Sitting of 11 March 1908

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

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
Humber Commercial Railway and Dock Bill (by Order.) read a second time, and committed.
Stockport Corporation Bill. Reported with Amendments. Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

PRIVATE BILLS (GROUP B).
Sir HENRY KIMBER reported from the Committee on Group B. of Private Bills; That, for the convenience of parties, the Committee had adjourned till Wednesday next, at half-past Eleven of the Clock.
Report to lie upon the Table.
West Bridgford Urban District Water Council Bill. Reported [Preamble not proved]; Report to lie upon the Table.

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to authorise the sale of Herne Bay Pier; and for other purposes." [Herne Bay Pier Bill [Lords.]
Herne Bay Pier Bill [Lords.] Read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

PETITIONS.
  CHILDREN BILL.
  Petition of the Temperance Committee of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  COAL MINES (EIGHT HOURS) (NO. 2) BILL.
  Petition from Birmingham, against; to lie upon the Table.
  DIVORCE.
  Petition from Great Yarmouth, for alteration of Law; to lie upon the Table.
  LAND VALUES (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petition from Cathcart, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  LICENSED PREMISES (EXCLUSION OF CHILDREN).
  Petitions for legislation: From Castle-ford; Crickleewood; Cwmbran; Llanfyllin; Sudbury; Wallingford; and Willesden; to lie upon the Table.
  LICENSING BILL.
  Petitions in favour: From Petersfield; and Temperance Committee of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland; to lie upon the Table.
  METROPOLITAN SEWERS AND DRAINS BILL.
  Petition from Islington, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS ON SUNDAY BILL.
  Petitions in favour: From Devon-port; and Kilburn; to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  ARMY.
  Copy presented, of Revised Form of Attestation for Men enlisting into the Territorial Force [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  BOYCOTTING (IRELAND).
  Return presented, relative thereto [ordered 3rd March; Mr. Lonsdale]; to lie upon the Table.
  PRIVATE LEGISLATION PROCEDURE (SCOTLAND) ACT, 1899.
  Order of 12th February for printing read, and discharged.
  PAUPERISM (ENGLAND AND WALES) (HALF-YEARLY STATEMENTS).
  Copy ordered, "of Statement of the number of Paupers relieved on the 1st day of January, 1908, and similar Statement for the 1st day of July, 1908 (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper No. 108, of session 1907.)"—(Dr. Macnamara.)
  INVERNESS COUNTY COUNCIL AND ALLOTMENTS.
  Return ordered, "of the Report of a Special Committee of the County Council of Inverness upon applications for Allotments in North Uist and Barra, made in September, 1897, together with any relative Papers."—(Mr. Sinclair.)
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CIRCULATED WITH THE VOTES.

  Amalgamation of the Coastguard and Customs and Waterguard Departments.
  MR. WILKIE: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty if the Coastguard and Customs Waterguard Depart ments are to be amalgamated; and will the claims of the trained practical officers be fully and fairly considered for promotion to superior positions as vacancies arise.
  (Answered by Mr. Edmund Robertson.) I have nothing to add to the statements which I have already made in the course of debate on this subject on 3rd and 10th March.

  The Mercantile Marine—Treatment of Crews
  MR. HAVELOCK WILSON: To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether any Report has been sent to his Department with reference to the attempt made by some of the Chinese crew em-
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  ployed on the Liverpool steamer "Franklyn" to set fire to the forecastle of that vessel on 12th August last, two days after the ship had left Hong-Kong; whether he is aware that two of the Chinamen jumped overboard; whether any inquiries have been made into this matter; and whether a report was made in the official log-book of the ship.
  (Answered by Mr. Kearley.) I presume that my hon. friend refers to a vessel called the "Frankby," on which a fire is reported to have occurred on 6th September last, two days before reaching Hong-Kong, but there is no reason to believe it was caused by the Chinese crew. One Chinese fireman disappeared on that date, but there is no report of another having jumped overboard. Full inquirie have been made, and proper entries made in the official log.
  MR. HAVELOCK WILSON: To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to the fact that the crew of the steamship "Bramley," owned by the Reliance Steamship Company, Limited, allege that they have been subject to short allowance of food; whether he is aware that this vessel has been away from this country one year and four months, and that nearly the whole of the original crew have deserted from the vessel; whether he is aware that it is alleged that ten different stewards have been taken on this vessel during the present voyage; and whether the Board of Trade will cause inquiries to be made into the allegations made by the men.
  (Answered by Mr. Kearley.) The attention of the Board of Trade has been called to complaints by the crew of the "Bramley," and inquiry will be made into the matter on the return of the vessel to the United Kingdom. The owners of the "Bramley" inform the Board of Trade that a number of the crew deserted at various ports in Australia and California; but state that, so far as they are aware, there have been only two stewards on the steamer since she left England, and that a full and plentiful list of provisions is supplied to their vessels.
  MR. HAVELOCK WILSON: To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to the complaint of the crew of the Steamer "Craigisla," of Leith, who allege that they have been on short allowance of food during the present voyage of this vessel; whether he is aware that the crew complain that His Majesty's Consul at Alexandria endorsed in the official log-book of the ship the men's complaint; whether it is the intention of the Board of Trade to investigate the complaint of this crew on the vessel's return to the United Kingdom; and whether, in the event of the men's grievance being a substantial one, the Board will take proceedings against the master for failing to provide the men with a proper supply of provisions in accordance with the section of the Merchant Shipping Act.
  (Answered by Mr. Kearley.) The attention of the Board of Trade has been called to the complaint of the crew of the "Craigisla" to which my hon. friend refers. The Consul, at Alexandria has been asked for a Report, and inquiry into the case will be made on the return of the vessel to the United Kingdom. Meanwhile I may remind my hon. friend that, under Section 25 of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1906, the crew can proceed against the master for compensation if he has failed to furnish provisions in accordance with the section.
  MR. HAVELOCK WILSON: To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to the report of the court of inquiry which was held at Halifax to consider the circumstances attending the stranding of the steamer "Mount Temple"; whether he is aware that the court stated that the captain of the "Mount Temple" was in default in not using the lead for the purpose of taking soundings; whether he will state how many able seamen were signed on the "Mount Temple," and how many of them could prove three years' sea service; and whether he will cause further inquiries to be made of the officers as to whether the failure on their part to use more frequently the lead was due to the fact that they did not have a sufficient
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  number of able seamen to take soundings in each watch.
  (Answered by Mr. Kearley.) My right hon. friend's attention has been called to the Report of the court of inquiry held in the case of the steamship "Mount Temple," and he is aware that the court found the master in default in not using the lead. There were at least nine A.B.'s on the vessel at the time of the stranding, and as these were signed on at that rating in November last I have no doubt that they proved the three years sea service necessary to allow of their being rated as A.B. As the court found that the omission to use the lead was due to the neglect of the master, and as they do not suggest any other cause, the Board of Trade do not think it necessary to institute further inquiry into the matter.
  MR. HAVELOCK WILSON: To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to the report of the court of inquiry held with regard to the loss of the steamer "Huddersfield"; whether he is aware that the stipendiary magistrate, who presided over the court, condemned the practice of allowing alien seamen to be signed on this vessel who were unable to understand orders given in English; whether he is aware that the court censured the captain of the vessel for failing to more frequently take soundings by the use of the lead; if he will state how many able seamen were signed on the "Huddersfield"; how many of them were able to prove three years' sea service; and whether he will cause further inquiries to be made of the captain and officers of the vessel as to whether the failure to more often use the lead was due to the fact that they had not a sufficient number of men in each watch.
  (Answered by Mr. Kearley.) My right hon. friend's attention has been called to the report of the inquiry held in the case of the ss. "Huddersfield," and he is aware of the recommendations and finding of the court in regard to the casualty. Of the six deck hands serving upon this vessel two were engaged as able seamen, and I have no doubt proved their title to that rating. As the court found that the omission to use the lead was due to

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  the neglect of the master, and as they do not suggest any other cause, the Board of Trade do not think it necessary to institute further inquiry into the matter.
  MR. HAVELOCK WILSON: To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to the report of the court of inquiry, held to investigate the circumstances attending the stranding and loss of the steamer "Tolesby" of West Hartlepool; whether he can state the number of able seamen who were signed on this vessel; how many of them were British and how many were foreigners; whether the foreign seamen were able to understand the English language; whether the able seamen were able to prove three years sea service; if he is aware that the court censured the master for failing to take soundings more frequently by the use of the lead; and if he will cause further inquiries to be made of the master and officers, as to whether the failure on their part to more frequently use the lead was due to the fact that they did not have a sufficient number of able seamen in each watch.
  (Answered by Mr. Kearley.) The attention of my right hon. friend has been called to the report of the court of inquiry held in the case of the ss. "Tolesby," and he is aware that the court censured the master for negligence in respect of the use of the lead. Three able seamen were engaged on this vessel at the commencement of the voyage in September last at Cardiff, and they were all foreigners. As the language test was not then in force I cannot say whether they understood English, but I have no doubt that they proved three years' sea service. As the reasons which the master gave before the court for his omission to use the lead are stated in their report, and as they do not in any way refer to the manning of the vessel, it is not proposed to institute further inquiry into the matter.

  Irish Housing Legislation.
  MR. SHEEHAN: To ask the President of the Local Government Board whether the provisions of the Bill he proposes to introduce for the better housing of the working classes
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  will apply to Ireland; and can he state when the First Reading of it will be taken.
  (Mr. John Burns.) I cannot at present fix a day for the introduction of the Bill. It is not proposed that it should extend to Ireland.

  Whaling Stations on the Donegal Coast
  MR. C. MACVEIGH: To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to a resolution passed by the Conservators of Fisheries of the Letterkenny district, county Donegal, at their meeting on 28th February, protesting against the establishing of whaling stations on any part of their coast; and, seeing that the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture (Ireland) has taken active measures to prevent the pollution of the waters and destruction of the fish along the coast of Donegal, whether he will say what steps he proposes to take, and when, to prevent this whaling company from getting a foothold on any part of the foreshore of Donegal.
  (Answered by Mr. Kearley.) Since my right hon. friend's reply on this subject last week the Board of Trade have received an intimation from the Irish Government that they contemplate the making of a bye-law, the effect of which would be to prohibit the establishment of any whaling station on the coast of Donegal. The Board of Trade have also received an intimation from the Arranmore Whaling Company that, in the circumstances, they do not propose to proceed with their application in respect of Arranmore. They have now applied for the permission of the Board of Trade to the construction of a wharf, slipway, and landing stage on the north side of Rusheen Island, Inishkea South, county Mayo. The Board will take the usual steps, by advertisement and otherwise, to ascertain whether there are any objections to a whaling station at this site.

  The Government and The Tobacco Growing (Scotland) Bill.
  MR. AINSWORTH: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury, what attitude will be adopted by His Majesty's Government towards the Tobacco Growing (Scotland) Bill on its Third Reading stage.

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  (Answered by Mr. Runciman.) His Majesty's Government do not propose to offer any opposition to the Third Reading of this Bill.

  'The Parliamentary Debates."
  MR. LEA: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury who is responsible for the correct compilation of Hansard as to what is said in the House by Members; and under what Vote does the contract for this work fall.
  (Answered by Mr. Runciman.) Under the terms of the existing contract the contractor is bound to supply Members who have delivered them two copies of proofs of all speeches delivered, and proofs are similarly given in the case of Questions orally answered. Hon. Members have thus an opportunity of correcting their own utterances. The contract is paid for out of the Vote for the Stationery Office.

  Cost of Elementary Education.
  MR. W. PEARCE: To ask the President of the Board of Education what are the latest figures of the yearly cost per child in elementary schools for England and Wales, excluding London, and for London only.
  (Answered by Mr. McKenna.) The latest figures available in respect of expenditure by local education authorities on elementary education are for the financial year ended 31st March, 1906. The total average cost per child in average attendance for that year was in England and Wales (excluding London) £3 9s. 3d., and in London £5 15s. 6d.

  Service of Teachers in Contracted Out Schools.
  MR. BRIDGEMAN: To ask the President of the Board of Education whether, if the Education Bill becomes law, the service of teachers in contracted-out schools will be counted as recorded service.
  (Answered by Mr. McKenna.) Yes, Sir.

  Army Horse Breeding Subsidies.
  MR. LONSDALE; To ask the Secretary of State for War whether he is able to state the amount of the Government subsidies granted in France to breeders of horses suitable for
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  military purposes; and how much is at present contributed out of State funds for a similar purpose to horse breeders in the United Kingdom.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) A sum of about £53,000 is voted annually for subsidising stud farms which furnish stallions to breeders of horses, with a view to improving the breed of French horses generally and providing a supply of horses from which good horses for military purposes can be bought. A sum of £51,000 is voted annually for premiums to breeders of horses suitable for military purposes. A sum of £1,200 is voted annually for prizes for military horse races in France. No funds are at present provided from Army Estimates for similar purposes.

