Sitting of 26 February 1908

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

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
Manchester Corporation Bill (by Order). Read a second time, and committed.
Motherwell Burgh Extension, etc., Bill. "To extend the boundaries of the burgh of Motherwell; to authorise the Provost, Magistrates, and Councillors of the said burgh to construct and maintain sewers and sewage purification works; to acquire lands for sewage purification; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and ordered to be read a second time.
Wishaw Burgh Electricity, etc., Bill. "To confer further powers on the Provost Magistrates and Councillors of the burgh of Wishaw in connection with their electricity undertaking; to authorise the laying of mains and pipes in connection with the supply of gas beyond the burgh; and to make provision with respect to the width of streets; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and ordered to be read a second time.

PETITIONS.
  CONGO FREE STATE.
  Petition from Hull, for protection of the Native Races; to lie upon the Table.
  LICENSED PREMISES (EXCLUSION OF CHILDREN).
  Petitions for legislation: From Forest Gate; Gorleston; Pocklington; and West Ham and Strafford; to lie upon the Table.
  SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS ON SUNDAY BILL.
  Petitions in favour: From Bridport; Earlsfield; Holbeck; Hull; Norwich; Southsea; and Worksop; to lie upon the Table.
  WOMEN'S ENFRANCHISEMENT BILL.
  Petitions in favour: From Wandsworth and Putney; and Wycliffe; to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  ALIENS (NATURALISATION).
  Return presented, relative thereto [Address 11th February; Mr. Herbert Samuel]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 72.]
  FRANCE (No. 1, 1908).
  Copy presented, of Report by the hon. Reginald Lister, His Majesty's Minister at Paris, upon the French Colonies [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  EDUCATION (SCOTLAND).
  Copy presented, of Minute of the Committee of Council on Education in Scotland, dated 25th February, 1908, providing for the distribution of the General Aid Grant [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.

  NATIONAL DEBT ANNUITIES.
  Account presented, of the Gross Amount of all Bank Annuities and any Annuities for terms of years transferred and of all sums of Money paid to the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt, and the Gross Amount of
  1734
  Annuities for Lives and for terms of years, etc., granted within the year ended 5th January, 1908 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 73.]

  PAPER LAID UPON THE TABLE BY THE CLERK OF THE HOUSE.
  Irish Land Commission (Account). Copy of Report of the Comptroller and Auditor-General upon the Account of the Irish Land Commission for the year ended 31st March, 1907 [by Act]; to be printed. [No. 74.]
  DRUNKENNESS (IRELAND).
  Return ordered, "Giving the number of Arrests for Drunkenness within the Metropolitan Police District of Dublin and the Cities of Belfast, Cork, Limerick, and Waterford, from the hour of 9 p.m. to 12 midnight on Saturdays, and from 12 midnight to 8 a.m. on Sundays, and from 8 a.m. on Sunday till 2 p.m., and from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m., from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., from 9 p.m. to 12 midnight, from 12 midnight to 8 a.m. on Monday, between the 1st day of January and the 31st day of December, both days inclusive for the years 1906 and 1907 respectively and similar Returns for the rest of Ireland from the 1st day of January to the 31st December, for the years 1906 to 1907 respectively; the arrests being given from 9 p.m. on Saturdays to 9 a.m. on Sundays, and from 9 a.m. on Sundays till 7 a.m. on Mondays."—(Mr. Sloan.)
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CIRCULATED WITH THE VOTES.

  Life and Cost of Maintenance of Battleships.
  MR. HAROLD COX: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty, what is the estimated life of a first-class battleship of the most modern type; and on this basis what is the annual cost of maintaining such a battleship in full commission, allowing for interest and depreciation of capital, for wages of officers and crew, and a proportionate

  1735
  charge for pensions and training, for stores, repairs and renewals, and every other necessary item.
  (Answered by Mr. Edmund Robertson.) It is not the custom in this country to condemn ships solely on the ground of age, but, in preference to fixing an arbitrary age limit, regard is had to the condition and general suitability for service of each ship.

  Sale of the Phibbs and M'Alpine Robertson Estates, County Mayo.
  DR. AMBROSE: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, if he could give any reason why the negotiations for the sale of the Phibbs and M'Alpin Robertson estates, situate at Windsor, near Castle-bar, county Mayo, which were begun in 1905, have fallen through; and if there is any immediate prospect of the untenanted land on said estates being utilised for the relief of the congestion that at present exists amongst the said tenants.
  (Answered by Mr. Cherry.) I am informed that in 1906 the Congested Districts Board had some correspondence with the owners of the estates in question, but the estates were not definitely offered for sale to the Board and the negotiations fell through. The Board have recently learnt that the owners of both properties are now prepared to offer them for sale to the Board, and particulars are awaited. The Board, however, are not in a position to say that there is an immediate prospect of their acquiring these estates, as, owing to the lack of funds for improvement purposes, they have had to postpone negotiations for purchase in such cases for the present.

  Accident Compensation Scheme in Dockyards—Time for Consideration.
  MR. W. T. Wilson: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he can state how it was that the employees in the Construction Department in the Royal Dockyard at Portsmouth were only allowed from 16th January to 9 o'clock
  1736
  a.m. 17th January, to consider a revised compensation for accidents scheme submitted to them, although the Treasury recommended that a week should be allowed for its consideration.
  (Answered by Mr. Edmund Robertson.) Instructions were given for the time to be extended to 27th January, and the men concerned were informed accordingly.

  Specific Gravity of Beer.
  MR. BARNARD: To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will state the average specific gravity of a bulk barrel of beer in the year immediately preceding the imposition of the war tax of 1s., and the specific gravity in the last-known financial year for England and Wales.
  (Answered by Mr. Asquith.) The average specific gravity of a bulk barrel of beer in England and Wales was 1,054·50 in the year ended 31st March 1900, and 1,052·58 in the year ended 31st March, 1907.

  The Imperial Exchequer and Cost of Scottish Valuation.
  MR. HAROLD COX: To ask the Secretary for Scotland whether he has received any request from the Corporation of Glasgow that he will receive a deputation to urge the desirability of placing upon the Imperial Exchequer the whole or part of the cost of the new method of valuation for Scottish counties and boroughs proposed in the Land Values (Scotland) Bill.
  (Answered by Mr. Sinclair.) A verbal request on Monday last for an immediate interview reached the Scottish Office while I was attending a meeting of the Cabinet on that day, and which I was unable to arrange for at such short notice.

  Scottish Councils and the Government's Scottish Land Legislation.
  MR. HAROLD COX: To ask the Secretary for Scotland how many county

  1737
  councils and borough councils there are in Scotland, and how many of them have addressed petitions to him or to other Members of His Majesty's Government in favour of the Land Values (Scotland) Bill now before the House, or of the Land Values (Scotland) Bill of last session; and which are the boroughs or county councils which have addressed such petitions.
  (Answered by Mr. Sinclair.) There are thirty-three county councils and 205 town councils in Scotland. As regards petitions to Members of the Government, which is not a common practice so far as I am aware, I can only speak for myself. I have received no petitions, but copies of Resolutions, in favour of these Bills have reached me from the town councils of Glasgow, Dundee, Fraserburgh, and Newport.

  Irish Land Stock—Losses on Flotation.
  MR. LONSDALE: To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he can now inform the House of the details of the scheme of the Treasury for avoiding the loss on flotation of Irish Land Stock.
  (Answered by Mr. Asquith.) I am not yet in a position to make a statement on the subject, but I hope to be able to do so at an early date.

  Income-Tax—Claims for Reduced Rate.
  MR. BRANCH: To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that certain persons inadvertently failed to make their claims for abatement of income-tax on earned incomes by the date fixed; and whether, in view of the fact that this is the first occasion on which a limit of time for such purpose was fixed, he will allow additional days of grace to such persons this financial year.
  (Answered by Mr. Asquith.) I may perhaps be permitted to refer my hon. friend to the reply which I gave to a Question by the hon. Member for East
  1738
  Tipperary, printed with the Votes for 6th February, in which the position is fully dealt with. In view of the explicit terms of the Act, and also on account of administrative considerations, I am afraid it is impossible to extend the concessions which have already been made.

  Inspection of Irish Schools.
  CAPTAIN CRAIG: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieu tenant of Ireland, whether he can state if the Commissioners of National Education, Ireland, have issued any revised instructions to inspectors with regard to the inspection of schools, and especially as to individual examination; and, if so, have copies been forwarded to managers and teachers.
  (Answered by Mr. Cherry.) The Commissioners of National Education inform me that revised instructions to inspectors in regard to the inspection of schools and the individual examination of pupils were issued in 1902. Copies of these instructions were supplied to the managers and teachers of national schools. Another circular relating to the inspection of schools was similarly issued in 1903 to inspectors and managers.
  CAPTAIN CRAIG: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, how many schools in Circuit 8B have earned the marks excellent, very good, good, fair, and middling, respectively, for the years ending 30th June 1902, 1903, 1904, 1905, 1906, and 1907, respectively.
  (Answered by Mr. Cherry.) The Commissioners of National Education inform me that they see grave objections to furnishing a Return of the particulars asked for in the Question.

  Religious Persuasion of Royal Irish Constabulary.
  CAPTAIN CRAIG: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, if he will state the percentage of members of the Church of Ireland

  1739
  in the police force stationed in Queen's County who are on the promoted list.
  (Answered by Mr. Cherry.) The Inspector General informs me that it would be contrary to practice, and would in his opinion be injurious to the interests of the Royal Irish Constabulary, to give information as to the religious persuasion of members of the force whose names are on the promotion list. The question of religion is never taken into account in dealing with promotions.

  American Import Duties on Samples and Works of Art.
  MR. ARTHUR LEE: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, whether the Agreement concluded between the British and United States Governments, for a reciprocal reduction of the import duties on commercial samples and works of art, has yet come into force; and, if so, upon what date the reduced scale of duties came into operation.
  (Answered by Sir Edward Grey.) The Agreement does not provide for the reduction of duties on commercial samples or for their free admission, but only facilitates their clearance on importation from the United States into the United Kingdom. The Agreement is published in the Treaty Series (No. 44). It is now in force. The proclamation of the President of the United States is dated 5th December last.

  Elementary Education Loan Charges.
  MR. A. G. C. HARVEY: To ask the President of the Board of Education, if he will state the amounts of the payments which will be made in respect of loan charges, principal and interest, for elementary education by education authorities in England and Wales for each year from 1908 to 1917, inclusive, having regard to such loans as are already contracted.
  1740
  (Answered by Mr. McKenna.) I regret that the Board of Education possess no statistics on this subject.

  Admiralty Steam Coal Contracts.
  MR. BELLAIRS: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty, what is the arranged price per ton f.o.b. for the steam coal contracts so far made for the new financial year; and what was the average price for 1907–8.
  (Answered by Mr. Edmund Robertson.) It is not desirable in the interests of the public service to divulge these prices.

  North Devon Coast Guard Service.
  MR. SOARES: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty, whether he is aware of the dangerous nature of the North Devon coast, and that an efficient Coastguard service is absolutely essential for the protection of life; and whether the Admiralty has any intention of reducing the number of men employed as Coastguards on such coast.
  (Answered by Mr. Edmund Robertson.) The nature of the North Devon coast is well known, and will receive every consideration should any alteration in the present Coastguard arrangements be contemplated.

  Local Authorities and Loans under Licensing Act, 1904.
  MR. BARNARD: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether any local authorities have borrowed money under Section 6 (b) of The Licensing Act, 1904; and, if so, which, and for what period.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Gladstone.) The following list shows the compensation authorities who have obtained my sanction to loans on the security of the

  1741
  compensation funds under the Licensing Act, 1904, the amount of the loans, the

  Authority.

  Amount of loan.

  Date of sanction.

  Period of repayment.

  £

  Counties:

  Hertfordshire

  1,300

  28 | 2 | 06

  2 years

  Montgomery

  100

  7 | 12 | 06

  1 year

  Gloucestershire

  5,000

  14 | 2 | 07

  1 year

  Norfolk

  4,000

  25 | 4 | 07

  1 year

  Gloucestershire

  7,500

  4 | 11 | 37

  1 year

  Essex

  5,000

  13 | 11 | 07

  1 year

  County boroughs:

  Halifax

  6,000

  11 | 11 | 05

  2½ years

  Bolton

  500

  2 | 12 | 05

  1 year

  Devonport

  350

  1 | 5 | 06

  1 year

  Swansea

  2,300

  29 | 12 | 06

  1 year

  Birmingham

  18,000

  28 | 1 | 07

  1 year

  Bolton

  1,150

  28 | 1 | 07

  1 year

  Worcester

  3,100

  7 | 2 | 07

  1 year

  Warrington

  3,000

  7 | 5 | 07

  1½ years

  Portsmouth

  2,500

  24 | 5 | 07

  6 months

  Leicester

  10,500

  13 | 6 | 07

  11/2 years

  Worcester

  1,600

  5 | 9 | 07

  11/2 years

  London (City)

  6,000

  4 | 11 | 07

  1 year

  Leeds

  12,500

  21 | 1 | 08

  1 year

  Portsmouth

  3,800

  23 | 1 | 08

  1 year

  Peterborough (Liberty)

  350

  29 | 1 | 08

  1 year

  Wimbledon Tithe Rent Redemption.
  MR. JESSE COLLINGS: To ask the hon. Member for South Somerset, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture,
  1742
  date of sanction, and the period of repayment.
  whether he is aware that in the case of a recent apportionment scheme for the redemption of tithe rent-charge in the borough of Wimbledon the schedule of assessment and plan are alleged to have

  1743
  been deposited for inspection on licensed premises most inconveniently situated for those concerned; and, seeing that no opportunity was afforded for any objection as notices were not sent to the individual landowners, as provided in Paragraph 5 of the Memorandum of the Board, dated 25th December, 1906, will he say what action he proposes to take.
  (Answered by Sir Edward Strachey.) We are aware that the place of deposit of the schedule of assessment and plan to which the hon. Member refers was an hotel, but we have received no complaints that it is inconveniently situated for those concerned. Notice of the proceedings was duly given as required by the Tithe Acts, 1836 to 1891, and no objections have been lodged with us. Our memorandum of the 22nd December 1906, to which reference is made, refers to compulsory redemption, and not to redemptions of the class in question. No issue of notices is necessary in the latter case.

  Licensing Sessions—Justices who are Railway Shareholders.
  MR. MOORE: To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, if, to prevent the technical disqualification of justices at licensing sessions by reason merely of their being railway shareholders, he will consider the advisability of extending to Ireland Section 12 of the Licensing Act of 1902.
  (Answered by Mr. Asquith.) The matter is not one which could be properly dealt with by the Licensing Bill of the present Session, the operation of which will be confined to England and Wales; but I have no doubt that my right hon. friend the Chief Secretary for Ireland will give the suggestion due consideration if and when an opportunity arises for reform of the licensing law with respect to Ireland.

  Waggons for the Territorial Army.
  MR. GUINNESS: To ask the Secretary of State for War if he has now come to any decision as to the number of waggons to be allotted, per battery of 15-pounder guns, for the use of the Territorial Army.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) The matter is still under consideration.

  Army Pension of J. O'Connor, of Gorton.
  MR. CLYNES: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether the claim of J. O'Connor, of 78, Norton Street, Gorton, late Sergeant-major, who served in the Crimea and in different regiments, for an increase in his military pension can be further inquired into, and the cause for so far withholding a regulation increase of pension formulated for him to deal with; and, if not, whether the reasons for refusing inquiry or an increase will be now stated.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) This man, who holds a pension of 2s. 3d. a day for his twenty-one years' service in the Regular forces, claimed an increase of pension for his subsequent seven years' service on the permanent staff of the Militia. As he was discharged with only a "fair" character, in consequence of his services being no longer required, he is ineligible for any increase of pension. He has repeatedly been informed to this effect.

  Territorial Army—Quartermasters.
  MR. WILKIE: To ask the Secretary of State for War, if the new Territorial regiments, which are taking the place of the Volunteer force, are to have experienced quartermasters attached to them, having in view the financial saving and efficiency achieved by those battalions who appointed such officers in the Volunteer force; and, if so, whether funds will be placed at the disposal of the commanding officer or associations to provide salaries for such officers.
  (Mr. Secretary Haldane.) A quartermaster is borne on the infantry establishment, who is a member of the Territorial Force. He will receive pay as a quartermaster of the Regular Army during training in camp. It is hoped that many of the duties hitherto performed by Volunteer quartermasters will now be performed by the Associations, since one of the objects of the scheme is to relieve units of financial responsibility. No special grant has been made for a salary. If any payment for duty outside the period of annual training in camp is necessary it will be met from the association grants.

QUESTIONS IN THE HOUSE.

  Mechanician Experiments.
  MR. BARNES: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty when it is proposed to report to this House the result of the mechanician experiment and its total cost to date, so that Members may have an opportunity of discussing the same.
  THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. EDMUND ROBERTSON,): This system is still in course of development, and the reports received on the mechanicians who have been drafted to sea have been satisfactory. It is not possible to separate the cost of training from other Naval services with which it is intimately connected.

  Mechanicians in the Navy.
  MR. BARNES: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty how many duly qualified mechanicians are now included in the complements of His Majesty's ships; are they additions to the ordinary crew; and, if not, what ratings have they displaced, and in what proportion.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: The Answer to the first Question is eighty. The Answer to the second Question is in the negative. As regards the third Question, two mechanicians replace one engine room artificer and one stoker.

  Navy Estimates.
  MR. BELLAIRS: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether the fact of the Navy Estimates appearing as signed by the Board on 29th January precludes all possibility of alterations or adjustments being made subsequent to that date.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: The date of the Estimates is determined by the date on which they are ordered to be printed by the House; it has no hearing on their final contents.

  Native Affairs Commission.
  MR. FLYNN: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the Government
  1746
  of Natal has yet taken any steps towards carrying into effect the recommendations contained in the Report of the (Campbell) Native Affairs Commission.
  THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. CHURCHILL,): I am afraid that I am not at present in a position to add anything to my reply to a similar Question on 3rd February.
  MR. FLYNN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this Commission reported that these people it was admitted by all competent judges were wonderfully easy to govern if only they are dealt with in the right way.
  MR. CHURCHILL: I have read the Report.
  MR. FLYNN: Is the evidence taken at the disposal of Members of this House?
  MR. CHURCHILL: I have arranged for two copies to be placed in the Tearoom.

  Uni-Cameral Legislatures.
  MR. WALKER: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies what, if any, safeguards have been imposed in the Canadian provinces having unicameral legislatures against hasty or oppressive legislative action by the single chamber.
  MR. CHURCHILL: No safeguards other than the good sense of elected representatives are provided, as far as the Secretary of State is aware.
  SIR GILBERT PARKER: Is there not a safeguard imposed by the British North America Act which prevents any Bill becoming law unless it receives the assent of the Dominion Legislature?
  MR. CHURCHILL: That is not the point raised in the Question, which asks as to the safeguards imposed on the Canadian provinces. The question of safeguards under other circumstances is a different question altogether.
  SIR GILBERT PARKER: Does not the British North America Act run in the provinces of the Dominion?
  MR. CHURCHILL: The scope of that Act though no doubt very interesting is quite a different question, which I am not prepared to answer offhand.

  Argentina and the Falkland Archipelago.
  MR. MITCHELL-THOMSON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, whether he has any official information showing that the Government of the Argentine Republic has intimated a claim to jurisdiction in the Falkland Archipelago; and whether he is in a position to make any statement regarding this.
  THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. RUNCIMAN,; for Sir EDWARD GREY): If the hon. Member will let my right hon. friend know to what he refers in particular, my right hon. friend will endeavour to give what information he has.

  Macedonian Reform.
  MR. O'GRADY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can state the nature of the concessions promised the Porte by Baron Von Marschall, the German Ambassador, in regard to the matter of judicial reforms in Macedonia; whether the chances of these reforms have been damaged, and to what extent, by the settlement arrived at between the Porte and the Austro-Hungarian Government on the matter of the Novi Bazar Railway; and whether he can state what action the Powers, apart from Germany and Austro-Hungary, intend to take in obtaining judicial reform in Macedonia.
  MR. RUNCIMAN: My right hon. friend must refer the hon. Member to the statement which he made yesterday; he has nothing to add to it.

  Drunkenness in London.
  MR. BOTTOMLEY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he can state the number of charges of drunkenness which came before the Metropolitan Police Courts during the year 1907 in
  1748
  respect of arrests made on Saturdays, Sundays, and Mondays, respectively; or whether, in the alternative, he will grant a Return giving such information.
  THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL,): The only available figures of the kind desired by the hon. Member are those which were given by me to the House on the 6th of March last in the debate upon a Motion that licensed premises should be closed on Sundays. The figures show that during the three months ended 31st January, 1907, in the Metropolitan Police District were:—For Saturday, 3,966; Sunday, 946; Monday, 2,032. It would involve great labour and expenditure of time to compile similar figures for a period of twelve months; and I do not think the larger figures, if obtained, would afford ground for any inference which cannot be drawn from the figures already given.
  MR. BOTTOMLEY: Will the hon. Gentleman endeavour before it is too late to induce the Government to include in their forthcoming Licensing Bill a provision for Saturday and Monday closing of public-houses?
  [No Answer was returned.]

  The Whisky Commission.
  MR. J. DEVLIN: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he can state the place of residence, country of birth, professional experience, and qualifications of the individual members of the Whisky Commission; whether any representations were made to the Government by the Scottish whisky blenders and distillers, or any of their representatives, with reference to the constitution, membership, or terms of reference of the Commission; whether he will request the Commissioners to issue an ad interim Report as soon as possible on the question of what constitutes whisky; whether the interests affected may be represented by counsel before the Commission; whether the Commission will sit in Ireland; and whether the evidence will be taken on oath.

  1749
  I beg also to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to expressions of dissatisfaction at the constitution of the Whisky Commission, and at the ignoring of Irish interests in the appointment of the Commissioners; whether he is aware that, in consequence of what the Irish distillers describe as the unfair tactics of the Scottish blenders and distillers in connection with the question of what is whisky, the Irish distillery trade has already suffered heavily, three Irish distillers having failed and three others being at present in the hands of the receiver in bankruptcy; and whether, in view of the injustice to an important Irish industry, he will amend the constitution of the Commission at the earliest possible moment by the appointment of additional members possessing the lull confidence of the Irish interests involved.
  I beg further to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he can state the reason why Sir Henry Robinson was consulted with reference to the appointment of a representative of Ireland on the Whisky Commission; what special qualification Sir Henry Robinson possesses to entitle him to recommend any such representative; whether Professor Adeney, the member of the Commission appointed to represent Ireland, is not an Irishman, was connected with South Kensington and Birmingham University, has no knowledge whatever of the Irish distillery trade or of the position of the Irish barley growers, whose interests are most deeply affected by the Commission, and is not known in Ireland outside his own laboratory; whether the origin of the Commission was the question as to what was whisky; whether he is aware that the issue of the question is of vital importance to Irish distillers and barley growers; that the Scottish blenders and distillers expended over £10,000 in connection with the trial of the issue in the Law Courts; and that a decision in favour of the Scottish whisky blenders and distillers will kill the Irish whisky trade in Great Britain; and whether, seeing that the Commission is composed of a majority of Scotsmen or of men favourable to the Scottish interests involved
  1750
  in the case, and in view of all the circumstances, he will take steps to have the interests of Ireland adequately represented by the appointment of an equal number of Irishmen to that of the Scotsmen now serving on the Commission, or at least by the appointment of one Irish representative in whom Irish distillers and barley growers can have confidence.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. JOHN BURNS,): I will answer together the three Questions which stand in the name of the hon. Member and relate to the Royal Commission on Whisky. The Commission consists of Lord James of Hereford, of whose legal knowledge and experience in dealing with conflicting trade interests it is unnecessary that I should say anything; of two officials representing the Board of Inland Revenue and the Local Government Board; of two gentlemen nominated by the Secretary for Scotland and the Irish Local Government Board respectively; and of three other members who are experienced men possessing scientific or professional attainments which should enable them to form a sound judgment on the various scientific matters referred to them. I carefully considered the question whether representatives of the trade interests involved should be placed on the Commission, and I came to the conclusion that the better course was to refer the whole question to impartial men, none of whom were in any way committed to trade views or nominated by the trade, but who would take evidence as to the trade interests concerned, and consider not only these interests, but also those of the consumer and of the public health in relation to the matter. I cannot in answer to a Question go into details respecting the members of the Commission, but I may say that I am not aware that a majority of them are Scotsmen or men favourable to the Scottish interests involved, or that representations were made by the Scottish whisky blenders and distillers with reference to the points mentioned in the first Question. I have not received expressions of dissatisfaction at the constitution of the Commission. I fully

  1751
  realise the importance to Ireland of the questions involved, but I do not think there is any ground for considering that Ireland has been unfairly treated in the matter. As I have already stated, the Irish Local Government Board were asked to nominate a member, and Sir Henry Robinson, acting on behalf of that Board, nominated Professor Adeney, who, I understand, has been connected with Ireland for more than thirty years. I see no sufficient reasons for advising any alteration in the constitution of the Commission. They are holding their first meeting to-day, and I understand that whisky will be the first question considered by them. It will rest with them to settle their own procedure and to determine where they will sit, and whether or not they will hear counsel. They will have no power to take evidence on oath. I have no doubt they will ascertain the facts as speedily as practicable, and consider fairly all the interests involved.
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: May I ask what precedent there is for asking the Local Government Board in Ireland to nominate a member of a Commission of this kind? I understand the right hon. Gentleman asked the Secretary for Scotland to nominate a Scottish member, but why was not the Irish Secretary asked to recommend an Irish member, instead of the Local Government Board?
  MR. JOHN BURNS: The reason is that it was felt by everybody that the condition of the whisky trade in England, Ireland and Scotland affected not only public health, but morals as well, and that it was in the interests of health and morals as well as the scientific aspect that the Local Government Boards of the three countries should be consulted. I may add that in an article in the Freeman's Journal two columns long yesterday a pot-still distiller said a question of the public health had been ignored to the detriment of the Irish pot-still trade. That is why the Irish Local Government Board was consulted.
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: Then am I to understand the right hon. Gentleman to say that he did not ask the Irish
  1752
  Government to make the nomination, because it was a subject which concerned morals?
  MR. JOHN BURNS: I consulted the Local Government Board both in Ireland and in Scotland, because it was a question affecting the public health, and without good public health you cannot get good morals.
  MR. J. DEVLIN: The right hon. Gentleman states that he consulted the Irish Local Government Board, but is it not a fact that Sir Henry Robinson is only one of the members of that Board, and that the Chief Secretary is President, and why was Sir Henry Robinson allowed to make the nomination?
  MR. JOHN BURNS: In the first place, the Chief Secretary for Ireland is President and was consulted, but owing to his regrettable illness and absence the Vice-President sent a reply to the Local Government Board in England. I presume it was done with the sanction of the Chief Secretary.
  MR. J. DEVLIN: Did Sir Henry Robinson consult his colleagues on the Local Government Board, or did he make the recommendation on his own initiative?
  MR. JOHN BURNS: I have no information, but I presume he did so.
  SIR F. BANBURY: Will the right hon. Gentleman appoint Lord Pirrie on this Commission?
  MR. JOHN BURNS: Certainly not.
  *MR. YOUNGER: Is it a fact that after the Commission is appointed the right hon. Gentleman has no control over its procedure or sittings, and that the Commissioners will be entitled to do whatever they think proper and to sit in Ireland or Scotland, or anywhere else?
  MR. JOHN BURNS: That is so.

  Foot-and-Mouth Disease—Imports of Foreign Fodder Prohibited.
  MR. LAURENCE HARDY: I beg to ask the hon. Member

  1753
  for South Somerset, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, whether he can give any further particulars as to the second outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease at Edinburgh; whether any source of infection can be traced between the two infected places; and whether there is any suspicion that foreign forage had been used by the owner on both farms.
  *THE TREASURER OF THE HOUSEHOLD (Sir EDWARD STRACHEY, Somersetshire, S.): The second outbreak occurred in a cowshed about half-mile distant from the one in which the first outbreak was detected and among cows belonging to the same owner as in the previous case. The probability is that the disease was conveyed by mediate contagion between the two infected places. There is no evidence as yet which suggests that foreign forage has been used on the second set of premises. It was used on the premises where the first outbreak occurred and there is no reasonable room for doubt that it was the medium by which infection was introduced.
  MR. CHAPLIN: I beg to ask to what country or countries the Order prohibiting the importation of foreign hay and straw will apply. What, is the evidence and information now before the Board which has satisfied the Department that the disease was imported with foreign hay or straw, and from what country or countries was the fodder imported.
  *SIR EDWARD STRACHEYsaid it was proposed, subject to revision, to prohibit hay and straw from being landed in this country from all Europe except Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, and from certain South American States. The hay in the present case was imported from the Netherlands, where foot-and-mouth disease has been very prevalent during the last autumn and the present winter. The hay was first used for bedding these cows three days before the first symptoms occurred, and within two days afterwards 81 out of 110 cows were found to be affected.
  MR. CHAPLIN: Is it not a fact that the Board of Agriculture was warned a
  1754
  considerable time ago of the danger of the importation of foot-and-mouth disease from the Netherlands by the Central Chamber of Agriculture and urged to prohibit the importation of fodder from that country?
  *SIR EDWARD STRACHEY: That may have been so, but I would remind the right hon. Gentleman that only on one occasion in the whole history of these diseases in this country, and never because of previous outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease, but only during the cattle plague, which is more serious than foot-and-mouth disease, was hay prohibited from coming from any country and then only for a few months. On this occasion the Government have acted very promptly and much more stringently than any previous Government under like conditions by deciding to prohibit hay and straw from being landed in this country for agricultural purposes from countries where foot-and-mouth disease exists.
  MR. CHAPLIN: Am I right, then, in supposing that foot-and-mouth disease has been imported by these means because His Majesty's Government did not take the steps that were urged upon them by the Chamber of Agriculture?
  *SIR EDWARD STRACHEY: The right hon. Gentleman must understand nothing of the kind.
  In reply to a further question—
  *SIR EDWARD STRACHEYsaid the Order would come into force when it had been fully considered; it was in draft.
  MR. LAURENCE HARDY: Will the prohibition apply to every country in which there has been foot-and-mouth disease for the last six months?
  *SIR EDWARD STRACHEY: Practically that will be so.
  MR. HAYDEN: Will a similar Order be issued for Ireland.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: Yes, Sir.

  Milk Blended Butter.
  MR. BARRIE: I beg to ask the hon. Member for South Somerset, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, whether the attention of the Department of Agriculture has been directed to the newspaper advertisements of a prominent firm maufacturing milk-blended butter, which advertisements contravene Clause 9, Sub-section 3, and Clause 10 of the Butter and Margarine Act, 1907; and what steps they propose to take for the protection of the public.
  SIR EDWARD STRACHEY: No advertisements in contravention of the law have been brought to our notice, but if the hon. Member would be good enough to supply us with any information in his possession on the subject, inquiry would be made, and proceedings instituted, if necessary.
  MR. BARRIE: Is it not the fact that an advertisement has appeared in practically all the leading papers of Great Britain clearly conveying to the public that they are buying a pure butter when they are really buying an article expressly forbidden to be called butter or by any name suggesting that it is connected with the dairy industry?
  SIR EDWARD STRACHEY: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will send me a copy of the paper.
  MR. BARRIE: I beg to ask the hon. Member for South Somerset, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, whether the Department for Agriculture will reconsider the names already sanctioned to secure that in purchasing milk-blended butter, containing 24 per cent. of water, the public may be sufficiently protected.
  SIR EDWARD STRACHEY: The Board see no necessity for the reconsideration of the names which they have approved for use in connection with milk-blended butter. None of them are suggestive of butter or anything connected with the dairy interest, and it does not appear to the Board that their use is calculated to mislead buyers of the articles to which they refer.
  MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this article is allowed to contain 24 per cent. of moisture, or 8 per cent. more than is permitted in butter on the understanding it shall not be called by any name similar to butter? And does not the sale of "Pearksown" by Pearks & Co. mislead—
  *MR. SPEAKER: Order, order. That is the Question the hon. Member asked the other day.
  *MR. BYLES: Is not the object of the legislation an invention of fancy names to deceive the public and make them think they are not buying milk-blended butter?
  [No Answer was returned.]
  MR. BARRIE: I beg to ask the hon. Member for South Somerset, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, what is the approved wording on the wrappers used in the sale of milk-blended butter describing its character and showing the percentage of water it contains, as required under the Butter and Margarine Act, 1907, Clause 9, Sub-section 1.
  SIR EDWARD STRACHEY: The description, which the Board have approved, is as follows—"This is a mixture of butter and milk, and it contains nearly 24 per cent. of water, which is about 8 per cent. (about 1¼ oz. in every pound) in excess of the 16 per cent. (about 2½ oz.) allowed in butter."

  Scottish Sheriffs' Substitutes.
  MR. WATT: I beg to ask the Lord-Advocate if, in future appointments of sheriffs and sheriffs' substitute in Scotland, he will make it a condition that retirement should take place at a certain age.
  I beg also to ask the Lord-Advocate if he can say how many sheriffs and sheriffs-substitutes there are in Scotland at present administering justice who are over seventy years of age.
  THE LORD-ADVOCATE (Mr. THOMAS SHAW,): The tenure of

  1757
  office of sheriffs and sheriffs substitute is regulated by statute, and any change in the terms of appointment would require legislative sanction. I have myself no power to make the condition mentioned. I have no official knowledge of the ages of sheriffs and sheriffs-substitute.
  MR. WATT: Does the right hon. Gentleman propose to bring in legislation on the matter.
  MR. THOMAS SHAW: No, Sir.

  Douglas Crofter Commission.
  MR. MITCHELL-THOMSON: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland whether he will lay upon the Table the Report of the Douglas Commission with regard to the crofting districts of Scotland.
  THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (Mr. SINCLAIR,): No, Sir. The Report to which I understand the hon. Gentleman refers, and for which the Government has, of course, no responsibility, is the result of the labours of some gentlemen who, for their own purposes, visited parts of the crofting districts this autumn. It has been published in the Press.
  MR. AINSWORTH: Who appointed this Douglas Commission, what was the scope of its inquiry, and to whom is the Report addressed?
  MR. SINCLAIRasked for notice.

