to utilise the services of

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their paid secretary in whatever directions they think most conducive to the proper performance of their duties.
In reply to Question 2 there will not be a definite obligation on any unit of the Territorial Force to hold its annual camp within the County Association area. The selection of annual camps will as in the past, be left in the hands of the general officers commanding-in-chief, acting through the major-generals of divisions. It is the desire of the Army Council that, wherever possible, the wishes of the units should be gratified in this respect. My noble friend will, I am sure, quite understand the importance of the annual camp from the training or strictly military standpoint, but, so far as is compatible with this requirement, he may rest assured that no undue opposition to the wishes of units will be entertained, as the Army Council and the general officers commanding fully appreciate the spirit of sacrifice shown by the Volunteer, who, in many cases, gives up his annual holiday to the annual camp.
I now come to Question 3, in reply to which I have to say that it will be one of the primary duties of an association to define the limits of recruiting areas within its county limits, so that normally units will be recruited from residents within the area of the Association by which these units are administered. Any recruiting within that area for units not administered by the Association will be a matter of arrangement between the various Associations concerned. I must add, however, that in the case of certain special corps, such as the Medical Corps and the Corps of Electrical Engineers, the special circumstances demand that the recruiting should be to some extent carried on independently of county boundaries. These are what may be called expert or technical corps, and the material to be drawn upon is consequently scattered. I am sure, therefore, that your Lordships will appreciate the necessity of a slight departure from the general scheme of county organisation. It is not practicable in such cases to limit the recruiting area by the boundaries of any particular county. It must
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be extended as the special circumstances demand, and thus, for instance, we find it necessary to allow the Corps of Electrical Engineers to reckon all the middle of England as their recruiting area.
Now, as regards Question 4, I am afraid that the Army Council cannot possibly grant the demand that the issue of separation allowance should be extended to the privates of the Territorial Force. I would remind your Lordships that it was not given to the Militia, except in some special cases when men were undergoing special courses of instruction, and such men were always non-commissioned officers. It has been decided to give it to the non-commissioned officers of the special Reserve, the transformed Militia, as well as to non-commissioned officers of the Territorial Force, but not to the privates, and I think your Lordships will agree that if any extension of the grant were to be made, the special Reserve would have a stronger claim, seeing that they are absent from their families for a much longer period than the Volunteers, six months initial and twenty-one days annual training, as compared with no such initial training and a maximum of fifteen days annual camp.
In the next place, I am sure your Lordships, so many of whom have had military experience of various kinds, will readily admit that it is important, from a military point of view, that the difference between the ranks of noncommissioned officer and private should be sufficiently accentuated, This has hardly been the case in the past. The Army Council are confident that giving the non-commissioned officer the pay of his rank and (in the case of married men) the separation allowance will, it is hoped, induce the Volunteer to strive, during the non-training period of the year, to improve his military efficiency. Finally, we must not overlook financial considerations, and the result of extending the privilege of separation allowance to all married members of the Territorial Force would

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be an increase of expenditure which the Army Council do not think should be lightly incurred. We have not sufficient data to work out the exact cost, but it is no exaggeration to say that it would not be less than £50,000, and might even amount to £100,000 per annum.
LORD BELPER: My Lords, I listened very carefully to the Answer given by the noble Earl with regard to the duties of secretaries of County Associations, and I am bound to say that I think noble Lords are very much in the position that they were before the Question was asked. The noble Earl's Answer forcibly reminds me of a question put by one who was anxious to know what the particular duties were of a high ecclesiastical dignatory. The questioner asked his friend, who was an authority on the subject, what were the duties of an archdeacon, and the only reply he could get was that his duties were to perform archidiaconal functions. As far as I can see, the only answer that has been given by the noble Earl is that the secretary is to perform secretarial functions. In the case of many Associations the difficulty is not as to what the duties of the secretary are, but how to get for the post of secretary, with its salary of only £150 a year, men competent to perform the duties. More than one Association

Regiment of Battery.

Total Strength 1st February, 1908.

Total of Men who have less than One Year's Service or are under 20 Years of Age.

Recruits at Depot.

THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTH: We shall be very glad to give this Return, but I hope my noble friend will understand that we shall have to communicate with the local military authorities, and
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have been advised that their only course to get anybody at all is to combine with another county and appoint one secretary for both comities; but, as it is an absolute sine qua non that there should be two offices, that proposal is hardly one to be adopted. I hope the Government will give attention to this point, because it is a serious difficulty, which in the initial stages of an experiment which we all hope will work out satisfactorily is likely to prove detrimental to the working of the County Associations. I am confident that if the Government cannot see their way to increase the funds which have been suggested for many of the counties it will be quite impossible to obtain competent men to perform the duties.

THE HOME ESTABLISHMENT.
EARL CAWDOR: My Lords, in the absence of my noble friend Viscount Midleton I beg to ask the noble Earl the Under-Secretary for War the Question on the Paper—namely, whether he will lay on the Table a Return giving the strength of each infantry battalion and each battery of artillery on the Home Establishment on 1st February, showing the number of men in each unit who have less than one year's service or are under twenty years of age; showing also the number of recruits at the depot in the following form—
that it will not be possible to have it prepared before a fortnight or three weeks.
House adjourned at Five o'clock, till To-morrow, half-past Ten o'clock.