  Cavalry Regiments for the Cork District.
  MR. LONSDALE: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether, in view of the fact that in the Cork district there is not a single regiment of cavalry to manoeuvre with the artillery and infantry, he will say what steps will be taken to ensure proper combined training for the troops in this district.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) The troops in the Cork district belong to the 6th division. Ireland has two divisions and a cavalry brigade. The necessary cavalry for the training of the 6th division is provided either from the cavalry or from the South of Ireland Imperial Yeomanry. Last year there were command manœuvres of all arms in Ireland.

  War Office Writers' Pensions
  MR. HORNIMAN: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether the duties of writers are in any way different from those performed by certain men on the staff who are pensionable; whether there is any reason besides that of economy why this difference should be made; and what is the estimated cost of substituting a pension in lieu of the grant now given to men discharged on reaching the age limit.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) It is presumed that the pensionable staff referred to in the Question are the foremen writers. Their duty, in addition to their clerical work, is to supervise

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  writers, and the responsibility of their position justifies the grant to them of pension privileges. As regards the cost of substituting a pension for a gratuity in the case of the writers, a calculation has been made in respect of one group only of the writers, but it is clear from this that the annual cost of granting pensions to the whole class would be very considerable.

  The Duke of York's School.
  MR. HORNIMAN: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether the sum that may be received for the site, etc., of the Duke of York's School, Chelsea, should it exceed the cost of the new buildings and land near Dover, will be used for erecting further like accommodation there or elsewhere; and when it is expected that the removal of the boys and staff will take place.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) As regards the first part of the Questions I can give no information until the disposal of the site has been settled. As regards the last part of the Question, the date of the removal has not yet been fixed.

  Writers at the Army Clothing Factory.
  MR. HORNIMAN: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that, according to the War Office List, 1895, twenty-seven civil servants and sixty-four writers were then employed at the Royal Army Clothing Depot, where at the present time the numbers are thirteen and seventy-eight respecetively, and that of the latter number five only are foreman - writers; and whether the work previously done by fourteen civil servants is now being performed by writers.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) When the examination of the clothing accounts was transferred to the War Office in 1900, the number of civil service, clerks at Pimlico was reduced by nines Subsequently five civil service clerk, were replaced by foremen writers. Therefore only in the case of the latter five is the work previously done by civil service clerks being performed by foremen writers.

  Muzzle Velocity of Service Rifles.
  MR. G. H. FABER: To ask the Secretary of State for War if our
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  rifles fire with a velocity of 2,000 feet, whilst those of other great Powera have a velocity of 2,800 feet.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane) The muzzle velocity given by the short, rifle is 2,060 foot-seconds. That given by the German rifle is about 2,900 foot-seconds, while those of the other great Powers vary from 2,000 to about 2,450 foot-seconds. The high figure for the German rifle is due to the reduced weight of the new German bullet.

  Transfers from Special Reserve to Regular Army.
  MR. ARTHUR LEE: To ask the Secretary of State for War if he will state how long men who enlist for service in the Special Reserve will be compelled to remain in. the Special Reserve before they are allowed to transfer to the Regular Army.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane) A Special Reservist below the age of eighteen cannot enlist into the Regular Army until he has completed six months-drill on enlistment. If eighteen years of age he may join after completing; three months drill on enlistment.

  Cost of Egyptian Garrison.
  MR. HAROLD COX: To ask the Secretary of State for War what is the total cost per annum of the British. Army of occupation in Egypt, including; the necessary charges for the training; of troops and for pensions and retired pay; and how much of this total is refunded by the Egyptian Government
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane) The total cost, including the items mentioned but excluding sea transport, the charge for which cannot readily be assessed, is £620,000. The Egyptian Government refunds £150,000 a year, that being the amount by which the cost in Egypt exceeds the cost of the same force at home.

  Territorial Army—Grant for Cyclists
  MR LAYLAND - BARRATT: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether any provision is made, under the Territorial Army scheme, to give to men serving as cyclist soldiers under that scheme the same

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  special grant towards the upkeep of their cycles as was given to men serving in cycling companies attached to Volunteer battalions; and, if not, will he consider the advisability of making such a grant.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) In the Volanteers a capitation grant of £1 was paid to the commanding officer for each efficient cyclist, and out of this the commanding officer paid what grant he thought fit to the cyclist. Under the Territorial Force scheme a grant of Is. 4d. per day will be made to County Associations for cycles used for annual training in camp, staff rides, and instructional tours, and the associations will make what payments they think fit to men bringing their own cycles.

  Mobilisation Scheme for the Territorial Army.
  MR. COURTHOPE: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether the Army Council have readjusted, or will readjust, the mobilisition scheme for the Auxiliary Forces, so that, as far as possible, each unit of the Territorial Force will be given its mobilisation station within, or near, its own county.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) The mobilisation arrangements for the Territorial Force are at present under consideration. The importance of giving a war station in or near its own county to each unit will not be lost sight of.

  The Territorial Army and Home Defence.
  MR. COURTHOPE: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether arrangements have been made for placing the defences of any county in charge of the Territorial Force of that county.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) The Territorial troops allotted for the garrisons of strategic points will be taken from the county or counties nearest to those strategic points, but generally speaking the Territorial Force will be used for the general defence of the United Kingdom.

  Evicted Tenants on the Estate of R. T. Longan at Ballinacourty.
  MR. O'SHEE: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that a number of evicted tenants
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  on the estate of Robert T. Longan, at Ballinacourty, county Waterford, having come to an arrangement with the owner as to their reinstatement, signed agreements to purchase in April, 1905; that, in October, 1906, an inspector of the Estates Commissioners, named Mr. P. V. Guiry, inspected the lands and informed the evicted tenants that they would be put back into possession in a very short time and would get grants to enable them to buy farming stock; whether, since October, 1906, any communication has been made to the evicted tenants, and will he say who is responsible for the prolonged delay in the matter; and whether there is any hope that the evicted tenants can now be reinstated under the agreements signed three years ago.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Estates Commissioners inform me that six evicted tenants on the estate mentioned have agreed to purchase their former holdings as parcels under Section 2 of the Act. The Commissioners have estimated the advances they are prepared to make and the owner has agreed to accept these prices. The Commissioners also propose to make grants for the assistance of the purchasers, and these grants will be made when the evicted tenants are put into possession. The Commissioners have communicated with the owner upon this point. As the estate has been inspected and reported on, it is expected that the evicted tenants will soon be restored.

  Re-instatement of Mrs. Kelleher of Quartertown.
  MR. WILLIAM ABRAHAM: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he will state whether any action has been taken by the Estates Commissioners to bring about the reinstatement of Mrs. Kelleher in the farm at Quartertown, Mallow, on the estate of C. A. Webb, from which her husband, since deceased, was evicted; if the holding has since been occupied by an emergency man named Woods, and is now in the possession of his cousin; whether inquiry will be made into the tenure Woods possessed, and if the present occupier has any bona fide interest; and whether, in view of the methods employed to

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  compel the tenants on this estate to sign purchase agreements and to the high prices fixed, an inspection of the estate will be made before these agreements receive the sanction of the Estates Commissioners.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Estates Commissioners have inquired into the claim of Mrs. Kelleher, and have decided that she is suitable to work a holding if one can be found for her. The Commissioners have ascertained that the holding occupied by her late husband was taken on lease for thirty-one years by Richard Woods, who disposed of his interest in March, 1907, to a man named Moore, the present occupier. The matter is under the Commissioners' consideration. The Commissioners are not aware that undue pressure was exercised to induce the tenants on the estate to sign purchase agreements, but will be prepared, when dealing with the estate, to consider any representations to that effect which may be made to them.

  Reinstatement of Peter Healy of Cloughlea.
  MR. WILLIAM ABRAHAM: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the application of Peter Healy for reinstatement in his former holding at Cloughlea, on the Foot estate, near Killavallen, County Cork, has been brought under the notice of the Estates Commissioners; whether any inquiry has been made into the circumstances; and if there is a prospect of the restoration of Healy to the holding in the near future.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Estates Commissioners have considered Healy's application, and have decided that he is fit to receive a holding in the event of their being able to provide him with one when the estate in question comes before them to be dealt with.

  Reinstatement of Representatives of late Denis Scanlon of Kilbradern.
  MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he can say whether the Estates Commissioners received a resolution from the Limerick County Council and other public bodies in the county asking them to take steps
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  to reinstate the representatives of Denis Scanlon, deceased, in the farm from which he was evicted at Kilbradern; and what do they intend to do in the matter.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Estates Commissioners have received resolutions of the nature referred to. They have inquired into the claim of the representatives of Denis Scanlon, and have decided to take no action in the matter. Scanlon was evicted for the non-payment of a land purchase annuity.

  Application for Land by Michael Hartnett and John Collins.
  MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, if the Estates Commissioners would consider the claims of Michael Hartnett, labourer, and John Collins, tenant, on the Vereker estate, near Abbeyfeale, in the County of Limerick when they are apportioning the untenanted land on it purchased by them.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Estates Commissioners will, when dealing with the untenanted land on the estate in question, consider the claims of all applicants in the locality, including those named by the hon. Member.

  Purchase of the Shelton Estate, County Limerick.
  MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he can say whether any progress has been made by the Estates Commissioners with regard to the purchase of the Shelton property, at Beaufort, near Newcastle West, in the County of Limerick.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Estates Commissioners are negotiating for the purchase of 300 acres of untenanted land from Mrs. Deane Shelton, and have furnished a preliminary estimate of price but the owner has not yet intimated her acceptance or refusal of the same.

  Expenditure on Structural Alterations in London Non-provided Schools.
  MR. DICKINSONTo ask the President of the Board of Education whether he can give the total sum of money expended by the managers of non-provided schools in London in

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  complying with the requirements for structural alterations issued by the London County Council, and will also state what proportion of this money has been raised by voluntary subscriptions, by the use of endowment funds, and by the mortgage of the school premises, respectively.
  (Answered by Mr. McKenna.) I have no information as to the cost of the alterations referred to or as to the amounts contributed by voluntary subscriptions. If it would be of any service to my hon. friend I could give him the amount of the capital funds of endowments, and the sums raised by way of mortgage of the school premises, which the Board have sanctioned by schemes and orders under the Charitable Trusts Act to be expended on repairs or alterations to voluntary schools in London since the Education (London) Act came into operation. But I am not in a position to say whether these sums have in all cases actually been expended or not.

  Study of Agriculture in Rural Schools.
  SIR F. CHANNING: To ask the President of the Board of Education what is the present number of rural secondary schools into whose curriculum the study of chemistry, physics, and biology in their relation to agriculture has been introduced, and in what counties; how many of such schools have endowments as grammar schools or otherwise, and how many are provided by county councils, by or in connection with agricultural colleges, and by private enterprise, respectively; how many such schools have school gardens and small farms or plots attached to them, giving an opportunity for experimental and practical instruction in the application of the scientific studies to real agricultural work; what is the present number of pupils, boys and girls respectively, in such schools; and whether any, and, if so, how many, and in what counties, such schools are being carried on in combination with a group of small elementary schools whose pupils are brought to the central school from their several villages, as in Canada and the United States.
  (Answered by Mr. McKenna.) I regret that it is not possible at such short notice
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  to carry out a sufficiently detailed investigation of the curricula of the rural secondary schools receiving grants from the Board to enable complete information to be given as to the various points in the Question. Taking England apart from Wales, there are about 190 secondary schools which could properly be described as "rural," and they are spread over all the counties of England. Twenty-eight are provided by county councils or other local authorities, and 148 are endowed schools. Eight are otherwise provided; no schools receiving grants from the Board are provided by "private enterprise" in the sense of making any profit. These schools provide instruction for 11,291 boys and 4,780 girls. Without communicating with the Board's inspectors I am unable to classify and formulate precise information as to the provision of school gardens or plots in connection with these schools or as to the degree of connection which they may have with agricultural colleges. These matters, in common with matters concerning the other branches of the curricula of secondary schools, are included in a careful investigation which is being conducted, and the results of which will, as far as possible, be made available in statistical or other forms in due course. I may perhaps add, however, that, of the 190 schools, 175 teach chemistry, 165 physics, 162 manual work, and seventy-two botany and nature study. In a few schools a special attempt has been made to provide special classes in horticulture, agriculture, and, in one case, bee-keeping. In reply to the concluding paragraph of the Question, it would seem that the principal purpose there suggested would probably be effected in this country by the establishment of higher elementary schools, or day schools or classes under Section 42 of the Technical Regulations of the Board, the relation of a secondary school to the neighbouring elementary schools being not altogether similar to that suggested in the Question as prevailing in Canada or the United States.
  SIR F. CHANNING: To ask the President of the Board of Education what is the present number of centralised rural evening schools; in what counties; how many of such schools are provided