  Returns of Agrarian Crimes.
  MR. CHARLES CRAIG: On behalf of the hon. Member for South Down, I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether, in view of the statement that the total number of agrarian crimes recorded as such in 1907 was 372, and that the total number of crimes of cattle-driving in the same period was 381, he will state what proportion of the latter is included in the statistics of agrarian crime; and why these statistics include only a certain number of the reported cases of cattle-driving, while others, forming apparently the majority, are excluded.
  THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. CHERRY, Liverpool, Exchange): The 372 agrarian crimes recorded in 1907 were all indictable offences. Non-indictable offences are not included in returns of agrarian crime. The 372 cases include fifteen cases of cattle-driving under the head of Unlawful Assembly, in which persons were proceeded against on indictment. In the great majority of cases the drives were carried out by stealth and there was no evidence that three or more persons were engaged in them, or that there were any circumstances of terror such as are necessary to constitute an unlawful assembly. They could not, therefore, be classified as Unlawful Assemblies and placed in the category of indictable crimes. Cases in which compensation has been awarded for malicious injury to the cattle by overdriving, etc., have been treated as indictable, and included in the 372 agrarian cases. These cases appear under the head of Injury to Property.
  MR. CHARLES CRAIG: Then are we to understand that a cattle-drive, no matter how serious, is not included in the statistics of crime unless some person is arrested or punished in connection with it?
  MR. CHERRY: I do not think that follows. If there is an assembly of persons large enough to constitute an unlawful assembly with circumstances attending to justify its being returned as an unlawful assembly, it is included among the indictable offences; if it is a drive by one or two persons at night and there is no evidence of an unlawful assembly, then it is merely included in the return of cattle-drives.

  Claims for Malicious Injuries.
  CAPTAIN J. CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will grant a Return showing the numbers of claims for malicious injuries entered and awarded at the various quarter sessions in Ireland since January, 1907.
  MR. CHERRY: Part II. of the Judicial Statistics (Ireland) for 1907, now in course of preparation, will contain a table

  1759
  showing by counties full particulars of the claims for compensation for malicious injury to person and property, and the results of such claims. The table will be in the same form as Table 54 in the similar volume of statistics for 1906 (Cd. 3616 of 1907). I am in a position to state at once the totals for the year 1907, namely:—Number of claims, 741; total amount claimed, £66,768; number of awards of compensation, 444; total amount awarded, £13,040. For the details by counties I must ask the hon. Member to await the presentation of the usual statistics.
  MR. FLYNN: Will the Return include the rejected claims?
  MR. CHERRY: Yes.
  MR. J. MACVEAGH: Out of the £66,000 claim was not a large proportion from the city of Belfast?
  MR. CHERRY: Yes.
  MR. J. MACVEAGH: About £30,000?
  MR. CHERRY: I have no doubt that is so.
  MR. MOORE: And was not damage done to the extent of £30,000 by the burning of sheds, etc., during the strike, although, as there was not deemed to be sufficient evidence, the claim was withdrawn?
  MR. CHERRY: I only know that the claim was made and then withdrawn.
  MR. MOORE: Before making a reply which insinuates the claims were bogus—
  *MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!
  CAPTAIN J. CRAIG: Will the Return be in the hands of the hon. Members before the House rises?
  MR. CHERRY: I think so, but I cannot say for certain.

  Queen's County Extra Police Claim.
  CAPTAIN J. CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant Ireland whether, in December last, the
  1760
  proposal committee of the Queen's County Council refused to pass a claim for £3 0s. 8d. for extra police drafted into Stradbarry in June last; and, if so, what steps the Government have taken to recover these costs.
  MR. CHERRY: The amount in question has been deducted from the sum payable to the county council out of the Local Taxation (Ireland) Account.

  Traffic in Firearms in Ireland.
  CAPTAIN J. CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether it has been brought to his knowledge by the constabulary authorities that there has been a considerable traffic in firearms in Ireland since the withdrawal of the Peace Preservation Act towards the end of 1906; and what was the number of prosecutions instituted in 1907 against persons for keeping firearms without the 10s. licence required by the Gun Licence Act, 1870.
  MR. CHERRY: My right hon. friend stated, in reply to a Question on 12th instant, that there has doubtless been some increase in the traffic in firearms in Ireland, but that in the opinion of the police authorities the increase is not more than would ordinarily follow the removal of a restriction as to carrying arms. I am informed by the Board of Inland Revenue that the number of prosecutions instituted against persons in Ireland for carrying guns without licence in 1907 was 252.

  Longford Extra Police Charge.
  CAPTAIN J. CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the county council of county Longford have refused to pay the extra police charges for the better preservation of peace in the county; and whether he will inform the House how many local authorities have similarly refused, and what steps the Government propose to take to ensure payment of the above rate.
  MR. CHERRY: The councils of County Longford and six other counties have objected to pay the charges for extra police in respect of the half-year

  1761
  ending 30th September, 1907. In the case of two of the counties the amounts have been deducted from sums payable to the counties out of the Local Taxation (Ireland) Account, and a similar course will be adopted in regard to the other five counties, including Longford, if payment should ultimately be refused.

  Fuge Estate, Buttevant, County Cork.
  MR. FLYNN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Estates Commissioners are aware that on the Fuge estate, Templemary, near Buttevant, county Cork, there are, approximately, 1,000 acres of untenanted land; and whether, in view of the fact that there are six or seven evicted families in the district who formerly occupied these lands and who are anxious for reinstatement, the Commissioners will take immediate steps with a view to acquiring these lands which are now partially used as a grazing ranch.
  MR. CHERRY: The Estates Commissioners have approached Mr. Richard Fuge in pursuance of the regulations with a view to purchasing about 350 acres of untenanted land in his occupation. A preliminary estimate of the price which the Commissioners are prepared to offer has been furnished to Mr. Fuge, and the matter is pending.

  Untenanted Doneraile (Cork) Lands.
  MR. FLYNN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, whether it has been brought to the knowledge of the Estates Commissioners that there is a quantity of untenanted land in the Doneraile district, county Cork, including land on the estate of Lady Castletown; and whether, in view of the fact that many evicted tenants in the locality are anxiously looking for suitable agricultural holdings, the Commissioners will make inquiry into the feasibility of acquiring a portion of those lands.
  MR. CHERRY: The Estates Commissioners are not at present negotiating for the purchase of the untenanted land alleged to exist on the estate of Lady Castletown, but will cause inquiries to be made in regard to such land.
  MR. FLYNN: My Question was not intended to refer solely to the Doneraile portion of the Castletown estate, but to other lands also in the immediate neighbourhood.
  MR. CHERRY: Of course, the Commissioners will deal with the entire estate.

  County Cork Untenanted Lands.
  MR. FLYNN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Estates Commissioners have yet taken any definite steps towards acquiring untenanted lands in the county of Cork, with a view to the restoration of evicted tenants, the enlargement of uneconomic holdings, and the acquisition of labourers' plots, under the provisions of the Act of 1903, and the Evicted Tenants Act, 1907; how many inspectors are now engaged in the county inquiring into the cases of evicted tenants seeking reinstatement; and whether the Commissioners intend, in regard to the appointment of inspectors, to send them into districts the needs and circumstances of which they have already inquired into.
  MR. CHERRY: The Estates Commissioners have been making inquiries in County Cork as elsewhere with the object of acquiring untenanted land. Nine inspectors and assistant inspectors are at present engaged in the province of Munster in dealing with the cases of evicted tenants and the acquisition of untenanted land. These inspectors are employed in the particular county or district in that province in which their services are most needed for the time being.
  MR. FLYNN: The Chief Secretary sometime ago promised to communicate with the Estates Commissioners with a view to having the inspectors retained in the districts with which they have some acquaintance, instead of being shifted about from one locality to another. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of that, and has it been done?
  MR. CHERRY: I am not aware of it, but I am sure my right hon. friend will fulfil any promise he has made. As

  1763
  a matter of fact, I do not know if the inspectors are shifted about or not.
  MR. FLYNN: The promise was made last session.

  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 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. CHEERY: My right hon. friend's attention has been called to the resolution in question, and the matter has been engaging his consideration. My right hon. friend agrees with the Commissioners of National Education that the medical inspection of school children in Ireland would be desirable, but he is confronted with the fact that under the English legislation the duty of providing for the medical inspection of children is a duty of the local education authority. The effect of this enactment is to require the local authority to find from the rates the funds necessary to defray the charges of this new service. The matter will continue to engage my right hon. friend's attention.
  MR. J. MACVEAGH: Is it not the fact that large grants are made from the Exchequer for this purpose in England?
  MR. CHERRY: That question should he addressed to the President of the Board of Education.

  Labourers Cottages at Letterkenny.
  MR. C. MACVEIGH: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state the cause of the delay by the
  1764
  Letterkenny Rural District Council in carrying out the provisions of the Labourers Acts throughout their division, where many of the labourers are living in unsanitary hovels; and, seeing the hardships under which these labourers suffer whether he will direct the Local Government Board to send an inspector to inquire into the delay, and take immediate steps to have the necessary cottages erected to provide the comfort for which the Acts were passed.
  MR. CHERRY: The inquiry into the scheme made by the Council under the new Act for seventy-eight cottages was opened on the 3rd October last, and after inspection of sites and consideration of the evidence given at the Inquiry, the Inspector's Order was signed on 23rd November, provisionally authorising seventy-one cottages. Copies of the Order had then to be served by the clerk of the council on the persons interested, who are allowed a period of five weeks within which to appeal. The Order has been confirmed by the Local Government Board for sixty-eight cottages, the remaining three being the subject of petition to the County Court Judge. As soon as the Board receive the requisite application from the Council they will appoint an arbitrator to determine the price to be paid for the lands affected by the scheme, and the Council, can, if necessary, at once enter on the lands subject to the conditions as to lodgment of security and payment of interest mentioned in Sec. 4 of the Act of 1896.

  Fenwick Estate, County Donegal.
  MR. CHARLES MACVEIGH: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the attention of the Estates Commissioners was called to the advertised sale of the demesne lands on the Fenwick estate, Greenhill, near Convoy, County Donegal, in October last, the estate having been sold previously to the tenants; whether he is aware that this demesne is let annually on the eleven months' system; and whether, seeing that it is, or was, for sale, he will direct the Estates Commissioners to purchase it for distribution amongst the adjoining farmers who have uneconomic holdings.
  MR. CHERRY: The Estates Commissioners will make inquiries with the object of ascertaining whether the untenanted land in question is such as it would be desirable for them to acquire. If they consider the land to be suitable, they will approach the owner with a view to purchasing it.

  Mr. Persse, of Woodville, Galway.
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he is aware that in March, 1905, Mr. Henry Persse, of Woodville, county Galway, applied to the authorities in Dublin for police protection; if this application was refused; whether he can state if the application was refused as the result of local inquiries or as the result of reports received from the local police; and if he will publish the Report upon which the Government acted.
  MR. CHERRY: The Woodville Farm was taken on lease by Mr. Henry Persse, for forty-nine years, from 1st May, 1904. Mr. Persse went to reside on the farm on or about 1st January, 1905. Prior to that date he had applied for a police hut to be erected on the farm for the protection of himself and his property. He was informed that it was not considered necessary to erect a police hut, but that he would be given the fullest measure of protection which the circumstances demanded. Upon his going into residence at Woodville, early in January, three policemen were placed there, and he provided them with the necessary house accommodation. After the alleged attack on the house on 2nd March, 1905, Mr. Persse renewed his application for a police hut on the farm. This request was not complied with, as, in the opinion of the police authorities, the protection which was being afforded at the time was entirely adequate. The reports made by the police in such cases are confidential documents, and it would be entirely contrary to practice to disclose their contents.
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: Is it the fact that the lodge was rented by the Government for the purposes of the police?
  MR. CHERRY: I think it was for a, short time.
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: How much was paid?
  MR. CHERRY: I am not quite sure, but I think £2 per month.
  MR. LONSDALE: Has Mr. Persse been under police protection since March, 1905?
  MR. CHERRY: Yes, Sir.
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he is aware that in March, 1905, a telegram was received by the authorities in Ireland from Mr. Henry Persse, of Woodville, County Galway, to the effect that an attack had been made upon his house by a band of moonlighters, that several shots had been fired into the house, and that he had returned the fire and pursued the moonlighters; whether a police investigation was held into the matter; and did the authorities, as the result of this investigation, arrive at the conclusion that no such attack had in fact been made, that no shots had been fired at or into the house, and that the whole statement contained in the telegram was untrue.
  MR. CHERRY: An attack was alleged to have been made on Mr. Persse's house on the night of 2nd March, 1905. The receipt of a telegram on the subject from Mr. Persse cannot be traced, but on 3rd March Mr. Persse wrote to the Under-Secretary stating that men came up to his very door the night before and committed a very daring outrage, and adding that while the intimidation which then reigned in that unfortunate neighbourhood was allowed to run its course there would be no peace or safety for loyal subjects. The newspapers of the time contained reports to the effect that Mr. Persse's house was attacked by a band of moonlighters who fired shots into it. The ordinary investigations were made by the police authorities into the matter, but no special inquiry was held. As a result of these investigations the authorities arrived at the conclusion that a

  1767
  stone had been thrown through the fanlight of Mr. Persse's hall-door by some person, but there was no evidence to show that more than one person was concerned in the matter. The police on protection duty were at Woodville House at the time of the occurrence, and, so far as they were aware, the only shots fired on the occasion were fired by Mr. Persse himself. The police on hearing the shots at once came to the front of the house, but found no persons there except Mr. Persse himself and one of his servant men. A second servant man was found on the lawn about 100 yards away. A police patrol which was approaching Woodville heard the shots and hastened to the place, but they also saw no strangers about.
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: May I gather from that answer that the inquiries made by the authorities satisfied them that the story published so widely, not only in this country, but through the world, of a moonlight attack on this house was quite unfounded.
  MR. CHERRY: That appears to be the natural inference.
  MR. CHARLES CRAIGasked whether it was not a fact that Mr. Persse never informed the authorities that several shots had been fired into the house, but that shots had been fired by him while in pursuit of persons whom he supposed had committed an outrage, and not as they might be led to suppose from the right hon. Gentleman's answer that Mr. Persse himself had fired the shots into the house.
  MR. CHERRYsaid that he had quoted the words of Mr. Persse's letter, in which he said—"Men came up to my door last night and committed a very daring outrage."
  MR. JOHN REDMONDasked whether the newspaper account did not appear in the Irish Times, and whether the reporter did not profess to give an interview with Mr. Persse, quoting the words that he was alleged to have used.
  CAPTAIN J. CRAIG: Is it not the fact that Mr. Persse is rigorously boycotted?
  MR. MOORE: Is it not the fact that, as soon as Mr. Persse was communicated with, the Irish Times and the Freeman's Journal, within twenty-four hours, published a revised account setting out—
  *MR. SPEAKER: Order, order. The right hon. Gentleman is not responsible for what appeared in the newspapers.
  MR. DEVLIN: Will the right hon. Gentleman send a copy of the answer to the Duchess of St. Albans and ask her to have it read at her next drawing-room?
  MR. DUFFY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the Woodville Farm, Kilchreest, Loughrea, at present in the possession of Mr. Harry Persse, was let by the landlord, Lord Clanricarde, as an ordinary eleven months' letting for thirty years before Mr. Persse went into possession; did the grazing tenants, in possession, immediately preceding the handing over of the farm to Mr. Persse by Lord Clanricarde, recognise the need of distributing these untenanted lands amongst the small mountain tenants living in the vicinity by vacating the farm in favour of the tenants; and, when the sale of this property comes to be effected, will the Estates Commissioners advance public funds to this gentleman to enable him to defeat the intentions of the Act of 1903.
  MR. CHERRY: I am informed that the Woodville Farm was taken on lease by Mr. Henry Persse for forty-nine years from 1st May, 1904. The farm had been let for grazing during the previous seven or eight years, before which period it had been held on lease. I have no information as to whether the grazing tenants surrendered the grazing, or if they did, what their motive for doing so may have been. As to the concluding part of the Question, the Estates Commissioners inform me that they cannot express any opinion as to what advance, if any, they could make to Mr. Persse for the purchase of the farm in question, until proceedings for sale are instituted before them.
  MR. DUFFY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, whether Mr. Henry Persse, of Woodville, County Galway, was prosecuted before Mr. Jasper White, R.M., and Mr. James Geraghty, J.P., at Loughrea petty sessions in the year 1906, and fined £20 for shooting game and carrying a gun without a licence.
  MR. CHERRY: I am informed that on 19th April, 1906, Mr. Henry Persse was prosecuted before the magistrates named in the Question, for killing game without a licence, and was fined £5.
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: Is this Mr. Persse a justice of the peace and will the right hon. Gentleman communicate with the Lord Chancellor and ask if he considers it right that a person convicted of poaching and fined £5 should hold the commission of the peace?
  MR. MOORE: Is it not the fact that Mr. Persse was appointed a magistrate on a memorial signed by the hon. Member for Galway, and is not this the only Hot on an otherwise blameless career?
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer my Question, and may I further ask if he has sent the Lord Chancellor the Papers concerning the assault for which this gentleman's brother—another J.P.—was convicted?
  MR. CHERRY: If my hon. friend wishes I will communicate with the Lord Chancellor, but the matter dates so far back as 1906; as to the other question I have no official information.
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: But the official information was communicated to the House.
  MR. CHERRY: It may have been by my right hon. friend the Chief Secretary.
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: Will you Inquire?
  MR. CHARLES CRAIG: And will the right hon. Gentleman inquire who signed the memorial?
  MR. DUFFY: As far as I am concerned, I have nothing to do with Mr. Persse's appointment as a magistrate.
  MR. MOORE: Will the Attorney-General obtain the memorial for the Lord Chancellor?
  *MR. BYLES: Am I to understand from these answers that this gentleman punished for shooting game, was allowed to go unpunished for shooting at men who had broken his windows?
  MR. CHERRY: They are different persons.
  MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland at what date was Mr. Persse placed under special protection by patrols from adjoining police stations; what was the date of the application made by Mr. Persse for protection, which it is alleged was refused; was his application one for the erection of a police hut, the cost of the men employed to be levied off the district; was the refusal to erect a hut advised by the local responsible authorities, who were of opinion that adequate protection could be afforded otherwise, and that the cost of the force could not legally be charged to the district in the circumstance existing at this period; was not Mr. Persse receiving special protection by patrols at the date of the refusal to put up a hut; and at what date were police quartered on his premises for the purpose of giving him constant protection.
  MR. CHERRY: I am informed that Mr. Persse was first afforded protection by police patrols about the beginning of September, 1904, when he resided at Millmount. In the months of October and November, 1904, he made several applications, both by letter and orally, for the erection of a police hut on the Woodville property upon his going to reside there, and suggested that the cost of the police should be charged on the locality. The local police authorities considered that the protection which was being afforded to Mr. Persse was quite adequate, but having regard to his manifest apprehensions it was decided

  1771
  to quarter police upon his premises at Woodville on condition that he should find house accommodation for them. The application for a police hut was refused, but not upon the ground that the cost of the police could not be legally charged to the district. That question did not enter into consideration at any time. Mr. Persse was receiving protection by patrols at the date of the refusal to erect a hut. When he went into residence at Woodville early in January, 1905, three policemen were quartered at the house. In May of that year the police were moved to the gate lodge, upon Mr. Persse's representation that he needed the rooms then occupied. The police are still quartered at the gate lodge, and the number has been increased to four.

  Clanricarde Estate.
  MR. JOHN ROCHE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the planters upon the Clanricarde estate have agreed to give up to the Estates Commissioners possession of the lands from which the original tenants were evicted, with a view of having them reintsated under the Bill of last year; whether he is aware that Lord Clanricarde has invoked the aid of the Law Courts to prevent the intention of the Act being carried out upon his estate; and what steps the Government intend to take in this matter.
  MR. CHERRY: The Estates Commissioners inform me that a number of tenants on the Clanricarde estate have intimated that they are prepared, on terms, to give up possession of lands from which the original tenants were evicted. Lord Clanricarde has questioned the power of the Commissioners to deal with the matter, and some of the questions involved form the subject of a decision by Mr. Justice Wylie on the 25th instant. The learned Judge held that the Commissioners are not debarred from acquiring the lands on the grounds argued before him. The Commissioners understand, however, that his decision will form the subject of appeal. The Commissioners will proceed with the matter, if it be decided that they have the legal power to do so.

  Police at Irish Railway Stations.
  MR. LONSDALE: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland what are the existing instructions to the police regarding their attendance at railway stations in Ireland; whether these instructions are the same as those issued to the force in 1905; if not, in what respect do they differ; and has the Inspector-General any reason to believe that a further modification of the instructions is at present called for.
  MR. CHERRY: The existing regulations prohibit the Royal Irish Constabulary from attending regularly at railway stations without the special authority of the Inspector-General, but the police are not prohibited from attending when their attendance is required in the discharge of police duty. These regulations were issued in 1904, and have not since been changed. The Inspector-General is not aware of any reason for modifying the existing instructions, which have worked satisfactorily.

  Tuberculosis in Ireland.
  MR. J. MACVEAGH: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the resolutions adopted, at public meetings in connection with the series of tuberculosis exhibitions recently held in Ireland; whether the Local Government Board intend to take any steps to make tuberculosis compulsorily notifiable; whether the various boards of education in Ireland have been communicated with on the subject of making compulsory the teaching of hygiene and domestic science in all schools; and whether it is intended to make provision in the immediate future for the official supervision of dairies and of the sale of food.
  MR. CHERRY: Several resolutions such as are referred to have been received. The Tuberculosis Prevention (Ireland) Bill, which my right hon. friend is to introduce, will contain a clause providing for the compulsory notification of tuberculosis. The Local Government Board have been in correspondence with the Commissioners of National Education upon the subject of teaching hygiene and domestic science in national

  1773
  schools. The official supervision of dairies and of the sale of food will be dealt with in the Tuberculosis Prevention Bill and in a new Dairies Order which the Local Government Board are about to issue.
  MR. J. MACVEAGH: When will the Bill be introduced?
  MR. CHERRY: I cannot say.

  Drainage of the Barrow.
  MR. JOHN O'CONNOR: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether at his request a scheme for the improvement of the River Barrow, as an outfall for the drainage of a large district which periodically suffers from floods, has been gratuitously prepared by Messrs. Glover and White, county surveyors for Kildare and Queen's counties, respectively, and submitted to him; whether it is the essence of the scheme that it can be Tarried out for a much smaller sum than was estimated for the more comprehensive proposals recommended by the All-port and other Commissions, and at the same time be made effectual for the prevention of many of the lesser floods in the affected district; has he considered the said scheme; and does he intend at an early date to put it into operation.
  MR. CHERRY: My right hon. friend has received the report which was prepared, at the request of the Barrow Drainage Committee, by Messrs. Glover and White, suggesting certain works for the improvement of the River Barrow. It is somewhat misleading to suggest that the report was prepared at the request of my right hon. friend. In December last a deputation waited upon the Chief Secretary and asked for a Government grant of £50,000 to improve the river. The Chief Secretary, in reply, warned the deputation that he was anxious to avoid raising hopes that might not be fulfilled, but, with a view to the further consideration of the matter, asked to be furnished with a short expert statement showing how the money would be expended. As a result the report in question was submitted to him. The Board of Works have been asked to report
  1774
  upon Messrs. Glover and White's scheme, but the Board's Report has not yet been received.
  MR. MOORE: Does the right hon. Gentleman intend that the drainage of the Barrow shall have precedence of the drainage of the Bann?
  MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: Ought not the Scariff district to have priority in this matter?
  MR. CHERRY: I will leave it to my right hon. friend the Chief Secretary to settle the delicate question of priority.
  MR. JOHN O'CONNOR: Have not hundreds of thousands of pounds been spent on the Bann and nothing on the Barrow in the last few years?
  [No Answer was returned.]

  City of Dublin Registers.
  MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask Mr. Attorney-General for Ireland whether it has been brought to his notice that requisition forms issued by the town clerk of the City of Dublin for the purpose of ascertaining the persons entitled to the franchise as inhabitant householders have been improperly collected and filled up by party registration agents with the names of unqualified persons, and signed with the landlord's name without his authority; and whether he proposes to take any action in reference to the matter.
  MR. CHERRY: The allegation contained in the Question was brought to my notice, and I directed inquiries to be made some time ago with the object of instituting a prosecution. The inquiries are being made, and if the evidence available is sufficient a prosecution will be instituted.
  MR. J. MACVEAGH: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that at the Greenstrent Police Court, Dublin, before Judge Gibson, in 1902, a well-known magistrate was convicted of tampering with the registration form for the county of Dublin?
  *MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member must give notice of that.

  Winter Dairying in Ireland.
  MR. FLYNN: I leg to ask the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture (Ireland) whether he can now state what practical steps are being taken by the Department towards the establishment of a system of winter dairying in Ireland; is he aware that the exports of dairy produce, poultry, and eggs from Ireland in 1906 amounted to £9,300,000. as compared with £8,927,000 value of the exports of cattle; and whether, in view of the increased employment of labour involved in a sound system of all-year-round dairying, the Department will place itself in communication with the county committees of agriculture, with a view to the early adoption of that system.
  THE VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE FOR IRELAND (Mr. T. W. RUSSELL,): The Department have repeatedly advocated the extension of winter dairying in Ireland, but although the desirability of such extension is freely admitted, farmers are slow to move in such a matter. In 1906 the Department, to acquire accurate data of returns from winter dairying in Ireland, started an experiment at the agricultural station at Clonakilty, county Cork, and this experiment is still being continued. In the autumn of 1907 a more extended series of experiments under the control of the Department was inaugurated in connection with the Royal Ulster Agricultural Society, the Cork County Committee of Agriculture, and the Centenary Co-operative Creamery, Ballyduff, county Tipperary. The Department do not propose to take any further action until the results of these experiments are available. An extension of tillage is necessary before the winter dairying can be increased, and the Department, through the county committees and otherwise, are doing all that is practicable to check the decline of tillage, and to induce the farmers to increase the area under the plough. The estimated value of the exports of dairy produce, poultry, eggs, and bacon, etc., from Ireland in 1906 is £9,799,069, and of cattle, £9,146,915. My hon. friend will be glad to learn that the income derivable from these subsidiary industries is steadily rising each year.
  MR. FLYNN: The Government having boldly set these schemes on foot, may we take it they will not grow faint-hearted in the desire to promote them?
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: The Department is as anxious as the hon. Member himself to promote winter dairying. We are quite aware of the loss it is to Ireland.

  Steam Trawling on the Kerry Coast.
  MR. BOLAND: I beg to ask the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture (Ireland) whether his attention has been called to the continued fishing by steam trawlers within the legal limits off the coast of Ballinskelligs, county Kerry, in spite of the prosecutions which have been undertaken by the Department; and whether, in view of the damage thereby caused to the local fishermen, and to the submarine cable of the cable companies whose offices are in that district, he will take prompt steps to prohibit trawling in these waters.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: The Department have not received this year any such report although they have a paid officer in the locality to report any illegal trawling that may be observed. The Department's cruiser was in the vicinity several times in the present month and did not observe any illegal trawling.

  Irish Butter Competitions.
  MR. FLYNN: I beg to ask the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture (Ireland) whether, owing to the appointment by the Department of an unqualified creamery instructor in the early part of last season, 100 out of 128 creameries entered for the Department's surprise butter competitions withdrew from the same, notwithstanding that the Department appealed to the presidents and proprietors of the creameries to forward the exhibits; whether the Irish Creamery Managers' Association and several conferences of co-operative creamery societies have protested against this appointment; and whether, in view of the dissatisfaction thus shown, he will consider the advisability of having these appointments made in future by competitive examination.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: The Department does not admit that an unqualified creamery instructor was appointed in the early part of 1907. Apart from this allegation it is the case that of 128 creameries entered for the competition in September, 1907, 28 (not 100) withdrew. On the occasion of the subsequent competition 47 creameries sent exhibits, and 28 other creameries intimated that at the request of the Irish Creamery Managers' Association they would not send any further exhibits, seven additional creameries declined to send exhibits for reasons in no way connected with the appointment referred to. As stated in reply to a previous Question, the Department is not prepared to confine the appointment of creamery instructors to the managers of creameries, nor is it thought that appointment by competitive examination would secure the best men.
  Question time being past,

  The Zakka Khel Expedition.
  MR. ELLISasked the Speaker whether, as a matter of urgent public importance, he might ask the Secretary for India a Question standing on the Order Paper which had not yet been reached—namely, Whether the punitive expedition against the Zakka Khels was to be followed by any further steps leading to permanent occupation of the country of that tribe.
  MR. SPEAKERhaving intimated that the Question might be put,
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Mr. MORLEY, Montrose Burghs)said: The Answer is in the negative; the Government of India have been instructed to take no steps leading in any way towards permanent occupation of the country, and orders have been issued in this sense to the general in command of the expedition. His Majesty's Government intend no departure from the principles of frontier policy laid down by the Secretary of State ten years ago, the purport of those principles being that there is to be no extension of our responsibilities in tribal territory; and no interference with the tribes whenever it can possibly be avoided. These prin-
  1778
  ciples were again affirmed by another Secretary of State in 1904, and they have been uniformly pursued by successive Governments ever since 1898. For reasons which it would be against the public interest to set out to-day, the general arguments against any reversal of this policy are particularly strong in the present case. The object of the expedition against the Zakkas is limited to punishment for a long series of lawless outrages against the life and property of peaceful dwellers in British territory whom we are bound to protect.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
MR. A. J. BALFOURasked as to the course of business for next week, and when the Memorandum on the Education Bill would be in the hands of Members.
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. ASQUITH,)said it was hoped, he understood, that the Memorandum explanatory of the provisions of the Education Bill would have been circulated to-day—but it certainly would not be delayed more than a day or two. With regard to the business for next week, the Government proposed on Monday to take the discussion on the Motion that stood in the name of the hon. Member for Falkirk Burghs, and on the succeeding days, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, to get the Speaker out of the Chair on the Army and Navy Estimates.
MR. A. J. BALFOURinquired which Estimates would be taken first.
MR. ASQUITH: The Navy Estimates, Sir.

PUBLIC PETITIONS COMMITTEE.
First Report brought up, and read; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
NEW BILLS.

  MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS BILL.
  "To amend The Municipal Elections (Corrupt and Illegal Practices) Act, 1884," presented by Mr. Cleland; supported by

  1779
  Mr. Arthur Allen, Mr. McCrae, Mr. Barnes, Major Coates, Mr. Younger, Mr. Mooney, Mr. Mitchell-Thomson, Mr. Adkins, and Mr. McKinnon Wood; to be read a second time upon Wednesday next, and to be printed. [Bill 120.]

  RESTRAINT OF TRADES (SHOPS) BILL.
  "To render null and void certain provisions of shop assistants' agreements," presented by Mr. Seddon; supported by Mr. Frederick Edwin Smith, Mr. Shackle-ton, Mr. Price, Mr. Clement Edwards, and Mr. Arthur Henderson; to be read a second time upon Wednesday next, and to be printed. [Bill 121.]
  PUBLIC LIBRARIES BILL.
  "To amend the Acts relating to Public Libraries," presented by Mr. Tennant; to be read a second time upon Thursday, 5th March, and to be printed. [Bill 122.]
  DOGS (INJURIES TO PERSONS) BILL.
  "To amend the Law relating to Injuries to persons by Dogs," presented by Mr. Dundas White; supported by Mr. Crombie, Dr. Shipman, Lord Robert Cecil, Sir John Jardine, Mr. Thomas Frederick Richards, and Mr. Herbert; to be read a second time upon Wednesday, 8th April, and to be printed. [Bill 123.]

  LEASEHOLD ENFRANCHISEMENT.
  MR. MACLEAN ()said that in asking leave to introduce this Bill he wished to explain that he had ventured to bring it in under the Ten Minute Rule, because, while they all had sympathy with the agitation proceeding on behalf of dwellers in the country districts, and in the slums of our great cities, there was very great danger of overlooking the injustice from which dwellers in town houses and shopkeepers, and the thousands of the working men cottagers in mining and quarrying districts, and leaseholders of chapels suffered. What was that injustice? It was that enormous sums of money all fell into the hands of ground landlords, who had done little or nothing to create it, it having been, in fact, created by the individual efforts of the leaseholder in particular, and of the community in general. The evils which had resulted from that system had been admirably set out by the inquiries made by a Royal Commission on the Housing
  1780
  of the Working Classes and by the Town Holdings Commission. The former body reported in favour of legislation for the aquisition by the leaseholder of the freehold interest, on the ground that it would greatly conduce to the improvement of the dwellings of the people and create an interest on the part of the occupier in the house he represented. The system was almost solely confined to England. The late Earl Granville, when Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, ordered an inquiry as to whether this leasehold system obtained in Europe, and he found that in fact it was only in existence in certain parts of England and Wales—in great centres of population like Cardiff and Newport, in Bath, in Cornwall and other parts of the West of England, where it inflicted very great injustice on the leaseholder. The question had been discussed in the House on two occasions already—in 1889, when the Second Reading was lost by twenty-one votes, and in 1891, when it was lost by thirteen votes. It was no party matter, and he had received an intimation from the chairman of the Conservative Association of a very large town that if it would strengthen his position he would be glad to get his association to pass a resolution in favour of it. The Bill simply proposed to remove the injustice from which owners of houses and shops in large towns, and tens of thousands of working men who owned cottages in mining districts, suffered, by giving them power to purchase the freehold at a fair sum, which in case of disagreement should be settled by a local court—the County Court or otherwise. That was a point which was open to adjustment. It also made provision whereby the present ground rent could be converted into what was known as a fee-farm rent such as at present obtained in Lancashire and some parts of Somersetshire. There were restrictions whereby the local authority could insist upon certain conditions being maintained for the public interest, and also upon the insertion of provisions, should the public interest demand it, for the purchase of the freehold by the leaseholders.
  Leave having been given—
  Bill to provide for the Enfranchisement of Leaseholds, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Maclean, Mr. Hay Morgan, Mr.