  1505
  by county councils, or by or in connection with agricultural colleges, or by private enterprise, respectively; in how many of such schools is the curriculum arranged in cyclic courses, and in how many long courses, and in how many short (four to ten lessons) courses in the suggested practical subjects are being carried out; and what is the number of pupils, male and female.
  (Answered by Mr. McKenna.) For the current year the Board estimate at 3,500 the total number of evening schools, excluding all schools or centres affording fewer than twenty hours of instruction, aided by the Board, serving what may properly be considered to be rural areas for the purposes of this Question; of these about 99 per cent, are provided by county councils or other local education authorities. There are such schools in every county in England and Wales; but the Board are unable at short notice to give the number of those which are "centralised" as distinct from the other types of evening schools. In a large and increasing proportion of them the instruction given has a definite relation to the character and conditions of work of the rural population. The actual number of such schools in the session 1905–6 was 3,353, of which 3,319 were provided by county councils and 34 otherwise. Less than ten of these formed part of the organisation of any agricultural college, but it must be remembered at the same time that many county councils utilise the services of the staffs of agricultural colleges for the provision of expert instruction in special subjects in connection with such schools. Assuming the phrase "suggested practical subjects," in the second paragraph of the hon. Member's Question, to refer to subjects suggested in the Memorandum issued by the Board of Education in July, 1906, concerning rural evening schools, I may say that only in the case of thirteen counties are returns at the moment available with reference to the numbers of long and short courses in practical rural subjects. The information as to these counties is, however, sufficient to indicate the scale upon which instruction is being provided in this way. In the thirteen counties in question arrangements have already been
  1506
  made for 64 long and 403 short courses of practical work in such subjects as dairying, poultry-keeping, farriery, horticulture, and manual farm processes. Much of this work however is carried on during the spring and summer months, so that these numbers will probably be increased by the addition of courses for which arrangements are not yet completed. In reply to the concluding paragraph of the Question, I may say that in most rural evening schools aided by the Board of Education provision is made for changes from year to year in the programme of work. The degree of effectiveness to which this is carried is very variable; and while the Board are satisfied that a fairly complete cycle of subjects has been arranged for many schools they are unable to state how many have formally adopted the cyclic principle to which attention was directed in a recent publication by the Board of Education. In virtue of the provisions of Section 34 of the Regulations for Technical Schools, the Board have been able to direct the attention of local education authorities to many points in the curricula of rural evening schools which appeared to require attention. During the eighteen months that section has been in operation much has already been done to improve the evening school organisation so as to make it more practical and better suited to the needs of the rural community. The Board have no precise information as to the numbers of pupils now attending classes of the types my hon. friend has in mind, but they estimate that over 50,000 are receiving instruction otherwise than in "short courses."

  Fees in Council Schools.
  MR. ALFRED HUTTON: To ask the President of the Board of Education whether the repeal of the Elementary Education Act, 1891, will enable local education authorities to reimpose fees in council schools so long as they exempt from payment the individual scholar whose parents desire free places.
  (Answered by Mr. McKenna.) Not unless the consent of the Board of Education, under Section 17 of the Elementary Education Act, 1870, has

  1507
  been previously obtained. With the sanction of the Board fees can, under the existing law, be charged (Section 4 of the Elementary Education Act, 1891.)

  Repayment of Loans for Small Holdings.
  MR. ELLIS DAVIES: To ask the hon. Member for South Somerset, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, whether, in view of the fact that county councils, when purchasing land under the Small Holdings Act, have no means of obtaining money for the repayment of the purchase money except by charging the small holder with, payment yearly of part of the principal as well as interest, he will make representations to the Local Government Board with a view to the loans to the county councils being made permanent and not temporary, as in the case of industrial undertakings, and so avoid the necessity for the county councils to compel the small holder to buy property for the councils.
  (Answered by Sir Edward Strachey.) I will bring the suggestion of my hon. friend to the notice of my right hon. friend the President of the Local Government Board.

  Agricultural Schools and Institutes.
  SIR F. CHANNING: To ask the hon Member for South Somerset, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, whether any new farm schools or institutes of the type of the Hampshire Farm School at Basing or the Ridgmont Agricultural Institute in Bedfordshire have been started or placed on the grants list during the last two years; and what is the present number of school-gardens provided for elementary secondary, and evening schools, respectively; and in how many of such school gardens are arrangements made for fruit cultivation as well as gardening.
  (Answered by Sir Edward Strachey.) No farm institutes of the type referred to by my hon. friend have been established within the last two years. The question of their possible extension is engaging the careful attention of the Agricultural Education Committee. Arrangements for the provision of school gardens are made by the Board of Education, and,
  1508
  perhaps, therefore my hon. friend will address his other inquiries to my right hon. friend.

  Northamptonshire Muzzling Order.
  MR. CLEMENT EDWARDS: To ask the hon. Member for South Somerset, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, whether the muzzling order for dogs issued for certain parishes in the county of Northampton, includes the muzzling of hounds; and if any exemption has been made in the case of sheep dogs when at work.
  (Answered by Sir Edward Strachey.) The order applies to all dogs, including hounds; and it does not contain any exemption in regard to any particular class of dogs.

  Detection of Babies in Northamptonshire.
  MR. CLEMENT EDWARDS: To ask the hon. Member for South Somerset, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, if he will state what were the reasons which induced the Board of Agriculture to revert to the autopsy test for rabies in the case of the two dogs alleged to have been suffering from rabies in the town of Northampton; whether this method of diagnosis was discarded as worthless as far back as 1898; whether the port mortems were conducted by duly qualified veterinary surgeons; and upon what evidence did they arrive at the conclusion that they were authentic cases of rabies.
  (Answered by Sir Edward Strachey.) The Board have not accepted the postmortem examination to which my hon. friend refers as conclusive evidence of the existence of rabies, and the final diagnosis awaits the result of the inoculation test. The post mortem examinations were conducted by a duly qualified veterinary surgeon, and his opinion was confirmed by the chief veterinary officer of the board.

  Milk Guarantees.
  MR. GIBBS: To ask the hon. Member for South Somerset, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, whether he is aware that, although he has been advised

  1509
  that it is not necessary that each, consignment of milk sold by the farmers should be accompanied by a warranty, the authorities in several localities are insisting upon such warranty, thereby causing great hardship to milk vendors; and what steps he will take in the matter.
  (Answered by Sir Edward Strachey.) The Board are not aware of any case in which a local authority has taken action in the direction indicated; but if the hon. Member will be good enough to supply them with information on the subject inquiry will be made.

  Employment of Soldiers by the Post Office.
  MR. W. T. WILSON: To ask the Postmaster-General whether, in view of his declarations that he desired that the Post Office should be a good employer of labour, he will state whether it is his intention to employ soldiers serving with the colours to perform telegraphic duties in postal telegraph offices during the current year at wages much below those paid to established telegraphists; and whether such a system was introduced on the proposal of an official of his Department, on the ground that it was cheaper than employing ordinary telegraphists.
  (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) As my hon. friend is aware, there is, unfortunately, at certain times of the year, exceptional pressure on telegraph work. In order to meet the exceptional pressure, to avoid excessive overtime, to which. I am opposed, and to enable the established telegraph staff to obtain their holidays in better months of the year, it is necessary to obtain season assistants for telegraph work for part of the year, and at various places. Efficient season assistants are not easy to obtain, and the primary object which I have had in view in employing a certain number of soldiers to perform telegraphic duties as season assistants is to meet this exceptional pressure. One additional advantage of employing the soldiers is that they acquire a useful knowledge of telegraphy. The system was not introduced on the ground that it was cheaper than employing ordinary
  1510
  telegraphists. The officers in question are not employed in lieu of established officers, and do not receive less than the ordinary season assistants.

  The Post Office Circular and the Savings Bank Department.
  MR. W. T. WILSON: To ask the Postmaster-General if there are any reasons why the Post Office Circular should not be exhibited in the Savings Bank Department for the information of the staff generally; and, if not, will he give instructions for a copy to be exhibited in the same way as in other departments.
  (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) The hon. Member must have been misinformed. Copies of the Post Office Circular are duly exhibited in the Savings Bank Department.

  Reserve Stock of Naval Stores
  VISCOUNT CASTLEREAGH: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty what is the value of the reserve stock of naval stores at Malta, Gibraltar, Bermuda, Halifax, Jamaica, Trincomalee, Vancouver, and at the three home ports at the present moment.
  (Answered by Mr. Edmund Robertson.) The value of reserves of naval stores (exclusive of coals for the Fleet) may be taken approximately at £4,000,000. The precise value and disposition of the stocks, so far as the home yards are concerned, is shown annually in the Navy Dockyard Expense Accounts presented to Parliament, but as regards the foreign yards it is not considered desirable to indicate the actual disposition of the stocks. As regards Halifax, Jamaica, Trincomalee, and Vancouver, no reserves, other than coals for the Fleet, have been kept at these yards since March, 1905, when these depots were closed.

  Number of Craft in the Home Fleet.
  MR. GRETTON: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty if he will state the total number of craft of all kinds in the Home Fleet, mentioning separately those in Special Reserve, at the time of the manœ,uvres last autumn, under the Commander-in-Chief of the Channel Fleet.

  1511
  (Answered by Mr. Edmund Robertson.) The total number of craft of all kinds, excluding submarines, was 189, of which twenty-one were Special Reserve vessels.

  Combined Naval Manoeuveres.
  MR. GRETTON: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty with reference to the statement of the First Lord of the Admiralty in his Memorandum to Parliament, 23rd February, 1907, that the Channel, Atlantic, and Home Fleets will carry out periodic exercises together under the Commander-in-Chief of the Channel Fleet, who will take the supreme command in war, whether he can state how many vessels of the Home Fleet took part in the manœuvres last year.
  (Answered by Mr. Edmund Robertson.) In the October manœuvres thirty-nine vessels of the Home Fleet took part.

  The Nore Division of the Home Fleet.
  MR. GRETTON: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty how many vessels belonging to the Home Fleet, exclusive of the fully-manned battleships, cruisers, scouts, and destroyers which were withdrawn from the Channel, Atlantic, and Mediterranean Fleets to constitute the Nore Division of the Home Fleet, took part in the annual manœuvres last autumn.
  (Answered by Mr. Edmund Robertson.) Three Home Fleet vessels, normally not fully manned, took part in these manœuvres, viz., battleship "Mars," cruiser "Essex," and torpedo-gunboat "Speedwell."

  Children as Half-timers in Factories.
  MR. GILL: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he can state the number of children employed as half-timers in the factories and workshops in the United Kingdom, and the number employed in textile factories in Lancashire and Yorkshire, together with the number in each large town in the two counties.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Gladstone.) The latest figures available are those obtained from the Returns of employment for 1904. In that year the figures were as follows: Children employed in 1904 in the United Kingdom—

  In factories, workshops, and laundries

  37,265

  In textile factories in Lancashire and Yorkshire

  25,345

  In textile factories:—

  Bradford

  4,210

  Brighouse

  168

  Halifax

  1,018

  Keighley

  647

  Todmorden

  264

  Accrington

  348

  Ashton-under-Lyne

  270

  Bacup

  250

  Blackburn

  1,530

  Bolton

  1,068

  Burnley

  1,042

  Bury

  323

  Chorley

  180

  Clitheroe

  131

  Colne

  246

  Darwen

  623

  Heslington

  284

  Heywod

  325

  Leigh

  276

  Mossley

  127

  Nelson

  442

  Oldham

  534

  Preston

  950

  Rawtenstall

  200

  Rochdale

  543

  Stockport (Lancashire part only)

  186

  The Indian Whipping Act.
  SIR HENRY COTTON: To ask the Secretary of State for India whether now that the Bill for amending the Indian Whipping Act has been introduced into the Indian Legislative Council he will state the objects and reasons of the proposed legislation.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Morley.) I have not yet received from the Government of India the statement of objects, and reasons of the Bill to amend the Indian Whipping Act.

  Barrack Expenditure.
  MR. GULLANDTo ask the Financial Secretary to the War Office, if he will state the sums expended on building barracks and on repairing barracks during each of the last ten years, giving separately the expenditure in England (including Berwick-on-Tweed), Scotland, and Ireland.

  Sums spent on Barracks in each of the 10 years ending 31st March, 1907 in England, Scotland, and Ireland.

  Year.

  Building.

  Repairing.

  Totals.

  England.

  Scotland.

  Ireland.

  England.

  Scotland.

  Ireland.

  England.

  Scotland.

  Ireland.