  1781
  Brace, Mr. Ellis Griffith, Mr. William Abraham (Rhondda), Mr. Gooch, Mr. Jenkins, Mr. Simon, and Mr. Rees.

  LEASEHOLDS (ENFRANCHISEMENT) BILL.
  "To provide for the Enfranchisement of Leaseholds," presented accordingly, and read the first time; to be read a second time upon Wednesday next, and to be printed. [Bill 124.]

  LAND VALUES (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  [Mr. EMMOTT (Oldham) in the Chair.]
  Clause 1:
  *MR. BARRIE, in moving to leave out "each county and borough" and insert "the county of Lanarkshire and burgh, of Glasgow," said there were several general reasons why he moved this Amendment. His object was to reduce the area of financial disturbance this Bill would cause if it were ever placed on the Statute-book. If the reason given by the Government for the introduction of the measure was the real one, viz., the obtaining of reliable data as to the relative value of the land apart from the buildings on it, there could be no better criteria from which that data could be obtained than that proposed by his Amendment, while it would greatly reduce the cost of the proceeding. The already heavily burdened ratepayers in the West of Scotland were anxious to have this additional burden press as lightly as possible on them. In addition to these general reasons there were some local reasons which induced him to move his Amendment. First, he thought it was equitable that the relatively small but important area comprised within his Amendment, being the first to give birth to the agitation which had finally culminated in the present Bill, should be also the first to pay a legal toll to it. In Glasgow during the last quarter of a century a small but active group of public men had constantly kept before the public the Henry Georgian ideals of the taxation of land values embodied in this Bill, and had persuaded the corporation
  1782
  of the city to incur very considerable expense in pursuing a propaganda for the furtherance of those ideals. He was aware that quite recently the Court of Session had declared that that large expenditure was illegal; and it was also notable in connection with this measure that the other corporations which had joined the city of Glasgow in pushing this matter and bringing it before the public and the House of Commons had been very slow in providing their quota of that expenditure. A further local reason why he urged that the Bill should be thus limited was that the cost of the new valuation, so far at least as the experience of Glasgow was concerned, was likely to be less in that great city than in other parts of Scotland. That view was much dwelt upon by the Assessor for the city of Glasgow who in giving evidence before the Select Committee last year, said in effect that it would not greatly exceed the cost of making up the present Valuation Roll. He ventured to suggest to the Committee that that was a very strong argument in favour of his Amendment, and he thought they were bound to bear it in mind. Further, it had become evident since the Bill was last before the House that the opinion of it held by the citizens of Glasgow had considerably changed. Last week the Corporation of Glasgow passed unanimously a resolution urging that the whole additional cost of this valuation should become an Imperial charge. He submitted that that was an important element which they should be slow to disregard. This measure, they believed, was founded on a colossal delusion and was calculated to lead to overcrowding in towns and not to its lessening. Therefore he suggested that the great community which had inspired the agitation should have the honour of first legal toll to it. There was an obvious explanation for this change of attitude on the part of the Corporation of Glasgow. It had become increasingly plain since the Prime Minister made his famous declaration last autumn that the gold mine of the "existing" feu-duties was not to be taxed under this Bill that the interest of the Corporation of Glasgow had thereupon greatly lessened. If the local authorities in Scotland were not to be

  1783
  allowed to tax existing feu-duties they were in no wise anxious that the Bill should be placed on the Statute-book. And a further reason was that the local authorities must bear their full proportion of the cost of the new valuation under the Bill. It was exceedingly important to remember that this great change of opinion had taken place in Scotland. At one time it appeared as if there was a strong desire for legislation of this character, but ever since the Government had found it necessary to make that declaration, in great contrast to the propaganda of the Solicitor-General for Scotland during last winter, it had become increasingly evident that those who were chiefly responsible for the Bill had no great desire that the Government should further proceed with it. He begged to move.
  Amendment proposed—
  "In page 1, line 7, to leave out the words 'each county and burgh,' and insert the words 'the county of Lanarkshire and burgh of Glasgow.'"—(Mr. Hugh Barrie.)
  Question proposed, "That the word 'each' stand part of the clause."
  *MR. HAROLD COXsaid that the reason why he supported this Amendment was that he wished to relieve his Scottish friends from the embarrassment of broken pledges. If they would cast their minds back to the agitation which had been carried on for some years, and especially before the last general election, they would remember that they promised their constituents that by supporting the taxation of land values they would be relieved from the burden of local rating; and that the whole or a large part of that burden would be placed on the shoulders of the ground landlords. That pledge those hon. Members did not propose to redeem, for the Prime Minister had intervened and told them that the Government would not allow existing contracts to be interfered with. Therefore, they would no longer be able to tax the ground landlords although some people imagined that they could. He saw that at a meeting recently held in Leicester, a gentleman referred to a speech made by himself in opposing the Bill the other day, and stated that a noble landowner
  1784
  in Preston drew £120,000 a year from ground rents without paying a penny of rates. That nobleman would continue to do so. This Bill would not touch that point, for the Government insisted that existing contracts must be respected, so that any new land values rate would have to be paid by existing ratepayers. Therefore, hon. Members had not kept their pledges. Not only had they failed to relieve the ratepayers, by taxing the ground landlord as they promised to do, but they were proposing by this Bill to put a new burden on the ratepayers by introducing a very expensive system of valuation. He would point out incidentally that the people who would be relieved in their rating would be primarily the ratepayers in the suburbs, and, secondarily, the owners of the land in the suburbs, because if they relieved suburban houses of rates there would be an additional profit upon building operations in the suburbs and the price of land there would go up. So that the net effect of the proposals in the Bill would be to place a new burden on the ratepayers in the centre of the town in order to enhance the property of landlords in the suburbs. His hon. friends would find that their constituencies would not approve of that policy. Hence he wanted to relieve them from an inconvenience; he wanted them to be able to say that, though they had not kept their pledges, they had except in regard to the county of Lanark and the burgh of Glasgow, imposed no new burden on Scotland. That was a very strong reason for limiting the operation of the Bill. He did not suppose that anybody really understood what the Bill proposed except the Solicitor-General for Scotland, even if he did. Very few Members realised that it was proposed in the Bill to shift all the rates from fabrics on to sites. That was the essence of the Bill. He understood that in a previous Bill it was proposed to put a 2s. rate on the land in addition to the existing rates. But the proposal at the back of this Bill was an entirely different thing. It was to sweep away the whole of the rates from buildings and put the whole burden on the land. He admitted that it was a little hard on the county of

  1785
  Lanark that it should be made the vile body on which this experiment was to be made, for the County Council of Lanark had refused to petition in favour of the Bill. Still, someone must suffer if the House was determined to goon with this measure, and he wished to limit the suffering as far as possible. Another important reason for limiting the operation of the Bill was that the very elements of the problem of assessing land under this new scheme had not yet been thought out. He ventured to say that not one of the three hon. Gentlemen now on the Treasury Bench understood the measure. He pointed out the other day that complaints were of ten made that the country mansions of wealthy gentlemen and noblemen were not sufficiently rated at present; but that under the principles of the Bill they would be relieved of rating altogether. The Solicitor-General for Scotland replied that he was mistaken and said that the site of the mansion would be rated at a different figure from agricultural land. He ventured to say that the hon. and learned Gentleman was mistaken, because the whole principle of the Bill was that the land was to be stripped of everything on it, and if they took away the mansion there would be nothing but agricultural land value to rate. Therefore the bare agricultural land on which that mansion stood ought to be rated at the same figure as other agricultural land around it. He was sure his hon. friend would not therefore be able to sustain his contention. [The SOLICITOR-GENERAL for SCOTLAND dissented.] Well, then he was unable to understand his philosophy. Perhaps his hon. friend would explain how he proposed to put a higher rate on a field occupied by a mansion and a field occupied by potatoes? If the fields were the same size, of the same aspect, the same distance from town, and had the same amenities, why should one be rated higher than the other? There was no reason except that when they began to apply a Bill like this the folly of the whole Henry Georgite system became evident, and they had to go back to the reasonable and commonsense plan of taxing where they could get the money. In New Zealand where there was an application
  1786
  of Henry George's principles, he was informed that the assessors always tried to get more out of a big than out of a little house, although the sites occupied were identical. His hon. friend had also shown that he had not gone definitely into this question of assessment. He (Mr. Cox) had put a certain case. He said that in a certain Scottish town there was a belt of 600 acres of land, all of which was equally valuable for building, but the town grew at such a rate that only ten acres a year were disposed of. Consequently the owners of these 600 acres of land were in this position, that when they sold an acre they got £1,000 for it, but only ten such acres could be sold in a year. He wanted to know, were all these 600 acres to be valued at the rate of £1,000 an acre? If not, at what rate were they to be valued? There was no answer to that problem. How were they to draw the line? The owner might not be able to sell another acre for ten or twenty years, and it would be most unjust to him if he was compelled during all that period to pay a tax based upon a value which he could not realise. He contended that it was impossible to lay down any principle on which an assessor could proceed, unless they took the realised value. If they had land producing an actual rent, of £3 a year, that was a definite value they could go upon; but if, as in the case he had put, land might not be sold for twenty years, and meanwhile the owner was taxed on the supposition that his land was worth £1,000 an acre, the grossest possible injustice would be inflicted upon him. There was another point which could be tested by this proposal, and that was the very difficult question of taxing the unearned increment. His hon. friend the Member for West Aberdeen the other day had argued that, although he was totally opposed to the principle of the Bill, yet he would vote for it because it opened the door to the taxing of the unearned increment. The hon. Gentleman opposite, the Member for Dulwich, dealt in a very effective manner with the general question of taxing unearned increment and pointed out the fallacy of drawing a distinction between unearned increment of land or any other

  1787
  source of wealth, including even brain power. He did not, however, want to go into that question, but he wanted the Committee to consider this point. The authority of John Stuart Mill had been quoted, but he ventured to say that John Stuart Mill was wrong on this point as he was wrong on other points. Mill started with the same maxim with which His Majesty's Government started, that they must not confiscate existing values. Mill went on to say that they should take the value of the land as it stood to-day, and if it rose in value then tax the unearned increment. That was a proposition which his hon. friend the Member for West Aberdeen supported; but he thought the Committee would see that if that course were followed they would be confiscating part of the present value, because that value partly depended upon the present estimation of what the value was likely to be in the future. When a man bought land he took into account the prospect of its rising and the risk of its falling, and those elements helped to determine the present price. If, therefore, they said to a man who had bought land, "We will take away from you all chance of the increase in the value of the land but will leave you with a chance of a decrease of the value," then by so doing they depreciated the present value. It was a somewhat subtle point, but he thought he was right in saying that if they confiscated the unearned increment they also confiscated part of the present value unless they guaranteed the owner against an unearned decrement. These were two or three points which could be settled by this experimental legislation, but there was another point to which he would like to call attention. He thought the Lord-Advocate laid very great stress upon the value of this Bill for dealing with the housing problem. The Bill would give the city of Glasgow an opportunity of testing that value, and he hoped their experience would not be the same as that of the London County Council. The London County Council in the year 1901 purchased 225 acres of land in the county of Middlesex for the purpose of a housing scheme. At the end of 1904 they had succeeded in developing only five of those 225 acres. Why? Because the people did not come. [An HON. MEMBER:
  1788
  "No."] Because the population did not come. [An HON. MEMBER: "No."] His hon. friend below the bar interrupted him on that point, and perhaps he had private sources of information. He was quoting from the published reports of the London County Council, and he saw in their housing report that it was unnecessary and would be uneconomical to further develop this large estate of 225 acres because the people were not coming to the land; they were not wanting more houses. If this system of taxing land values came into operation, what would happen? On what principle would the vacant 220 acres be taxed. On their urban value? They were bought at the urban value, and they remained there having a potential urban value.
  MR. A. DEWAR: They would be taxed on their actual value.
  *MR. HAROLD COX: That is the agricultural value.
  MR. A. DEWAR: Their actual worth in the market.
  *MR. HAROLD COX: Their actual worth in the market is a speculative value, and the London County Council has to be taxed on a speculative value although it cannot use it.
  MR. A. DEWARwas understood to say that they would in this case be taxed on their agricultural value.
  *MR. HAROLD COXsaid that there they had a confession that the doctrines which these hon. Gentlemen had been preaching up and down the country, that landlords were robbing the poor by keeping the land out of the market, were all a delusion. If all this County Council building estate ought to be taxed only at its agricultural value, why should other land that was waiting for development pay at a higher rate?
  MR. A. DEWARsaid that the particular land to which his hon. friend referred by his own showing was only of agricultural value, and therefore would be rated at agricultural value. But there

  1789
  were other lands kept out of cultivation which would have a higher value. Therefore, the hon. Gentleman must not say that any land out of cultivation would be fixed at an agricultural value.
  *MR. HAROLD COXsaid the land was bought by the London County Council at an urban value, but the hon. Gentleman said that now it had only an agricultural value. Why did he give his faith to the London County Council which was the landlord in this case and refuse his faith to the other landlords? How was the assessor to act when the landlord said he could only let land for agricultural purposes, and what was the landlord to do when the assessor said he should tax him on the land at the urban value? This was very important, because he was sure that the ratepayers of London, of whom he was one, would not agree to be taxed in order to put money into the pockets of the ratepayers of Middlesex. But there were other difficulties in regard to assessment, and there was one very great difficulty which he was surprised that his right hon. friend the Lord Advocate did not see, and that was the costliness of the legal proceedings which this method of valuation would involve. In the Queensland Report, to which his right hon. friend had devoted such profound study, at pages 10 and 11 there was a very interesting comment on the difficulty of getting a final legal decision on the many complex questions arising directly they tried to treat land, not as it actually was, but as somebody imagined it had been in times gone by. The writer of the book said it took several years to bring the State valuation upon a basis which would "stand the ordeal of the Appeal Courts." That was in a new country where everything was comparatively simple, where the improvements had mostly happened during the lifetime of men now living. How many years would elapse before they could get a basis in Scotland which would stand the ordeal of the Appeal Courts, and how many thousands and tens of thousands of pounds would pass from the pockets of private citizens into the pockets of the lawyers before that was accomplished? He would refer to another matter which the Solicitor-
  1790
  General for Scotland had rather overlooked. In speaking the other day on this question he tried to reassure the House as to the difficulties of this method of assessment; he told them that what was proposed to be done had already been done for twenty years in the seven counties in Scotland where the Crofters Acts applied, where the rating had been fixed upon the land apart from buildings and improvements. That was the statement made by the Solicitor-General, but he was afraid that it meant that he was either unfamiliar with the terms of the Bill or with the terms of the Crofters Act. The Bill provided that the land was to be rated as if it were divested of buildings and improvements of whatever nature on, in, or under soil; but what was the case under the Crofters Acts in Scotland? He had a book dealing with the Crofters Acts and it contained the Report of the Commissioners on fixing fair rents in Scotland. They put to themselves the question on what lines were they to proceed to arrive at a rent that was fair. They came to the conclusion that if the landlord made the improvements the crofter should pay for them; that if the crofter made them he could not in fairness be asked to pay rent for them; but that if he had made an agreement with his landlord to make the improvements, and to receive an equivalent for their value from the landlord, then again rent should be paid for them. So that it was not accurate to say that rents in the crofter counties were paid for the bare land without improvements. The fair rents of crofters' holdings were totally different from the kind of thing this Bill proposed, and therefore he hoped the hon. and learned Gentleman would take the earliest opportunity of undeceiving the House on that matter. The Lord Advocate having said that England was fifty years behind Scotland in this matter he had been at some pains to try and discover where the backwardness of England lay. He gathered from the speech of the Lord Advocate that it lay in the fact that we had a local system of valuation, and that Scotland had a national system.
  MR. THOMAS SHAW: Does my hon. friend realise that there is no annual

  1791
  system in this country, and does he not realise that an annual system is better than a quinquennial system?
  *MR. HAROLD COXsaid he recognised that, but he understood the hon. Member to say there was a central body in Scotland.
  MR. THOMAS SHAWwas understood to say there was no central body for this purpose.
  *MR. HAROLD COXsaid he had gathered that there was in Scotland a system of national valuation, which was conducted by a body of land value assessors; that they were a body of expert officials in Scotland, a central body of Commissioners.
  MR. THOMAS SHAWsaid that in consequence of the frequent suggestions that were made in reference to his hon. and learned friend the Solicitor-General, he wished to say there was no ground for what the hon. Gentleman had just said in anything that had been said by his hon. and learned friend or himself. It was a total perversion of the Scottish system. There were no Central Commissioners in Scotland, and the thing had not been heard of since the year 1854.
  *MR. HAROLD COXsaid he had merely asked for information. He, at all events, understood that one of the great merits of the Scottish system was that they had a more expert system of valuation in Scotland than obtained in this country. He wished to know whether the Government had any in formation from any official source as to the possiblity of carrying out this assessment. That went to the root of the difficulty. If the expert land valuers were not prepared to carry out this Bill, it would be very difficult to carry it out at all. [An HON. MEMBER: Yes, they are.] His hon. friend said they were, but he held a letter in his hand from a gentleman, who described himself as one of the officials who would have to perform the work under this Bill. That gentleman said—
  MR. URE: What is his name?
  *MR. HAROLD COX: He is an official, so I cannot give his name, but he is one of the officials who will have to perform the work of this Bill. This is what he said—
  "The idea of valuing or fixing the price as sold by a willing seller of a metaphysical abstraction is absurd beyond words. The poor owner has just to imagine the land back in its primeval, unimproved, undrained, unreclaimed state, bare of wails, bindings and every erection or improvement on, in, or under the soil, subject to the further qualification that the benefit thereof is unexhausted at the time of valuation. How is this to be done? In England even Domesday Book would Le too modern for such an investigation, and how is the assessor to fix this value of an idea? He does not know, even if one present owner does, the history of the land since it emerged from its first unimproved state; he will want to dig up the soil to see if the drains, that the owner says are there, are now working properly and their benefit unexhausted. The question is endless and then after all a selling price is to be imposed on this mental fiction. No two persons in this world could agree on the figures. Disputes and litigation (and they can litigate here) will overwhelm the people, and the administration will be reduced to chaos. Let it not be said that it has been given in evidence that this work is possible. It has not. The utmost that has been said by any witness is that it is possible to separate buildings above the soil from land as it now is, but never as it was in the dim past, never to value these roads before they were made. To put a value on such fictions is just as unreasonable as to fix the income-tax assessment on the amount a man might be expected to be annually worth conceived as uneducated, untrained, and before he specialised."
  As that was the written opinion of one of the experienced valuers who would have to put this Bill into operation it was desirable that the operation of the Bill should be limited as far as possible.
  *MR. YOUNGERsaid his only objection to the Amendment of his hon. friend was that it did not go far enough. No doubt the city of Glasgow and the county of Lanark were in themselves difficult to value, but they were not typical by any means of the whole of Scotland. If the Government were likely to accept this Amendment—the probability was they were not—he would have suggested an Amendment to it to the effect that in addition to the county of Lanark and the city of Glasgow it should include the county of Perth and the burgh of Alloa. He suggested those additions because the county of

  1793
  Perth was typical of its class. It was neither a manufacturing nor mineral county as Lanark was, but it had fishings and shootings of great value and agricultural interests of great importance, and in that sense it undoubtedly was a difficult county to value. He proposed the burgh of Alloa for two reasons because first, it was a town which existed largely on its manufacturing industries, and, second, its valuation results would be extremely valuable in so far that it would be seen by these that to put all local taxation on site values would be absolutely absurd. He would be very sorry for the right hon. Member representing that town if the Government were to prosecute their scheme to the bitter end. He feared that in such an event the House would have to regret the right hon. Member's absence from their discussions, because there would not be a vote left for him in his constituency. The Lord Advocate had expressed a hope that the figures would not be reopened, and he certainly did not propose to give them again, but he thought the Government ought to proceed in this matter by simple and cautious stages. Why should the whole of Scotland be plunged into this difficulty in order that the Government might obtain statistics which would be of no use? It might be possible to Tate on site values in such places as the city of Glasgow, but at the same time it would be manifestly unfair to do so. The people in the centre of the city would be penalised for the benefit of those in the suburbs and similarly in similar towns. When hon. Gentlemen opposite had pointed out to them what the effect would be in a matter of this kind they always got out of the difficulty by suggesting the putting in of an option clause in the rating Bill. His proposition was that something of the kind should be inserted in this Bill. Why should they have all this worry and trouble and annoyance in all these burghs unless the taxing authorities in Scotland thought the valuation would be of value? The hon. Member for Preston had gone into the matter, and in dealing with this Amendment had put many points of great interest. But there was one point he had not quite exhausted and which was a most important one.
  1794
  In discussing the argument of the Solicitor-General in regard to annual valuation in the crofting counties, the whole point was missed. The Solicitor-General's argument was that this particular kind of valuation was being made every year in the seven crofting counties of Scotland. Nobody knew better than the Solicitor-General for Scotland that this valuation was an annual and not a capital valuation. The Solicitor-General had not said so. When he had interrupted, the hon. and learned Gentleman had very carefully and clearly avoided the point. He asked him now, whether he was willing to alter his Bill, so that it should be annual instead of capital value. The hon. and learned Gentleman was not willing. Why bring it forward then, and what application had it to his argument? In fact, it was one of those obvious red herrings which the Solicitor-General and his right hon. friend, the Lord Advocate, were constantly dragging across the trail of the Bill the moment they were in a difficulty. In regard to assessments, the hon. Member had read a very interesting extract which only corroborated nearly half a dozen extracts which he had read last year. And he would remind the House that in their discussions in Grand Committee last year it was very clearly borne in upon the Lord Advocate that some kind of directions ought to appear in the Bill as to the manner in which these assessments were to be made; in point of fact, there ought to be a schedule attached to the Bill, fully instructing the assessors in their duties. Why had that schedule not been put in? For the very best of reasons. It ran up against another insuperable difficulty, and they passed on and left it alone. This Bill did not deal with very important interests—in Scotland—with fisheries, for example, and with the minerals of an estate. Let them take the case of a river. The bed of is belonged to one owner, say the Crown; the fishery belonged to someone else. How was the bed of the river to be valued? The Bill did not say, the assessor did not know. It was hardly to be expected that the owner of the soil should pay for a fishery which did not belong to him. In regard to minerals the same thing arose. They

  1795
  found all these difficulties in the typical counties which his hon. friend had selected. They would find them still better illustrated in the county of Perth and other county areas, where they would have these fishery questions to deal with, and where they would very properly show the true value of the Bill. Hon. Gentlemen opposite, who were pressing the Bill, had come to realise that there were far more difficulties and far greater anomalies than was thought attending this valuation and the resultant taxation upon it. He did not see quite the same ardour in defending the principles of this Bill and its ultimate use as was shown last year. His opinion was that the bottom had been knocked put of it. He supported the Amendment. He thought they ought to restrict this valuation in Scotland until they saw the results of the short tests in the particular county and in the city of Glasgow. If the Lord Advocate showed himself of a pliable disposition and accepted this Amendment he would be happy to move the addition of the other two areas, in order to see what was the effect of this valuation in four districts of Scotland which might be regarded as typical.
  *MR. WOODsaid that the hon. Member for Londonderry in proposing the Amendment had given as his reason for suggesting that the city of Glasgow had changed its mind with regard to the taxation of and values, the fact that the Corporation had asked that the cost of the valuation should be borne out of national funds. That was a very inadequate reason. It was very easy to get a resolution of that kind on any subject from any local authority. At least that was his experience of local authorities. Perhaps some alarm had been caused by the enormous figures which his hon. friend the Member for Dulwich had produced with regard to valuation in Glasgow; because he had said, quoting Dr. Murray, that it would cost £500,000 to value the land of Glasgow. Against that extimate they had Dr. Murray's own opinion that the total annual value of the land in Glasgow was only £570,000. The cost of valuation, therefore, would be very nearly the
  1796
  total annual value of the land. Dr. Murray was a gentleman of very great ability as a solicitor, and he had doubtless had many dealings with land, but he was not a skilled valuer. There was another witness before the Committee, a skilled valuer.
  MR. YOUNGER: Mr. Henry was not a skilled valuer.
  *MR. WOODsaid that the gentleman might not be a professional valuer, but he had enormous experience in valuation, and he did not think his hon. friend would question his competence. He had been assessor in the city of Glasgow for so many years that he thought no one was able to form a better opinion on the subject. But they had a skilled valuer before them in the person of an official of the London County Council, who was a professional valuer, and a Fellow of the Surveyors' Institute. ["Name? "] It was Mr. Harper, who had great experience in valuation in connection with the London County Council. Of course, the evidence given before the Committee showed how necessary it was to get a valuation before attempting to deal with this problem. It was cautious and prudent on the part of the Committee to recommend that course, because the assessor of the city of Glasgow had given a very different estimate of the value of land in Glasgow from that given by Dr. Murray, for he had put the value at over £2,400,000. He thought that this coming from a skilled valuer, was much nearer the true estimate than the former one, which put the value of the land in Glasgow at one-tenth of the annual value of the property. He thought the House would see that the latter was an absurd valuation on the face of it. But to come to the hon. Member for Preston, who had seconded this Amendment. The House always heard his speeches with delight, and it was a little hard that he should have tried to repress manifestations of appreciation which had come from the benches on his own side of the House. On each occasion the hon. Member addressed the House he had a new paradox to unfold; but his paradoxes were not always in the same spirit, for the paradox of this week might not be consistent with

  1797
  the paradox of last week. A good deal of what the hon. Gentleman had said was manifestly inconsistent with the evidence which he had given before the Select Committee. The hon. Member had said something about unearned increment, and he had previously told the Committee that the most extraordinary example of unearned increment in this country was not the unearned increment of the land, but the increase in the wages of the agricultural labourer since the abolition of the Corn Laws. That was an illustration of the extraordinary view the hon. Member took on the subject of the land. The hon. Gentleman went on to give London as an illustration. The hon. Member's information was three years old, and his figures, therefore, inaccurate. He told them that the London County Council had bought 220 acres of land, and had only built on five acres. When the London County Council bought the land, they took it with the intention of building gradually upon it as the houses became occupied, and the area was gradually being covered.
  MR. REMNANT: The London County Council intended to build on the whole of the land within the first two or three years. I was on the Council at the time.
  *MR. WOODsaid his hon. friend seemed to know more than he did, but the fact of the matter was there had been some delay in dealing with the urban district council as regards drainage, and they had not commenced at once. But the development of an estate like that must be slow, and hon. Members were giving him one of the strongest points he could have. What was the reason they could not develop the estate more rapidly? The reason was not that they could not get people who would pay a rent that would return interest on the building expenditure, but that on the top of that they had a tax on the buildings of a third to a half of the annual interest required on the expenditure, and it was that last straw which arrested the development of these housing schemes. The hon. Member for Preston had raised the point that they could not value land apart from buildings. That fallacy had been exploded before
  1798
  the Royal Commission presided over by Lord Balfour of Burleigh.
  *MR. HAROLD COX: I did not say you could not value land apart from buildings; I said you could not make the valuation required by this Bill.
  *MR. WOOD: I think the hon. Member said that the valuation of land apart from buildings was a metaphysical subtlety.
  *MR. HAROLD COX: I said the description given in this Bill was a metaphysical abstraction.
  *MR. WOODsaid that the possibility of valuing land apart from buildings was a subject which they need not discuss now, however, because it was already done under the authority of an Act of Parliament. This was a matter which was very thoroughly considered in another place a few years ago in relation to the subject of betterment. Provision was made that land which was the subject of betterment should be valued apart from the building before the improvement was carried out; and then, some years after the improvement had been completed, should be valued again apart from the building so that they should know what the improvements had really added to the value of the land. With regard to the question which the hon. Member for Preston had very gratuitously raised as to the pledges they were alleged to have given at the last election, the hon. Member seemed to know a great deal about those pledges, but he was singularly misinformed in some cases. He (Mr. Wood) had given no pledges such as the hon. Member had described, though he had pointed out that the present system of rating was unsatisfactory and indefensible. Nothing in that debate had struck him so much as the fact that nobody on the other side, nor the hon. Member for Preston, had ventured in the least to defend the present system of rating.
  MR. YOUNGER: I did. I distinctly stated that the present system was much better.
  *THE CHAIRMAN: May I suggest that hon. Members do not interrupt so much.
  *MR. WOODsaid that statement had not been supported by argument. His point was that the present system of rating was indefensible on several grounds. First of all, it produced a condition, of affairs in which it was extremely difficult either for private persons or for municipalities to build enough houses. Surely it was obvious that if they put a tax on any kind of industry they discouraged it, and it was a most singular thing that in this country they should have chosen the building industry for their chief discouragement. The heavy rating of buildings and fixed machinery was a burden upon manufacture and commerce. He did not dwell on the fact that the discouragement of the building industry was one of the causes of lack of employment. One of the most serious faults of the existing system was its effect upon housing. In London there were nearly three quarters of a million people living under overcrowded conditions—more than two in one room. In Glasgow, there were 368,000. It was admitted that the condition was aggravated (and he had given an instance in the case of the housing scheme which his hon. friend had referred to) by the fact that if they wanted to build they had to provide for a rate of from a third to a half on the annual return they got on the expenditure for building, and that absolutely discouraged building. Municipal authorities were spending large sums of money very profitably with the object of providing tramway facilities in order to make the population mobile, to carry them from the overcrowded centres to the outskirts where there was more room and air to be obtained, but that was all handicapped by the vicious system of rating. If they were to deal with that they must deal with it outside as well as inside the urban area concerned. It was of no use to deal with it inside areas like Glasgow or London alone. They must deal with it on the outskirts where land was cheap and the poorer classes of the community could obtain houses at rents within their means. The hon. Member for Preston had declared that the effect of this proposal would be to
  1800
  relieve the wealthy merchant who lived in a suburban villa and to put a new burden upon the poor shopkeeper in the centre. In the first place, the hon. Member's picture of the suburbs was a fancy picture. There were undoubtedly villas and wealthy merchants in the outskirts of London, but there were also vast areas which were dormitories of the poor—West Ham, East Ham, and. Walthamstow—and in all these places they would reduce the cost of housing, and it would be an inestimable benefit to the people of London.
  *THE CHAIRMAN: I must ask the hon. Member to confine himself at any rate to Scotland.
  *MR. WOODsaid that exactly the same remarks would apply to Scotland. Whether it was true or false the hon. Member's argument was absolutely inconsistent with the evidence he had given before the Select Committee. He had said it was his opinion that the effect of rating was to lower the rent which the landlord received, but he had qualified that statement by saying that in many cases the landlord did not exact the full amount he might obtain. He (Mr. Wood) put the question to him very carefully, whether he held the opinion that the ultimate incidence of the rates, speaking generally, was upon the landlord, and he replied that he did. What then came of his argument about coming on the poor ratepayer and relieving the wealthy landlord? It was absolutely inconsistent.
  MR. HAROLD COX: I think my hon. friend has forgotten the existence of leases.
  *MR. WOODsaid he had not forgotten the existence of leases. Nobody was proposing, though the hon. Member seemed to think so, by that Bill to shift the whole incidence of the rates from the buildings to the land at a single operation. Where did he find that in the Bill?
  MR. HAROLD COX: The Solicitor-General's speech.
  *MR. WOODsaid the Solicitor-General had explained what he hoped would ultimately come from the Bill. He had never heard him say they should do it all at a single operation. All this discussion about leaseholds and feus and ground rents was perfectly irrelevant, and there was nothing to prejudice that question in this Bill. He was a member of the Select Committee and knew what view they took. They had thrown out the Bill which was before them largely on the ground that it only dealt with urban areas, though Members opposite were of course opposed to the whole principle. There was one witness who said that the land value of Glasgow was £570,000 a year, and another who said it was £2,400,000. Of course it was absurd to take Glasgow alone or Lanarkshire, the richest part of Scotland. They got no adequate information of the balance of advantage in different parts of Scotland. Surely, if Members wanted justice to be done whenever a Rating Bill was introduced, they wanted full information; and information about Glasgow, though favourable enough to the contention of those who agreed with the principle, might be unfair information and might lead them to do things which were too drastic perhaps in regard to other localities. He maintained that the advantage was not limited to the big towns, but extended to rural districts. They had constant complaints that the landlord spent so much money on his buildings and his improvements that he got no adequate return from the land. This reform would relieve him in the rating on buildings and improvements. They had complaints that there was overcrowding, not only in the big towns but in rural areas, and that it was impossible to build cottages and get a return that was worth speaking of. The second objection was that it would cause the intensifying of the congestion in the centre of towns and the erection of sky - scrapers. Nobody had ever shown or would be able to show that the cheapering of building and the widening of the area of building land could ever tend to make people crowd more into a particular area or have any other effect than that of spreading the population in a satisfactory manner, conducive to the health and morals of the community. The fact
  1802
  of the matter was that that was an entirely new argument which would not bear a moment's examination. The hon. Member himself had a remedy which he had given before the Select Committee. It was to put the rates on all kinds of income.
  *THE CHAIRMAN: This question is really entirely outside even the Bill, although it would be relevant to the Second Reading, because you can discuss alternatives at that stage, But it is entirely outside the Amendment, which is whether the Bill should apply to certain parts or to the whole of Scotland.
  *MR. WOODsaid he was sorry he was not able to reply to some of the remarks of his hon. friend the Member for Preston. He submitted that under the circumstances no case whatever had been made out for confining the application of the Bill to Glasgow and Lanarkshire, or even to Alloa and Perthshire. What they honestly desired to obtain in the Select Committee was the proposal the Government had adopted, that in dealing with this question they should take the preliminary step of obtaining an accurate valuation of the land, which would enable them to consider the reform of rating and to change the basis of rating, perhaps gradually, but ultimately, from the composite subject of land, buildings and improvements to the single and much more satisfactory subject of the land.
  MR. MUNRO FERGUSONsuggested that it would be much better to allow the Bill to apply to the whole of Scotland, because local option would not work well inasmuch as some classes of cases might not be obtained at all. With regard to cost, the hon. Member's case was a good one, but he did not think that the Government had shown themselves hostile to it. By adding this column they would collect an immense amount of information and statistics. He had never known a Bill before which was likely to be subjected to so severe a test as this Bill, because it would have to run the gauntlet of every assessor in Scotland-Opinions differed as to what the cost

  1803
  of this change would be, but they should remember that in the Report on the incidence of local taxation strong opinions were expressed that valuations of this nature could be made without any very great difficulty in urban areas. Even in some of the mining districts he did not think there would be very great difficulty in filling up the valuation roll, and there would be no difficulty in applying the scheme later on. It had been urged that the scheme should have accompanied the Bill. There were great difficulties in regard to local taxation, but they had to choose between the status quo and an increase in the taxation upon what was called the unearned increment on building values. Most of them were not satisfied with the status quo, and it would never be tolerated that land bearing a large value should remain immune from local taxation so long as it was not built upon. They would never solve the housing problem until the populous communities owned the sites outside the towns. He had always been in favour of building values in the future going to the community. A change in the incidence of taxation was necessary, and if they were going to depart from the status quo they must have a valuation of this kind. They night found upon this new column a very foolish scheme or a very moderate or wise one, which was not always the same thing, but whatever kind of scheme they adopted they would require a valuation of this kind—even to carry out Lord Balfour of Burleigh's scheme. By putting upon the local assessment authorities, subject to the payment of a fair proportion of the expense by the State, the duty of filling up this new column they would get an immense amount of information which would be very valuable. He had sat upon a great many of these inquiries, but his mind did not carry him much further than the Minority Report of Lord Balfour. He did not accept the finding of the last Committee as involving the scheme which might be the result of this Bill. In some ways he went beyond that proposal, and in others against it, but he could conceive nothing but good coming out of this inquiry. A doubt was cast upon what the Solicitor-
  1804
  General had said as to the rating of crofter holdings.
  MR. YOUNGER: The valuation, not the rating.
  MR. MUNRO FERGUSONsaid that in forming a valuation roll there were crofts in which the land and the fixtures were rated, and on which they were not rated at all. He knew of one crofter holding a farm where the original rent of the land was £12 10s. It was let for £10. There were £200 worth of fixtures upon it, but the entire holding was only rated on £10. He did not think there would be any great lawyers' expenses about this Bill, and he was quite sure that any well-organised estate would be able to furnish a very fair return. In some cases there would be litigation, and the only case in which there would be difficulty would be in regard to land surrounding populous centres where there would be imposed the task of deciding what proportion of a building area should be subject to the rate. Just as he thought agricultural land was overrated now, so he beleived that urban land was underrated, and it was by submitting all these points to the assessors and the assessment authorities that they would be able some day to formulate a better scheme than had yet been put before the country by the very numerous inquiries they had had during the last thirty-five years. They ought not to have any unnecessary delay in this matter, and although his hon. friend had made a reasonable proposal he thought it was one which would involve some delay. He would include all Scotland in order to get the fullest information, because that would tend to secure that there would be no further delay in readjusting the incidence of taxation in Scotland.
  SIR F. BANBURYcongratulated the hon. Member for Preston upon his excellent speech. The arguments he had laid down were unanswerable. One of the reasons given by the hon. Member in support of his Amendment was that he wished to rescue his hon. friends from breaking their pledges, but that did not concern

  1805
  him so much, because be did not care if they broke all their pledges. All the hon. Member's other arguments appealed to him with very great force. The speech delivered by the hon. Member for Leith Burghs seemed to him to be one in favour of the Amendment, because he argued that there should be an inquiry and that the more information they had the better. As a matter of fact, they could get sufficient information from Glasgow and Lanarkshire; therfore, why should they put the rest of Scotland to the expense of obtaining this information? He had always understood that one of the greatest attributes of the Scotch mind was economy. If they could get the information by confining the inquiry to Lanarkshire and Glasgow, why extend it to the whole of Scotland? The hon. Member for St. Rollox had given as a reason that there was overcrowding in the agricultural districts, and that the landlords complained that they could not build houses because the rates were so high. But the rates had nothing to do with it. The cost of cottages was about £400, which at 3s. a week would produce £7 10s. per annum, or under 2 per cent. They must get interest for their capital, and if the return was not sufficient to pay an adequate rate of interest, the question of the rates did not come in at all. With regard to unoccupied land, the hon. Member thought something would have to be done and that some measure ought to be brought in to deal with it. The common idea was that this land was being withheld from the market, and that, if this Bill were applied to the whole of Scotland, the unreasonable landlords would devote the land to buildings. That argument was advanced by the hon. Member for the St. Rollox division of Glasgow. Was that the example of the London County Council? The County Council held land which they would not sell, because the revenue would not give a sufficient return for the money they had spent. That was what the landlord was doing. The County Council was no better than other landlords. Land was withheld because the landlords could not get a sufficient price, and the object of hon. Gentlemen opposite was to force them to part with
  1806
  the land whether they could get a good price or not. Even a Radical County Council would not agree to that doctrine being applied to themselves. Then there came the question of the cost of the valuation. He had no enmity against the city of Glasgow; he had no doubt that it was a very excellent place. Though he was going to vote for the Amendment he could not help feeling a little regret, because he was rather sorry that he would compel, if the Amendment were carried, the worthy citizens of Glasgow to put their hands deeply into their own pockets. He thought at first that he should not be justified in doing so; but he afterwards came to the conclusion that he should be justified because it was in Glasgow that the demand for this Bill originally arose. Now he was told that when they found they would not be able to break existing contracts, that demand rather vanished, and they thought it would not be wise to put their hands into their own pockets merely for the purpose of obtaining information, but they desired to put their hands into the Imperial Exchequer [An HON. MEMBER: That is the Scottish mind.] He did not approve of the Scottish mind when they desired to put their hands into his pocket, and as he was a contributor to the Imperial Exchequer he felt that if the city of Glasgow had the effrontery to say that if England was to subscribe to what he and his friends considered a wild-cat scheme, it was only right and just that Glasgow should be chastised slightly by having the Bill confined to their own area. When the hon. Member for St. Rollox referred to the cost of the valuation, he presumed the assessor's charges were meant. But there were other charges. How about the cost of appeals? Appeals would have to be made, and then there would be lawyers, refreshers, and 500-guinea briefs. These charges would have nothing to do with the annual value. Counsel did not say: "I am only going to charge so much because the annual value is so and so." He charged according to the number of people who wanted him. If the Solicitor-General for Scotland was put down alone on a moor and valued at his prairie value, it would not be much. But if this Bill were passed there would

  1807
  be a great many people would be competing for him, and his fee would have nothing whatever to do with the value of the land in question. The hon. Member for St. Rollox division had had some experience of the London County Council, and he would ask him whether it was not the fact that some attempt at the valuation of sites had been made, and that it was abandoned because the cost was so great. The Amendment would limit the expenditure to the county of Lanark and the burgh of Glasgow, and it would not prevent the information being obtained if the information was valuable. They were all spending too much money, and he thought that they might show the country on this occasion that they desired to be business-like and economical.
  MR. DUNDAS WHITEsaid he had listened with interest and amazement to some of the speeches made by hon. Members opposite. The mover of the Amendment spoke as though the supporters of the Bill had found a gold mine in this matter. He had never had any idea of the kind. What he and his friends desired was a new and improved method of valuation which, instead of preventing the development of land, would promote its development. The hon. Member for Preston had asked a number of questions and had founded a great deal of his criticism on the different valuations which might be put on land. If his hon. friend had read the Bill carefully he would have seen that there was no mention of agricultural value. The one thing to be considered was the market value—the amount which the land would fetch. The hon. Member took the case of an unnamed Scottish town which was surrounded by 600 acres of land which would gradually be brought into the market; he supposed part of that land was fetching in the market about £1,000 per acre, and he asked how they were going to value the remainder. Marvellous problem! He could assure his hon. friend that if he would go to the landlord and ask how much he would let him have the other acres for, the landlord would place a reserve price upon it. When a reserve price was placed upon it, there would be very little difficulty in finding the market value. The hon. Member
  1808
  gave away his case when he said that they could not estimate the value of land apart from buildings. The exemptions made both in the House and upstairs were made in order to meet the desires of hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House. He would like to point out that the value of the land which was to be ascertained was not the value before the improvements were made. If they went back hundreds of years he supposed they would come to a time when there were no people, but merely mammals and bears. In what his hon. friend called pre-historic times he supposed the land of Glasgow would not be worth eighteenpence. There was nobody then who would have given eighteenpence for it. The value contemplated by this Bill was not the value in bygone days and under different conditions; it was the actual value in the market if sold under the conditions specified in the Bill. His hon. friend the Member for the Ayr Burghs advised them to proceed cautiously. He appreciated that advice, but he would like to point out to his hon. friend that in the Report of Lord Balfour of Burleigh, which he understood him to follow—
  MR. YOUNGER: I do not altogether follow it.
  MR. DUNDAS WHITEsaid that Lord Balfour's proposal was to couple valuation with rating. They were now proceeding with far greater caution. They said they did not wish to touch rating in this valuation as giving the necessary data. He congratulated the hon. Member for the Ayr Burghs on having come to the rescue of the hon. Member for Preston when he was in difficulty over the question of rating in the crofting counties. The crofter was rated on his rent, which was fixed by the Crofters Commission. In fixing the rent the Commission did not take into consideration any of the improvements made by the crofter or his predecessor in the same holding, and therefore they were exempt from rating. That was, he thought, a very strong point in favour of the present proposal. The hon. Member for the Ayr Burghs stated that under the Crofters Act rating was on the basis of annual value, it was now proposed

  1809
  to put it on the basis of capital value. The two bases were not so very distinct, because it was common to estimate the purchase price at so many years annual value or rent. Some time back he was in favour of taking the annual value as the basis, but further study of the subject had led him to adopt the view that the capital value ought to be the basis. If they supposed that the landed property was held from year to year, then the value of that property for rating purposes in great cities would be practically nil, because no one would build on land which was held for only a year. It would be different in the case of a lease of ten years or ninety-nine years, or a feu. He thought the Government had, therefore, done a very wise thing in going back to the old simple plan of capital value. They could always get a true basis of value if they charged it at so many years purchase. It was remarkable that no hon. Member had had a word to say in favour of the present system of valuation in Scotland, which worked very badly. How did the present system work? Suppose land that should be used was not used, it went practically rate-free. They did not rate the possession of land but the use of it. If a man built on or developed the land in any way, on every improvement up went the assessment and on went the rates. This Bill was purely a valuation Bill, but he frankly admitted that they should do what they could to shift the rates from the present basis to the market value of the land, and to let all improvements go tax-free. In the towns whole streets of houses were put up, and one-third of the revenue derived from the houses went in rates. The result was that house property was unremunerative; and that building was checked because people would not put their capital into it. Not only that, but there was enormous difficulty in obtaining land. The same problem faced them in all the towns and counties of Scotland; and a reform was needed, not only to secure better houses and better buildings in town and country, but to revive Scottish agriculture. They would never succeed in overtaking the over-pressure of population in the towns until the country was opened up to enable the people to go out on to the land. The
  1810
  hon. Member for Preston himself admitted that when he said that if the principles embodied in the Bill were extended to the country—
  MR. J. M. HENDERSONasked if the hon. Member was in order in going into the whole question of rating.
  THE DEPUTY-CHAIRMANsaid that the Amendment only dealt with a specific locality, and the hon. Member could not range over the whole of Scotland upon the question of rating.
  MR. DUNDAS WHITEsaid he was only anxious to point out the effect of the Bill on the country districts. As he had said, they wanted to relieve the overpressure of population in the towns by opening up the country districts as far as they could. It was in the recollection of hon. Members that the other day the Government purchased the largo estate of Inverleiver in Scotland, extending to 12,500 acres, for £25,000, which he regarded as a very fair price. That estate was bought for the purpose of afforestation which had been advocated for years by hon. Members on both sides of the House. The estate was valued at present for rating purposes at £1,100 a year. But he would point out that provision had been specially made in the Bill to cover such a case, for woods were to be exempt from the operation of the Bill.
  *MR. YOUNGERsaid there were surely woods in Lanarkshire.
  THE DEPUTY-CHAIRMANsaid that the hon. Member was travelling beyond the Amendment which was restricted to a certain area. That was the only question before the Committee.
  MR. DUNDAS WHITEventured to suggest that there was relevance in what he had said. If the Amendment was carried the estate of Inverleiver would be rated at so much; but if the Bill passed as it stood the new trees would not be taxed and the estate would reap the advantage. The Secretary for Scotland had recently stated that in Glasgow more than 54 per cent. of the

  1811
  population lived under overcrowded conditions, or 2,000 on one acre; and if the Bill passed land in the neighbourhood of Glasgow would be set free for building, and the terrible overcrowding in the city would be relieved. In the case of Greenock, the overcrowding was even worse than in Glasgow. There was plenty of room outside the town for an extension of building, but that land could not be obtained at anything like a reasonable price. There was the same difficulty in every urban district, including Glasgow. It so happened that some of that land was wanted only a few months ago for the purposes of national defence. The property just outside Greenock consisted of forty-eight acres, and was entered in the assessor's roll at the annual value of £75. The Admiralty required ten of these acres, the proportional rating valuation of which would be between £15 and £20. When the Admiralty came to purchase these ten acres they had to pay for them £27,225, or at the rate of very nearly 2,000 years purchase. He maintained that if the Amendment were carried the Bill would lose its chief effect. What they wanted was that the land should be rated at its capital market value, and that when taken compulsorily it should be acquired on that basis. The Prime Minister, speaking in October last at Dumfermline, said—
  "Our present rating system operates as a hostile tariff on our industries; it goes in restraint of trade. It falls with severity on the shoulders of the poorer classes in the very worst shape, and in the shape of a tax upon house-room."
  The Bill would have the effect of removing that hostile tariff. It would, moreover, do a great deal to improve the farmhouses of the country and to open up new possibilities in Scotland. He hoped nothing would be done to cut the Bill down, as it would prove the foundation of a new and improved system of rating in Scotland, which would develop the natural resources of the country and open up better opportunities for the people.
  MR. MITCHELL-THOMSONsaid that the speech of the hon. Gentleman had travelled somewhat widely from the subject of the Amend-
  1812
  ment, to the exact terms of which he preferred to confine himself. There were, however, one or two points in the hon. Gentleman's remarks which he must touch upon. The last observation which fell from the hon. Member was to the effect that he resisted the Amendment on the ground that, if carried, it would render the Bill nugatory—it would wreck the Bill. He understood the hon. Gentleman to say that any limitation of the Bill would be vital and strike at its root. If that was the opinion of the hon. Gentleman it was not an opinion shared by the Prime Minister, because the right hon. Gentleman in his correspondence with Lord Balfour of Burleigh observed that the question of the extension or non-extension of the Bill to rural districts was a matter of detail, and that important as those points of detail might be they in no way affected the vital principle of the Bill.
  MR. DUNDAS WHITEsaid that the hon. Member for North-West Lanark had put words into his mouth which he had never used. He had never said that the effect of the Amendment would be to render the Bill nugatory. What he did say was that if they restricted the scope of the Bill they would very largely lessen its usefulness.
  MR. MITCHELL-THOMSONsaid he-did not want to carry on any controversy with the hon. Member, and, of course if he had misrepresented anything the hon. Gentleman had said he at once withdrew it. To those statements his hon. friend would at all events allow him to adhere. The hon. Member had made a very interesting confession, that he never thought that these proposals for the taxation of land values were going to provide an Eldorado, or to open up any new sources of revenue, but he had always proposed this policy, not for the purpose of raising revenue, but for changing the system of land values. But that was not the system which was before those who brought forward this Bill. The hon. Member who brought forward the original Land Values-Bill of 1906, the hon. Member for Elgin Burghs, said that his proposal for the taxation of land values was for the purpose of meeting the needs of the

  1813
  municipalities, not created by extravagance, but imposed upon them by the growing necessities of the case, and to raise the standard of comfort and education, the cost of which had increased, was increasing, and was likely to increase, by discovering new sources of revenue. That was the view of the hon. Gentleman who introduced the Bill, and the Lord Advocate in a speech which he made later in the debate expressed the opinion that there was to be found in this direction a new and not improper source of revenue and taxation. The Lord Advocate was quite entitled to hold that opinion, but he would merely point out to him that this was not the opinion of hon. Gentlemen who sat behind him, and that that was not the intention of the Report of the Select Committee. With regard to the Amendment he confessed he felt himself in a certain amount of difficulty, because he agreed generally with the proposal his hon. friend had made as regarded limiting in some way the area, and by limiting the area to limit the cost of what was confessedly, if they adopted this Bill, a fishing inquiry. This was distinctly an experimental Bill, and the hon. Gentleman on the Treasury Bench said that he proposed it to get information. His hon. friend then said: "Why not get your information from typical areas," if it was only information which they wanted. He agreed with that proposal in regard to the question of expense. The hon. Member for St. Rollox had made some mention of a witness before a Committee, who gave an estimate of something more than half per cent. on the valuation of Glasgow as the cost of that valuation. The hon. Member said that that was excessive, but he (Mr. Mitchell-Thomson) did not think so; he did not think they would find any valuator or assessor, accustomed to make valuations, who would put the figure at less than one half per cent. He agreed with the proposer of the Amendment on the first ground of expense, and, in the second place, that those who were to do this work were men to whom it would be outside their practice and profession. Those who would have to carry out the work were not valuers in the sense in which they would have to be under this
  1814
  Bill; they were not lawyers, and yet in some sense they would have to have a knowledge of the law. As his hon. friend the Member for Ayr Burghs had pointed out, the opinion of assessors from all parts of Scotland had been given in no unmeasured terms as to the practicability of the precise proposals put forward in the Bill. When they went further and inquired into the wishes of representative bodies in Scotland, he thought they had very strong ground indeed for supporting some such Amendment as this. An opportunity of securing the opinions of those bodies occurred last summer, when a body calling itself, he thought, the United Committee of the Leagues for Taxing Land Values, sent round a circular to various local bodies representing the authorities in Scotland, asking whether they would be prepared to promote a petition in favour of the Bill. This Committee or whatever it was did not meet with that encouraging reception from the local authorities in Scotland which the statements of Ministers, and of those who had addressed audiences in England with regard to the state of feeling in Scotland, would have led one to believe. They applied to a large number of local authorities in Scotland, but they did not do so apparently in some comities, including Banff, Forfar, Haddington, Inverness, Montrose and Perth; at all events no letters were received in those places. They received a favourable reply from four local bodies in Scotland, the town councils of Glasgow, Dundee, and Galashiels, and the Wick parish council. Nineteen bodies, he thought, in Scotland, had received this communication and recommended that no action should be taken, including amongst the larger, Edinburgh, Ayr, Forfar, Dumfries, Hawick, Jedburgh, Lanark, and Linlithgow. An evangelist of the new gospel did not, therefore, meet with that honour in his own country which one might have expected to be justly his due, because not only did the town council refuse to express any opinion, but the parish council said that the proper place for the request of this Committee was under the Table.
  MR. URE: It is outside my constituency.
  MR. MITCHELL-THOMSONsaid it was at all events in the same district. Coming back to the Amendment, while he was perfectly prepared to agree that there was much to be said in favour of recommending the valuation of one typical area, he could hardly agree to the proposed typical area which his hon. friend had recommended by his Amendment. If his hon. friend would be prepared to leave out Lanarkshire and insert Linlithgowshire, he would have much pleasure in supporting him; but if he went to a division with the Amendment in the precise form in which it stood he could hardly give him his support, because he, representing the county of Lanark, apart from the city of Glasgow, did not think that strong enough arguments had been brought to bear why those localities should be saddled with the expense of the inquiry—an expense which ought properly to be borne by the State, as the valuation was for Government purposes. If the Government would accept the proposal that this expenditure should be borne by the State he would support the Amendment. Then he would suggest to the hon. Member that considerable difficulty would arise in his own constituency with regard to legal questions. How did he suggest that subterranean valuation should be conducted? How did he suggest that land in which shale was supposed to lie or in which it did not lie should be valued? Speaking of shale, he might ask how it was to be valued in any case, as a place where it was would be a valuable and desirable building site. Was it to be valued on the basis that houses were going to be built on it? [An HON MEMBER: Market value.] Did the hon. Gentleman understand what was meant by market value? He asked how they were going to value a bit of moor or land which had slag or shale on it, and the answer was that it was not going to be valued as a potential building site, but as a bit of land qua land. Not as land with a site for possible buildings in the future, but as land qua land. It was all very Well for hon. Members to say that now, but that was not what they said at the General Election. He would remind hon. Members that in his speech at the Albert Hall the Prime Minister made some remarks with regard to the necessity of
  1816
  deriving some fresh revenue from the land. ["Hear, hear."] An hon. Member said "Hear hear," but what happened? It was all very well to make remarks like that in the Albert Hall, which was not the centre of a large agricultural district, but that speech of the right hon. Gentleman caused considerable searching of hearts among many English county candidates. A letter was written to the right hon. Gentleman by a candidate for a division of Essex, and the reply was published. The Prime Minister said that he was asked whether or not what he said in reference to deriving money from land in the shape of revenue, was to be read as a declaration that the rating or valuation to be taxed fell or not under the general valuation of land per se. His answer was "most assuredly," and if there was any Longer any doubt in the minds of the writer's friends the right hon. Gentleman hoped, it would be put right. He commended that letter to hon. Members opposite.
  MR. WEDGWOODsaid the discussion had wandered rather far from the Amendment before the House, but at the same time he would point out that the speech of the hon. Member who seconded it was also somewhat wide of the mark, and he hoped that they might find themselves within the bounds of order when they were dealing with that speech. The hon. Member was not in his place, but he thought it would be useful to deal first of all, with the question of the practical difficulty of this valuation. The hon. Member had quoted a letter—a humourous letter from a Scotch assessor, in which the practicability of the valuation was referred to. He had a letter from a valuer in North Staffordshire, in which he explained the scheme of valuation adopted in the towns of North Staffordshire. He had written to this gentleman asking him whether the basis of rent was valuation, and that gentleman wrote back as follows—
  "The method adopted is carefully to measure all buildings and from this to calculate the cubic capacity in feet. Each is then valued at so much per foot according to valuer's estimate, 2¾d.—9d., according to character. This is then added to the value of the land occupied by such braiding and surrounding same, which is estimated separately, at so much per square yard, according to use, position, etc. This

  1817
  gives the valuer the estimated capital value, which he trarnslates into gross annual value."
  That was to say, the cubic capacity of the building was worked out, and the cost calculated for that cubic capacity. To this was added the value of the land estimated separately at so much per square yard, according to use and position. That gave the capital value from which the annual value of land and buildings was calculated. They had, therefore, in North Staffordshire a system of valuation which already involved the separate valuation of land. It was carried out automatically, without any expense, as part of the existing system. As the House was aware, methods of valuation differed in different localities, but here was a case in a locality taken purely by accident where the valuation involved the separate valuation of the market value of the land. It had been said that there was not merely the cost of valuation, but that the number of appeals would enormously enhance the expense to the community. He would take an instance from Germany. Mr. Horsfall, who was well known to Members of the House had examined the question carefully, and he said that in Cologne under the old system—that was when the annual value was taken—there were in one year 2,703 appeals against 21,000 assessments. Under the new system of rating on selling value there were only 174 appeals against 30,000 assessments, an enormous reduction due to the fact that the selling value was taken instead of a more or less arbitrary annual value. Indeed, this was the natural result. He had had a good deal of valuation to do when in the Transvaal, where they valued land and buildings at their capital value, and his experience was that when the selling value was the basis there were few objections to high valuation. People liked to see their properties stand high in the rate books, as it was naturally the figure on which mortgages and sales of property were based. The minority Report of the Royal Commission recommended that if the owner of the land considered the valuation excessive he should be entitled to require the local authority to take it over at fixed number of years valuation. He thought himself it would be only fair to give some ultimate appeal of that nature. The
  1818
  hon. Member for Preston had said it must be remembered that persons were taxed and not things, his meaning being that it did not matter whether the rates were based on the complete value of land and buildings, or on land alone. That, surely was a rather strange argument for a free trader. If person not things, paid taxes, the foreigner paid the taxes on corn, or the importer, or whoever handed over the cheque, and it did not matter whether they taxed diamonds or pork. The case for free trade was that the matter to be considered was not who paid the tax in the first instance, but on whose shoulders the burden would ultimately rest. On the question of the incidence of rates he would quote Professor Sidgwick, who said that the portion of the tax corresponding to the value of the house as a product of industry must be paid by the occupier, except so far as he was a producer, and could shift it forward. Professor Sidgwick went on to say that the portion of the tax corresponding to the ground value would fall upon the owner of the land, who had no means of escaping it by raising the rent, which it must be assumed was as high as the necessity of letting would allow. The rates then were incident to a certain, extent on the landlord, and partly on the occupier, and what he wanted was to make them wholly incident on the landlord and not on the occupier, who could pass the tax forward to the general public. How could this be said to be transferring the tax from, the idle to the industrious?
  MR HAROLD COX: I was speaking of the immediate effect of this proposal.
  MR. WEDGWOODsaid that to neglect the ultimate effect of the tax and insist on its immediate effect was unworthy of one who had again and again stood up for free trade in that House. The hon. Member had said that what was wanted was not access to the laid, but access to capital Surely the way to cheapen capital was to take the tax off the houses and improvements. When they remembered that houses had to bear what was often a 50 per cent. tax, and any improvements in factories or machinery had to bear this crushing burden which was strangling industry all over the country, and that the proposal was to shift this burden off

  1819
  industry and capital, they could not be said to be refusing access to capital. This 50 per cent. tax was strangling industry all over the country; and when they asked the House to shift this burden on capital and transfer it elsewhere, they could not say they were refusing access to capital, because they were giving far greater access to capital and making possible a far more enormous development of industries.
  MR. McCRAEsaid he rose for the purpose of urging the Lord Advocate to take into consideration one aspect of the question of expense. The hon. Member who moved the Amendment did so more particularly because the expense of the valuation of all Scotland would be so great. He did not agree with him. Lord Balfour's Minority Report demonstrated that the expense would not be so very great. He would point out, however, how unfair the hon. Member was to Glasgow and Lanarkshire. He was going to ask them to bear the expense of this experiment, which was to benefit the whole of Scotland. The hon. Member for Lanarkshire on his own side made it clear that they would object; and rightly so. If, as the Government said, this was a Valuation Bill, and not a Rating Bill, he thought it only fair that they should consider whether some part of the burden of expense in the interval before, the rating authorities were allowed to rate for the object should be borne by the Treasury, and he hoped the Lord Advocate would be able to give them some assurance that the Government would look with favour on that proposal. The hon. Member for Preston had made a statement which he was quite sure when he heard it repeated he would hardly adhere to. He had said that the essence of the Bill was to change the whole basis of rating. The essence of the Bill was to do nothing of the kind. It was a Valuation Bill, a Bill to obtain information, and, when they had that information, they would decide what would be the basis of their rating. He (Mr. McCrae) absolutely agreed as to the economic soundness of the decision of the Committee upstairs and that the basis of rating ought to be changed. This Bill left it open for the House afterwards to determine whether the whole basis
  1820
  of rating should be changed, whether all taxation should be placed on the land, or whether, as he had always held, there ought to be a separate and supplemental rating put on land values, giving a diminution of general rating. The Bill was one to obtain information to enable Parliament to determine the method which ought to be followed; and he thought it was unfair to place the expense of the experiment on a particular area. He had always maintained that the information obtained would be valuable not only for local, but also for Imperial, purposes. They could never have a fair basis of Imperial taxation until they knew really what was the value of land. He therefore pleaded with his right hon. friend the Lord Advocate to see if he could not give them any assurance that the cost would be borne by the Treasury. He thought that would meet the objection of the hon. Members opposite, and he had no doubt his hon. friend would withdraw his Amendment on such an assurance being given.
  SIR E. BOYLEsaid that the hon. Member for Newcastle had laid down a proposition to which they could not find much objection. He said: First of all, value the buildings, and then add the value of the land for the purpose for which the property is used.
  MR. WEDGWOOD: I did not say that: "The total is then added to the value of the land occupied by such buildings and surrounding the same, which is estimated separately at so much per square yard according to use, position, etc."
  SIR E. BOYLE: "According to use." That is my point, and it is right. Proceeding, the hon. Member said that, if they valued the land for a purpose for which it was not used, they would be doing a great injustice. He would give an instance. A man had a piece of land in the High Street and some years ago there was a cottage built upon it. The cottage was cubed out and came to £500. It rented at £30 per year, that was £5 for the land and 5 per cent. on the £500 for the cottage. That was fair. Nobody could take any exception

  1821
  to that. But if the land were valued for the purposes of a shop for which it was not used and £25 for a cottage for which it was used, then it would be assessed for something which they had no right to touch. The hon. Member conveyed his view to the letter. The thing should be assessed for the purpose for which it was used.
  MR. WEDGWOODsaid he was only reporting an example of how land and buildings were actually at present assessed separately. He by no means gave his approval to that particular method of valuing land or adding the two together. He merely gave an example of how it was done at present to show that it was not difficult to do.
  SIR E. BOYLEthought the hon. Member, if he would read his speech, would see that he had correctly quoted him. If the owner could get possession of the property and pull the cottage down and put up a shop, they might assess it at what it was worth; but if he could not get possession and pull the cottage down, they could only, so long as the cottage stood, fairly assess the property at £30. That seemed to him an elementary principle of justice. A man should not pay for what he did not get. Supposing a cottage at a corner of a street was let at £50 a year on a nine years' lease, so long as that lease ran the freeholder could not get more than £50, and, although the property might be a suitable site for a bank or insurance company's offices, they could not assess it for those purposes till either a bank or some insurance offices had been erected. Otherwise they would be assessing not that which was, but that which might be, and that would be wrong. Somebody had gaily mentioned ½ per cent. as the cost. He had spent all his life in valuations of one sort or another, and the making of a ground plan of a property covered with buildings was no novice's work. There was not one in ten surveyors who could do it. If they were going to have a valuation worth the paper it was written upon, they must have a good man and pay him for doing it. They could get a valuation for next to nothing, but that would be just its value when they had got it. If
  1822
  they wanted a reliable valuation, which they could act upon, they must pay a fair and proper professional charge. It was not every man who could make the valuation required. It was a difficult task, and they would have to be careful or they would be giving it to a man who could not make even a preliminary survey. It was impossible for 1 per cent. to obtain a surveyor with the necessary skill, knowledge, and experience for the work.
  MR. WALSHsaid he had listened to the debates on the Bill during both last session and this session of Parliament. The Amendment proposed to limit the scope of the measure to Glasgow and the county of Lanark. The difficulties raised by the hon. Member who had just sat down cut dead at the Amendment. His observations were directly opposed to the Amendment, which he understood he rose to support. Most of the debates seemed to him to have been of a Second Reading character, and he had risen for the purpose of saying how completely they upon those benches were in agreement with the principle of the Bill. He was surprised that the proposal to divide Scotland in this way should have come from Scottish people themselves. In the Land Bill of the previous day English treatment had to be given to the Southern part of Scotland. Now Scotland had again to be divided, and the work of valuation must be undertaken only in Glasgow and in Lanarkshire and the other parts left alone. That seemed to him merely a counsel of delay. What, after all, was the whole spirit of the opposition to this measure? He remembered the vehement opposition of the Leader of the Opposition last session, and he noticed the attitude that his followers were taking even now. It was simply because they knew that behind the establishment of the valuation roll effect was to be given to a further principle. The little child declined to say A because if she did she would be requested to say B. The enormous values that were being created up and down the country by the labour, the skill, the brain and the general industry of the community must pay its fair share of taxation. They stood for that. They were thankful that the establishment

  1823
  of this principle came from Scotland. They had been thankful to Scotland for many good things in the past, and they believed that when the further principle was established in Scotland it would be a very good principle indeed and would be applicable to England. After all, why should not there be this valuation roll? What difficulty was there in it? A landowner who wished to sell his land had no difficulty in arriving at the value of it, and what greater difficulty could there be in a valuer arriving at it? There was a refusal price even for land covered with refuse heaps. It was worth something, but hitherto it had escaped the whole burden of local taxation. The principle in the Bill was a proper one, and if it could be applied in Glasgow and Lanarkshire it could with equal facility be applied throughout Scotland. In part the Amendment admitted the validity of the principle, and therefore, it was an Amendment of delay, and was clearly put forward for the purpose of barring the future progress of the Bill. They had had an alarming statement as to what the cost to Glasgow would be, quoted from a comparatively unknown man.
  MR. ALEXANDER CROSS: Dr. Murray is the best known solicitor in Glasgow.
  MR. WALSHsaid the best known solicitor in Glasgow was after all, a comparatively unknown man. They were speaking of great national interests and Dr. Murray was one out of 750,000 people in Glasgow. But when they brought forward these alarming figures that upon an annual land value of £570,000 it was going to cost £500,000, surely they could not expect to be taken seriously. Whatever it might be the principle was such a serious one, and it was so necessary to the advancement of Scotland and of the whole United Kingdom, that he heartily hoped every progressive Member in the House would vote against the Amendment.
  MR. THOMAS SHAWsaid he had listened to the whole debate, and he did not think it necessary to express any opinion on the view as to whether it had been conducted in the interests of delay.
  1824
  Under the Chairman's ruling they had ranged pretty widely. They had ranged considerably beyond Glasgow and. Lanarkshire, the interesting town of Alloa and the still more interesting county of Perthshire, and had apparently ranged into the theory, and practice of all countries on the face of the world. As to the Amendment, the Government could not accept it. It would be to carry the principle of Scottish sub-division to an absurdity. They had a national system in existence and the proposal of this Bill was to dovetail the new proposal into the national system. The suggestion of the Amendment was hardly within the bounds of reason. However, speeches had been made upon it, and very interesting speeches they had been. It was very remarkable to find that the first Amendment to a Scottish Valuation Bill was moved by an Irish Member, seconded by an English Member and supported by the Member, for the City of London, substantially on the ground that he had never been to Glasgow himself. The language in which the Amendment was introduced was naturally the language of Ireland. The mover said he wished to limit the area of disturbance, They were not accustomed to that language in Scotland. Not many Members for Scotland would wish to limit the application of this valuation principle to one town only. Immediately on the hon. Member's right there sat an hon. Member who at once negatived the suggestion that Glasgow was entitled to a monopoly of all the good things that were going. "Relatively small" said his hon. friend. It was not relatively small. Its valuation was about a fourth part of the entire valuation of Scotland Glasgow and Lanarkshire combined had an annual valuation of nearly £9,000,000 sterling, and therefore it was, he granted, a substantial slice at all events that was going to be made. The mover, however had said that opinion was changing with regard to this in Glasgow. He was afraid the same remark must apply to him as applied in a very notable degree to the seconder, that there was a slight lack of acquaintance with the, condition of affairs in Scotland. Was his hon. friend aware that since last year's Bill, only six weeks or so ago the town

  1825
  council of Glasgow met and affirmed the principle of a separate valuation of land apart from improvements by forty - five votes against twenty-four, and supported practically this Bill? The argument that opinion was changing was derived rather from imagination than from actual experience. As to broken pledges, they were far beyond the stage of going into personal issues of that kind. He did not know of any pledge that he had broken. The hon. Member for Preston had always done him the justice to say that from the first time that he had had to handle this Bill he had always made his position in regard to existing contracts absolutely plain and he would also further do him the justice to say that both on that bench and on the bench opposite he had spoken as representing the whole bench. So that as far as the Government were concerned they maintained that this was a sound Bill, and so far from having gone back on their principles they maintained them to this hour. The hon. Member had said that it was proposed to shift the rates from the fabric to the site.
  *MR. HAROLD COX: The Solicitor-General said so.
  MR. THOMAS SHAWsaid that the Bill had nothing whatever to do with it any more than the Amendment. As his hon. friend had said, they must tax where they could get their money; the best avenue to get the money was to see where the wealth lay, and if it lay in the capital value of the land they would be doing his hon. friend and his principles a great service by substantially helping on towards that time when they would tax the people who could pay the money. The hon. Member then, leaving the Solicitor-General, came down upon his devoted head with a question as to the valuation of 590 acres, of which one acre had been sold at £1,000. He waited to hear whether the hon. Member would not answer himself on that point, and he did in the subsequent statement that one must take into account the prospect of a rise or the risk of a fall, and that that determined the present value. The hon. Member had astonished him by representing this as a subtlety. Not desiring to
  1826
  put Scotsmen on a pedestal, he would say that no man of any nationality would ever dream of this being a subtlety. It was a perfectly simple thing—as simple as A B C—but it was the A B C of valuation, and it completely disposed of the puzzle the hon. Member thought he was putting to him, otherwise he would have requested him to read the Bill, which said that the subject of valuation was to be valued at what it might be expected to realise if sold by a willing seller in an open market at the time of the valuation. That was not a subtlety. It did not mean that they were to wait years and centuries till they could get £3,000 an acre, but it meant what they could get for it now. That was the principle upon which all valuation in Scotland had been founded as long as he could remember. He had been engaged in many of those arbitrations and had had the highest skill on both sides before him, and the principle laid down had always been the principle which was being applied in this Bill.
  *MR. HAROLD COXsaid his right hon. friend contended that the essence of the whole Bill was that the valuer was to take into account what would be the price which a willing seller would accept from a willing purchaser. If one acre had been sold for £1,000 might they not assume that the next acre would be valued at £1,000?
  MR. THOMAS SHAWsaid his hon. friend thought that because one acre out of 600 fetched a certain figure all the rest must be valued at the same figure. That was quite out of the question.
  *MR. HAROLD COXsaid the case he submitted was given to him by the owner of the land, who said that whenever he sold a single acre he could always get £1,000 for it.
  MR. THOMAS SHAWsaid the word "whenever" begged the whole question. If there were purchasers ready to take the whole of the land to-morrow, would it be right to keep it at agricultural value it being worth £1,000 an acre? He could now see where the hon. Member's difficulties were, and he would suggest to him a little further consideration.