  £

  £

  £

  £

  £

  £

  £

  £

  £

  1897–8

  244,526

  10,458

  131,047

  186,615

  8,410

  47,121

  431,141

  18,868

  178,168

  1898–9

  316,525

  19,401

  133,748

  167,698

  10,244

  42,928

  484,223

  29,645

  176,676

  1899–1900

  390,242

  10,776

  171,602

  186,952

  13,315

  51,240

  577,194

  24,091

  222,842

  1900–1

  1,260,730

  18,031

  150,385

  188,613

  16,329

  59,052

  1,449,343

  34,360

  209,437

  1901–2

  760,403

  8,948

  210,913

  204,535

  15,431

  53,263

  964,938

  24,379

  264,176

  1902–3

  701,435

  6,532

  170,454

  225,342

  18,097

  60,235

  926,777

  24,629

  230,689

  1903–4

  1,163,264

  7,615

  158,640

  235,171

  15,546

  72,865

  1,398,435

  23,161

  231,505

  1904–5

  1,301,950

  10,934

  132,817

  252,723

  16,025

  63,919

  1,554,673

  26,959

  196,736

  1905–6

  618,270

  6,492

  58,600

  256,435

  14,766

  64,846

  874,705

  21,258

  123,446

  1906–7

  325,020

  7,095

  36,725

  254,440

  20,037

  70,360

  579,460

  27,132

  107,085

  Grand totals

  7,082,365

  106,282

  1,354,931

  2,158,524

  148,200

  585,829

  9,240,889

  254,482

  1,940,760

  Value of Machinery lying idle at Woolwich.
  MR. W. T. WILSON: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether he can state approximately the capital value of the machinery that is at the present time lying idle at the Woolwich Arsenal.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) The exact capital value of machinery at present lying idle in the Ordnance Factories in the Royal Arsenal cannot be stated until after the close of the financial year, but it may be roughly estimated to be about £250,000.

  Territorial Force—Officers' Outfit Grant.
  MR. HICKS BEACH: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether officers of a disbanded Militia battalion will be given any grant towards the purchase of a new uniform if they elect to join any branch of the Territorial Army instead of the special Reserve.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) Officers joining the Territorial force from the Militia whose transfer necessitates a change of uniform will be eligible for a grant to cover the actual expenditure for purchase or alteration of uniform not exceeding £20 in all.

  Discharges from Waltham Abbey Gunpowder Factory.
  MR. STAVELEY-HILL: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether he will state the number of men now employed at the Royal Gunpowder Factory at Waltham Abbey, and the number of men employed on the same date in 1905; whether it is intended to make further discharges, and, if so, to what number; and how many of the men discharged since the 31st January 1906, possessed ten years service and upward.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) The number of men and boys employed at the Royal Gunpowder Factory, Waltham Abbey, on the first Saturday in March was 1,340 in 1905 and 698 in 1908. It is not intended to make any more discharges on reduction; the further reduction to bring establishment within the approved limits will be effected by
  1516
  wastage. The number discharged on reduction since 31st January 1906 with ten years' service or upwards is twenty-five.

  Discharges from Woolwich Arsenal
  MR. STAVELEY-HILL: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether he will state the number of men employed at Woolwich Arsenal, and the number employed on the same date in 1905; whether it is intended to make further discharges, and, if so, to what number; and how many of the men discharged since 31st January, 1906, possessed ten years' service and upward.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) The number of men and boys employed in the ordnance factories at Woolwich Arsenal on the first Saturday in March was 15,122 in 1905 and 11,643 in 1908. It is not intended to make any more discharges on reduction, except in a few special cases of men who wish to leave. Any further reductions will be effected by wastage. The number of men discharged since the 31st January, 1906, with ten years service and upwards, is 1,317.

  The Walking-out Uniform of the Territorial Army.
  MR. A. ALLEN: To ask the Secretary of State for War, whether the walking-out uniform of the Territorial Force will be of a standard pattern and colour for each arm of the service, or whether it will be of the same colour, etc., as that of the Regular regiment to which units are affiliated.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) This question has not yet been finally decided.

  Territorial Army—Messing Allowance to Officers during Training.
  MR. A. ALLEN: To ask the Secretary of State for War, whether a messing fee, and, if so, of what amount, will be allowed to Territorial officers during training.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) A daily allowance of 4s, in aid of messing expenses will be made to Territorial

  1517
  officers during annual training in camp, courses of instruction, etc.

  Territorial Army—Officers' Outfit Grant.
  MR. A. ALLEN: To ask the Secretary of State for War, whether Volunteer officers transferring to the Territorial Army will receive an allowance for any necessary change of uniform.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) When the transfer necessitates an alteration of uniform the officer will he eligible for a grant to cover the actual expenditure involved for purchase or alteration of uniform not exceeding £20 in all.

  QUESTIONS IN THE HOUSE.

    Navy Estimates.
    MR. BELLAIRS: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty, why there has been omitted from the Navy Estimates for the new financial year Appendix No. 8, which has appeared for many years past, showing the cost of the different classes of vessels added in each year to the Navy and the estimated annual rate of depreciation; and whether he can state why the tables showing the number of men in nucleus crews have also been omitted.
    THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. EDMUND ROBERTSON,): The Appendix has not been omitted, but it is now called Appendix No. 7. The nucleus crews are included in the column headed "Active Service" in accordance with the arrangements made for the current year, and after the consideration which I promised the hon. Gentleman on 17th April last.
    MR. BELLAIRS: Will the right hon. Gentleman obtain information as to the number of men in the nucleus crews if I put a Question on the Paper?
    MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON:Certainly.

    Natives in the South African Mines.
    MR. BRIDGEMAN: I beg to ask the Undersecretary of State for the Colonies
    1518
    how many natives from Central Africa are now employed on the Premier Diamond Mine and on other South African mines; if these natives have been recruited under official sanction; and, if so when was this sanction given.
    THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. CHURCHILL,): According to a Return up to the end of July last there were 463 Nyassaland natives on the Premier Mine. These natives on the Premier Mine were recruited as an experiment under a sanction given by the Secretary of State in November, 1906, for recruiting 500 natives. Sanction was at the same time given for the recruiting experimentally of a further 500 for surface work only on the gold mines, but these latter were not recruited. I understand that there are a certain number of Nyassaland natives at work on the mines who have not been recruited but have found their own way down, though I do not know how many.
    MR. LYTTELTON: Will the right hon. Gentleman lay on the Table Papers with regard to the recruiting of Central African natives during the last eighteen months?
    MR. CHURCHILL: Yes, Sir.
    CAPTAIN CRAIG; Are these labourers separated from their wives, and do the conditions under which they work constitute servile conditions?
    [No Answer was returned.]
    MR. BRIDGEMAN: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies if any limit is placed on the number of natives permitted to be recruited from Central Africa for the Transvaal mines.
    MR. CHURCHILL: After very careful consideration the Secretary of State has informed the Governor of the Transvaal that the resumption of recruiting Nyasaland natives cannot be authorised in existing circumstances. No recruiting has taken place since the end of 1906.
    SIR GILBERT PARKER: When was the Governor so informed?
    MR. CHURCHILL: No natives have been recruited since 1906. The question was should it be allowed again, and it was decided last month that the conditions which prevail in regard to mortality would not warrant it.
    MR. BRIDGEMAN: Is there no recruiting then from Central Africa?
    MR. CHURCHILL: No organised recruiting, but we cannot prevent individual natives finding their way down.

    Dinizulu.
    MR. FLYNN: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that Mr. Jellicoe, one-time counsel for Dinizulu, has reiterated his original statements concerning the trial of this native chief, to the effect that the Natal Government is making use of every technical rule of local law to defeat the pledge given to the Imperial Government to secure to Dinizulu an open, fair, and impartial trial of the charges now pending against him, and also refers to the official acknowledgment that the charges against Dinizulu have not in any way been amplified by any specific facts as to whom he is accused of inciting to murder, or who was the person murdered, or when the incitement was given, or in what the acts of treason, sedition, rebellion, etc., consist; and what present steps are being taken by the Colonial Office to secure that this chieftain shall be guaranteed an impartial trial.
    MR. CHURCHILL: The Secretary of State is aware of the views of Mr. Jellicoe, whose statement will be carefully examined. With regard to the last part of the Question I cannot add anything to my full reply of yesterday to a Question by the hon. Member for Wycombe.
    In reply to. a further Question,
    MR. CHURCHILLsaid he was informed that the usual procedure under the law was being followed. He asked, however, for notice of legal Questions.

    New Hebrides Convention.
    MR. STAVELEY-HILL: I beg to ask the Undersecretary of State for the Colonies whether the Report of the High Commissioner of the Western Pacific on his recent visit to the New Hebrides to proclaim the Convention will be laid upon the Table of the House.
    MR. CHURCHILL: As I promised the hon. and gallant Member for St. Andrew's Burghs on 13th February, a copy of the Report has been placed in the Library of the House for the use of Members who may care to study it.
    MR. STAVELEY-HILL: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the regulations prepared by the Resident Commissioners of the New Hebrides on recruiting and the conditions of labour will be laid upon the Table of the House.
    MR. CHURCHILL: The regulations when settled must of course be published, and copies will be made available in this country for anyone who wishes to see them. The question of reprinting them as a Parliamentary Paper will be considered when they have been finally settled.

    Chinese in the Band Mines.
    SIR GILBERT PARKER: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the Chinese employed in the Rand mines, as their contracts expire, will be allowed to recruit for the mines on the same basis and be governed by the same regulations as the natives now employed.
    MR. CHURCHILL: I am astonished that the hon. Member should not understand the position more clearly after all the discussions that have taken place. Certain mining interests in the Transvaal desired to employ Chinese indentured labour. The people of the Transvaal object so strongly to the presence of the Chinese in their country that special restrictions of an extraordinary and degrading character had to be imposed upon the imported Chinese labourers to secure among other things that they did not mingle with the population, did not

    1521
    engage in business, did not acquire land, did not perform skilled work of any kind, and were expelled from South Africa as soon as their term of labour had expired. These restrictions are comprised in the Chinese Labour Importation Ordinance, and they are at present the law of the Transvaal. That law, for whose details the late Government is responsible, will come early in 1910 to an end for ever when the existing indentures are terminated and the last Chinaman has gone. Meanwhile every Chinaman must be deported as soon as his indenture expire. Thereafter no Chinaman will be allowed to enter the Transvaal unless he enters freely, and to that the people of the Transvaal are, I believe, unalterably opposed.
    MR. LYTTELTON: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether his attention has been drawn to the Report of the Commission on Labour Condition in the Mines of the Transvaal, signed by Messrs. Stockenstroom, Cresswell, Hamilton and Whiteside: whether Mr. Cresswell who is well known to Members of this House is the gentleman who took a leading part in the agitation against Chinese labour in the Transvaal and in this country: whether the Report is to the effect that there is no essential difference between the importation of Chinese coolies and Portugese natives, and whether it is a fact that on the average of the last two years the death-rate of such natives is more than 100 per cent, heavier than that of the Chinese.
    MR CHURCHILL: His Majesty's Government are awaiting with much interest the arrival of the Report in question, and meanwhile it would obviously be premature to form opinions and still more to take action of any kind.
    SIR GILBERT PARKERasked whether the right hon. Gentleman was aware that the Portuguese East African natives must all be repatriated as the Chinese must be repatriated.
    MR. CHURCHILL: I am fully informed by this time, I should think, of all the conditions.
    MR. CATHCART WASONasked whether the right hon. Gentleman was aware that, although by law the Portugese natives must be repatriated, as a matter of fact they never were repatriated.
    MR. CHURCHILL: I do not wish to embark upon an attempt to impart all my information to the House.
    SIR GILBERT PARKER: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary for the Colonies whether he can say what are the reasons assigned by the Transvaal Government for their proposed effort to recruit labour outside South. Africa for the Rand mines.
    MR. CHURCHILL: I understand that the Transvaal Government are anxious to secure as large and continuous a supply of unskilled labour under proper conditions as is possible.
    SIR GILBERT PARKER: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the natives of Madagascar have a strain of Oriental blood?
    [No Answer was returned.]

    Quebec Battlefields.
    SIR GILBERT PARKER: I beg to ask the Prime Minister whether it is the intention of this Government to cooperate with the Canadian Government and the Canadian people in the preservation of the battlefields of Quebec, where the British Army added to its fame, by a subscription to the funds for this imperial memorial.
    MR. CHURCHILL: The consideration of matters relating to this important celebration has been confined to the arrangements for and programme of the visit which His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales (accompanied by a powerful squadron of the British Fleet) has graciously signified his intention of paying to Canada at the end of July next —an intimation which has given much lively pleasure both here and in the Dominion. The question of a subscription has not yet come before His Majesty's Government, and I am, therefore, not at present in a position to make any statement with reference to it.

    Postal and Telegraphic Rates between Great Britain and France.
    MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Postmaster - General whether he is aware that a penny postal and telegraphic rate between Great Britain and France would be welcomed by commercial men in this country, and there is reason to believe would be favourably, regarded by the French Government; and whether he will consider the desirability of entering into an arrangement with the French 'Government which would tend to extend the commercial relations between the two nations.
    THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. SYDNEY BUXTON,): The French post office has made no proposal to me on this subject. Such a reduction as that which the hon. Member suggests would involve a very, large sacrifice of revenue, and I am not prepared to advocate it under existing circumstances.

    Liverpool and Hong-Kong Mail Subsidy.
    MR. HAROLD COX: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General what was the revenue obtained in the last completed year from postal matter conveyed by the trans-Canadian route under the Liverpool and Hong-Kong mail contract; and what proportion this revenue bore to the subsidy paid to the contractors.
    MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: The gross revenue collected by the British Post Office on the letter and parcel mails despatched from this country by the Canadian Pacific service for the year 1907 is estimated at £35,000. To this should be added a sum of about £3,000 received for the conveyance of foreign and colonial mails. The annual subsidy payable to the Canadian Pacific Railway Company is £60,000, of which £15,000 Is contributed by Canada, and £45,000 by the British Government. The subsidy, of course, does not cover the cost of dealing with the mails in this country.

    Adult Night Messengers and the Hobhouse Report.
    MR. SLOAN: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General whether,
    1524
    in view of the fact that the adult night messengers are not affected by the classification or any other scheme, he will say what is the cause for delay in putting in force the recommendations of the Hobhouse Committee; and will they be put into operation forthwith.
    MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: All questions relating to the pay of adult night messengers have now been settled, and the revision is being carried out. No officer will suffer from the delay?
    MR. SLOAN: But what has been the cause of the delay?
    MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: The enormous pressure in carrying. out the multifarious classification.
    MR. SLOAN: Is it now settled?
    MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: I have said so.

    Inland Revenue Stamps.
    MR. COURTHOPE: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General what annual sum, if any, is transferred from the receipts of the General Post Office to the Inland Revenue in respect of postage stamps used for Inland Revenue purposes.
    MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: The amount transferred from the receipts of the General Post Office to the Inland Revenue in respect of postage stamps used for Inland Revenue purposes in the year 1906–7 was £582,520, as shown on page 25 of the Finance Accounts.

    Bexhill Postal Arrangements.
    MR. COURTHOPE: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General whether a decision has yet been reached as to the establishment of an additional sub-post office at Bexhill.
    MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: This Question is still under consideration. I regret that I am not yet in a position to arrive at a decision.

    Rural Postmen's Duties.
    MR. COURTHOPE: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General whether, in arranging

    1525
    postmen's duties to allow nine clear hours at their own homes, any allowance is made for the time occupied by mounted rural postmen in preparing horses and carts in the morning and putting them away at night; and whether such time occupied in stable duties counts as part of their duty.
    MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: It is the practice to arrange the duties of rural postmen is such a manner as to give them nine hours at their homes; and in the case of mounted rural postmen reasonable allowance is made for the time necessary for attending to their horses and carts. Stable duties are taken into consideration in fixing the amount of work the men are called on to perform.

    Inland Revenue Stamps
    MR. COURTHOPE: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General what was the average revenue derived annually from the issue of Inland Revenue adhesive stamps.
    THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY (Mr. RUNCIMAN,): The amounts paid over to this Department by the Post Office as the estimated revenue for the United Kingdom, derived from the issue of Inland Revenue adhesive stamps for the three years ending 31st March, 1908, are as follows: Unified stamps at 1d.: 1905–6, £543,000; 1906–7, £547,000; 1907–8 £551,000. Unified stamps above 1d.: 1905–6, £34,800; 1906–7, £35,520; 1907–8, £36,240. Increased amounts of £4,000 for Unified stamps at 1d. and of £720 for those above 1d. are paid over each year by the Post Office.

    Licenses in Scotland.
    MR. BARRIE: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland whether he will state the number of public house licences at present in force in Scotland; the number of spirit grocers' licences; and the number of hotel licences.
    MR. RUNCIMAN: The number of licences at present in force in Scotland is as follows: Public-house licences, 6,472; spirit grocers' licences, 3,604; hotel licences, 372.

    Affortestation on the Inverliever Estate
    LORD BALCARRES: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland which Department will control the afforestation of the Inverliever estate.
    MR. RUNCIMAN: The Commissioners of Woods and Forests.

    Lewis Sanitary Condition.
    MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland in view of the fact that it is now nearly three years since Dr. Dittmar, the medical inspector for the Local Government Board for Scotland, reported the sanitary condition of the townships in the Island of Lewis as dangerous to the public health, will he state whether he has yet succeeded in making arrangements with the Treasury such as will admit of assistance being given towards the construction of houses on new sites.
    THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (Mr. SINCLAIR,): No such arrangements have been made. But I am in communication with the local authority with a view to obtaining complete information as to houses of crofters and cottars in Lewis.

    Lewis Cottars.
    MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland whether he has yet received a list of cottars and others resident in the townships in the Island of Lewis who would be willing to migrate to the mainland if the Congested Districts Board arranged reasonable aid for their settlement; and, in view of the Scottish Office declarations on this subject, will he state whether any scheme for the encouragement of migration to the mainland has yet been considered.
    MR. SINCLAIR: My hon. friend has himself been good enough to furnish me with a list of the nature referred to. Before the Congested Districts Board can take any action further information is required as to skill and experience and also as to ability of those concerned to rent, stock, and cultivate holdings.

    Beauly and Ness Rivers Estuary.
    MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland, seeing that, at pages

    1527
    30 and 32 of the First Report of the Fishery Board for Scotland, the opinion is expressed that the estuary of the Beauly and Ness rivers has been too far extended, and that there is no sufficient ground for extending the estuary beyond a line from. Chanonry Point to Fort George, will he state whether he has yet considered the expediency of calling for a Report on the subject, especially having regard to the fact that the estuary as present extends into the open sea four miles beyond the point recommened in the Fishery Board Report.
    MR. SINCLAIR: I have made careful inquiry into this subject. Any alteration of existing boundaries would require legislation, and from the information I have received, I do not consider there are sufficient grounds for that step at present.

    Illegal Trawling in the Moray Firth
    MR WEIR: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland, having regard to the fact that sixteen trawlers were detected on forty-four different occasions in the Moray Firth in December and January, will he state how many of these vessels were flying a foreign flag, and the nationality of such flag; and in how many instances proceedings have been instituted for illegal trawling.
    MR SINCLAIR: So far as I am aware all the trawlers referred to were flying a foreign flag; twelve were flying the Norwegian and the others flags of other foreign countries. So far, in one case proceedings have been instituted.
    MR. STANLEY WILSON: Are not the Government prepared to grant the same rights and privileges to British fishermen in British waters as those which foreigners possess?
    MR. SINCLAIRasked for notice of the Question.

    Maynooth College and Queen's College, Belfast.
    CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he can state the amount of State aid granted to Maynooth College and Queen's College, Belfast,
    1528
    respectively, since their establishment, the number of students at present on the rolls, and the present rateable value of these two colleges, respectively.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Before the right hon. Gentleman answers that Question, may I ask him if he is aware that the first grant to Maynooth College was made by an Irish Parliament, composed exclusively of Irish Protestants?
    THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. BIRRELL,): Yes, Sir; I knew that.
    CAPTAIN CRAIG: And so did I.
    MR. BIRRELL: It was given in evidence before the Robertson Commission on University Education in Ireland that Maynooth College received from the State amounts varying from £8,000 to £9,000 a year from its foundation in 1795 up till 1845, when the annual grant was increased to £26,360 a year. This latter grant was continued until 1871 when it was withdrawn, the sum of £369,040, representing fourteen years' purchase, being paid to the college in compensation, out of the Irish Church Fund. The Board of Works also expended on buildings and maintenance, and remission of building loans, the sum of £52,835. The Queen's College, Belfast, has received £7,000 a year since its foundation, together with grants-in-aid, amounting in all to £82,600, and the Board of Works have expended on buildings and maintenance £95,558. The number of students at Maynooth for the year 1907–8 is 562; the number at Belfast for the current winter session is 380. Both of the colleges are exempt from rating.

    Ballybricken Cattle Drive.
    CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that on Wednesday night, the 26th February last, a cattle drive on a large scale took place in the Ballybricken district, County Limerick; can he state to whom the lands belonged; what was the object of the outrage; have any arrests been

    1529
    made; and have any persons been brought to justice.
    MR. BIRRELL: The fact is as stated in the Question. The cattle which were driven off belonged to five grazing tenants on Roche Kelly estate. The police have no knowledge of the object of the drive, which can only be a matter of opinion. No evidence is forthcoming against any of the offenders. No arrests, therefore, have been made.

    Irish Schools—Fees for Bilingual Teaching.
    MR. THOMAS O'DONNELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will state the number of schools in Ireland where the bilingual programme is adopted and the fees paid to the teachers of those schools, the fees paid or proposed to be paid to teachers who, though not adopting the bilingual programme, teach Irish as an ordinary school subject within ordinary school hours, and the fees paid or proposed to be paid to teachers who teach Irish as an extra subject outside ordinary school hours.
    MR. BIRRELL: The Commissioners of National Education inform me that the bilingual programme has been sanctioned in 120 national schools. A fee of 4s. may be paid for each unit of the average attendance of pupils receiving bilingual instruction in schools classified at the annual inspection as "fair"; a. fee of 6s. in schools classified as "good"; and a fee of 8s. in schools classified as "very good" or "excellent." On the restoration of fees for Irish as an extra subject, special payment for it as an ordinary subject ceased. Fees may now be paid for Irish taught as an extra subject to pupils of the third and higher standards, according to the following scale: In the third standard, 3s. per unit of the average attendance at the Irish lessons; in the fourth standard, 6s. per unit of the average attendance; in the fifth standard, 9s. per unit of the average attendance; and in the sixth and higher standards, 12s. per unit of the average attendance.
    MR. THOMAS O'DONNELL: What fee will be paid if Irish is taught as an ordinary subject, and not as an extra?
    MR. BIRRELL: As I have just stated, fees are- not now paid for Irish as an ordinary subject.
    MR. MOORE: May I ask if under this system more is paid for teaching Irish than for teaching modern language in three-parts of the country where Irish is absolutely useless?
    MR. BIRRELL: The hon. Gentleman may infer what he likes.

    Ballinalee Catholic School.
    MR. J. P. FARRELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he will state whether any report has been made to the police as to the breaking of the windows of the Catholic male national school at Ballinalee, County Longford; whether he is aware that recently, in consequence of a dispute with the parents and master of the Protestant school at Ballinalee, five Protestant children left the Protestant school and went to the Catholic school instead; and whether the police have any clue as to the identity of those who broke the Catholic school windows.
    I beg also to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the police of Ballinalee are now able to identify the perpetrator of the outrage on the Catholic school at Ballinalee on the night of 23rd January, 1908; and whether any magisterial inquiry will be held in the case.
    MR. BIRRELL: It was reported to the police that four panes of glass were broken in the male Catholic school at Ballinalee on the night of 22nd January. Six Protestant children have left the Protestant school in consequence of a dispute between the parents of the children and the teacher, and are now attending the Catholic school. The police have no evidence as to the persons who broke the windows and consequently on magisterial investigation can be held.

    Land Purchase in Longford—Tully Grazing Land
    MR. J. P. FARRELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland can he state whether the Estates Commissioners have entered into communication with Mr. James W. Bond, D.L., as to the sale of his grazing lands at Tully, Asnagh, and Ardagullian; and with what result.
    MR. BIRRELL: The Estates Commissioners have approached Mr. Bond with reference to his lands referred to in the Question, but he declines to sell. He states that he has himself worked the lands since 1875, and that they were worked by his father and grandfather before him.

    Crofton Estate, Longford
    MR. J. P. FARRELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that in the case of the sale of the Crofton estate, at Kiltycreevagh, County Longford, arrangements for sale had been completed between the former owner and his tenants, but that on his death his successors have refused to continue the negotiations and instituted a campaign of eviction instead; and will he therefore direct the attention of the Estates Commissioners to this case with a view to their interference in the interests of peace in the locality.
    MR. BIRRELL: I have already informed the hon. Member that the Estates Commissioners have no knowledge of the matters referred to in the Question, and that they do not consider the case to be one in which they could interfere. No proceedings for the sale of the estate have come before the Commissioners.

    Newtownforbes Petty Sessions—Absence of Crime in Longford.
    MR. J. P. FARRELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that at the last Petty Sessions Court of Newtownforbes there was not a single case for hearing of any kind; whether he is also aware that on the whole the charge of the Judge at Longford Spring Assizes was to congratulate the grand
    1532
    jury upon the state of the county; and will he in view of these circumstances now direct that the extra police at present quartered on Longford be withdrawn.
    MR. BIRRELL: It is the fact that there was no case for hearing at the last petty sessions at Newtownforbes. It is also the case that at the recent assizes for Longford the Judge described the general condition of the county as satisfactory, but he specially excepted a certain district from this description. It is in this district alone that extra police are required, and the Inspector-General informs me that the present condition of the district is not such as would justify the withdrawal of the police.
    MR. J. P. FARRELL: Would it not be possible to draft police from districts where their services are not needed instead of imposing a charge for extra police on other parts?
    MR. BIRRELL: We are doing the best we can, but of course we cannot denude other parts of the county of police.