  1827
  The hon. Member had advanced in his views and changed them not once but more than once, and his views were now in a state of flux and transition. He suggested that a little further study would bring the hon. Member to the point of understanding what market value was, and the moment he did that he would approve of this Bill. The hon. Member having left him in that terrible dilemma turned next to his hon. friend the Solicitor-General and said he bad given a wrong illustration in regard to the crofter. He said he had appealed to the Crofters Acts and the Crofter Commission Report, and he found that the crofters' rent was assessed upon the footing of the value of the land plus the improvements done by the landlord. By that he conceded that it was not assessed upon the footing either of the improvements made by the crofter himself or by any of his predecessors in title. That was the disadvantage of not understanding the Scottish system. The whole discussion had ranged round the proposition that the crofter, and the crofter alone, did all his improvements, and that the improvements done by the landlord constituted the merest fraction. The Solicitor-General, in the statement which had been criticised by the hon. Member for Preston, was referring to the almost universal practice that the crofters had not done their own improvements, were not rented upon them, and were not rated upon them cither. That was a case where the value of the land minus the improvements was actually subject to rating. The hon. Member read the dictum of some experienced assessor to the effect that the value which the Bill desired to ascertain was a metaphysical abstraction, and they could not get at it. Lord Camperdown also had spoken in the country of the wide definition of improvements as rendering the thing metaphysical and unpractical. The original limit respecting improvements in the Bill was altered as the result of negotiations in the House of Commons by which he and the House were bound; but if Lord Camperdown's views prevailed, and the original limit were restored with consent, he would not be disposed to resist. But with regard to the experienced assessor, he wondered whether he gave evidence; because one who did give
  1828
  evidence, and alleged the metaphysical abstraction which could not be valued, was asked by the chairman of the committee whether he would surrender his appointment if the duty of finding the value was put upon him, and he replied: "Certainly not, I would do my duty." "How would you do it?" said the chairman; and then he proceeded to tell the committee quite correctly the way it could be done. The status quo, it was admitted, was intolerable. Instances arose where they did not find any failure to put a price on the land on account of the metaphysical abstraction. The price was promptly put on the land when it was wanted for public purposes. Capital value must be ascertained in order to avoid the persistent yearly misrepresentation of the true valuation. He would take three methods, all of which had been mentioned in the debate. There was one method very radical, perhaps too radical at least to begin with—the method of substituting a rate upon the land for the present composite rate upon land and buildings. For that purpose a valuation was absolutely necessary. The second method was that of rating upon land values a certain quota so as to assist taxation which weighed so heavily on occupiers. He asked his hon. friends to remember that a valuation was necessary for that also. The third method was to specialise the whole value—the increment value given to the land in consequence of public improvements—and having, so to speak, specialised that, then they must put a separate tax applicable to ownership. They were all agreed that some of these must come, but the point of this Bill was that it was a preliminary to any one of these, and consequently he submitted that it had been proved with regard to this Bill that without it they could not advance a step in favour of method one, two, or three. He did not despair of the tapping of new sources of taxation. He had never represented it as an El Dorado, but he could repeat with perfect candour and increasing conviction that there were new and not improper sources of revenue still to be tapped. The hon. Member for Edinburgh and the hon. Member for the Leith Burghs had mentioned the subject of costs, and as

  1829
  he might not have another opportunity he thought it right to re-state now in presence of the House what he said to a deputation from the Association of County Councils in Scotland which waited on him in July last. He understood that there was au impression that the local authorities, and Glasgow in particular, would have a heavy bill to pay for valuation. He did not think it would be anything like the ridiculously exaggerated figure which had been suggested. He took it that Mr. Henry, the Glasgow assessor, was the best authority on this subject, and he put it at between £4,000 and £5,000. [An HON. MEMBER: His own costs.] He was only dealing now with the assessor's costs. It was quite fair to say so.
  MR. YOUNGER: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he has made any estimate of the likely cost of this valuation.
  MR. THOMAS SHAWsaid the best estimate one could get, without doing it oneself, was to be got from the assessor of Glasgow. He was only referring to the public costs. He wished to repeat in this House what he said to the deputation, as the thing was very important to the local authorities in Scotland, and as he quite saw that it might have its corollary in other proceedings in England. He would before reading what he said make this preliminary observation. The local authorities said that they had to make this valuation, but were precluded by the Bill from rating for it. He felt the force of their complaint that the cost of this duty could not be recouped in the proper sense of the term, because of their not having the power of rating conferred by the measure. It was with that in view that he approached the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and was able to make this statement last year—
  "A more important matter in which you are interested is what is to be the position of those ten counties which appoint their local assessors, and the expenses with regard to whose operation falls as a county charge."
  A member of the deputation interrupted and said, "And the county
  1830
  burghs," and he, continuing his reply, said—

  "My observations apply to burghs also. I am aware that operations for the first year in ascertaining the capital value, although not nearly so involved as some people may think, will certainly involve a very considerable addition to the labour of these skilled men, and in some cases it may be necessary for them to employ skilled assistance. I have, therefore, thought it my duty to represent this matter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and I have-now his authority for announcing to you that if it should be found—as I think it will be found—that such an addition will be made to the duties of those assessors as really to be in a reasonable sense a fair addition to their duties, worthy of estimating, and worthy of consideration by the Exchequer, the claims by the local authority, on which this initial charge for the first year will thus heavily fall, will receive fair and favourable consideration from the Exchequer, with a view to granting what, in the opinion of the Treasury, is a reasonable subsidy."
  He felt that he was bound, in view of the Amendment covering the question of costs, to approach the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He told him that there was doubt in some minds as to whether this pledge, having been given to a deputation of county council members, could be held as applicable to the burghs, and he had his right hon. friend's authority for saying that the pledge would operate all round. If he had made any observations to the deputation which would lead anyone to think it was only the cost for the first and heaviest year, that impression must be removed. It would be a general subsidy which would, of course, in each year be considered by the Treasury and would remain until a system of rating was introduced. He thought it right to allay any misapprehension on that subject. Important as valuation was for any system of rating they wished to devise, important as it was for the ascertainment of any untapped sources of revenue, whether in town or county, the Government held that it would be quite out of the question to cut up this scheme of valuation. They desired it for national purposes on a national scale.
  MR. WALTER LONGprotested against the action of the Government with reference to this debate. He respectfully submitted that the extremely interesting speech of the Lord Advocate should have been delivered two hours ago,

  1831
  and riot within ten minutes or a quarter of an hour of the time when the allotted period for the stage of the Bill would expire. The Government described the Amendment as one of the least importance. Yet by their own action they had made it impossible for any other question to be discussed. In the debate to-day, and in the debates last session, certain main propositions had been made. First of all, hon. Gentlemen opposite held that this Bill was merely for the purpose of getting information. If it was only a Bill to obtain information, surely it should be applied to the whole country, but even hon. Gentlemen opposite, and even the Government themselves, were not agreed as to the real nature of the measure. They were told last year by the Solicitor-General for Scotland that this Bill was intended to be the basis of future taxation, but the Lord Advocate had told them to-day that that was by no means the definite view of the Government. After all this time, the Government had not made up their minds as to what would be the precise effect of the Bill and how it was to be applied. The critics of the Bill had said that it was unworkable, and evidence given before the Royal Commission had been quoted to show that the cost of working the measure would be extravagant beyond degree. They had been told by the supporters of the Bill that it was going to confer unlimited blessings on the land, produce immense new sources of revenue, and do justice where injustice had been done hitherto. If that were true, there would be a good deal to be said for the measure, but the opponents of it had asked in vain for information as to the way in which these good things were to be brought about. He did not wonder, therefore, that opinion in regard to this Amendment was some what divided. He had hoped that the Lord Advocate would have told them something of an inquiry conducted by the hon. Member for Halifax throughout Scotland as to the views held by certain Scottish authorities regarding the Bill. The Lord Advocate had complained that the Amendment was moved by an Irish Member and seconded by an English Member. What was that as compared with an English Member daring to put his profane foot in Scotland in order to ask the Scottish people what was their opinion regarding this measure? He did not know whether
  1832
  it was because the hon. Gentleman was an English Member, but the evidence obtained by his Committee showed that even in the constituencies of the Solicitor-General, the Lord Advocate and the Prime Minister, public feeling in regard to the Bill could not be described as enthusiastic. In many cases the feeling was apathetic, while in others it was absolutely hostile. They might have expected that some opinion would have been expressed by a representative of the Government in reply to the Report of the Committee. They were entitled to say that the Scottish people had awakened to the fact that the one advantage that they believed they were going to derive from the Bill, viz., the taxation of feu-duties, had been made impossible by the declaration of the Prime Minister, and they had come to realise that the Bill was not worthy of their acceptance. It was interesting to note that the only member of the Government who had spoken in the debate had passed over this significant fact in complete silence. He had neither attempted to rebut it by proof if it was incorrect, nor to minimise it if, in his opinion, there had been an attempt to mislead the people of Scotland. His hon. friend behind him had said that he was unable to vote for an Amendment unless one county was substituted for another. He presumed that if another county were named the Member for that constituency would say that he was unable to vote for it. It must not be understood that those who supported this Amendment approved of or supported the principle of the Bill. On the contrary, their arguments against this measure stood good. It had not been proved that the cost of the present proposal would not be very heavy indeed, and its practical effect would be very different from what the Government anticipated. Therefore, he maintained that if the Government were going to use the Bill simply for the purpose of experiment, and if they were going to cast on the localities the expense of this work being done, they might in reason confine its operations to a very limited area. He was glad that the Lord Advocate had not used on that occasion the argument that they must have uniformity, because where they wished to obtain information as a means to an end there was no reason

  1833
  why they should not be limited as to area. He begged to dissociate himself entirely from the proposition made by hon. Gentlemen opposite that there should be an Imperial contribution to Scotland in respect of this measure. This was a question on which Scotland had claimed special legislation for herself, and if Scotland was honest, let her pay for it. If she was so anxious to have it, then surely Scotland should not object to pay out of her own pocket the expenditure which she anticipated would result to her own benefit. On the part of those who represented other parts of the United Kingdom he would resist any attempt to enable Scotland to obtain a benefit for herself, as it was alleged she would, at the expense of the whole community. He did not know whether the hon. Member intended to divide on the Amendment; but he would advise him not to do so, because he felt very strongly that it would be an invidious thing to select a particular part of the Bill for condemnation when they condemned the principle of the whole measure. The Amendment had, however, been of the utmost importance in raising this debate, and by not dividing upon it they would not lose the, opportunity in the Division Lobby of expressing their profound objection to a Bill which was not calculated to justify the propositions laid clown in its support.
  *MR. CHIOZZA MONEYsaid that he voted for the Second Reading of this measure and did not intend to vote for an Amendment which sought to limit its application. He found himself largely in agreement with the Lord Advocate in the views which the right hon. Gentleman had expressed in his speech on the Amendment. It appeared to him that the right hon. Gentleman desired to assure himself and the country as to what part of the wealth of Scotland was directly connected with land values. In that passion for statistics he found himself completely atone with the right hon. and learned Gentleman, and he only wished he could persuade the Government to carry valuation a little further and apply it to incomes, so that they could ascertain with some degree of definiteness how to adjust taxation in regard to the respective incomes which were taken by those who
  1834
  owned capital and those who owned land. He did not think sufficient account had been taken in the debate of what rates were. He remembered a speech of the Solicitor-General for Scotland, in which he stated that what they wanted was a new standard of rating. That was a very different thing from the views expressed by the Lord Advocate. The Lord Advocate had very properly said that he had confined himself to the suggestions contained in the minority Report of the Royal Commission on Local Taxation, which were not to establish a new standard of rating, but to put a separate and additional tax on site values. He was one of those who had no objection whatever to land values bearing a somewhat larger proportion of the local burdens than other forms of wealth, though that was an entirely different proposition from advocating the transfer of the whole burden of rating from capital to land. He had no objection to a pro tanto relief, but he had strong objection to the proposition that beneficial rates should be charged on land values alone. The suggestion that sewer rates, road rates, police rates, and lighting rates which were merely tradesmens' bills, should be charged on land values alone seemed to him to verge on the ridiculous. Many hon. Members supported the Bill because they recognised that certain local expenditure did benefit in a peculiar degree the owners of land; and in so far as this Bill provided a valuation of the land built upon and the land not built upon in towns, he was heartily in agreement with the suggestion that they should ascertain that value in order to assist the extension of public ownership.
  *MR. REMNANTsaid he was anxious to get from the Government an expression of their opinion as to the probable cost of the proposed experiment. All through last session great stress was laid on the fact that this valuation scheme was not going to cost the country very much. When he interrupted the right hon. Gentleman just now he very courteously answered him by saying that in connection with Glasgow the estimate of his chief witness was that the total cost would be something between £4,000 and £5,000. But,

  1835
  the right hon. Gentleman surely forgot that last year it was stated that the city of Glasgow had been for many years engaged in making a registration of the city streets, that comparatively simple proceeding was not finished to this day, and yet it had cost to date over £20,000. How then could it be argued that this much more pretentious valuation scheme involving such delicate negotiations, would cost only £5,000? The right hon. Gentleman in support of his case referred to the example of London, and said that one of the chief officers of the London County Council had given it as his opinion that he could value a whole street of houses within five minutes, and that he did not believe the cost of the valuation of London would amount to more than £5,000. Against that he referred the right hon. Gentleman to the work of making a ground-plan of London by the London County Council. That was commenced when he first joined the London County Council. He was in that Council for nine years and it was not finished yet, although the cost amounted to many thousands of pounds, and it was not likely to be completed for many years to come. Yet the Government would lead the House to bieleve that their intricate experiments would only cost a few thousands. There were estimates in regard to London and big
  towns which entirely refuted the argument of the Government. The truth was that the Government had not studied the matter and were afraid to give an estimate.
  And, it being a quarter before Eight of the Clock, the Chairman proceeded to put the Questions necessary to dispose of the business to be concluded this day under the Order of the House of 13th February.
  Clause agreed to.
  Whereupon the CHAIRMAN left the Chair to report the Bill to the House, pursuant to the Order of the House of 13th February.
  Bill reported without Amendment.
  Whereupon Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER proceeded to put the Question, "That the Bill be now read the third time," pursuant to the Order of the House of 13th February.
  The House divided.—Ayes, 347; Noes, 90. (Division List No. 26).

  AYES.

  Abraham, William (Cork, N. E.)

  Bennett, E. N.

  Clough, William

  Abraham, William (Rhondda)

  Bethell, Sir J. H. (Essex, Romf'd)

  Clynes, J. R.

  Acland, Francis Dyke

  Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon)

  Cobbold, Felix Thornley

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

  Black, Arthur W.

  Collins, Stephen (Lambeth)

  Agnew, George William

  Boland, John

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

  Ainsworth, John Stirling

  Boulton, A. C. F.

  Compton-Rickett, Sir J.

  Alden, Percy

  Bowerman, C. W.

  Condon, Thomas Joseph

  Allen, A. Acland (Christchurch)

  Brace, William

  Cooper, G. J.

  Allen, Charles P. (Stroud)

  Bramsdon, T. A.

  Corbett, CH (Sussex, E. Grinst'd

  Armitage, R.

  Brocklehurst, W. B.

  Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

  Armstrong, W. C. Heaton

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

  Cotton, Sir H. J. S.

  Asquith, Rt. Hn. Herbert Henry

  Brunner, Rt Hn Sir J. T. (Cheshire

  Cowan, W. H.

  Astbury, John Meir

  Bryce, J. Annan

  Crean, Eugene

  Baker, Sir John (Portsmouth)

  Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn

  Cremer, Sir William Randal

  Baker, Joseph A. (Finsbury, E.)

  Buckmaster, Stanley O.

  Crosfield, A. H.

  Balfour, Robert (Lanark)

  Burke, E. Haviland

  Crossley, William J.

  Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight)

  Burns, Rt. Hon. John

  Cullinan, J.

  Barker, John

  Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas

  Curran, Peter Francis

  Barlow, Percy (Bedford)

  Buxton, Rt. Hn. Sydney Charles

  Dalziel, James Henry

  Barnes, G. N.

  Byles, William Pollard

  Davies, David (Montgomery Co.

  Barran, Rowland Hirst

  Cameron, Robert

  Davies, Ellis William (Eifion)

  Barry, Redmond J. (Tyrone, N.)

  Carr-Gomm, H. W.

  Davies, M. Vaughan-(Cardigan)

  Beale, W. P.

  Cawley, Sir Frederick

  Davies, Timothy (Fulham)

  Beauchamp, E.

  Chance, Frederick William

  Davies, W. Howell (Bristol, S.)

  Beaumont, Hon. Hubert

  Channing, Sir Francis Allston

  Devlin, Joseph

  Bell, Richard

  Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R.

  Dewar, Arthur (Edinburgh, S.)

  Bellairs, Carlyon

  Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S.

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

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

  Cleland, J. W.

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

  Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P.

  Isaacs, Rufus Daniel

  O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N

  Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles

  Jackson, R. S.

  O'Malley, William

  Dillon, John

  Jacoby, Sir James Alfred

  O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

  Dobson, Thomas W.

  Jardine, Sir J.

  Parker, James (Halifax)

  Donelan, Captain A.

  Jenkins, J.

  Partington, Oswald

  Duckworth, James

  Johnson, John (Gateshead)

  Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)

  Duffy, William J.

  Jones, Leif (Appleby)

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

  Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness)

  Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)

  Philipps, Col. Ivor (S'thampton)

  Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne)

  Jowett, F. W.

  Philipps, Owen C. (Pembroke)

  Dunne, Major E. Martin (Walsall)

  Joyce, Michael

  Phillips, John (Longford, S.)

  Edwards, Clement (Denbigh)

  Kearley, Hudson E.

  Pickersgill, Edward Hare

  Edwards, Enoch (Hanley)

  Kekewich, Sir George

  Pollard, Dr.

  Erskine, David C.

  Kelley, George D.

  Power, Patrick Joseph

  Essex, R. W.

  King, Alfred John (Knutsford)

  Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)

  Esslemont, George Birnie

  Lamb, Edmund G. (Leominster)

  Price, Robert John (Norfolk, E.)

  Evans, Sir Samuel T.

  Lambert, George

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

  Fenwick, Charles

  Leese, Sir Joseph F.(Accrington)

  Pullar, Sir Robert

  Ferens, T. R.

  Lehmann, R. C.

  Raphael, Herbert H.

  Ferguson, R. C. Munro

  Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich)

  Rea, Russell (Gloucester)

  Fiennes, Hon. Eustace

  Levy, Sir Maurice

  Rea, Walter Russell (Scarboro')

  Flynn, James Christopher

  Lewis, John Herbert

  Reddy, M.

  Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Walter

  Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David

  Redmond John E. (Waterford)

  Fowler, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

  Lough, Thomas

  Redmond, William (Clare)

  Freeman-Thomas, Freeman

  Lupton, Arnold

  Rees, J. D.

  Fuller, John Michael F.

  Luttrell, Hugh Fownes

  Rendall, Athelstan

  Fullerton, Hugh

  Lyell, Charles Henry

  Richards, Thomas (W. Monm'th

  Gill, A. H.

  Lynch, H. B.

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

  Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herbert John

  Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester)

  Richardson, A.

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

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

  Ridsdale, E. A.

  Glendinning, R. G.

  Mackarness, Frederic C.

  Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)

  Glover, Thomas

  Maclean, Donald

  Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.)

  Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford

  Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

  Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside

  Gooch, George Peabody

  Macpherson, J. T.

  Robinson, S.

  Greenwood, G. (Peterborough)

  MacVeagh, Jeremiah (Down, S.)

  Robson, Sir William Snowdon

  Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward

  MacVeigh, Charles (Donegal, E.)

  Roche, John (Galway, East)

  Griffith, Ellis J.

  M'Crae, George

  Roe, Sir Thomas

  Guest, Hon. Ivor Churchill

  M'Kenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald

  Rogers, F. E. Newman

  Gulland, John W.

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

  Rowlands, J.

  Gwynn, Stephen Lucius

  M'Micking, Major G.

  Runciman, Walter

  Haldane, Rt. Hon. Richard B.

  Mallet, Charles E.

  Russell, T. W.

  Halpin, J.

  Manfield, Harry (Northants)

  Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)

  Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Lewis

  Marks, G. Croydon (Launceston)

  Schwann, Sir C. E. (Manchester)

  Hardy, George A. (Suffolk)

  Mason, A. E. W. (Coventry)

  Scott, A. H.(Ashton under Lyne

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

  Massie, J.

  Sears, J. E.

  Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale)

  Meagher, Michael

  Seaverns, J. H.

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

  Menzies, Walter

  Seddon, J.

  Harwood, George

  Micklem, Nathaniel

  Seely, Colonel

  Haslam, James (Derbyshire)

  Middlebrook, William

  Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford)

  Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)

  Mond, A.

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

  Haworth, Arthur A.

  Money, L. G. Chiozza

  Sheehan, Daniel Daniel

  Hayden, John Patrick

  Montagu, E. S.

  Shipman, Dr. John G.

  Hazel, Dr. A. E.

  Mooney, J. J.

  Silcock, Thomas Ball

  Helme, Norval Watson

  Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall)

  Simon, John Allsebrook

  Hemmerde, Edward George

  Morton, Alpheus Cleophas

  Sinclair, Rt. Hon. John

  Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

  Muldoon, John

  Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie

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

  Murphy, John (Kerry, East)

  Snowden, P.

  Henry, Charles S.

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

  Soames, Arthur Wellesley

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

  Murray, James

  Spicer, Sir Albert

  Herbert, T. Arnold (Wycombe)

  Myer, Horatio

  Stanger, H. Y.

  Higham, John Sharp

  Newnes, F. (Notts, Bassetlaw)

  Stanley, Albert (Staffs, N. W.)

  Hobart, Sir Robert

  Newnes, Sir George (Swansea)

  Stanley, Hn. A. Lyulph (Chesh.

  Hodge, John

  Nicholson, Charles N. (Doncaster

  Stewart, Halley (Greenock)

  Hogan, Michael

  Nolan, Joseph

  Straus, B. S. (Mile End)

  Holden, E. Hopkinson

  Norman, Sir Henry

  Strauss, E. A. (Abingdon)

  Holt, Richard Durning

  Norton, Capt. Cecil William

  Stuart, James (Sunderland)

  Hope, John Deans (Fife, West)

  Nuttall, Harry

  Summerbell, T.

  Horniman, Emslie John

  O'Brien, Kendal (Tipperary Mid

  Sutherland, J. E.

  Horridge, Thomas Gardner

  O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

  Taylor, Austin (East Toxteth)

  Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

  O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W.)

  Taylor, John W. (Durham)

  Hudson, Walter

  O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

  Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

  Hutton, Alfred Eddison

  O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

  Tennant, H. J. (Berwickshire)

  Hyde, Clarendon

  O'Donnell, C. J. (Walworth)

  Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen, E.)

  Illingworth, Percy H.

  O'Grady, J.

  Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.)

  1838

  1839

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

  Warner, Thomas Courtenay T.

  Williams, Llewelyn (Carm'rth'n

  Thorne, William

  Wason, Rt. Hn. E. (Clackmannan

  Williams, Osmond (Merioneth)

  Tomkinson, James

  Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

  Williamson, A.

  Toulmin, George

  Waterlow, D. S.

  Wills, Arthur Walters

  Trevelyan, Charles Philips

  Watt, Henry A.

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

  Ure, Alexander

  Wedgwood, Josiah, C.

  Wilson, John (Durham, Mid.)

  Verney, F. W.

  Weir, James Galloway

  Wilson, J. H. (Middlesbrough)

  Villiers, Ernest Amherst

  White, Sir George (Norfolk)

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

  Vivian, Henry

  White, J. D. (Dumbartonshire)

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

  Wadsworth, J.

  White, Patrick (Meath, North)

  Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

  Walker, H. De R. (Leicester)

  Whitehead, Rowland

  Winfrey, R.

  Walsh, Stephen

  Whitley, John Henry (Halifax)

  Wood, T. M'Kinnon

  Walton, Joseph

  Whittaker, Sir Thomas Palmer

  Ward, John (Stoke upon Trent)

  Wiles, Thomas

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

  Wardle, George J.

  Wilkie, Alexander

  Waring, Walter

  Williams, J. (Glamorgan)

  NOES.

  Anson, Sir William Reynell

  Dalrymple, Viscount

  Morpeth, Viscount

  Anstruther-Gray, Major

  Duncan, Robert (Lanark, Govan

  Nicholson, Wm. G.(Petersfield)

  Arkwright, John Stanhope

  Everett, R. Lacey

  Parkes, Ebenezer

  Balcarres, Lord

  Faber, George Denison (York)

  Randles, Sir John Scurrah

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

  Fell, Arthur

  Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel

  Banbury, Sir Frederick George

  Fletcher, J. S.

  Remnant, James Farquharson

  Banner, John S. Harmood-

  Gardner, Ernest

  Roberts, S.(Sheffield, Ecclesall)

  Baring, Capt. Hn. G. (Winchester

  Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West)

  Ronaldshay, Earl of

  Barry, E. (Cork, S.)

  Goulding, Edward Alfred

  Rutherford, John (Lancashire)

  Beckett, Hon. Gervase

  Gretton, John

  Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool)

  Bertram, Julius

  Hamilton, Marquess of

  Sheffield, Sir Berkeley George D.

  Bowles, G. Stewart

  Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashf'rd

  Smith, Abel H. (Hertford, East)

  Boyle, Sir Edward

  Harrison-Broadley, H. B.

  Smith, F. E. (Liverpool, Walton)

  Bridgeman, W. Clive

  Hay, Hon. Claude George

  Soares, Ernest J.

  Butcher, Samuel Henry

  Hill, Sir Clement (Shrewsbury)

  Starkey, John R.

  Carlile, E. Hildred

  Hils, J. W.

  Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

  Castlereagh, Viscount

  Hunt, Rowland

  Thomson, W. Mitchell-(Lanark)

  Cave, George

  Kennaway, Rt. Hon. Sir John H.

  Thornton, Percy M.

  Cavendish, Rt. Hon. Victor C. W.

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

  Walker, Col. W. H. (Lancashire)

  Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

  Keswick, William

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

  Cecil, Lord John P. Joicey-

  Kimber, Sir Henry

  Willoughby de Eresby, Lord

  Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.)

  King, Sir Henry Seymour (Hull)

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

  Chamberlain Rt Hn. J. A. (Worc.

  Law, Andrew Bonar (Dulwich)

  Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm

  Clark, George Smith (Belfast, N.)

  Lee, Arthur H. (Hants, Fareham

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

  Coates, E. Feetham (Lewisham)

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

  Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George

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

  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—Sir Alexander Acland-Hood and Viscount Valentia.

  Cox, Harold

  M'Arthur, Charles

  Craig, Charies Curtis (Antrim, S.

  Magnus, Sir Philip

  Craig, Captain James (Down, E.)

  Mason, James F. (Windsor)

  Cross, Alexander

  Mildmay, Francis Bingham

  Question put and agreed to.