    The Ormonde Hunt.
    MR. HOGAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he will say whether Major Dease, R.M., who sentenced a number of young men at Clough-jordan last week to various terms of imprisonment on charges connected with the stoppage of the Ormonde hunt, actually seconded a resolution publicly to hunt against the wishes of the people of the district; did any other magistrate take part in the trial of these men; and were they tried at petty sessions or a special Court.
    MR. BIRRELL: I have referred this Question to Major Dease, who informs me that it is not the fact that he seconded a resolution of the nature referred to in the Question. On 3rd instant Major Dease heard an application by the police to bind to the peace seventeen persons who were charged with cattle driving. The defendants were ordered to find sureties or in default to be imprisoned.

    1533
    They refused to give bail and were committed to prison, but some of them have since been released on giving bail. The application was made to the resident magistrate alone. Petty sessions were not being held on that day.
    MR. J. MACVEAGH: Was the Major at the hunt meeting?
    MR. BIRRELL: I cannot say.
    MR. J. MACVEAGH: Is his special qualification as a magistrate that he is a landlord and a Militia major?
    [No Answer was returned.]

    The Dublin Crown Jewels.
    MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord - Lieutenant of Ireland whether the attention of the Irish Government has been drawn to the detailed statement which appeared recently in a certain London newspaper to the effect that the police authorities, in their investigation into the loss of the Dublin Crown jewels, discovered the existence of a most grave and criminal scandal affecting a number of officials of Dublin Castle; and whether the Government will order a full and public inquiry into the whole matter.
    MR. BIRRELL: I am glad the hon. Member has asked this Question. The statements that have appeared in certain London newspapers are a parcel of lies of a particularly cruel and offensive kind. No grave or criminal scandal affecting officials in Dublin Castle has been discovered. No person or persons are being shielded from prosecution, whether for the theft or for any other crime. The police are busily engaged in prosecuting their inquiries. Criminal proceedings will at once be taken when any evidence justifying prosecution is forthcoming. A full and public inquiry at present would not be of any use, and would probably interfere with the course of justice.
    MR. MOORE: Has it been publicly stated that the right hon. Gentleman himself has charged one official in Dublin
    1534
    Castle with being party to a grave and criminal scandal?
    MR. BIRRELL: No, Sir; it is absolutely untrue.
    CAPTAIN CRAIG: In view of the statement of the right hon. Gentleman that a public inquiry would not be of any use in this case, is he of opinion that the private inquiry, details of which have been made public, has been of any use either?
    MR. BIRRELL: Yes, Sir; it has served some purpose.
    CAPTAIN CRAIG: What purpose?
    [No Answer was returned.]

    Irish Sub-Land Commissioner's Appointment.
    MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord - Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will state upon whose recommendation Mr. P. F. Mullaly was appointed a Sub-Land Commissioner; whether he passed any examination to test his qualifications; and why it is necessary to furnish this official with special assistance in respect of scaling and mapping.
    MR. BIRRELL: Mr. P. F. Mullaly was appointed by warrant of the Lord-Lieutenant bearing date 1st April, 1907, to act as a temporary Assistant Land Commissioner for the ensuing year. I am not aware that Mr. Mullaly was appointed upon the recommendation of any person. He was appointed upon his personal application, and the Lord-Lieutenant was fully satisfied as to his qualifications. He was not required to undergo an examination. The rules do not prescribe any examination for the post. The Land Commission inform me that they have not furnished Mr. Mullaly with any special assistance in the performance of mapping and scaling work.
    MR. T. M. HEALY: In what county has he been working?
    MR. BIRRELL: I will ascertain.

    The Glenahiery Explosion
    MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the evidence given by District-Inspector Preston at Waterford, on Friday last, with reference to his Report on the Glenahiery explosion and the remarks of Mr. Justice Kenny thereupon; and whether, having regard to the publicity given to that Report by official sanction and to the fact that it contained a false charge against Lord Ashtown, he will direct a public inquiry into the circumstances connected with the preparation of this Report at Dublin Castle.
    The following Questions on the same subject also appeared on the Paper:
    MR. MOORE: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if his attention has been called to the sworn evidence if District-Inspector Preston that his Report on the explosion at Glenahery was altered and amended in Dublin Castle so as to convey the charge that Lord Ashtown was privy to or concerned in the explosion; will he state if the Report was then signed by District-Inspector Preston; who were the persons responsible for this alteration; was the Report, as published, a violation of a rule relating to reports on malicious injuries in the constabulary code; was such alteration made; was such Report signed by Mr. Preston under the direction of the Inspector-General; and what action he proposes to take in the matter.
    MR. MOORE: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland by whose authority certain original reports and statements relating to the explosion at Glenahiery were removed from the file at Dublin Castle and destroyed, so as to prevent their production in Court on the hearing of Lord Ashtown's claim.
    MR. MOORE: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if his attention has been called to the statement on oath by District-Inspector Preston, in reply to Mr. Justice Kenny, that he was prepared,
    1536
    and did do so, at the bidding of his superior officer, to put his name to a statement affecting Lord Ashtown in which he did not believe; and if it is intended to take any action in respect of this officer.
    CAPTAIN CRAIG: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the admissions made by District-Inspector Preston on the hearing of the appeal arising out of the Glenahiery incident; and whether he proposes to take any, and, if so, what, action in the matter.
    EARL WINTERTON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenaut of Ireland whether in view of Inspector Preston's admissions in the Glenahiery case, it is intended to retain him in the service.
    MR. BIRRELL: My Answer applies to all these Questions. District-Inspector Preston, in whose district Glenahiery Lodge is situated, was, at the date of the explosion, absent on special duty in the North of Ireland. He was at once recalled by the Inspector-General and directed to make an inquiry into the circumstances in the ordinary course of his duty. Having investigated the circumstances of the explosion, he prepared at his office in Cappoquin, County Water-ford, and submitted to his superior officer, Mr. Jennings, the County Inspector of that county, a Report dated 7th September, 1907, stating the results of his inquiry. The County Inspector forwarded that Report to the Inspector-General of the Royal Irish Constabulary at Dublin Castle in the usual course, and without note or comment. The Inspector-General, considering the Report to be of special importance, summoned District-Inspector Preston to the Castle, and subsequently took him, with the Report, to the Under-Secretary, with the view to its being considered whether it was desirable, in the interests of justice, that the Report should be communicated to Lord Ashtown and the local councils of Waterford as the opposing parties in the pending litigation. The Undersecretary, regarding the question as one for the law officers, referred the matter

    1537
    to them. The law officers were of opinion that it was essentially just and necessary that a statement of the matters within Mr. Preston's knowledge should be sent to the parties, in order to prevent the undoubted surprise and possible injustice which would follow if these matters, as to the important part of which Mr. Preston was corroborated by the Home Office expert, Captain Lloyd, were disclosed for the first time by Mr. Preston as a witness in Court. They were, however, of opinion that the Report of 7th September, inasmuch as it contained suggestions and views of Mr. Preston, and matters some of which had occurred before his arrival on the scene and were therefore outside his own knowledge, could not be properly submitted to the parties, but that Mr. Preston should prepare a statement to be sent to them, confined to the actual matters to which he could personally depose. Thereupon, Mr. Preston proceeded to a separate room in the Castle for the purpose of preparing a, statement on that basis. He, accordingly, prepared and signed the statement, dated 11th September, without any interference, direction, or suggestion from anybody. This statement was read in the presence of the Inspector-General, the Under-Secretary, and the two law officers, and no alteration whatever was made or directed to be made therein. It was then, by the direction of the Inspector-General, sent to County Inspector Jennings for transmission to the parties. This was accordingly done. The transmission of this statement was in no sense a violation of any rule or circular of the Constabulary Force. On the contrary, it was in the highest sense in conformity with the spirit and intentions of these rules. It contained merely a narrative of facts, and made no charge against any individual. The publication of the statement which afterwards took place was made without the desire, knowledge, or sanction of the Government, and the Government is in no way responsible for it, directly or indirectly. In view of the imputations made I have considered it my duty to lay upon the Table of the House District-Inspector Preston's Report of 7th September, 1907, and his statement of 11th September, 1907. It will be apparent to anybody that instead of representing a change to the prejudice
    1538
    of Lord Ashtown, the statement of 11th September was a modified, not to say a mitigated, reproduction of Mr. Preston's Report of 7th September. It did not contain a single statement not to be found in the Report of 7th September; nor was there omitted from it a single matter to which Mr. Preston could personally depose. On 14th September, 1907, Mr. Jennings, County Inspector, submitted a Report, in which for the first time he expressed dissent from the conclusions arrived at by Mr. Preston in his Report of 7th September, which had been forwarded through him. Immediately on its receipt, Mr. Jennings was directed to furnish copies of this Report to the parties, which he forthwith did. In the process of preparing the statement of 11th September, District-Inspector Preston made for his own guidance certain pencil marks and notes on the margin" of his original Report of 7th September. He also made a manuscript draft of the statement which he had been directed to prepare. When completed this draft was typed and signed by him. The draft was then destroyed and the pencil marks made upon the original Report of 7th September partially affaced by him. This is the explanation of, and the sole foundation for, the allegations contained in the Question of the hon. and learned Member for North Armagh. No document upon the file has been effaced, destroyed, or removed therefrom. All are intact. If any hon. Member is desirous of inspecting the original Report of District-Inspector Preston of 7th September, with his pencil marks and notes still partially legible thereon, I shall be glad to show it to him. My attention has been called to the newspaper reports of the cross-examination of District-Inspector Preston at the recent trial at Waterford. If accurately reported, I can only say of Mr. Preston's answers, in view of the facts which I have now stated, that they afford but another example of the evident confusion to which an unprotected witness, who has been most severely attacked, and for whom nobody is appearing, can sometimes be reduced in our Courts, when in the hands of an able cross-examining counsel. Regarding the answers, it must, however, be observed that according to the newspaper accounts, M.

    1539
    Preston, on re-examination, expressly reaffirmed the accuracy of every single statement in his statement of 11th September furnished to Lord Ashtown and his own personal responsibility for it. In reply to the hon. Member for Mid-Armagh, the Government will not direct an inquiry, as suggested in his Question. In reply to the noble Earl the Member for the Horsham Division, it is intended to retain District-Inspector Preston in the service?
    MR. LONSDALE: Can the right hon. Gentleman explain why, in the Report sent by District-Inspector Preston, there is an entire suppression of all facts which indicated that the explosion was the work of an outsider?
    [No Answer was returned.]
    MR. JOHN REDMOND: Inasmuch as the original Report of September 7th is now published for the first time, and was withheld from the Court in the recent inquiry, and in view of the fact that that Report contains a number of startling and sensational statements, raising all sorts and kinds of suspicions with reference to this case, I would ask the right hon. Gentleman whether the Government can maintain their attitude of refusing a full sworn inquiry into all the circumstances of the case.
    MR. GORDON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that on the hearing of the appeal, counsel for Lord Ashtown called for that Report of 7th September, and the Inspector-General of Police successfully refused to produce it? He stated it would be against the public interest to do so. Will the right hon. Gentleman say how he can justify the publication of that Report by laying it on the Table when counsel has not an opportunity of cross-examining with regard to it, particularly having regard to the evidence given by Mr. Preston, and the result of the cross-examination?
    THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. CHERRY,): Allow me to answer. The Inspector-General was distinctly informed
    1540
    that he was at liberty to produce the Report if called for, and he attended in Court with it to do so. Why he did not produce it I do not know. I may add that the inspector-general was subpoenaed by both sides, and was examined by neither.
    MR. JOHN REDMOND: I must, respectfully repeat my Question, whether in view of the publication of this new document, which contains a number of extraordinary statements, the Government can maintain their attitude by-refusing a full inquiry into all the circumstances attending this alleged outrage?
    MR. WALTER LONGBefore the right hon. Gentleman answers-that, and arising out of his reply, he-referred to the White Paper, which has been in the hards of Members within an hour, although it appeared in the Press; some hours ago. That Paper contains the Reports of District-Inspector Preston, two of which were already published and one of which has been withheld. Is it not a fact that prior to the receipt by the Inspector-General of the Report from Mr. Preston, the Inspector-General had received Reports from County Inspectors Jennings and Rodgers and District-Inspector Tweedy, and whether those Reports were not in direct conflict with the reports of Mr. Preston; and why were they not included in the Report to Parliament in common justice to a. man who is under a charge in these Papers, who cannot defend himself, and who is entitled to have the full case put before the country?
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Is it not a fact that these Reports which have been asked for were already published in the papers?
    MR. MOORE: Not one of them.
    MR. SPEAKER: This is really turning into a debate.
    MR. JOHN REDMOND: Will the Chief Secretary give an Answer to the-Question which I have put twice?
    MR. BIREELL: You see, the document referred to in the first Report