  CONGO FREE STATE.
  *MR. LEIF JONESrose to call attention to the affairs of the Congo Free State, and to move: "That this House, being convinced that the present system of administration on the Congo is destructive of the personal liberty and economic rights of the native population and of the freedom of commercial intercourse with the outer world, as guaranteed by the Anglo-Congolese Convention of 1884 and the Berlin Act of 1885, asks the Government to do all
  1840
  in its power to secure that a fundamental alteration of the system shall be effected by any transfer of control of the State from the present Sovereign to any other authority; and, failing such transfer within a reasonable time, assures the Government of its hearty support in the measures it may be necessary to take, either alone or in conjunction with the other signatories of the Berlin Act, in order to ensure the effective carrying out of its provisions." He said that in moving this Resolution he came before the House as the mouthpiece of what was most truly described in the King's Speech as "the great anxiety felt

  1841
  with regard to the treatment of the native population in the Congo State." The declaration in the Speech was received with deep thankfulness by the people of this country, who, without distinction of sect or party, shared the desire of the Government to see the government of that State humanely administered in accordance with the spirit of the Berlin Act. That night the opportunity was given to him, on behalf of that public opinion, to ask his right hon. friend whether they were any nearer to a solution of the problem and whether the Government were yet within sight of a settlement. That was the ninth Parliamentary debate upon the question within the last five years. It could not be said that they had been impatient. Five years had passed since the House resolved without a single dissentient to invite the then Government—
  "To confer with the other Powers, signatories of the Berlin General Act, by virtue of which the Congo Free State exists, in order that measures may be adopted to abate the evils prevalent in that State."
  The five years since then had been almost barren of positive result, so far as actual reform in the Congo State was concerned. The Powers declined to move, and the Congo authorities indignantly denied the statements made in that House, repudiated the charges as calumnious, and challenged those who had made them for proof. Early in 1904 came Consul Casement's report. That was the report of a responsible official of the British Government, and could not therefore be treated as merely travellers' tales or missionary stories. Under pressure from this country a Commission of Inquiry was appointed, to look into the administration of the Congo State. That Committee did not report till the autumn of 1905, and even then, though the evidence was suppressed, the Report, nevertheless, revealed a system by which the natives were mercilessly exploited to breed wealth for foreign masters. The land was the State's, and the products of the land; and the natives were driven to forced labour by an army of occupation, to gather these products. It was a kind of inverted slave trade. Formerly, they took the slaves to a foreign land and made
  1842
  them work there, but they at least fed and housed them well. But under the Congo system, the new slavery was even more profitable, for they made the people labour for them in their own land, and nobody was at any pains to see that the labourers there were properly fed and housed at all. That was a cheaper system which had been worked out by the exploiters of the Congo. The evils could no longer be denied and the Congo Government at once appointed a second Commission which they called a Commission of Reforms. That Commission was to consider necessary reforms. Nothing could be fairer seeming than that. The Commission sat for some months, during which time the system went on unchecked, and in the middle of 1906 come the reform decrees. Those decrees were full of those humane sentiments towards the natives which the Congo Government had so readily at command. Since that, eighteen months had passed under the reform system, and on Monday last a White Book was published and circulated to members of both Houses, which, he ventured to say, no one could read without horror and indignation, and which justified everything which had ever been said against the administration of the Congo State, whether in the country or in the Houses of Parliament. It was difficult to keep within the bounds of Parliamentary language in describing what was happening. He must let our Consuls speak for themselves in the treasured language of official documents. The decrees themselves were fair sounding enough. Mr. Michell, one of our Consuls, described them as "Pecksniffian formulae," while Mr. Beak said—
  "The Congo official Reports are a series of carefully fabricated falsehoods."
  King Leopold said, in a letter circulated with the decrees—
  "There is no more legitimate or respectable right than the right of the author to his own work, the fruit of his labour."
  That applied very fittingly, apparently, to the head of the Congo State in Belgium, but it had no relation whatsoever to the natives of the Congo. Under the decrees forced labour was to be

  1843
  abolished. What did the White Book say? Mr. Michell said—
  "The new decrees and the circulars applying them do not in any way modify the corvée system hitherto in force."
  There was forced labour to-day in the Congo State for transport, food supply, rubber, and for any and every purpose. The worst of those was the rubber tax, which the natives loathed the most. By law this forced labour was limited to forty hours a month, but in fact the natives had to work all the year round, gathering the rubber under those conditions. Mr. Beak told them of one village in which "the collection took up the whole time of all the inhabitants." Mr. Armstrong, another British consul in another district, said—
  "The natives assured me that they spent twenty days and nights in the forest in each month to collect the amount of their tax."
  In another village—
  "The natives work from twenty to twenty five days in the forest collecting the tax."
  In another—
  "The chief, capita, and the people were unanimous in declaring that they, the rubber gatherers, spent only four days per month in their village, the remainder of their time being spent in the forest making rubber."
  Mr. Armstrong summed up by saying—
  "There is not the least doubt in my mind that the average month's work of every native is not less than twenty days."
  So much for the abolition of forced labour. The worst feature, however, was that it was extended in full measure to the women who had to prepare the native's food. Mr. Michell described that as "an unmitigated evil," and Mr. Armstrong declared it was "without precedent" in West Africa. In order to produce her share of the bread to be supplied to the Government, each woman had practically to work incessantly twelve months in the year, and the testimony was that—
  "In consequence of the incessant labour imposed by the tax, the women have practically ceased to bear children."
  Well might Consul Thesiger exclaim that—
  "Forced labour such as this differs only in name from slavery."
  1844
  What was the effect upon the population? They were described in the White Book as—
  "Weary and depressed. The population is weak and obviously overworked and underfed."
  and Mr. Michell said that—
  "Though the blacks are accused of laziness, it is well to bear in mind that the climate makes manual labour very severe, even for the natives, who are naked, ill-fed, and worse housed than any other people. These tax their poor stamina to the utmost, and their struggle for life is hard. The infant mortality is frightful. The native has little heart for sustained labour, and the hunting, fishing, and the long distances he has to go for food leave him little energy for work that he considers quite unnecessary."
  It was no wonder that the population should be an easy prey to sleeping sickness, and that the country was being depopulated, and that village after village was described as having shrunk in size to a quarter, a third, and even a tenth part of what it used to be. Another great evil was the steady robbing of the country of all its resources. The forests were not properly treated to get the rubber. The vines were being destroyed. He would not take up time by reading more extracts, but the forests were being destroyed, the few cattle, the goats and sheep, which the natives had were rapidly disappearing. The reports of the Consuls showed that fresh food was becoming exceedingly scarce in the country. The administration of the Congo took no note of all that, nor made any effort to prevent the country from being wholly destroyed in that way. Justice there was none for the native, and no attempt was made at administration. Mr. Beak said—
  "Administration in the ordinary acceptance of the term does not exist in the Katanga."
  No attempt was made to govern the natives. The authority of the native chiefs had been destroyed. One of the most extraordinary features of the Congo system is the absence of any definite native policy. What was happening before the eyes of civilisation was the murder of a race. The natives were enslaved, trade there was none, administration none, justice none, the population decimated and enfeebled, a ready prey to devastating disease, the country robbed of its resources, its forests ruined, and

  1845
  its live stock destroyed. That was what twenty-five years of civilising, under the guardianship of the Powers of Europe, had made of the Congo State. What was all that for? It was all in order to enrich speculators who never set foot in the Congo but lived all their lives in Europe. No one knew the wealth which had been taken out of the Congo during the last ten years. £1,200,000 had been invested in real estate in Belgium. One company, Kasai, made £1,000,000 sterling in five years, starting with a nominal capital of £40,000. From the Crown Domain, specially reserved to the ruler of the Congo State, over £3,000,000 had admittedly been taken out, while £600,000 a year in direct taxes were taken from the Domaine Nationale. He would be under the mark if he estimated that £2,000,000 a year, by means of the methods he had described, had been taken out of the State during the last ten years. He stood there to say, in the name of outraged public opinion in this country, that that system could not be allowed to go on. The temper of the people was such that they would not allow it to go on. They thought the time had come for the Government to act with decision and directness. They were told that there was a prospect of Belgium being wiling to take over the Congo State from its present Ruler. He thought he spoke for nearly all the people of this country when he said that if Belgium volunteered that task of really civilising the Congo that would be a welcome solution. But they had to be on their guard, lest they should force upon Belgium this task, which would tax her very heavily. There was a very important article in that month's Contemporary Review, written by the Leader of the Belgian Liberals, in which he used a phrase which struck him very much. He said that Belgium was being "pressed by England to take over the Congo State," and in another part of the article he said that England "invited Belgium to take over the Congo." He did not think any action of ours should force Belgium to undertake this duty, because it was quite certain that if Belgium undertook it, she would have a heavy burden on her hands, and that she ought only to take it over with her eyes open to the consequences
  1846
  of so doing. Had not the time come when Belgium should be told plainly that we in this country could recognise no nominal transfer of authority from the present ruler of the Congo, but only one which would restore to the natives of the Congo their proprietary rights and liberties and open the Congo to real freedom of trade? He wished to say nothing offensive to Belgium's susceptibilities. We in this country were the traditional friends of Belgium. We secured her independence in 1831. We guarded her neutrality in 1870, and he ventured to say we were never more truly friends of Belgium than when we said she ought not to be used as a cloak to cover the nominal transfer to Belgium of the present system of government in the Congo. We were in possession of the proposals of the Belgian Government in regard to the future government of the Congo. He had copies of the Colonial Law and the Treaty of Cession under which the taking over of the Congo by Belgium was recommended by the Belgian Government. In that Colonial Law which had been accepted in its First Reading, at any rate by the Belgian Parliament, and referred to a committee, the future powers of the ruler in the Congo in regard to the legislature, the executive, and the budget, were left untouched. That was to say, if the Colonial Law went through in its present shape, the present King of the Belgians would have in his hands the same power which, as ruler of the Congo, he at present enjoyed, and there was nothing to show that there would be any further limitation upon his power. To be sure that had not yet been accepted by the Belgian Chamber, and they might hope that it would not be, but, at any rate, it was the proposal of the Government, and it was in regard to these proposals that he thought his right hon. friend might well speak out. The Treaty of Cession had actually been signed by the representatives of the Congo State and of Belgium and that had been referred to a Commission. The Commission had not yet reported upon it because they were told to hold their hand pending an additional treaty which would be submitted to them in regard to a special part of the Congo known as the King's Domain. The proposal in the original

  1847
  Treaty of Cession had been so severely criticised that fresh proposals were submitted in regard to the Crown Domain by the Government of Belgium, but there was nothing to show that this additional treaty, in regard to which he saw a rumour in the paper that day, that an agreement had been reached between the King and the Government, would modify in any important measure the present system of government in the Congo. Had not the time come when the Belgians should be told that we could only recognise a transfer which would secure full Parliamentary control by Belgium, and which would at the same time reverse the whole administration of the Congo and administer that country in the interests of the native inhabitants? If Belgium would do that we should all rejoice, but it meant a heavy drain upon the resources of Belgium—a drain in men, in administrators (for a different class of administrators was needed in the Congo from those who were there at present), and it meant probably a great loss of revenue, because three-fifths at least of the present revenue of the Congo State was derived from the forced labour, as he had endeavoured to show the House. A fair administration of the Congo in the interests of the natives meant probably that Belgium would have to do as this country had to do with regard to similar territories in Africa—she would have to make annual grants in aid instead of drawing revenue from the country. This question had never been submitted to the Belgium people. There had been no election fought upon it in Belgium. He did not think any election address at the last election contained any references to the Congo State. The Belgians did not know as much about the Congo State or its governmental methods as we did in this country. They were carefully warned against the sources of information on which we relied. They were told that they were born of jealousy of the "glorious" Congo administration, and the subsidised Press Bureau of Belgium had warned them against accepting the statements made in this country. The danger was that Belgium might ignorantly take over the Congo, and the protest against its administration, which would go on, no matter who the administrator might be, so long as the system lasted,
  1848
  would be, directed not against the Congo State, but against Belgium. There was a positive danger confronting us in Africa to-day which called for the closest scrutiny of our Government. There was a very significant passage in the White Book describing the condition of a certain section of the Congo State, where 7,000 or 8,000 men who had revolted against the Congo Government had established themselves. They had defied the Congo Government. They had set up a State within that State. They were fully armed. When they went they had but 5,000 old rifles. Now they were armed with the latest rifles, and they had plenty of ammunition. They carried on slave-raiding near Lake Tanganyika. The White-book said they might at any moment assume the offensive, and in this event a movement hitherto limited in its operations might become a source of positive danger. This danger was intensified by the growing hatred of the whites by the blacks throughout this territory. That was a point which Sir Harry Johnston had dwelt upon a good deal, and he was not an alarmist. Mr. Beak said—
  "I regard the view taken by Sir Harry Johnston as that of an alarmist, but I cannot fail to point out that there exists a sentiment of widespread hatred against the white man."
  There was a letter in Monday's Times in which Mr. Gilchrist said the natives told him that in their pursuit of rubber they crossed over the boundaries and went into neighbouring territories. He said: "Don't they fight against you when you do that?" and the natives answered: "We used to fight, but now we don't. We have pity on each other because of the white man's treatment of us." The white man's treatment of the blacks was consolidating the blacks against the white man's rule. So whatever Belgium might do we 'had both a duty and a right in this matter, and he welcomed the suggestion put forward in another place on Monday that more Consuls should be appointed. What they wanted in the Congo was daylight. These deeds that were done would not survive the full blaze of European observation. Let them have plenty of light let in. Let them have a stream of facts from the Congo, and let the Consuls have the means of transport in

  1849
  their hands and not trust to the monopolist transports which existed in the Congo. Let them push their trade in every way possible and let them not wait very long. It was difficult, in reading the history of the last five years, to resist the idea that the present ruler of the Congo had no intention of giving up his control of the resources of the State at all. The question was whether he was not by one suggestion after another, by one delay after another, by one specious pretext after another, playing with the Powers of Europe and preventing them from reaching a solution. Let them again appeal to the Powers. There was more light now than there was in 1903. Let them again appeal to them if in a short period they found that the Belgian solution did not take shape. In 1903 the Powers refused to join England—to-day they might be willing to do so. They knew from the most recent reports that in the United States the same feeling prevailed as in this country and in an intense degree, and they had every reason to believe that the United States would gladly join with them in any measure that might be necessary to procure reform in the Congo. Let them act with the United States. If the Government would act strongly in this matter they would have behind them in this country an instructed and earnest public opinion. After all, the people had always led upon this question of the Congo. It was the people of this country who over-rode the decision of the Government in 1884. The Government wanted to recognise the rights of Portugal in the Congo. The people rose against that under the persuasion of Mr. Stanley and other representatives of the Congo Association. They forced upon the Government of that day practically the recognition of the Congo State. They were responsible for forming that State. Now they knew that they were deceived. Unwittingly they made themselves parties in a great wrong, and they would not rest until the wrong was righted—until freedom in every sense of the word had been restored to the unhappy natives of the Congo.
  SIR JOHN KENNAWAYsaid it was a great
  1850
  privilege to second the Motion of his hon. friend, who had explained the situation with the greatest clearness, who had expressed the strong determination and the strong moral sense of the country in regard to this matter, and who had spoken with a statesmanlike moderation which must commend itself to all. The one complaint that he made against him was that he had left very little for his seconder to say. He would, however, like to go back a little further than the hon. Member had done and say how the Congo chapter of African history had been from the beginning a time of high expectation and yet of great disappointment. When Stanley made the discovery of the basin of the Congo, opening up such vast possibilities in Africa and so much fresh knowledge, there was the greatest difficulty in determining to whom this great heritage should be entrusted. There was the question of Portugal. At that time the hour had come and it seemed to some of them that the man had come also. The King of the Belgians in 1886 invited to his palace at Brussels a large conference consisting of different men of Europe, and he happened to be one of them, in order to discuss for a whole week the question of how Africa was to be opened up. He might say that the King of the Belgians inspired all who went to that conference with an earnest belief in his sincerity, and an earnest desire to redress the wrongs of Africa. A few years later with the help of Stanley he brought forward his plan, when Europe was in doubt, of the International Association of the Congo, and he posed as the champion of civilisation and humanity with such effect that he induced Great Britain to recognise his international scheme and to give him that assistance without which any further step would have been impossible. The whole idea was that it was intended for humane and benevolent purposes, but what was it now? Nothing but an enterprise consisting of the accumulation of rubber at an infinite cost of human life and suffering. There was no question as to the facts—they had them in the latest edition confirming all that had been said before. There was an absence of the maintenance of

  1851
  any law and order, let alone the prevention of disease or any settled government at all; there was nothing but a hideous system of tyranny, and slavery, enforced by cannibal soldiers, with loss of life and mutilation. The taxation imposed meant practically 20 francs a head per annum—an enormous amount for such a population as that. The labour tax, fixed at the pleasure of a local official, amounted to twenty to twenty-five days work in the month, which produced 3 kilogrammes of rubber which sold for 37 francs in Antwerp, for which the native received 1 franc 10 centimes and a small handful of salt. The demand for transport had already been detailed. No wonder that the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs in another place, speaking for the Government, had stated that the condition of things in the Congo was as great a defiance of treaty rights and of public law, as great a sacrifice of the interests of humanity, as anything the modern world had ever known. The noble Lord might well state that this was a condition of things contrary to the dictates of humanity and treaty obligations. The question was how England could bring the force of her opinion and influence, and her prestige and treaty rights, to bear on Belgium to put an end to this state of things. There was no question as to the position of the King. In a letter he wrote last summer he claimed the Congo as his own private property, and he was trying to sell it at the present time for £6,000,000. No doubt the King was beginning to feel that the state of public opinion would not tolerate the continuance of such a state of things, although he had spoken of leaving the Congo as his legacy to Belgium. But since the vote of last year in the Belgium Chamber, a decision had been come to that the question of annexation must be taken up. What was Great Britain doing now besides watching the negotiations? The Belgian people were beginning to place this question where they had never placed it before, and they must be beginning to realise the great responsibility which would be involved in the matter, and the necessary sacrifices which would have to be made. The question was how could they proceed in the matter. This was not the time to talk of gunboats. We
  1852
  wanted to avoid wounding anybody's susceptibilities, but at the same time they ought to rise to the height of the situation, and endeavour by every means in their power to prevent Belgium from perpetuating this system of the most cruel slavery. This country should make it clearly understood that the Belgium solution must be a real solution, and that with nothing else would the people of this country be satisfied. The Government had behind them a united Press, a united Parliament, and a united people. There was every encouragement to go forward. They might feel disheartened that no progress had been made, but the co-operation of the American people at this crisis, was of priceless value. They had just had an outside sign of this encouragement in the Report of the American Consul. Everything called to the Government to go forward so that, in the words of Lord Lansdowne—
  "An end might be put to a condition of things long regarded by this country with horror and shame."
  There must be freedom of trade in the Congo and guarantees for collective and individual liberty. The continued existence of the present state of things was a breach of treaty obligations, a disgrace to humanity, a danger to all Powers who numbered Africans amongst their subjects, and a hindrance to the spread of civilisation. Both the late and the present Government had shown their anxiety and their desire to go forward in this matter. The speech of the Prime Minister at the Guildhall and the mention of this subject in the King's Speech showed the importance that the Government attached to the matter and their desire to deal with it. They did not wish to force the hand of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, but they wished to encourage him and to assure him when he saw his way to go forward, that this House and the country would be ready to afford him every support. He had much pleasure in seconding the Resolution.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House, being convinced that the present system of administration on the Congo is destructive of the personal liberty and economic rights of the native population and of the freedom of

  1853
  commercial intercourse with the outer world, as guaranteed by the Anglo-Congolese Convention of 1884 and the Berlin Act of 1885, asks the Government to do all in its power to secure that a fundamental alteration of the system shall be effected by any transfer of control of the State from the present Sovereign to any other authority; and, failing such transfer within a reasonable time, assures the Government of its hearty support in the measures it may be necessary to take, either alone or in conjunction with the other signatories of the Berlin Act, in order to insure the effective carrying out of its provisions."—(Mr. Leif Jones.)
  *SIR GEORGE WHITEsaid he was quite sure he was expressing the feelings of every Member of the House when he said that those who were taking part in this debate had no desire to embarrass in any way the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. They had the deepest possible sympathy with the right hon. Baronet in the situation in which he was placed in regard to this important matter, and they felt quite sure that his sympathies were with those who supported this Resolution. Therefore, their action was intended to strengthen his hands and to give him what encouragement they were able to give him by the assurance that the great body of public opinion in this country was not only behind him but very strongly behind him, and that that public opinion justified him in taking an even more advanced position than that which he had taken up to the present in regard to this question. He agreed with his right hon. friend opposite that it was somewhat difficult to take part in this discussion without repetition after the very exhaustive history which his hon. friend who moved the Resolution had given. He desired again to express the great anxiety that was felt in regard to the prospects—he would almost say the immediate prospects—of annexation, without any deliberate undertaking on the part of Belgium to alter the system which they believed was mainly responsible for the evils which had been described. He felt that whilst his right hon. friend had no right, of course, to assume officially
  1854
  that this state of things would continue after annexation, there were many grounds upon which he might entertain fears that such would be the case. They should state their views in regard to the state of affairs in the Congo lest without due warning they should allow Belgium to enter on these obligations imagining that this state of things could be continued. He believed the public opinion of this country was aroused to such an extent that, should annexation take place without a complete and drastic change in the system of government on the Congo, his right hon. friend would be placed in a very serious position, because that public opinion must then force him to take action in circumstances which, perhaps, would be more difficult than they were at the present time. From all the information that reached this country, he thought they had the utmost warrant for not feeling any degree of hope that these great changes were contemplated. He urged his right hon. friend to take such steps as would leave the Belgian Government in no doubt whatever as to the determination of this country as to the existing condition of things. Hon. Members who were present recently at the great meeting held in the Queen's Hall and presided over by the Lord Mayor must have been impressed with the hollow mockery of the whole situation. At that meeting the reply of the King of the Belgians to the address presented by the City of London on the initiation of the Congo Free State was read at length. It must have presented itself to that meeting as an indictment of the whole conduct of the King of the Belgians, for not a single promise that he then made, not a single obligation he entered into in that document, had been in any sense fulfilled. If those obligations had been fulfilled, millions of lives would have been saved; unheard of cruelties would have been avoided; legitimate trade and commerce, in which this nation would have had its fair and reasonable share, would have been carried on; the rights of humanity would have been respected; and the twentieth century would not have had to hide its head in shame that such a page of history should be written. He had no desire to use intemperate language on this

  1855
  question, but it really was extremely difficult, in view of the circumstances which had been described by his hon. friends, to use language that was within the bounds of Parliamentary practice; and one was greatly tempted to say very strong things. It was the system they indicted—the system which denied to the natives any proprietary rights in the soil of their country or its natural products. The terrible charges had again and again been proved up to the hilt. Therefore, he was sure that the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs would not wonder that a very large number people were growing impatient. He would give his right hon. friend the credit for believing that he was growing very impatient himself. Many months ago now, his right hon. friend had said in that House, "We cannot wait for ever." They were asking when the time limit would expire. Whilst negotiations had proceeded, and despatches passed from one country to another, there had been no armistice to the cruelties that went on in the Congo State, and the natives had had no relief of the burdens laid upon them or of the cruelties which they had so unjustly borne. Even the Under-Secretary had said that these debates could not go on for ever without producing results. He was afraid that the results from these debates had been very small, and he was not sure that they were not likely to continue very small. Many of them had grave reason to believe that contentious debates both in the Belgian Parliament and here were looked forward to with eagerness by those who were reaping the results of their cupidity and crime. The last proposition that had been made was that the King of the Belgians was prepared to dispose of that which, in his judgment, never belonged to him for six millions of money. Here was an offer of the bodies and souls of men, and all that rightly belonged to them, for a few miserable millions of money! In consequence of the system which had been practised, the King had little to offer except a devastated and partly depopulated State. Lord Cromer, in his noble speech, had declared that the practices in the Congo were contrary, not only to the dictates of humanity, but to treaty obligations. Why had we not insisted on the enforcement of our
  1856

  treaty rights? We had in this case a combination which did not always happen under similar circumstances. We had the interests of humanity and of trade going along the same lines, but King Leopold disregarded both. This condition of things was intolerable, and we should make it known that we would bear it no longer. He knew that prudence was a great virtue, and especially in a Foreign Minister. They all greatly admired that virtue in the present Foreign Secretary, but he thought his right hon. friend had carried prudence as far as he could consistently carry it. They had admired the right hon. Gentleman's great caution in this respect, but now they felt that the time had come for something more than the exercise of mere prudence. There was a time when resolution became even a greater virtue than prudence, and he ventured to suggest that that time had now come. He and his friends in making this earnest protest were convinced that they were speaking what was felt by the bulk of the Anglo-Saxon race throughout the world. If there was continued refusal to carry out the obligations of the treaty, what was their duty in the circumstances? Of course, as an irresponsible Member of the House it would be easy for him to suggest certain methods by which they could enforce these obligations. For his part he would like to see the treasure which was so violently wrenched from the inhabitants of the Congo intercepted before it reached the coffers of the man who was responsible for this state of things. Ought they not to consider whether they had reached a point when diplomatic relations with the King of the Belgians should be suspended if he was going to justify his rule in the Congo—a rule unparalleled in the history of savage tribes? Ought they to treat him as one of the community of European sovereigns? Ought they not rather to make him feel that unless he could put an end once and for ever to these atrocities they could no longer recognise him as a monarch who was capable of carrying on his relations with the inhabitants of the Congo Colony in a way which was equitable and fair? He hoped that his right hon. friend the Foreign Secretary would be able to give some assurance that a forward step would now be taken.

  1857
  Surely the right hon. Gentleman ought to be able to assure the House that he was not standing alone, that there were other signatories to the treaty who were equally moved with ourselves by the horrors of the Congo? Was the moral standard of Europe so lowered that those tales of sorrow and woe for which they were partly responsible did not move them to take any action at all? He would not believe it. But if it were so, he maintained that this country, which had ever been in the van to take care that justice was done to native races, should instruct King Leopold that this nation was firm and consistent in its determination to put an end to such cruelties. And if King Leopold would not yield to this limited pressure, and listen to the voice of reason and justice, this nation would be prepared to back up our Government in taking the strongest measures possible. He had great pleasure in supporting the Motion.
  *SIR H. NORMANsaid that he would say nothing whatever of the existing facts in the Congo Free State. They were now proved beyond any possibility of doubt, and it was hardly possible to exaggerate them. Their nature was such that even to state them frankly was impossible in any public assembly. He asked permission to make a few remarks from the point of view of foreign politics in general, and of our personal responsibility as a nation and as individuals. This was not an academical question of high, complicated, and delicate statecraft. It was, as he conceived it, a question of plain national honour and, therefore, of plain national duty. It seemed to him that, without exaggeration or cant, we were so much involved in this matter that any man amongst us who knew the facts must feel compelled to say: "My country is disgraced by them; I myself am disgraced by them." If that view was right, it behoved every one of them, he would not say to bring such pressure, great or little, as was in their power on the Government, but at least to do what they could to strengthen the hands of the Government in taking action
  1858
  in the direction so ardently desired by the country. For his own part, he was certainly pledged to his constituents to do so on every possible occasion. As he had said, this was not a question of highly complicated, nerve-straining statecraft. People sometimes talked of Macedonia and the Congo. There was no possible comparison between the two from the point of view of foreign affairs The Balkan question was perhaps the most difficult, delicate, and menacing question in all foreign politics. It was the nightmare of diplomatists throughout Europe. It was a question which some of the most acute observers of European events despaired of seeing solved except by the results of an awful war. Moreover, the Macedonian question was one on which we were quite liable to the remark on the part of great military nations on the Continent that it was all very well for us to do the talking and the writing, but if conflict came it would be they who would have to do the fighting. There was a certain amount of truth in that jibe. In regard to the Congo we stood in a totally different position. We could make it clear that as a nation we had no ulterior motive to serve; we could impose upon ourselves a self-denying ordinance leaving us with perfectly clean hands. In the next place, we stood on an absolutely undeniable treaty right. In fact we in this country had two treaty rights. We and the United States stood as regards treaty rights in a preferential position, because our treaty rights antedated even the Berlin Act, to which of course we are also parties. As his hon. friend had said, our treaty rights had been disregarded in this matter in the most barefaced manner possible, and the defence of them was perfectly proper at the hands of the Government. In the third place, there was no risk if we moved in this matter of rousing the susceptibilities or envy of any foreign nation. He felt sure, and all of them who knew Belgium as he himself did would be sure, that in so far as in the future the Belgium people became acquainted with the facts, the vast majority of them would hold the same point of view as we ourselves did. There was no fear whatever that in any action we

  1859
  might take we should set ourselves in opposition to a friendly nation, considering how much Belgium owed to us in the past and how much her integrity depended upon us to-day. The steps we were called upon to take were certainly easy ones. As his hon. friend the Member for North-West Norfolk had said, there was nothing more easy than for un-official Members to point out what steps should be taken, compared with the Foreign Secretary, upon whom the responsibility rested. But in this matter the steps were quite open—the assertion of our treaty rights in regard to foreign trade, that no monopolies in the Congo should be granted, and that we should be officially represented in the country by Consuls with official districts. All those rights were so simple that, with every sympathy towards those who occupied a position of great responsibility, it seemed to him almost incomprehensible that there should be so much reluctance to take such steps. Finally, there was no doubt that we had the United States conscience behind us, and with that conscience we should have the strength also of that great nation behind us. The Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs said the other day in another place, "These debates go on, but no results are achieved." Too true. He was sorry that his noble friend could have made that remark, and he was sorry that there had been occasion for him to make it; but he was still more sorry for the truth of it. These debates went on. As his right hon. friend reminded him, it was fourteen years since he had first introduced this subject into the House; and it was nearly five years since his hon. friend on the Treasury Bench, the hon. Member for the Cleveland division, had moved a Resolution in the House, in terms of peculiar felicity, which was carried without dissent. The debates did still go on, and no results were achieved. Another Parliament had been elected, and the great representative assembly, and the great non-representative assembly, had debated this question and passed Resolutions. Many hon. Members had made eloquent and convincing speeches, but still, as the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs had stated, there was little better to say than that these things went on and
  1860
  no results were achieved. That statement, however, was not entirely accurate, for a certain result had been achieved. One more British Vice-Consul had been appointed in the Congo Free State! A second result was, as Lord Fitzmaurice had stated in the House of Lords, that the difficulties in Belgium were greater than before, and the attitude of certain persons there was more uncompromising. These were unsatisfactory facts indeed, but they were the only results except that to which his hon. friend had so touchingly alluded, those which had blackened the face of the world and seared their common humanity, in regard to what had taken place in the grossly misnamed Congo Free State. It was a fact beyond all possibility of doubt that the people of this country were deeply stirred by the horrors which had taken place there. It was many years since a purely moral question had come so close to the hearts and minds of people in this country, who would have had every excuse if they had given all their attention to the needs and demands of their own circumstances. In conclusion, he had two observations to make. In the first place—and attention had been called to this before, though too much stress could not possibly be laid upon it—that we incurred a much greater risk by waiting than by acting. It might be difficult, only the Foreign Secretary knew how difficult, to act now, but if we permitted the Belgian people; in ignorance to set their hands to a compact which we, standing firm on our treaty and human rights, could not agree with, then the situation would be an incomparably more difficult and more dangerous one, because when the Belgian people put their hands to a compact they would think their national honour was involved in seeing it through, and the position of our Government would be far more difficult. It was one of the cases very frequent in human life when the boldest thing was the easiest and safest. One remembered the line of the despairing king who said—
  "Words without thoughts never to Heaven go."
  And he would say, words without acts would accomplish nothing. Words spoken in this House and elsewhere, printed words in our newspapers, written

  1861
  words in our dispatches circulating around Europe all these years, without acts, would necessarily and finally degenerate into cant. Our national honour and our national dignity were involved in this matter. We owed it to our honour as a nation; we owed it to our dignity, standing on our treaty rights; we owed it to one another; we owed it to civilisation; each man, it seemed to him, owed it to his self-respect, to face this alternative—this was certainly not said in criticism of the right hon. Gentleman the Foreign Secretary or his predecessor—frankly now to face this alternative; either to begin acting or to stop talking.
  MR. GEORGE ROBERTSfelt that it was right that the Party with which he was associated should be identified with this Resolution, for, after all, they might claim that a party in Belgium, of kindred organisations and aims with the one on whose behalf he spoke, took a view of this matter that they themselves heartily appreciated. He felt, perhaps, that this was a fitting and opportune time for this Resolution to be considered by the House, especially in view of the special annexation proposal now before the Belgian Government. Undoubtedly, the question was hedged around with many difficulties, and he knew no party in the House who would like to utter any sentiment calculated to increase the difficulties of the Belgian people in the Congo; but having regard to the proposals made by the Belgian Government in November last year, which had regard to the treaty rights we claimed in the matter, this country had a duty to perform and ought to make its view of the situation perfectly plain. It was not his attention to allude very closely to the rule of King Leopold in the Congo State, but they found after twenty-five years of that rule the condition of things there remained unparalleled in any part of the world, except it might be in Turkey. King Leopold had monopolised for his own advantage the yield of rubber, gum, and ivory over nearly the whole extent of a territory twenty-four times the size of Belgium. He had imposed upon the natives, under the pretext of taxes in kind, a system of forced labour which he
  1862
  believed the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs had himself characterised as little short of slavery. Despite all this the income of the Free State was not sufficient at the outset to cover the expenses, so in 1890 and subsequently in 1895 King Leopold applied to the Belgian Government for aid, because he found that he was unable to carry on the administration of the Congo Free State without further assistance. He was lent in two instalments 31,000,000 francs, and in return the Belgian Government thought they had secured the unconditional right to take possession of the Congo whenever they thought fit, even during the lifetime of the King. The question of annexation seemed, under such conditions, to be a comparatively simple matter. But in 1906 the King addressed to his Secretaries of State an open letter, wherein he pretended to forget that the rights of Belgium were based on a contract entered into in consideration of money lent him, and claimed to make the eventual annexation subject to conditions of which he had never previously spoken. Belgium could get possession of the Congo, he said, but must bind itself to respect the private domains created by King Leopold II. himself, and especially the "Domain of the Crown" established by him for the purpose of bribing the Press, keeping his favourites, carrying on public works without the consent of Parliament, and other objects of an even more doubtful character. The Belgian people had become greatly alarmed at the prospects indicated by the publication of the King's letter. It had raised a genuine storm in the Belgian Parliament. Socialists and Liberals alike in that Parliament had combined in interrogating the Government as to whether it agreed with the King, and it had resulted in the House unanimously affirming the intention of Parliament to carry out at an early date the unconditional transfer of the Congo Free State to Belgium. This was thought to have settled the terms of transfer, but under the Bill introduced on 26th November last year Belgium undertook to respect the existing foundations of the Congo. That was a clear return to the claims rejected by a Resolution of the Chamber. To annex the Congo and to

  1863
  uphold the domains of the Crown would be to run a grave risk of the continuance of the present conditions of oppression of the natives, and at the same time might involve the country in a heavy-deficit, whilst the King would continue to derive his ample resources from his reserved territory. The colonial law indicating the broad lines upon which Belgium proposed to manage the Congo showed that the King would be left in full control of executive power, legislative function, and the budget. The Treaty of Cession embodying the terms upon which King Leopold and the Belgian Government were agreed in connection with the transfer of the Congo to Belgium left the whole system unchanged. The powers and privileges of the great monopolist trusts remained untouched, and the native population would be left in its present condition of economic servitude and bodily slavery. These conditions directly violated the Anglo-Congolese Convention of 1884, and the Berlin Act of 1885, under which King Leopold was thought to be restricted from doing what he liked with the Congo. He was looked upon there as the trustee of civilisation. So clearly was this understood at the time that Monsieur Beernaert, the Belgian Prime Minister who won the Belgian Chamber over to the King's scheme, described the Congo State thus—
  "The State of which our King will be the sovereign will be an international colony. There will be no monopolies, no privileges; quite the contrary; freedom for all, freedom of barter, of property, of commerce, and of navigation."
  All these statements had been frequently abused and the enterprise debased so as merely to provide profits for King Leopold and his financial partners at a fearful cost of human life and suffering. There used to be some doubt as to whether the stories which had reached the ears of the people in this country as to what took place in the Congo were true, but atterly they had had plenty of opportunities of receiving authoritative evidence, and no one could read the White Book recently issued without being thoroughly convinced that revolting barbarities were practised upon the natives of the Congo State. The whole system was based upon a violation of native rights to their land and products
  1864
  and to their liberty, and it was no exaggeration to say that a system of absolute slavery prevailed in the Congo State at the present time. In fact, he believed that the existing conditions were even worse than those which prevailed in the old days of slavery, for the slave in those days was sure of a sufficiency of food and shelter, otherwise his labour would lack productivity, but under the conditions obtaining in the Congo under King Leopold and those associated with him, they seemed to hold themselves under no such obligations towards the natives. The present modifications of the scheme proposed by the Belgian Government might provide that Belgian constitutionalism should be protected from autocracy, but their point was that the conditions in the Congo State would remain unaltered even with these modified constitutional adjustments. In the White Book that had been issued they found that through the operation of the labour tax the native was practically tied down from one year's end to another to a life of continual labour for the State. In fact, it seemed that the natives of the Congo State existed for no other purpose than to provide revenues for the King and the companies that had been established there. Not content with fixing the price of the native products, they compelled the native to accept his payment in kind in lieu of money, and this lack of currency in the State had been one of the gravest evils, because the native had no means of knowing what remuneration he was entitled to for his labour. In fact he received no standard of remuneration, and was compelled, he believed, to accept his reward in kind, which brought his remuneration down to less even than the low cost of labour as fixed by the State itself he having to dispose of the articles given to him at a small price in order to provide himself with the necessaries of life. It was said that the tax to be paid in labour and products was based theoretically on the idea of forty hours work a month, whereas experience went to prove that in practice the amount due was invariably exceeded and seemed to be limited only by the needs of the State or the working capacity of the native. The White