    1541
    contains, I quite agree, opinions, whether valuable or not, of that inspector, which are now for the first time given to the public. But the Government have long been aware of the nature and contents of that Report, and they do not see anything in the suggestions made by this gentleman of sufficient importance as likely to lead to anything. But if both sides want a public inquiry the last thing that the Government wish is to conceal or keep back anything. I do not think myself that Mr. Preston's first Report will afford much assistance to a public inquiry.
    MR. JOHN REDMOND: I give notice that, on the first opportunity available, I will move a Resolution to the effect that a public inquiry should be held.
    MR. MOORE: May I ask was Mr. Preston, accurate in stating on oath that in the Castle he was given by a certain number of officials in the case the heads of Reports to write.
    MR. BIRRELL: No. He was entirely inaccurate.
    MR. MOORE: If a constabulary officer—
    MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member lias asked a Question, and has got an Answer.
    MR. CHERRY: I may say with regard to the Question of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Dublin, that so far as I know, the first Report that the Inspector-General got was that from Mr. Preston who was the District Inspector for the district, and by whom in the ordinary course it would be made.
    MR. WALTER LONG: That may be the case, but is the right hon. Gentleman prepared to tell the House that within a few days the Government did not receive reports from the two county inspectors and District Inspector Tweedy, in direct conflict with his Report?
    MR. CHERRY: No. So far as I am aware they did not receive such. The only Reports that they received, to my
    1542
    knowledge, were those from District Inspector Preston, and County Inspector Jennings. The other police officers belonged to different counties.
    MR. WALTER LONG: I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether the Report which he says the Government did receive from County Inspector Jennings was not in direct conflict to that received from Mr. Preston, and why is it not included in the White Paper?
    MR. CHERRY: District inspector Preston's first Report was furnished by the county inspector without note or comment. County Inspector Jennings' Report furnished on 14th September, was sent to the Castle, and immediately sent to the parties, and has been published. There was no necessity therefore, to include it in the white Paper. Mr. Preston's two Reports are there, so that hon. Members may compare them, and see whether the statements made about the Government are true or not.
    MR. SPEAKER: Other questions on this subject must be put down.

    Railway Communication with Belfast
    CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will lay before the House copies of the correspondence that has passed between the Secretary of the Vice-Regal Commission on Irish Railways, the Great Northern Railway Ireland), the Belfast and County Down Railway, and Dr. Wylmants Olpherts, Downpatrick, relative to the frequently recurring failure of the passengers by these railways, travelling by the 3 p.m. train from Dublin via Newcastle, to connect with the 6.40 p.m. train to Belfast at Newcastle, thereby entailing inconvenience and expense.
    MR. BIRRELL: I am informed by the Vice-Regal Commission on Irish Railways that the correspondence referred to in the Question has not yet concluded. The Commission are awaiting replies to letters recently sent to the managers of the railways concerned and when the correspondence is complete the Commissioners will consider the

    1543
    desirability of furnishing copies for presentation to Parliament if required.
    CAPTAIN CRAIG: Cannot some influence be brought to bear on the railway companies so that the travelling public may not be inconvenienced by the want of connection at the common terminus?
    MR. BIRRELL: My powers in this matter are very limited, but I will do my best.

    Cullenagh Cattle Drive.
    CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether a cattle drive took place on the night of Tuesday, 3rd, March last, on three farms at Cullenagh near Maryborough, Queen's County; if so, whether he can state the names of the owners of the farms; and whether the police can assign any reason for the outrage, and have they brought anyone to justice in connection with it.
    MR. BIRRELL: The fact is as stated in the Question. The three farms belong to Mr. Toler of Birr, and they are occupied by Messrs. Hodgins, Wynne, and Waters respectively. The police cannot state what the reason for the offence may have been. The offenders have not been brought to justice.
    MR. CHARLES CRAIG: Can the right hon. Gentleman form any estimate of the time when there will be some arrests in connection with these outrages?
    MR. BIRRELL: It depends entirely on what evidence is forthcoming.
    MR. KILBRIDE: Is it the fact that this property has been sold and the Estates Commissioners have it for redistribution?
    MR. BIRRELL: I do not know.

    Ballinagar Outrage.
    CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the house of a herd named John Minogue,
    1544
    of Ballinagar, near Woodford, County Galway, was fired into on Thursday night, 3rd March last; was anyone-in the house when the outrage was-committed; have any arrests been made; and do the police know of any reason for this man being molested.
    MR. BIRRELL: The police authorities inform me that a gunshot was fired into John Minogue's house on the occasion in question. The man's daughter and son-in-law and their two children: were in the house at the time, but from the direction in which the shot was fired. it does not appear that personal injury-was intended. No arrests have been made. The police are not aware of any reason for the offence.
    CAPTAIN CRAIGasked whether in view of the reply that no personal injury was intended the right hon. Gentleman meant to distinguish between intimidation and deliberate firing.
    MR. BIRRELL: No, Sir, I do not. I regard both offences with horror and disgust.
    CAPTAIN J. CRAIG: Will not the Government take some steps, by reintroducing some measure such as that dropped last session, to prevent these outrages?
    [No Answer was returned.]
    MR. JOHN ROCHE: Is it not the fact that this man is an evicted tenant, on the most friendly terms with his neighbours and at the time the shot was fired was he not actually attending a United Irish League branch meeting? Is not the impression in the district that.
    MR. SPEAKER: Order, order: The, hon. Member must give notice.

    Lord Shaftesbury's Carrickfergus Estate.
    MR. SLOAN: I beg to-ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he can state-whether Mr. Thomas McKaig, in the West Division of Lord Shaftesbury's Carrickfergus estate, is a first or second-term tenant and, if a first-term tenant,

    1545
    why did the Commissioners threaten to exclude his holding unless he signed a purchase agreement at a second-term price within the zones; and if he will state the exact number of tenants in the Greenisland district of the West Division of the said estate, the number who have signed, and the number who have refrained from signing purchase agreements respectively.
    MR. BIRRELL: The Estates Commissioners inform me that Mr. McKaig is tenant of a holding under judicial agreement, dated 10th January, 1905, and is therefore, a first-term tenant. As regards the exclusion of McKaig from the sale, it is to be said that he has not signed a purchase agreement. The Commissioners have nothing to add to the facts stated in my reply to the hon. Member on 5th instant on this subject. The Commissioners are not aware to what particular portion of the estate the hon. Member refers as the Green-island district of the West Division, and therefore cannot give the information asked for in the concluding part of the Question.

    Carntall National School.
    MR. SLOAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if the Commissioners of National Education have decided to close Carntall national school, situated in the County of Antrim; and, if so, what provision is going to be made for the children who, by the closing of this school, would be compelled to walk two and a half miles to the next nearest school, many of whom would be unable to do so; and whether, in view of the fact that the entire people of the district are unanimously in favour of the school being continued, and some time ago raised money for its repair, he will consider the advisability of retaining this school, at least Until better accommodation is available for the children who attend it.
    MR. BIRRELL: The Commissioners of National Education inform me that they have not yet come to a final decision in this matter. The question of closing the school has been under their consideration, and they have referred the ease to their Inspector for inquiry.
    1546
    Upon the receipt of his report, they will further consider the matter.

    Ballinalee School Teachers.
    MR. J. P. FARRELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he will state the name of the present teacher of the Protestant national school at Ballinalee; whether he is aware that this teacher was dismissed from several appointments in the North of Ireland for political displays; whether his qualifications were examined before he was accredited to Ballinalee; and whether the Board will admonish him to restrain his political ardour in. that district in the interests of peace.
    MR. BIRRELL: The Commissioners of National Education inform me that the only national school under Protestant managership at Ballinalee, County Longford, is Curraghcahill National School. So far as the Commissioners are aware, the present teacher of that school is Mr. James Traynor, and this teacher has not served in any national school in Ulster since 1886. He served in two schools in Antrim prior to that year, but there is no record of his having been dismissed from either of them for any reason.

    Irish. National Board of Commissioners.
    MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he is aware that the meetings of the National Board of Commissioners are held once a. fortnight, at which only about one-third, of the members attend regularly, that the other two-thirds attend on an average about once a month, and that as a result the work of the Board is in the hands of the Resident Commissioner and a few of the higher officials; and whether, having regard to this fact, he will take steps to alter the constitution of the Board, so as to. have it composed of persons of a, representative character who would take an active interest in primary education.
    MR. BIRRELL: The ordinary meetings of the National Education Board are held once a fortnight, but special meetings and Committee meetings are also held at various, times in each year.

    1547
    The Commissioners inform me that it is not correct to say that only one-third of the members attend regularly, or that two-thirds of the Board attend only once a month. They state that the work of the Board is in the hands of officials only in so far as the officials have been authorised by the Commissioners to carry it on. I am not aware that there is any foundation for the suggestion that the present members of the Board do not take an active interest in primary education.
    MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he can say whether about a year ago the Commissioners of National Education appointed a person from outside the Education Office to investigate cases of alleged inefficiency on the part of the teachers; if so, whether it was owing to the Resident Commissioner or any of the secretaries -of the Board having no practical knowledge of such matters, none of them ever having been an inspector of schools; whether such a person is still so employed; was there any justification for the appointment; and what salary was attached to it.
    MR. BIERELL: The Commissioners of National Education inform me that in view of the change in the duties of the chiefs of inspection by which these officers were for the future to be largely engaged in outdoor work, they found it desirable, about five years ago, to bring in one of the other inspectors to the central office to assist in the preparation of certain special work which had previously been discharged by members of the inspection staff. The answer to the second part of the Question is in the negative. An inspector is still employed at the central office, but he receives no remuneration beyond his salary as inspector.

    The Senior Secretary to the National Board.
    ' MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he is aware that there is a great deal of dissatisfaction amongst inspectors of national schools in Ireland, occasioned in no small degre by letters frequently sent to them by the
    1548
    senior secretary of the National Board; whether he is also aware that up to a few years ago this official was merely a clerk in the Education Office; and whether, in view of this fact, he will say by whom was he appointed to the office, and what were the qualifications that obtained for him that position.
    MR. BIRRELL: The Commissioners of National Education inform me that they are not aware that dissatisfaction exists amongst their inspectors from any cause. The senior secretary of the Board was appointed in 1900. He was a clerk in the service of the Commissioners, and for the preceding ten years had been private secretary in succession to three Resident Commissioners, including the present holder of that office. The secretary in question was appointed by the Board, who inform me that the qualifications which he possessed were great experience and knowledge of the business of the Board and conspicuous ability in the discharge of the various duties entrusted to him.

    Sir George Colthurst's Estate.
    MR. SHEEHAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutanent of Ireland whether he is aware that in connection with the claim of the labourers and small landholders on the estate of Sir George Colthurst, Ballyvourney, to the distribution of the home farm amongst them, Mr. Commissioner Bailey assured the hon. Member for Mid-Cork, both personally and by letters, that an opportunity would be given to those who contested the bona fides of the tenancy of Mr. Jeremiah Hegarty of being heard in support of their contention by the Estates Commissioners before the question was finally determined; and will he state whether this promise of Mr. Bailey will be observed by the Estates Commissioners.
    MR. BIRRELL: The course which the Estates Commissioners propose to follow in the matter is fully stated in my reply to the hon. Member's Question of the 9th instant. Before coining to a final decision in the matter they will carefully consider any statement or

    1549
    representations put forward in connection with the tenancy of Mr. Hegarty. There is no record on the official files of any promise by Mr. Bailey to the effect stated in the Question. Personal correspondence of individual Commissioners is not recorded in the office.
    MR. SHEEHAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the estate of Sir George Colthurst, Ballyvourney, County Cork, has been purchased direct by the Estates Commissioners from the owner; and, if not, will he explain the circumstances of the sale and the terms agreed upon; have the tenants on the estate to the extent of not less than three-fourths in number and rateable value, undertaken to purchase their holdings from either the Land Commission or the owner; and, if not, will he explain how it is that the Estates Commissioners have been collecting interest on the purchase money on this estate, and generally treating it as if it were an estate to be purchased within the meaning of the Land Act, 1903.
    MR. BIRRELL: The Estates Commissioners inform me that the estate of Sir George Colthurst is being purchased by the tenants direct from the owner. The average number of years purchase in the agreements lodged is: first term tenants, 19·9; second term tenants, 22·5; non-judicial tenants, 19·6. The provisions of the Act as to three-fourths of the tenants in number and rateable value undertaking to purchase are not applicable to sales direct from landlord to tenant. The lands have not yet been declared an estate, nor has the estate been inspected in detail.
    MR. SHEEHAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Estates Commissioners intend to make any inquiries into the circumstances under which it is alleged that Denis McCarthy, of Reinabubbul, on the estate of Sir George Colthurst, Ballyvourney, received the sum of £6 from the estate agents as an inducement to sign his purchase agreement; has this tenant since repudiated the agreement on the ground that his signature was obtained by fraud and
    1550
    duress; has he refused to pay instalments of interest to the Commissioners, and have they processed him and endeavoured to execute the decree against him; and, having regard to the special circumstances of this case, will he take steps to secure an immediate inquiry by the Commissioners.
    MR. BIRRELL: The Estates Commissioners will consider any application which Denis McCarthy may make to them, with notice to the owner, that his agreement should not be acted on, but in the absence of any such application they see no reason for special inquiry as to the payment of £6 stated to have been made to the tenant. The Commissioners have no information as to the circumstances in which such payment may have been made. McCarthy has failed to pay the usual interest on the purchase money, and steps are being taken for its recovery.