  1865
  Book showed such a state of things under the rule of King Leopold that seemed to him to warrant this country in intervening especially having regard to the treaty obligations that had been referred to in the course of the debate. In conclusion, he would say that the Party with which he was associated regarded the conditions in the Congo as a gross invasion of human rights, when the proprietary rights of 20,000,000 African natives in their soil and its products could be swept away in such a manner as was proposed by King Leopold and his Government. They felt that this country had a duty to perform in upholding its treaty obligations. We had a very heavy debt to pay to our common humanity. He was favoured by being able to associate himself with a question which was certainly not a party question, but one which excited no hostility in any quarter of the House or country. Everyone desired to see the Government take action to right these wrongs and to remove this blot from civilisation. It had been truly said that nations were the citizens of humanity, just as people were the citizens of nations, and he hoped in the course of his reply the right hon. Gentleman would be able to give the House an assurance that action would be taken to protect the natives in the Congo, and that this great blot on our civilisation would be removed.
  *MR. GWYNNsaid he supported the Motion before the House from a point of view considerably different from that of those who had already addressed the House. It did not appear to him that any European nation could afford to be self-righteous with regard to West Africa. There was not one which had not the deep black stain on its escutcheon. It was easy, whether the nation was Germany, France, or England, to frame a terrible indictment against it. But the Government of the Congo stood out by itself. The charge brought against the Government of the Congo could not be brought against any other Government. In the Congo they had a government not only administrator but merchant, which was the worst device of government the world had ever seen. That,
  1866
  however, was not a question for himself and his colleagues to consider, and he rose to make it clear that although this had been represented as a question of Roman Catholic against Protestant, the sympathy of Catholic Ireland would not be with King Leopold if it were proved as he held it to be proved, that the Congo offered an example of rack-renting on the grandest scale the world could show. Some of his colleagues took a different view from that which he now put, and, to be candid to the House, it was easy to see that the reason for that was that to a certain extent the outrages, or the supposed outrages, in the Congo had been such as to strain credulity. But most of his colleagues had taken that view from their instinctive distrust of the justice of Great Britain. He did not take that view. He had a great respect for the justice of this country so long as it had nothing to do with the administration. It was a most unfortunate coincidence for this country that, as the hon. Member for Norfolk had said, the interests of humanity coincided with the interests of trade. Let it be made quite clear to the world that their righteous indignation was not going to point the way to their political advantage. In this case the influence of the United States was infinitely greater than that of England, simply because she had no interests at stake. He recognised gladly that at the present time it was easier for England to intervene in this matter than it was some time ago. When in a fit of megalomania they engaged in promoting the Cape to Cairo railway they could not have intervened without appearing to aim at a definite, and declared political interest. He could not conceive how Belgium herself was ever to pass over her obligations to any other Power, and therefore pressure mast be put on Belgium to see this thing through. His concern, however, was not for the European Powers, but simply and sololy for the people of the Congo. African slavery was freedom to what went on there. He associated himself with the view on this whole matter expressed not by any Englishman or Protestant, but by the Rev. A. Vermeersch, a Belgian Jesuit in his book La Question Congolaire.
  *SIR FRANCIS CHANNINGsaid that he would like first of all to congratulate the House upon having a debate absolutely unique in its unanimity and remarkable for the suggestive, sagacious, and weighty speeches which had analysed the moral and political aspects of the case. There had been several comments upon the fact that upon questions this debate had hitherto become purely academic. He had no doubt that his right hon. friend shared the objection that had been expressed to mere abstract discussion and also the feeling that we did not want this debate to be a mere repetition of the long series of academic debates which had done nothing which would make any real change in the condition of these wretched people, or remove the shame and dishonour from this country for acquiesing tacitly in such a state of things or would aid the friendly people of Belgium to right themselves in the eyes of the world and of humanity. He heartily congratulated his hon. friend who initiated the debate upon the speech he had made. His hon. friend had said that we wanted daylight in the Congo, but he ventured to say that those who had followed the difficulties of this question in Belgium and in the Belgian Parliament during the last eighteen months felt that what was wanted was daylight in the Belgian Parliament. He shared with the hon. Member for Norfolk his opinion and appreciation of the judgment and caution and the marvellous power of rhetorical statement of his right hon. friend the Secretary of State. He might be wrong, and perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would clear up his doubts by his speech, but it seemed to him that the Foreign Secretary had a faith in the Belgian solution merely as a Belgian solution. If they believed with a blind confidence that with annexation carried out somehow, and with the Belgian Parliament placed in power to deal with the question, reforms would automatically accomplish themselves, and these horrors be one by one removed by publicity and discussion, then, he ventured to say, the history of the question disproved the assumption and ought to show the right hon. Gentleman that such an anticipation would not bear close inspection. What had been the course of the history of these
  1868
  transactions so far as the ripening of the Belgian solution was concerned? There was no doubt that in the Belgian Parliament that solution had been hurried by the impression that it was demanded by this country. There was no doubt that the King and his party had availed themselves of that feeling of British pressure in order to a certain extent to blind, bewilder, and mislead the opinion of the Belgian people upon the question. In the remarkable article which had appeared this month in the Contemporary Review by M. Georges Lorand, leader of the Liberal Party in the Belgian Chamber, it had been made perfectly clear that the people were not aware of the facts and did not understand the conditions under which annexation was being proposed, nor did they foresee its financial, moral, and political results. What had the discussions on the treaty of annexation amounted to? They had amounted to no real appreciation of the vital issues at stake. The only real point on which there had been a struggle between the Belgian Parliamentary spirit and the attitude of the King and the Concessionaires had been as to the disposal of the produce of the Domaine de la Couronne. Those who had closely observed the condition of affairs in Belgium must have come to the conclusion that the whole position was due to the fact that the vast treasures extorted from the sufferings of the people of the Congo had been utilised to buy and debauch public opinion in Belgium. The only concession obtained by these discussions in Belgium was that the Belgian Parliament and people were being bribed to acquiescence by being invited by the King and his party to share in the distribution of the spoils. He therefore asked the House whether they were right in allowing the matter to drift any further. Were they committed to the Belgian solution on the mere theory that the handing over of the Congo to the Belgian Parliament would bring reform automatically? It was the moral and political duty of this country, as a friend of Belgium and as the originator and guarantor of the very existence of Belgium, to make it clear to the Belgian people that in taking

  1869
  up this responsibility they must take it as a whole and not on any false terms. They must be made to clearly understand that there would be an economic loss and that they would have to face it. We could not let them proceed further groping in the dark towards a solution which they did not fully grasp, and which would inevitably lead them by economic pressure to perpetuate the terrible system of forced labour, which alone would, under existing circumstances enable them to make ends meet. He remembered that when the question was last discussed the noble Lord opposite very wisely and pertinently spoke of this as an economic question, stating that the European Concert ought to face the responsibility of enabling Belgium to deal with the economic side of this tremendous difficulty by granting them the right to charge certain customs duties. If Belgium really reformed the Congo system it would have to face a deficiency of revenue, and we ought to suggest the means and opportunity of enabling them to meet it. He had read the remarkable White-book placed in their hands within the last day or two. He was immensely struck with the various allusions by Vice-Consul Michell and other authorities as to the resources of the Congo in the cultivation of other produce than rubber, and in the development of other industries. There were many other products which might be developed and enable the Belgian Government, if they took the Congo over, to make it a paying State. Why could we not make it clear to the Belgian people and to the Belgian Government and Parliament that we meant business, and that we were determined to take our part, even at the risk of seeming to interfere, in making the conditions of annexation absolutely clear before they arrived at a settlement of the terms of the treaty of annexation, and to insist on all the principles of the Anglo-Congolese and Berlin Treaties being embodied in that document? We should also in the most conciliatory and friendly way point out to the Belgian Government by what methods they could work the Congo so as to make it a commercial success and pay its way without these horrors being perpetrated.
  1870
  We had a friendly duty to the Parliament and nation of the Belgians in that connection as well as in demanding that these reforms should be embodied in the treaty. He did not agree with the hon. Member for Wolverhampton that this was an easy and simple task. He rather agreed with the wise words which had fallen from the Foreign Secretary in previous debates that, although it was not so complicated a question as that of Macedonia, yet it was a question of profound diplomatic difficulty and of the gravest complication, needing the wisest and most cautious handling. It was for that reason that he regarded with satisfaction the fact that it was in the hands of his right hon. friend. He, however, urged him to attach full weight to the arguments of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton and many other speakers that we should not lose this happy moment, before the terms of the treaty were settled, to make the whole situation, economic as well as political and moral, clear to the people of Belgium and to make them comprehend that the whole of the Empire was behind our purpose. If we took this course here and now we should be in a far stronger position. A great statesman could make a representation to a people even in such a complicated and difficult matter. He could make a representation which would be accepted in a friendly sense of co-operation, and he invited the right hon. Gentleman to make use of words which would clear up the matter once and for all for the Belgium Government and place it on a plane which would result in actions and not merely in words.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir EDWARD GREY,): I am, of course, well aware that the strength of feeling which has found expression in the House this evening is a feeling not confined to this House, but represents an equal strength of feeling in all parts of the country outside. It is not, I think, too much to say that no external question for at least thirty years has moved the country so strongly and so vehemently as this in regard to the Congo. It is not

  1871
  merely both sides of this House that share this feeling; it is both sides of the other House as well. The debate in the other House, a short time ago, covered the same ground and brought out the same expressions of feeling. There was no dissentient voice at all. And I am glad that one hon. Member has in this debate recognised the force and volume which is added to the discussion of the Congo by Lord Cromer's intervention in another place. I do not think the matter could be summed up more forcibly, considering Lord Cromer's great experience, than by recalling to the House the fact that in effect he said that, in all his long and varied experience, the system in the Congo was the worst he had ever seen or of which he had ever heard. But now my task is more difficult than that of any of those who have spoken. I have to address myself to the practical side of the question, and I have also to do what I can to ensure that the feelings and sentiments which have found expression in this House, and which we ourselves know are genuine and sincere, are not misunderstood elsewhere. In the first place, there is no religious difficulty existing among the people on this question. It has been alleged that that has poisoned the controversy on previous occasions, and I welcome on that ground especially the intervention of the hon. Member for Galway, who has made it clear on this occasion in this House that it is not one particular section of Christianity which is represented, and that no religious difference of opinion affects our sentiments with regard to the problem. In the next place, I should like to make it clear that we do not claim on behalf of the people of this country any greater right or interest than is made on behalf of others, and that everything we say is said without prejudice to the interests that others may have. There is, of course, the interest of Belgium and of France, and the arrangement with Belgium giving her a contingent pre-emption which, though arranged between her and Belgium, has been known to the world for many years. I should like it to be clearly understood, also, that anything we say and any action we may take is not intended to impair or belittle the legitimate interests of any other
  1872
  country in the Congo, and that we have no desire to establish political or territorial claims for ourselves. On the contrary, we not only do not desire to assume more responsibility, but we wish to avoid incurring it. I should like also to make this plain—that in the condemnation which we have expressed, and rightly expressed, because I believe every word of condemnation uttered in this debate, is fully justified, there is nothing directed against Belgium itself. It has been too often alleged that our condemnation of the system of government in the Congo is directly or indirectly a condemnation of Belgium. No one recognises more fully than we do that Belgium up to the present moment has had no responsibility whatever in anything which has taken place in the Congo. I go further than that, and I would call the attention of the House to the fact that once the question has been raised as to whether Belgium should or should not assume responsibility for the Congo, a real genuine expression on behalf of public opinion in Belgium has taken place of anxiety, apprehension, and indignation at what the state of affairs has been. I am convinced of this also, that if Belgium is going to interest itself in the matter, Belgian public opinion will feel as strongly and judge as rightly as any other public opinion, provided that it has full knowledge of the facts. We have always favoured what has come to be known in debate as the Belgian solution, and I should like to consider for a moment why that has been so. The hon. Member for Wolverhampton said that what was wanted was acts. Yes, Sir, I agree; but what acts? The one action which really covers the whole ground, the one action which would be a satisfactory solution of the Congo question, is a transfer from the existing authority to some other authority. It cannot be transferred to ourselves. We have no right to put forward our claim to assume responsibility for the Congo, nor do we desire it. But without a transfer you will not get the question settled. The present existing authority is perfectly hopeless; and the policy of the Government has been directed to favouring and encouraging by any means in their power the real transfer from the existing

  1873
  authority of the Congo to another which will accept it with a due regard to its responsibility. The natural transfer is from the present Sovereign of the Congo State to Belgium. You cannot pass that by without passing by the right of Belgium which has been admitted. If there is not a transfer to Belgium, then to whom else is it to be? Belgium has shown a disposition to assume responsibility, and if Belgium does not assume it I do not know who else is going to assume it. I agree that if the Belgian Parliament should accept the transfer of the Congo State to the Belgian nation on terms which involve nominal responsibility without real control, it would be exceedingly disastrous. I do not believe that anything of the sort will take place. I cannot believe that the Belgian Parliament would agree to accept responsibility for the government of the Congo in the present state in which it is unless it was also to have a real and full control. I say at once that, as far as we are concerned, any semi-transfer of that kind which left the real control and the real Executive in the power of the present authorities would not be one which we should regard as giving any satisfactory guarantee that treaty rights would be observed. What we have contemplated when we have spoken of the Belgian solution is a clean and thorough transfer, and that means that the transfer should be such as to give real effective Parliamentary control. This is a point that was emphasised by Lord Cromer in another place the other day. Given real effective Parliamentary control, the other results that we desire must follow. In the first place, you will have gained this—that there will be a separation of the administrative from the trading element. That has been at the root of the whole mischief. The State has been the trader. If you have a clean transfer to the Belgian Government, with full Parliamentary control, the administrative and the trading elements are separate. In the next place under any such tranfer, all revenue, all taxes, whether raised in money or in kind, will naturally be devoted to the interests of the Congo State itself. But I go further, and say we agree that it must be a condition precedent to any transfer of the Congo to another authority, that that authority
  1874
  should take it over on terms which wil place it in a position to give assurances and to guarantee that those assurances shall be carried out and the treaty obligations of the Congo would be fulfilled. But at present when we do not know what those terms will be, and when as far as we do know anything, we know this—that there is a critical discussion going on between the Belgian Government and the Sovereign of the Congo State as to what the terms shall be, it is impossible for us to intervene officially between the Belgian Government and the Sovereign of the Congo State in any way that is likely to promote a satisfactory solution. When the Belgian Government proposes its own terms to Parliament, then we can express our opinion. But as long as the matter is in solution between the King and the Belgian Government, I believe that official intervention on our part would not contribute anything to a satisfactory solution. This debate and the publication of the White Paper may serve a good purpose in this respect. It brings out clearly what the existing state of things in the Congo is; and it makes it equally clear that if that state of things is to be put an end to—if the forced labour system that Mr. Thesiger calls "veiled slavery" is to be put an end to—there will probably at first be a large falling off in the revenue, and a corresponding obligation on the part of the Government of the Congo to provide for the administration. No one can read that White Paper without realising that there is a very serious task before any Government undertaking to reform the Congo; and that it may be burdened at first with a very considerable financial liability. One hon. Member repudiated the idea that we were in any way going to force the taking over of the Congo on the Belgian Government. That only shows how unaccountably misrepresentations of our intentions and actions are circulated abroad. I had never heard before that there was such an idea that we should in any way attempt to force anything on the Belgian Government.
  *MR. LEIF JONES: M. Lorand speaks of it as a recognised fact in Belgium.
  SIR EDWARD GREY: What I want to emphasise is that the fact that that has been in existence without my knowing it even, shows how extraordinarily

  1875
  one has to be on one's guard against misrepresentations and misinterpretations of anything that has been said. I could never have believed it possible that such an idea could have gained credence in any quarter. Nothing could be further from our purpose than in any way to impede, or fetter, or influence the choice of the Belgian people in the matter. All that we desire—and that is why I have been chary of saying much on this question—at critical moments is that the choice of the Belgian people should be absolutely free. But it is also equally desirable, in fact it is essential to a free choice, that that choice should be made with full knowledge of the conditions in the Congo at the present time. For that reason amongst others, I am glad that we have been able to publish now the Reports that are before the House. I should be glad if every Member of the House would read, at any rate, the very able summing up by Mr. Thesiger in the last Paper as to the condition of affairs in the Congo; and I should be still more glad if it could be read and studied in Belgium as it is studied here. That report of Mr. Thesiger has nothing sensational about it. On the contrary, he says that atrocities have diminished, and that the people in some districts are relieved by the present condition of things. But one can judge from that one paragraph in his despatch how appalling the situation in the Congo has been and still is. Mr. Thesiger says—
  "The system which gave rise to these abuses still continues unchanged, and so long as it is unaltered, the condition of the natives must remain one of veiled slavery. Their own feeling at present seems to be one of relief that the former acts of violence and cruelty have so largely diminished and that the sentry system is abolished; but it is very largely the fear of a return to the former state of things that makes them endure the incessant work and hardship entailed on them by the labour-tax with so little complaint except as regards the paucity of their remuneration."
  I do not know that you could have any stronger condemnation of what the Government in the Congo has done than that it should be said in a calm, moderate despatch that the present state of things is felt by the natives as a relief, when the present state of things is such as is described in the earlier passages—where the forced labour is such that, in some parts, each woman has practically to
  1876
  work incessantly for twelve months in the year; where, in other districts, under the most favourable conditions, 216 days a year are required for the men to collect the tax imposed, and where, in other districts again, the tax, which is assessed at forty hours' labour per month, makes the natives work from twenty to twenty-five days out of every thirty, and where you find that, in some parts of the Congo, where the amount of the tax has been reduced, it has not been reduced because it was regarded as excessive, but because, owing to the exhaustion of the district, it has become impossible to collect it. With regard to our own position in the matter, we have been invited to cooperate with the other Powers. Nothing would give us greater pleasure; but any one who realises the situation which we discussed yesterday evening will see that at the present moment it would be inexpedient for us to take the initiative in approaching other Powers to ask them to take up another question. But if they desire to co-operate with us, if they but express their desire, we will most willingly co-operate with them and give them the chance of sharing an obligation that any of them may desire to take. Our own obligations are exceedingly heavy. They are, naturally, if you look at it from the point of view of British interests alone, from the foreign and colonial point of view, heavier than those of any other country. We have no desire to add to them other general obligations, and we should only be too delighted in this matter to share our obligations with any other Powers who are willing to undertake them. And I do welcome, more than I can say, the co-operation of the United States. That, at any rate, we have, and the House cannot value that too highly. After all, the great weapon which has been of value in the Congo controversy so far has been publicity; but it has been left to us alone to give that publicity, and we have been suspected from time to time of interested motives. Now the United States has, through its Consul-General, come to support us in this matter. The United States is above any suspicion, any possible taint of suspicion, of interested motives in this matter, and the fact that the United States Consul-General has issued a Report

  1877
  from which, by the permission of the United States Government, we quote extracts in our own Paper—which is, in itself, evidence of the close co-operation between us—and which I hope the United States Government will publish, corroborating everything which we have said with regard to the government of the Congo, is a fact which must influence the public opinion of Europe. I can only say that we rejoice that we should be found working with the United States in such a cause as this, and I trust that the co-operation which has already begun between our Ministers will be continued and carried further. In dealing with another subject yesterday evening, I had occasion to speak of the impossibility of taking isolated action which would be effective. I do not place any such limitations upon us in regard to the matter of the Congo. But it must be borne in mind that the amount of good which we might be able to do in the matter by isolated action is limited, and that our power for good is vastly increased by co-operation with other Powers. Separate action we are prepared to take on behalf of British treaty rights or British interests. Lord Fitzmaurice, speaking in another place the other day, referred to one difficulty in which we are intimately concerned—the difficulty of obtaining sites which missionaries want for their chapels and other purposes connected with their missions; and he said that the reply of the Congo Government to us on this matter had been unsatisfactory. The reply of the Congo Government has been that, with annexation by Belgium in prospect, it is not prepared to alienate part of their territory. In a matter of this kind of missionary sites, considering all that has taken place, I do not consider that that is a very satisfactory reply. But I have agreed that at the present moment we would wait till the Belgian Session closes, which is, I think, at the end of May, to see what the Belgian Government and the Belgian Parliament are going to do in the matter. If it becomes clear from the present session of the Belgian Parliament that Belgium is going to take the Congo over on satisfactory terms, then, with regard to such a question as this of mission sites, or other questions which
  1878
  we may have to raise, we shall look to her, as we should look to any friendly or civilised Government, and we shall discuss with her questions arising out of our treaty rights in the same way that we Should discuss them with any other friendly and civilised Government. But assuming that this does not take place, and that after the close of the present Belgian session we have to deal with the existing Government of the Congo unchanged, then we must be free to deal with questions of this kind or others which may arise out of our treaty rights in our own way. I am not anxious to put trading questions in the foreground. Things are so bad that the trading and commercial aspect is really subordinate to the claims of human interests. We shall, of course, stand upon our treaty rights under the Berlin Act, and our treaty rights which originated in the recognition of the International Association of the Congo in 1884. But when you come to a state of things such as that disclosed in the Papers now before the House, you are dealing really with something which amounts to slavery, which cannot be regarded only from the point of view of treaty rights. It is a violation of the ordinary rules of civilised government. I agree that no isolated action on our part can cure or radically alter the whole system in the Congo State. We may increase our Consuls, we may give them means of transport, we may go so far as to establish consular jurisdiction. But even when we have done all that, we have not secured an alteration of the system under which the Congo is governed. But I would ask the House to believe that if I speak with hesitation as to the action which we may be able to take it is not because I am at all satisfied with those measures which I have already indicated. It is because I am anxious to discover, if I can, any further means of bringing pressure to bear upon the Congo Government But the matter is exceedingly difficult. Treaty rights have been referred to. It is easy to quote one passage out of various treaties by which the Congo State is bound, but you find that the whole network of treaty obligations surrounding the Congo is exceedingly complicated, and where you would like to act on one clause, you find that another

  1879
  clause makes it exceedingly difficult. Take, for instance, the suggestion of my hon. friend the Member for Norfolk, that we should go so far as to intercept the produce coming from the Congo. I gathered that what' was in his mind was that we should say that this produce from the Congo is the produce of slave labour, and that, as such, it is a trade which we are entitled to intercept, and which should not be carried on. The Congo is by one of these very treaties a river which is internationally open to free navigation, and you cannot interfere with free navigation on the Congo which is passing under a neutral flag. You are bound by international obligations not to interfere with the Congo. Though I do not say, by any means, that when we have dealt with the Consular question we have exhausted all the measures which may be at our disposal to put pressure on the Congo, still I say it is a matter in which you must move exceedingly carefully, and before I can go so far as to hold out to the House an expectation that we could go beyond the measures which were indicated in the debate in another place the other day, and which have been indicated here this evening, we shall have very carefully to consider what our treaty rights are. But the history of the question, from the foundation of the Congo State—founded to create freedom of trade and to civilise and benefit the natives—does give rise to some suggestions. At first the State undertook not to impose any import duties at all. Later on an agreement was come to under which it was to be entitled to impose import duties to repay it the necessary expenditure upon the moral and material welfare of the natives. The noble Lord opposite suggested on a previous occasion that, if Belgium took over the Congo and found that the financial difficulties were considerable, we might express our readiness to come to her relief by agreeing to a revision of those duties in order to provide her with a larger revenue. I am quite willing to take that into consideration should Belgium take the Congo over on satisfactory terms and should she desire some advantage of that kind for those purposes. It has occurred to me also that we might take the other point of view, and if Belgium does not take over
  1880
  the Congo, we might after all raise the question whether the consent which we gave to these import duties has not been given upon false pretences now that it has become clear that there is no freedom of trade, and that, instead of the country being developed for the benefit of the natives and the revenue raised by import duties or otherwise being spent entirely for the benefit of the community, the country is being exploited by forced labour and the result of the Administration has been to secure large profits sent outside the country. We might consider whether we should not raise the question as to whether our consent to the import duties had not been given under false pretences, and whether our consent is still binding. Coming down to more recent years, we have the Congo Commission Report, followed by the promise of reforms, and we have the state of things which is now disclosed in the reports of the British and United States Consuls. If you review the history of the hopes and aspirations with which consent was given to the foundation of the Congo State, you cannot but come to the conclusion that the State, as it exists to-day, has morally forfeited every right to international recognition. I trust and believe that if Belgium desires to take over the Congo she will do it with full knowledge and on satisfactory terms, but, should she not so decide, the question of the Congo has, in face of the full knowledge which we now have, in face of the hopelessness of expecting reforms from the present administration, entered upon a new stage. There have been results from debates in this House, and from the publicity which has been secured by our action. One of these results I think is the present proposal that the Congo should be transferred at all. But for the publicity we have given and but for our debates, I doubt whether there would have been any question at this moment of transferring the Congo State at all from the existing authority to another. But, whatever the result may be, whether Belgium decides to accept responsibility, or whether we have to take up the question in a short time and continue to deal with the existing state of affairs in the spirit in which I have indicated, we shall deal with it if necessary. I can only assure

  1881
  the House that the Government shares the strength of feeling which exists in this country, that they will do their utmost to find means by which that strength of feeling may receive practical expression, and secure practical results in the reform of the condition of affairs in the Congo. And we are quite willing, believing that every word in the Resolution before the House is thoroughly justified, to accept the Resolution.
  EARL PERCY: The period of suspense cannot be indefinitely prolonged, and we say so because we are anxious to do nothing to prejudice what is called the Belgian solution. I welcome the explicit statement of the right hon. Gentleman that the Belgian solution means for us an absolute guarantee that annexation when it takes place shall mean that the whole of the administration in the Congo, from top to bottom, shall be subject to full Parliamentary control. I have only to say, expressing the humble belief which I expressed last year, that once that control is secured, other reforms will probably follow as a matter of course. I find that the right hon. Gentleman has subscribed to that view, and that the view is also shared by Lord Cromer. We all recognise the financial embarrassment in which the Belgian Government may be placed by a policy which involves the abolition of the present concessionary system, and that must be abolished if public opinion in this country is to be satisfied. There is the recognition of two principles on which the right hon. Gentleman laid great stress this evening, namely, that the powers of administration should not be left to trading companies, and that the revenue should in some measure be expended on the country itself. I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman has made a statement to-night in regard to a suggestion I made as to a revision of the scale of customs duties in the Congo State. The right hon. Gentleman has said that that is a suggestion which the Government will be ready impartially to consider. I quite agree with him that we are inclined to look at the matter from opposite points of view, but I welcome his statement for this reason. I do not think the British Government could give a clearer proof that the motive which chiefly animated
  1882
  us is not connected with our trading interests, but is purely humanitarian. I do not think it is necessary for me to discuss the advisability of isolated action on our part or of our taking the initiative in promoting Concert with the other Powers. I can only hope that, in view of this tangible proof of British goodwill and our desire to assist the Belgian people in extricating themselves from any possible financial embarrassment, public opinion in Belgium will now definitely range itself on the side of public opinion in Great Britain and in America, and will insist that a system of slavery and extortion shall be allowed no longer to shelter itself under the folds of a Christian flag.
  SIR CHARLES DILKEasked whether he rightly understood the right hon Gentleman to say in answer to his hon. friends that there were two distinct limits of time beyond which, he thought, we could not wait. He understood the right hon. Gentleman to say that before the Belgian Government came to a final conclusion, he would put before them the views which he had put before the House to-night. The other time limit had reference to what he would call British interests, and the alleged violation of the treaty. He understood the right hon. Gentleman to say that that matter would be brought before the Belgian Government, if by May, when the Session ends, no such scheme of annexation as we can accept has been adopted.
  SIR EDWARD GREYreplied, but his words were inaudible in the Press Gallery.
  SIR CHARLES DILKEsaid that Questions would be put to the right hon. Gentleman on these matters.
  Resolved, "That this House, being convinced that the present system of administration on the Congo is destructive of the personal liberty and economic rights of the native population and of the freedom of commercial intercourse with the outer world, as guaranteed by

  1883
  the Anglo-Congolese Convention of 1884 and the Berlin Act of 1885, asks the Government to do all in its power to secure that a fundamental alteration of the system shall be effected by any transfer of control of the State from the present Sovereign to any other authority; and, failing such transfer within a reasonable time, assures the Government of its hearty support in the measures it may be necessary to take, either alone or in conjunction with the other signatories of the Berlin Act, in order to insure the effective carrying out of its provisions."—(Mr. Leif Jones.)

  DOG PROTECTION BILL.
  Order for Second Beading read.
  SIR F. BANBURYmoved the Second Reading of this Bill. He explained that its object was to prevent experiments on dogs. He held that the dog, being the faithful friend of man, ought to be exempt from having experiments performed upon him. There were many other animals on which experiments could be performed. He would like to see the hon. Member who would get up and oppose this Bill.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  MR. MOONEYin moving that the Bill be read upon this day six months said that the hon. Baronet in charge of the measure might have given a more detailed explanation of it. Although he opposed the Bill, he was in favour of the object which it sought to achieve. The whole subject of vivisection ought to be dealt with in a comprehensive manner, instead of a piecemeal fashion. They ought not to exempt dogs from the cruel practice of vivisection and allow other animals to be operated on. The hon. Baronet could have achieved the object he had in view if he had made the Bill more comprehensive. He would probably have been able to carry it through the House without any opposition. He was in full sympathy with everything the hon. Baronet had
  1884
  said about dogs, but he did not see why an exemption should be made of dogs in regard to the cruel practice of vivisection. He considered that the objects for which that practice was carried on could be equally well achieved by other methods. He was against the whole system of vivisection.
  MR. T. L. CORBETTrose 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.
  And it being Eleven of the clock, the debate stood adjourned.
  Debate to be resumed upon Wednesday next.

  TOBACCO GROWING (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Read a second time, and committed to a Standing Committee.

  HOPS.
  Ordered, That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the past and present condition of the Hop Industry, and to report thereon.
  Committee accordingly nominated of—Mr. Arkwright, Mr. Barker, Sir William Collins, Mr. Courthope, Mr. Gretton, Mr. Mallet, Mr. Napier, Mr. Rowlands, Mr. Edward Strauss, Mr. Verney, and Mr. Patrick White.
  Ordered, That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers, and records.
  Ordered, That three be the quorum.—(Mr. Whiteley.)
  MR. J. A. PEASEgave notice of a Motion to suspend the Eleven o'Clock Rule to-morrow in order that the interruption of the debate at a quarter-past eight for private business might not prevent the conclusion of the First Reading debate on the Licensing Bill.
  Adjourned at seven minutes after Eleven o'clock.

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
Standing Orders Committee—Report from, that the Standing Orders not complied with in respect of the London County Council (Tramways and Improvements) Bill [H.L.] ought to be dispensed with, and the Bill allowed to proceed, provided that Tramways 3, 4, and 5 be struck out of the Bill.
That the Standing Orders not complied with in respect of the petition for an additional provision in the London County Council (Tramways and Improvements) Bill [H.L.] ought to be dispensed with, and leave given to the Committee on the Bill to insert the additional provision.
That the Standing Orders not complied with in respect of the Thames River Steamboat Act, 1904 (Amendment) Bill [H.L.] ought to be dispensed with, and the Bill allowed to proceed.
That the Standing Orders not complied with in respect of the Dover Graving Docks Bill; and the Lower Thames (Grays) Dock Bill ought to be dispensed with.
And that the Standing Orders not complied with in respect of the Malvern Hills Bill [H.L.] ought not to be dispensed with.
Read, and agreed to.
Croydon and Southern District Tramways Bill [H.L.]. Presented, and read 1a.
West London, Barnes, and Richmond Tramways Bill [H.L.]. Presented, read 1a, and referred to the Examiners.
Swansea Valley Gas Bill [H.L.]; Llanelly Gas Bill [H.L.]; Crystal Palace Company Bill [H.L.]; Rhymney Railway Bill [H.L.]; Taff Vale Railway Bill [H.L.]; Creat Western Railway Bill [H.L.]; Fishguard and Rosslare Railways and Harbours Bill [H.L.] Report from the Committee of Selection, that the following Lords be proposed to the House to form the Select Committee for the consideration of the
1710
said Bills; (viz), E. Westmorland, E. Graham (D. Montrose), E. Cranbrook, V. Hood, L. Sanderson (chairman); agreed to; and the said Lords appointed accordingly: The Committee to meet on Tuesday the 10th of March, at Eleven o'clock; and all petitions referred to the Committee, with leave to the petitioners praying to be heard by counsel against the Bills to be heard as desired, as also counsel for the Bills.
Transfer of Training Colleges (Scotland) Order Confirmation Bill [H.L.]. Returned from the Commons agreed to.
Clyde Navigation (Superannuation) Order Confirmation Bill [H.L.] Returned from the Commons agreed to, with Amendments.

RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  FRANCE No. 1 (1908).
  Report, by the Hon. Reginald Lister, His Majesty's Minister at Paris, upon the French Colonies.

  EDUCATION (SCOTLAND).
  Minute of the Committee of Council on Education in Scotland, dated 25th February 1908, providing for the distribution of the General Aid Grant.
  Presented (by Command), and ordered to lie on the Table.

  NATIONAL DEBT ANNUITIES.
  Account of the gross amount of all bank annuities and any annuities for terms of years, transferred, and of all sums of money paid to the Commissioners for the reduction of the National Debt, and the gross amount of annuities for lives and for terms of years which have been granted for the same, and contracts for payments on death which have been made within the year ended 5th January, 1908: Laid before the House (pursuant to Act), and ordered to lie on the Table.

  SMALL LANDHOLDERS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Brought from the Commons. Read 1a; to be printed; and to be read 2a on Tuesday, the 10th of March next. (No. 22).
  EARL ROSEBERY: When does the Government propose to take the Second Reading of the Bill?
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord LOREBURN): As I said yesterday, I had hoped to do so next week, but, while I do not propose to suggest any postponement beyond a few days, as I have other work to do, and it is really not my legitimate business to promote Land Bills in this House, I should like a few days longer interval. If the beginning of the following week would suit the convenience of the House I would hope to bring the Bill forward then.

  THE ANGLO-RUSSIAN CONVENTION.
  *LORD CURZON OF KEDLESTON: My Lords, before the commencement of public business I ask leave to make a very brief personal statement with regard to a Paper which was circulated to your Lordships with the Parliamentary Papers this morning. It is an extract from a despatch written by the Government of India in my day to the Secretary of State, relating to British policy in Persia. It is dated 21st September, 1899. Your Lordships may remember that the noble Earl opposite (the Earl of Crewe) in the debate on the Anglo-Russian Convention, referred to this despatch with the object of arguing that the Government of India had committed themselves therein to an expression of opinion about the respective limits of the British and Russian spheres of influence in Persia which precluded me from passing the criticisms on the Anglo-Russian Convention that I had done. I thought at the time and I think still that it was a most irregular, and, if I may say so in the face of the noble Earl, who is so remarkable for his courtesy, an improper proceeding, that any one of His Majesty's Ministers should, without notice, suddenly in public debate, for the purpose of debating advantages, quote a passage from a confidential despatch of the nature of that to which I have referred. It will be remembered that I at once challenged the representation of my views given by the noble Earl, and asked him to lay the Paper on the Table.
  That is the history of this document. I may say at once that I accept the fullest responsibility for it, because I wrote the despatch myself. The argu-
  1712
  ment of the noble Earl was that in this despatch the Indian Government had intimated their opinion as to the proper limits of the Russian sphere in Persia; secondly, that that sphere included the trade route running from Baghdad by way of Khanikin and Kermanshah to Teheran; thirdly, that it included Yezd; fourthly, that it passed through Kerman to a point north of Seistan; and fifthly, that the Russians consequently would have obtained under this proposal a sphere of influence larger than that conceded to them under the treaty. A reference to this despatch will reveal that not one of those propositions can be sustained. As a matter of fact the Government of India in this despatch were not discussing a Russian sphere at all. They had been asked by the Secretary of State to give their opinion on a proposal which had emanated from Sir Mortimer Durand, the British Minister in Persia, with regard to the northern limits of the British sphere, both political and commercial, in Persia. Secondly, so far from including in the Russian sphere the trade route of which I have spoken, we used these words: "On no account ought we to forfeit British supremacy in this trade route"—a supremacy at that time reflected by an annual trade of about £1,000,000. Thirdly, of Ispahan, I said that it must on every ground be included in the zone in which British interests are supreme. Fourthly, we even said that Sir Mortimer Durand's line which stopped at Ispahan ought to be amended so as to include Kashan, a place more than 100 miles north of Ispahan, and that it would be unwise in British-interests for any Russian railway to penetrate to any point south of that town. Fifthly, our line included Yezd. Sixthly, we expressed no opinion in this despatch about the boundary north of Seistan beyond pointing out that there was no natural or geographical line of division there, and that this would be a difficulty that would have to be borne in mind by His Majesty's Government in discussing the matter with Russia. Throughout the despatch the Government of India stated over and over again, with an insistence that cannot be denied, that the regions of Central and Southern Persia, to which by the treaty Russia has been brought down, should be, and should remain, because of our interests there, inside the British sphere. I hope

  1713
  I have said enough to show that the spirit of our argument and indeed, the strongest individual points in it were no doubt unintentionally misrepresented by the noble Earl.
  I am well aware that the matter is not one of general interest, and I do not desire to push it; but inasmuch as the reference to the despatch emanated in the first place from the noble Earl, and his representation of the case stands on record, I had no alternative but to ask that the Paper should be laid, and to make this brief statement on the subject.
  *THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (The Earl of CREWE): My Lords, I am greatly obliged to the noble Lord for having given me private notice of his intention to raise this matter, which, while of no great general interest, is of some importance both to him and to me. I will not attempt to argue as to the propriety or impropriety of the action I took, but I think it will be generally conceded that a Minister has the right to quote from a State Paper if he is prepared to lay that Paper on the Table of the House. There is a peculiarly disagreeable form of argument in which I am sure the noble Lord will acquit me of engaging. It consists in accusing a person of something he has never done, or imputing to him opinions he could not possibly hold, and then demanding his gratitude on the ground that you have given him an opportunity of contradicting the statement. I am sure the noble Lord will not accuse me of any action of that kind if I say that I am glad he has had an opportunity of contradicting the statement I made; because my right hon. friend Sir Edward Grey and I did form an entirely different interpretation of the noble Lord's meaning in this despatch from that which he has stated to the House. It used to be stated of the late Mr. Browning that admirers of his poems were in the habit of applying to him as to the meaning of difficult passages in them, and he generally answered that no doubt he knew what he meant when he wrote them, but at the time of receiving the request he had entirely forgotten what the real meaning might be. We are much more fortunate, in that we have had a detailed statement from the noble Lord as to what his meaning really was.
  1714
  The statement on which I founded what I said was this—
  "Sir Mortimer Durand has drawn a line across Persia from Khanikin on the Turkish frontier on the west, through Kermanshah, Hamadan, Ispahan, Yezd, and Kerman to Seistan and the Afghan frontier on the cast, as indicating approximately the British and Russian spheres of influence, both political and commercial, in Persia."
  That passage having appeared in the despatch without note or comment, we assumed it was the view taken by the noble Lord, subject to the correction at a later stage in which he said—
  "In any care we should recommend that the line of partition suggested by Sir Mortimer Durand should be so far amended as to substitute Kashan for Ispahan."
  If I remember right, I think I particularly said that Ispahan was not included in the line the noble Lords' Government appeared to favour.
  The terms, I think, are open to misapprehension, because when you say a line is drawn through these important places, I admit it is exceedingly difficult to say in which sphere they are supposed to be included; for it is hardly conceivable that half of each town should be under the influence of one Government and half under another. But when I went on to say that in some respects I considered this arrangement a less satisfactory one than that which we proposed, I meant that, looking at the two lines drawn on the map, it was perfectly evident that the Durand line, if I may so call it, runs as regards the Russian sphere at a distinctly more obtuse angle than the line of the Russian sphere as drawn by our Agreement, and the argument I used was that the British and neutral spheres together, as compared with the British and Russian spheres mentioned in the despatch, at any rate so far as the Afghan frontier was concerned, showed a greater advantage from the British point of view. I most fully accept the interpretation of the despatch as having been what the noble Lord meant when he was writing on behalf of the Government of India, and I can only say further that I had not the faintest intention of misrepresenting the noble Lord, but that the misconstruction arose from some degree of obscurity in its wording.
  LORD CURZON OF KEDLESTON, who had given notice of his intention to ask the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the autograph promise of the Shah of Persia given to His Majesty's Government in March, 1889, and repeated on several occasions at a later date, that Great Britain should have priority in the construction of any southern railway to Teheran, that if concessions for railways were given to others in the north, a similar concession should be granted to an English company in the south, and that no southern railway concession in Persia should be granted to any foreign company without consultation with His Majesty's Government, which promise was referred to by Lord Cranborne in the House of Commons on 18th February, 1903, and by the Marquess of Lansdowne in the House of Lords on 5th May, 1903, is still regarded by His Majesty's Government as operative, or whether it has been abrogated or modified by the Anglo-Russian Convention of 31st August, 1907, said: My Lords, at the request of the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs I beg to postpone this Question to some day next week.
  THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Lord FITZMAURICE.): I have to thank the noble Lord for postponing the Question. I asked for a postponement because I did not see the Question on the Paper until yesterday, and owing to the great pressure of the debate on Macedonia it was really impossible for me to prepare the answer for to-day.

  INDIA—NORTH-WEST FRONTIER POLICY.
  *LORD CURZON OF KEDLESTONrose to ask His Majesty's Government in connection with the expedition against the Zakka Khel Afridis, whether the general policy that has been pursued towards the tribes upon the North-West frontier of India since 1899 is likely to be modified or affected by this expedition. The noble Lord said: My Lords, in asking this question I cannot refrain from drawing attention to the fact—the anomaly, as I regard it—that there is no permanent or official spokesman of the India Office in this House. I believe I am to have
  1716
  the honour of being followed this evening by the Secretary of State for the Colonies, and assuredly there is no man in this House who, from the wide range of his experience, has a greater right to speak on the frontier affairs of India; but the accident that the noble Earl is here and is willing and so singularly qualified to act as spokesman surely does not dispense His Majesty's Ministers from giving us a permanent official representative of the India Office in this House. It has been, not the unbroken custom, because there was a short time during which Lord Percy was Under-Secretary for India in the House of Commons, in the time of Lord George Hamilton, but the almost invariable practice for what I may call the great external Departments of the Government, that is to say, Foreign Affairs, India and the Colonies, to be officially represented in both Houses of Parliament, the Secretary of State in one House and the Under-Secretary of State in the other; and for my own part—I hope I do not hold exaggerated views—I regard it as uncomplimentary to India, and almost disrespectful to your Lordships' House, that we should not be thought good enough to have a permanent representative of the India Office here. At present both representatives of the India Office are Members of the House of Commons; but it cannot be contended that the presence of the Under-Secretary is indispensable there, inasmuch as for some months past he has been wandering about India at the head of a Royal Commission, engaged in the endeavour to decentralise the government of India. As he can be so easily spared from the House of Commons, it seems to me that the work of decentralisation of government might very well have begun a little nearer home, and that from the serried ranks of noble Lords opposite, some enthusiastic and enterprising lieutenant might have been selected to hold aloft the banner of India in this House.
  Now I pass to the Question of which notice appears on the Paper. An expedition is at the present moment proceeding in the mountainous country that lies to the west of Peshawar on the North-West frontier, against one of the most turbulent and treacherous of the frontier clans—the Zakka Khel Afridis. Every morning we read of the movements of our troops, of the destruction of villages, the

  1717
  blowing up of towers, and occasionally of a very lamentable sacrifice of British lives. I have little to say about the expedition itself. It is a very small affair, which has been absurdly magnified in the Press. We are only doing upon this section of the frontier what we have been called upon to do scores of times before, and what, so long as there is a North-West frontier and it is inhabited by the Pathan tribes, we shall have to do scores of times again. Under the able commander selected to control the expedition, Sir James Willcocks, and with the military authority and experience behind him, I have no doubt the expedition will be conducted as ably and expeditiously as possible. For my own part I limit my reference to the expedition itself to saying that I wish for it the most rapid, most complete, and most inexpensive success.
  I think it would be most unfair to criticise either His Majesty's Government or the Government of India for the policy or the fact of this expedition. If there is a body of men, if there is a responsible Government in the world that is apt to exhibit almost illimitable patience in the face of extreme frontier provocation and to push that attitude to the point of procrastination and almost of weakness, it is the Government of India. It is with the utmost difficulty that, in the face of almost incessant raids, you can persuade the Government of India to act, and the reason is that, as the noble Earl knows so well, even a petty frontier expedition is not an agreeable experience either for the Administration that authorises it or for the soldiers who have to take part in it. We have to go into a country forbidding, difficult, and inaccessible to a degree; we are dealing with an enemy habituated to every form and habit of guerilla warfare in the hills. Nobody, when an expedition is started, can possibly foresee what form or development it may ultimately assume, and, even if attended with the maximum of success, no very striking or permanent results can be obtained. Therefore, the Government of India has always shrunk from, and, I think, rightly shrunk from, embarking upon any policy of this description.
  But, in the present instance the case for the expedition seems to me to be absolutely unanswerable. When a tribe
  1718
  that is inside the British political frontier, which is in receipt of subsidies supposed to be an acknowledgment of its good behaviour, which has no legitimate cause of complaint, which is not at enmity with ourselves, nevertheless out of "sheer cussedness," or what the late Mr. Gladstone would have described as "original sin," persists in attacking and killing British subjects, destroying British villages, driving off British cattle, and even executing a most daring and successful raid into the great walled town of Peshawar, I say that when such a combination of circumstances occurs, any Secretary of State and any Government of India that did not immediately undertake reprisals would have been unworthy of their position and name. The only criticisms I should be at all disposed to offer upon events so far as they have taken place would be, first, that it seems to me that the police arrangements on our side of the frontier which admitted of these daring and successful raids must have been rather defective; secondly, that the cup of the Zakka Khel, now regarded as brimming over, has in reality been full for the best part of a year, and that, in all probability, the Government, instead of striking now ought to have struck nearly a year ago; and, thirdly, that the expedition was unfortunately so thoroughly well advertised in advance that all chance of a surprise must have vanished even before our troops marched out of Peshawar. My own experience in India was that the success of reprisals was in proportion to the speed and unexpectedness of the attack delivered. Possibly there may have been circumstances unknown to me in the present case which rendered a rapid concentration of troops, or a sudden dash across the frontier, impossible; but the fact remains that there has been no element of surprise about the matter at all. Subject to these criticisms, which are of a very minor character, I have nothing whatever to say against the expediency of this expedition; it seems to me thoroughly justified, while, on the military aspect of the case, I am quite content to leave the matter to the judgment of the expert authorities in India, who know just about as much of the tactics of the tribes and the geography of the frontier as we in this House know

  1719
  about the tactics of the Whips and the lobbies of your Lordships' House.
  A much more important question is however raised when we proceed to consider the part this expedition is intended to play, or is likely to play, in the general scheme of frontier policy in India, and the degree to which its consequences have been thought out by those who authorised it. This question can be considered in a narrower and in a wider aspect. The former is almost entirely strategical in character. I gather from the papers that the expedition has entered the Bazar Valley, a valley lying to the south of the Khyber Pass, where the troops are engaged in the demolition of stone breastworks, in the destruction of towers, and generally in making things as uncomfortable as possible for the Zakka Khel. But the Bazar Valley where the troops are is not the main or the largest place of settlement of the Zakka Khel Afridis. As the noble Earl knows very well, their settlement extends over the greater part of the Bara Valley south of the Bazar Valley, a much larger area and much more inaccessible because of the difficulty of the passes. Not only so, but the Zakka Khel settlements extend over the whole of Tirah, the region in the mountains on the frontier which gave its name to the campaigns of 1896–7. I have no knowledge of the plans of the Government or of the military commanders responsible for the expedition, and I should be the last man to press for information which the noble Earl may consider it undesirable or inexpedient to give. I am sure that His Majesty's Government must be as anxious as any one can be to contract the area of their responsibilities in this case, for everyone familiar with frontier warfare in India knows that the further afield you go the greater is the chance of extending the area of conflagration with its dangerous consequences. All I ask the noble Earl to tell us (if he thinks it desirable to do so), therefore, is whether His Majesty's Government have found it in their power to place, or are likely soon to find it in their power to place, any geographical limits to the operations of our troops.
  I now turn to the much larger issue, the bearing of this expedition upon our frontier policy as a whole. The question I have put upon the Paper is "whether the general policy that has been pursued
  1720
  towards the tribes upon the North-West frontier of India since 1899 is likely to be modified or affected by this expedition." It is now twelve years ago since the first of these risings took place on the frontier, which spread like wildfire north and south, and presently involved the whole frontier in a conflagration which was only extinguished by the long series of military operations described as the Tirah campaign. When I went out to India and took over from the noble Lord at the beginning of 1899, the campaign was at an end, and he will remember that the first duty which devolved upon the new Government of India was to endeavour to construct some rational plan of settlement which should be in accordance with the lines laid down by the then Secretary of State, Lord G. Hamilton, and which should, if possible, rest on general principles of more than transitory application with regard to the frontier. The question that confronted us at that time was one of the most difficult any Government could have to deal with. In the case of the Indian frontier you are dealing with tribes that differ very materially in racial and personal characteristics, and the degree of civilisation or non-civilisation they have attained; but they are united in certain common features, every man of them from boyhood upwards being inured to a life of blood feuds, of rapine, of murder, and of disorder. Raiding to them is not merely a hereditary pastime, but owing to the sterile and forbidding character of the country in which they live it is often an economic necessity. Finally, however quiet they may appear to be, there is scarcely any one of these tribes that is not capable of being carried off its legs and swept away by some tornado of passionate emotion or some influence of religious fanaticism which we can neither foresee nor control.
  Further, my Lords, these tribes not merely inhabit a country which, as I have already described, is unusually rugged and difficult of approach, but they are in the peculiar and almost paradoxical position of both being inside and outside the frontier of India. Let me explain what I mean. They are outside the frontier of India in this sense. They are outside the administrative border of India—that is to say, those territories

  1721
  over which we exercise full administrative control, and from which we draw revenue. But they are inside the political border of India—that is, the line drawn by Sir Mortimer Durand when sent by the noble Marquess (Lord Lansdowne) to Kabul in 1893 to come to an arrangement with the Ameer of Afghanistan as to the line of division between his dominions and ours. That line, ever since known as the Durand line, was drawn by him, and it constitutes the outer political frontier of the British Empire in that part of Asia. Up to that line all the tribes are within the British Protectorate, although the degree of control which we exercise over them varies much in individual cases, according to the character of the country and the importance of the roads and passes in it, and the degree of order and civilisation prevailing among the tribes. Still, up to the line we have a perfect right to deal as we please with the tribes, and our right is limited only by considerations of policy, prudence, and caution.
  The general principles which we laid down in India in 1899, which we sent home to the Government and which were accepted here, were the following: In the first place, we decided to withdraw from the territory lying outside the administrative frontier as many as possible of the Regular troops who, partly owing to the Tirah campaign and partly owing to the military arrangements existing at that time, were cantoned beyond the border. We held, and I think rightly held, that that was work for which our Regular troops were neither recruited nor suited; and so effectively was that policy carried out that whereas when I went to India there were as many as 15,000 Regulars across the frontier, when I left there were little more than 4,000, almost entirely placed in the important positions of Samana and Chitral. Secondly, in place of the Regulars whom we withdrew, we placed in this tribal territory for the military protection and security of the country, forces of tribal Militia, levies and police, recruited from the tribesmen themselves, and commanded and disciplined by young English officers, the very best that we could get for the work. When I left India these tribal forces amounted to 10,000 men. Thirdly, we did our best to improve and perfect
  1722
  our system of roads and railways and communications behind the frontier in order to be able to reinforce any point that might be threatened by rising in the future. Then we proceeded to create out of the districts of the province of the Punjab lying adjacent to the frontier a separate Administration known as the North-West Frontier province, under an officer specially selected for his knowledge of the frontier and of the tribes, and directly responsible to the Government of India. I believe that was a policy not altogether favoured by the noble Earl when in India, but I am sure he will be the first to admit that in its execution it has been a complete success, and that neither his Government nor any other Government, either in India or here, is for the present, at any rate, at all likely to depart from it. Then we continued to the tribes the system of subsidies and allowances which had existed before, endeavouring to fix tribal responsibility to the best of our power. Lastly, and this is the most important point of all, our policy was to interfere as little as possible with the internal organisation and independence of the tribes, and by a policy of steady persistence in conciliation to endeavour to win them over to our side. I think that is a fair summary of the policy that was accepted in 1899.
  May I say at once that this policy was undoubtedly open—I have never denied it—to possible objections, and oven to positive risks. There was the risk involved to the individuals concerned. Every one of these young British officers to whom I alluded just now, who went out into the far country in the hills to act as officer of a half-trained, half-disciplined body of native Militia, carried his life in his hands. He was perfectly willing to do it. He esteemed it an honour for the sake of his country to do it. But he ran that risk, and in a number of cases—a regrettable number of cases—he fell a victim to the knife or the bullet of the fanatic on the border. That is no doubt a heavy price to pay, but it is the price we have to pay inside the border as well as outside it, and it is a risk which nobody who has served on the border of India is not at any time willing to incur. The policy undoubtedly involved a considerable element of confidence in the tribes, because, supposing

  1723
  the tribesmen refused to join the Militia, or that the best and most law-abiding among them having joined the Militia and taken our pay, the remainder of the tribes continued to pursue their policy of lawless depredation upon British subjects on the frontier, it is obvious that from that moment the scheme would be imperilled, and if it broke down there would be no alternative but to resort as before to force and to compel the people to a reluctant submission. All these arguments were urged against the policy at the time. They were carefully considered by the Government, but they did not deter us from adopting it. But after all, is not the main test of any frontier policy in India the degree of peace and tranquillity that it gives to the areas concerned? On this point it is quite easy to reassure your Lordships, and by that test let our frontier policy be judged. Whereas, in the fifty years that elapsed between the annexation of the Punjab and the frontier campaign of 1897, to which I have referred, there were no fewer than forty expeditions across the border, during the ten years that have elapsed since that date, with the single exception of the punitive counter raids which we undertook in order to finish up the blockade of the Waziri tribes, there has been no warfare of any description on the frontier. The Militia, to the institution of which I have referred, have been, on the whole, successful—so successful, at any rate, that the Commander-in-Chief in India has twice recommended an increase in their numbers, and in the range of their responsibilities, and most important of all, I think we have really convinced the majority of the tribes that the British Government has every desire to respect their religion, their country and their independence.
  In spite of these considerations, it is fair to admit that there has always existed, and I daresay there does now exist, a party in India, backed by the highest military authority—although I believe it to be a party dwindling in numbers and in importance—which does not agree with the views I have put before your Lordships this afternoon. They hold that that policy is an unwise one, that it is certain sooner or later to break down, and, in fact, that it ought to be abandoned now. Their argument, in so far as I can do justice to it, is as follows: They say
  1724
  that it is unwise and undesirable to have these indeterminate relations with the tribes, that so long as you have a frontier which is the outer line of British influence you ought to hold with full power and full assertion of administrative and executive authority up to that line; that in the event of our ever having to make a military advance into Afghanistan it would be a terrible danger to have this great force of half-disciplined, half-armed and possibly hostile men upon our flank; that the real policy should be to get round these tribes to surround them, so to speak, with a military cordon, and that only in that way can we solve the frontier question and obtain permanent tranquillity on the border. This scheme of policy, which I have ventured to describe to your Lordships, is perfectly intelligible. It is logical in structure, it is forcible and indeed most drastic in its methods, and the results which it might obtain, if they were obtained, are, indeed, such as it would be worth paying a considerable price for.
  But, my Lords, this scheme, like many schemes very symmetrical in character, drawn up in official bureaux, suffers from the incurable defect that it is wholly impracticable. It is impracticable for this reason. Before it could obtain the results I have described, you would have your frontiers in India ablaze from one end to the other. You would have not merely one Tirah campaign, but a succession of Tirah campaigns. It would be the experience of Russia in the Caucasus, which I think lasted for twenty or twenty-five years, over again in India. At the time when there is or has been a certain amount of unrest in India—an unrest which I believe to be happily subsiding—it would be surely a most unfortunate and gratuitously unwise thing to add to our responsibilities the burden of possible complications and fighting upon the frontier. You could not carry through that plan without adding very largely to the Indian Army; and if you not merely increase the Indian Army, but throw in the cost of the campaigns that would be entailed, you would impose not only a considerable but an almost intolerable burden on Indian finances. Once started upon this plan you would not be able to stop at any definite point; you would have to go on until you had

  1725
  subjugated the entire frontier, from north to south. And, above all, there would be the risk, the not inappreciable risk, of complications and possibly of collision with the Ameer of Afghanistan. Therefore it seems to me to be imperative that we should dismiss the ambitious but too perilous programme which I have described, and restrict ourselves to the steady pursuance of the more modest policy which I have endeavoured to place before your Lordships. I think the day may one day come when we shall be driven out of this attitude by the tribes themselves, but if that be so, let us not be impelled by any act of our own or before the compulsion becomes irresistible. I do look forward to a distant future, when the whole of these frontier tribesmen will fall completely under British control. It seems almost impossible to contemplate that for an indefinite period, viewing modern standards of order and civilisation, these wild and lawless men can be allowed from birth to the grave to pursue upon the British frontier their career of rapine and crime. Should the day ever come when they are definitely incorporated within our system there would, I think, be one invaluable result, viz., they would constitute the most splendid recruits for the Indian Army of the future. But that day is not yet. We must not even look for it in the near future. For the present we must, I think, confine our view to a narrower horizon and to less substantial results. We certainly ought not to exhibit any weakness or fear on the frontier. We must strike hard and strike rapidly when the provocation occurs, as I understand His Majesty's Government are doing in the present case. But let us continue as long as we possibly can to pursue our policy of respect for the independence and sentiment of the tribes.
  I think it may fairly be said that the omens in favour of such a policy are most encouraging. In the first place, there is the ten years peace to which I have referred. Now, my Lords, ten years peace on the Indian frontier constitutes a very solid and very valuable asset. As I have already pointed out, it is an experience that we have not been able to point to for fifty years. Every year gained for peace is a year taken away from the forces of violence and disorder.
  1726
  Every such year means a saving of so many lakhs of rupees and so many valuable lives. Every year so gained is a step forward towards an ultimate solution of this question, which will be a pacific and not a violent solution, because the more experience the tribesmen have of peace and its advantages, and more particularly its economic advantages, the more will they turn away and be averse from the pursuit of war.
  Finally, there is one illustration which I should like to mention of the concrete results of the policy which I have described. There is a part of the frontier which the noble Earl will remember, known as the Swat Valley. It was a name of very sinister omen in his day, because the people of the Swat Valley were one of the most formidable and dangerous of our antagonists in those campaigns, and because from the Swat Valley starts that road which we made through Dir to Chitral, which was the source of so many bitter contentions and such gloomy prophecies ten or twelve years ago. Now, if I might make a personal reference I would say this: There is no more unwise or unedifying experience than to look up one's old speeches; nobody else ever does it for you, and the less you do it yourself the better. But somebody the other day called my attention to a speech which I made as Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in the House of Commons exactly ten years ago on the frontier campaign, just before I went to India. On looking up that speech, which I had completely forgotten, I found that I committed myself to a prophecy, indeed I said that I would stake all I possessed, that within ten years of that date there would be peace and tranquillity upon the Chitral road Everybody, I am afraid, regarded that as a wild and fantastic exhibition of extravagance on the part of an ambitious and illtutored mind. But standing here to-day, almost exactly to a day ten years later, I am able to tell your Lordships that that prophecy has been strictly fulfilled. Not only is the road running from Swat to Chitral safe, but the Swat Valley itself, which was a storm point on the frontier in 1897, is now almost the most peaceful section of the border. What is my point? Why has this change been produced? It has been

  1727
  produced, I say, for three reasons and three alone. In the first place we did not annex the country of the tribesmen; secondly, we have ever since given them well-paid occupation as levies, and in other capacities in connection with the road; and, thirdly, in the ten years of peace that have intervened the country has grown fat and prosperous, and the tribesmen themselves have turned to trade and irrigation, and their present position is in itself the strongest incentive to them to turn away from their previous career of predatory crime. I regard that as a very encouraging illustration of the success that is capable of attending the policy I have described. What we have done there I think we may do—at any rate we ought to attempt to do—elsewhere. Anyhow, I hope we shall not be hurried, and I am convinced His Majesty's Government are not at all likely to be hurried, out of a policy of patience and conciliation by any incidents, however mortifying or exasperating they may be. It is because I am hopeful—indeed I am confident—that the views I have ventured to express will be endorsed by His Majesty's Government, and that while pushing this present expedition to its legitimate conclusion, and extracting from it the maximum profit they can, they will yet continue the steady development of the policy that I have described, that I have ventured to call your Lordships' attention to this question by the notice which I put upon the Paper this afternoon.
  *THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (The Earl of ELGIN): My Lords, in reference to the opening criticisms of the noble Lord respecting the representation of India in this House, I would remind your Lordships that, although we have not got the Secretary for India or the Under-Secretary here, we have as a general rule found a representative of the India Office in my noble friend the Lord Steward, whose ability, I am sure, is recognised by the House. Moreover, in addition to myself, we have with us in the Leader of the House, my noble friend Lord Ripon, another ex-Viceroy of India who is pre-eminently qualified to deal with Indian questions. It is quite true, as the noble Lord said, that Mr. Hobhouse, the Under-Secretary for India, is absent in India. But it must be remembered that Mr. Hobhouse
  1728
  undertook the chairmanship of the Commission because the chairman originally chosen failed at the last moment, and therefore, it was not at first intended to send the Under-Secretary on that mission.
  With regard to the Questions which the noble Lord bas put on the Paper, I have to say at once that His Majesty's Government do not intend to make any departure from the principles of the frontier policy which were laid down by the Secretary of State ten years ago. The purport of those declarations was that there should be no extension of our responsibilities in tribal country, and no interference whatever with the tribes if it could possibly be avoided. Those principles were re-affirmed in 1904 by the then Secretary of State, and have been pursued by successive Governments since that time. For reasons which it would be inimical to public policy to mention, the general arguments against any reversal of this policy in the present case, though they are very strong, cannot very well be stated in detail.
  The object of the expedition against the Zakka Khel is limited to the punishment which they so justly deserve for the long series of outrages against the lives and property of those who dwell within their sphere of operations. Therefore the Government, of India have been instructed to take no steps leading in any way to the permanent occupation of that country, and orders in that sense have been issued to the general in command of the expedition. The noble Lord is so great an authority on all matters relating to the frontier of India that even I, though one of his predecessors in the Viceroyalty of India, have some hesitations in differing from him; and indeed I have no intention of doing so in this particular instance. It has always been my contention that the government of India is too great a thing to allow of the introduction of purely personal or individual interests, and that, on the contrary, it must be considered as a continuing administration. This is particularly the case in regard to the frontier policy. In that case we all felt that we were under the disadvantage of having to deal with the excessively vagrant dispositions in the tribes along that frontier,

  1729
  and I must confess that I have some hesitation in accepting the principle that any system could be depended upon in all circumstances to obviate difficulties or to prevent disasters.
  I venture to think that the experience of the noble Lord and myself differs chiefly, if not entirely, in this—that I met most of the storm. But I should like to remind him, and I am sure he will admit it, that if he ever studied the papers which were recorded in the time preceding his assumption of the government of India he found that I also advocated reforms, and reforms on lines not so very different from those which he afterwards pursued. I remember, after the wars of 1897, dealing with questions regarding the posts which ought to be occupied by the Regular military forces, regarding the Militia and the levies. He was in a more fortunate position, and he was able, therefore, to make change, some of which he has described to your Lordships this evening. So far as I know, that scheme holds the field. At the same time, I think it would not be disputed that there have been difficulties under that scheme, if not as great, at any rate as well as under other schemes. In fact, the noble Lord has referred to some, he has referred to the painful incidents of the murders that occurred in connection with the levies, and therefore I do not think it is possible to speak too positively with regard to the endurance of the system as a whole. I do not suppose the noble Lord would wish me to pledge the Government to anything of that nature. All that I can say, therefore, is that, so far, there are no proposals before the Secretary of State for any modification of the scheme which the noble Lord proposed.
  It would be inopportune, probably, to go into arguments, as I might perhaps have done if I desired to follow in detail some of the references of the noble Lord, before we have specific questions before the Government which are under consideration to be dealt with. But I should like to say just this further. If in the question of system changes from time to time may become inevitable to meet the varying cicrumstances or the varying attitudes of the tribes with whom we have to deal, surely that makes it all the more
  1730
  desirable to maintain the principles upon which the policy of the Government has been based, and especially those principles which have stood the test of time. In these discussions the despatch which has been referred to is that of 1898, and it has been stated that that has been reaffirmed by more than one Secretary of State. I think I may say that no other principles than those which were stated in that despatch were the guiding directions of the Government over which I had the honour to preside; and I should almost be inclined to venture the proposition that the noble Marquess opposite, who preceded me, would say very much the same thing. If so, we have a period of years even longer than that to which the noble Lord has referred, as a justification for the maintenance of the policy in which, as I understand it, both he and I are agreed.
  The noble Lord has said that he dislikes reading his old speeches, and so do I, and much more do I dislike quoting thorn, but there are two incidents that I would refer to for a moment in order to make good what I have just been saying. It so happened that it was at the very beginning of the military proceedings on the frontier that I met a large assemblage of the chiefs of the Punjab at Lahore, in 1894. Indeed, one of the pieces of business which made that an exceptionally heavy week was the necessity of settling with Sir William Lockhart the conditions under which he was to undertake his expedition to Waziristan. In addressing the chiefs I ventured to say to them that the policy of the Government was to leave to the tribes the entire occupation of their country, the fullest measure of autonomy, and the most complete liberty to follow their tribal customs. It happened in 1898 that the last visit I paid in the Punjab was to the State of Patiala, in order that I might invest the Chief of that country with the decoration of the Star of India in recognition of his services in the frontier expeditions. On that occasion I referred to the profession which I have just quoted, and I added that—
  "Whatever else may have happened, to this declaration I claim that I have adhered, so that no tribe or section of a tribe has since then been compelled against its will to surrender any territory or any right of self-government which it desires to retain."

  1731
  I have troubled your Lordships with these extracts to show that both in profession, and, I think, in execution, the Government of India in my time did act upon the principles which were stated in the despatch of Lord George Hamilton. I well remember, of course, that despatch, and I also well remember the support which we received in the House of Commons from the noble Lord who has just spoken. I think what I have now said shows that I was within the mark when, in the Legislative Council of the Viceroy in Calcutta, on the discussion of that despatch, I maintained that we had, as a matter of fact, carried out our obligations on the frontier with the minimum of interference with the internal affairs of the tribes, and the avoidance, so far as was possible, of direct administration where it was not desirable.
  The noble Lord referred to the Swat Valley and the Chitral road, and I welcome very much from him the statement that that has been in effect so successful in promoting the well-being of the peoples through whose country the road passes. But I should like to say on my own account that it always was a road on which we exercised no direct administration after it passed beyond the limits of the garrison of Malakand. That, therefore, I think, is an illustration that goes a good long way to show that even without operations for containing territories we may do a good deal, by helping the promotion of trade and communications, to bring the people to a state of mind and body in which they will not be so liable to make sudden attacks on our posts and garrisons.
  One other thing I should like to say in reply to the noble Lord. He said that the last ten years has been a remarkable period in the recent history of India because it would be almost impossible to find a similar period of peace. I can only say that when we were forced—because it was against our will—into these operations on the frontier, the one consolation to us was that the expectation was held out that a period of peace must almost inevitably follow, or could be reasonably expected at any rate. And, curiously enough, my recollection is that the period which was held out as a reasonable expectation was a period of ten years. I do not know that I can

  1732
  give any further assurance to the noble Lord than I have given, but I hope what I have said will not be wholly unsatisfactory to him.
  House adjourned at a Quarter before Six o'clock, till Tomorrow, half-past Ten o'clock.