    Mr. Leader's Millstreet Estate.
    MR. SHEEHAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware thatt he relieving officer, Millstreet Union, has served the usual notice preparatory to an eviction on Cornelius Rahilly, of Carriglea, Millstreet, County Cork, on the estate of Mr. H. W. Leader; whether he is aware that the present rent of the tenant is £70, whilst the Poor Law valuation is only £25; that an application to fix a fair rent was dismissed by the Land Sub-Commission at Millstreet, in February, 1906, on the ground that Rahilly was a future tenant; that an appeal was entered against this decision, and the farm sold by execution sale, at the instance of the landlord, on 13th April, 1907, before the appeal came to trial; and whether, seeing that various efforts were made at a settlement without result, he will consider the advisability, in disputes of this nature between landlord and tenant which lead up to eviction, of recommending that the Estates Commissioners should intervene to bring about a settlement.
    MR. BIRRELL: The Estates Commissioners inform me that no proceedings for sale in this case have been instituted before them and that they have no

    1551
    knowledge of the facts alleged in the Question. Assuming, however, that the facts are as stated in the Question, the case is not one in which they would have power to interfere. The matter in dispute appears to relate to the payment of rent, and the Commissioner's powers of intervention do not apply to such cases.

    Seven Day Liquor Licences in Ireland.
    MR. BARRIE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will state the number of seven-day liquor licences at present in force in Ireland, the number of six-day licences, the number of spirit grocer licences, and the number of hotel licences.
    MR. RUNCIMAN: The number of liquor licences at present in force in Ireland is as follows: Seven-day licences, 13,992; six-day licences, 3,019; spirit grocers' licences, 1,000; hotel licences, 229.

    Horse Breeding in Ireland-
    MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture (Ireland) whether his Department has been consulted with reference to a scheme for the encouragement of the breeding of horses suitable for Army purposes in Ireland; and whether the Department is prepared to co-operate in that direction.
    MR. BIRRELL (for Mr. T.W. RUSSELL): The Department are aware that communications on this subject have been passing between the War Office and the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries. They understand the matter has not yet got so far as the formulation of a scheme for consideration. In so far as that scheme may refer to Ireland the Department will of course be consulted.

    Technical Instruction in Belfast.
    MR. SLOAN: I beg to ask the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture (Ireland) if he is aware of the need that exists for increased accommodation for technical instruction in Belfast beyond that at present available; that it can only be met by the provision of a. building grant; and whether, in view
    1552
    of the fact that at the annual meetings of the Irish Technical Congress recommendations have been repeatedly made to provide such a grant for Ireland, and to the fact that it is supported by all shades of public opinion in Ireland, he will give the matter his favourable consideration.
    MR. BIRRELL: The Department are aware of the need that exists in. Belfast and in other urban districts, in Ireland for increased accommodation for technical instruction. This need could be met by the provision of a building grant. The matter has for some time engaged the anxious attention of the Department, and it is at present under the consideration of the Treasury.

    Historical Monuments.
    MR. HORNIMAN: I beg to ask the Prime Minister whether he has considered the need of an inventory being made of the ancient and historical monuments and constructions in England and Wales; and whether there is any reason why a Commission for this purpose should not be appointed at once.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: In the event of this being done, will not the first duty be to make an inventory of the ancient and historical monuments, and constructions in the House of Lords?
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. ASQUITH,): My right hon. friend is not in a' position to make any statement at the present time; but he is willing to consider any representations that may be made to him on the matter.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: The right hon. Gentleman has not answered my Question.
    MR. ASQUITH: I said my right hon. friend is willing to consider any representation that may be made on the matter.

POLLING ARRANGEMENTS (PARLIAMENTARY BOROUGHS) BILL.
Reported, without Amendment, from. Standing Committee A.
Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 86.]
Minutes of the Proceedings of the Standing Committee to be printed. [No. 86.]
Bill to be taken into consideration upon Friday, 3rd July.

POLICE (SUPERANNUATION) BILL.
Reported, with an Amendment, from Standing Committee A.
Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 87.]
Minutes of the Proceedings of the Standing Committee to be printed. [No. 87.]
Bill, as amended (in the Standing Committee), to be taken into consideration upon Friday, 3rd July, and to be printed. [Bill 150.]

SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEES.)
Sir WILLIAM BRAMPTON GURDON reported from the Committee of Selection; That they had discharged the following Member from Standing Committee A. (added in respect of the Law of Distress (Amendment) Bill): Mr. Micklem; and had appointed in substitution (in respect of the Law of Distress (Amendment) Bill): Mr. Arnold Herbert.
Report to lie upon the Table.

NEW BILLS.
  NATIONAL MILITARY TRAINING BILL.
  "To amend The Territorial and Reserve Forces Act, 1907, and to authorise National Military Training in the Territorial Force," presented by Captain Kincaid-Smith; supported by Colonel Carlile, Viscount Castlereagh, Mr. Hills, Viscount Helmsley, Mr. Lynch, Viscount Morpeth, Mr. Rees, Mr. Rowland Hunt, Mr. Frederick Edwin Smith, Sir Edward Tennant, and Captain Waring; to be read a second time upon Wednesday next, and to be printed. [Bill 151.]

  TRAWLERS' CERTIFICATES SUSPENSION BILL.
  "To enable Courts to suspend the Certificates of Trawlers convicted of
  1554
  illegal Trawling," presented by Mr. Weir; supported by Mr. Morton, Mr. Ainsworth, Mr. Leicester Harmsworth, Mr. Cathcart Wason, Mr. Bryce, Mr. Sutherland, Mr. Younger, and Major Anstruther-Gray; to be read a second time upon Friday, 20th March, and to be printed. [Bill 152.]

  SUPPLY.
  Considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)

  ARMY ESTIMATES, 1908–9.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a number of Land Forces not exceeding 185,000, all ranks, be maintained for the Service of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland" at Home and Abroad, excluding His-Majesty's Indian Possessions, during the year ending on the 31st day of March,. 1909.'
  MR. ARTHUR LEEsaid he hoped that in the observations which he had to offer upon the right hon. Gentleman's scheme he would be acquitted of any hostile attitude or of any attempt to indulge in captious criticism. He recognised that the right, hon. Gentleman's position at the War Office was not a bed of roses. He had his best wishes for success in the on rous task which he had undertaken, and whether his scheme was good or bad, at any rate it held the field. Whilst he must plead guilty to the charge of being an Army Reformer, he was probably the only Army Reformer in existence who had not got a scheme of his own. There were many things about the right hon. Gentleman's scheme which he did not profess to understand at present, but there were other things which, if he understood them rightly, aroused his apprehensions. He was aware of the perils which beset the path of the critic. An hon. Member, a supporter of the right hon. Gentleman, came down to his constituency a short, time ago and, referring, he presumed, to the august hospitality which marked the initiation of the Territorial Army scheme, said that anyone who criticised that scheme was guilty of disloyalty to the Sovereign. He was

  1555
  naturally averse to incurring that charge, and he was somewhat relieved that the religious ceremonies which were intended to inaugurate this great undertaking had now been indefinitely postponed, or at any rate, that they were not received with much warmth by the County Associations, because, whilst one naturally objected to the charge of disloyalty, one would still more dislike to be suspected of impiety. He did not wish, to discuss that question at length, but at any rate he was prepared to take the risks involved in a certain amount of criticism. Not so very long ago we had gone through a great war, and the lessons of that war had been investigated by a number of Royal Commissions and influential Committees, and if he read the reports of those Commissions and Committees aright it appeared to him that their general conclusions might be summed up as follows. First of all, that there was great need of a larger Reserve of trained soldiers; secondly, that there was a great need of a larger Reserve of trained officers; thirdly, that there was need of a larger supply of efficient artillery; fourthly, that the Volunteer Forces with their present training were not fitted to undertake the duties which they were designed to perform; and, fifthly, that we should at all costs maintain an adequate reserve of stores. The question, therefore, which they had to ask was whether the right hon. Gentleman's scheme or his administration at the War Office had remedied those cardinal defects. He feared it would be optimistic to say that they had. First of all, as regards an adequate Reserve of trained soldiers, at the present moment there was, as the right hon. Gentleman had admitted, an abnormal boom in the strength of the Reserve, but his scheme, when its effects became operative, would produce far less Reservists than the schemes which had preceded it. It would produce less Reservists because he would have largely reduced the units, because he had reduced the number of men serving with the colours who eventually passed to the Reserve, and because he was bringing home units from abroad which were put on a reduced establishment and therefore to that extent were decreased in Reserve-producing power.
  1556
  He was aware that the right hon. Gentleman was taking great credit for the fact that at last he had succeeded, when others had failed, in realising the Card well ideal of an equal number of battalions abroad and at home. But at what cost had he done it? There was another predecessor of the right hon. Gentleman of the name of Procrustes whose habit it was to adjust, in an arbitrary and cruel manner, the physical proportions of his victims, but it could not be denied that he effectually crippled them in the process, and the right hon. Gentleman had done great injury to the Regular Army by his arbitrary reductions. The present prosperous condition of the Reserve was as the right hon. Gentleman must know quite temporary and illusory. The Reserve was like a cistern. There was a pipe flowing in and a pipe flowing out, and the ideal was that those pipes should be of the same diameter. As a matter of fact, under what they might call the Brodrick system of short enlistment, the inflowing pipe was much larger than the outflowing pipe, but now, under the system proposed by the right hon. Gentleman, the inflowing pipe would be greatly restricted, whilst, when this boom came to an end about 1914, the outflowing pipe would be enormously enlarged and the result must be that there would be in the future a greatly reduced Reserve of trained soldiers. As regards officers the right hon. Gentleman had admitted a most serious shortage, but he would deal with that, if he might, a little later on. As regards a larger supply of efficient artillery, instead of there being more batteries under the right hon. Gentleman's scheme, there would be less batteries of effective fighting value. He was filling up some of the batteries with partially trained men, but at any rate he was taking thirty-three of the regular batteries and converting them into mere depots with two guns apiece and reducing their fighting value to an extremely low point. As regards the Volunteers, they had been undoubtedly reduced in number according to the right hon. Gentleman's own figures, and their training had certainly not been increased. As far as he could judge, under the Territorial Army Scheme, it would be diminished if anything. As regards stores, he did not wish to go into that at

  1557
  length now, but there were many disquieting symptoms in the Estimates which suggested that the reserves were being drawn upon and not replaced, and he would like to ask the right hon. Gentleman one specific question, viz., was the standard of reserves of stores laid down by the Mowatt Committee and adopted by the late Administration maintained in its entirety to-day?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. HALDANE,)nodded assent.
  MR. ARTHUR LEE,continuing, said he was glad of that, because from the way in which this question was treated in the Estimates, it was a little difficult to arrive at such a satisfactory conclusion. Those were the main points on which he proposed to criticise the right hon. Gentleman's scheme. They were bound to fill a looker-on with a considerable amount of anxiety, but there was one point even broader than any he had mentioned and which must be obvious to all. Our only effective forces were being largely reduced by the right hon. Gentleman, whilst the Territorial Army, which was intended partially to replace those forces, had not yet materialised, and the old Auxiliary Forces of which it was to be composed, had considerably shrunk during his administration. The right hon. Gentleman took up that point in his speech the other day, when he said there had been much criticism about reductions, but after all, he added, had the country ever the prospect of such a force before it, and if such a force could be got at less cost it was a great gain; and so on. The right hon. Gentleman held out to them a prospect, perhaps a visionary prospect, but, in the meantime, he had effected a very real and serious reduction of over 20,000 trained soldiers, and perhaps of twice that number when the effect on the Reserve came into full force. His chief complaint was that what the right hon. Gentleman had done, so far, was to prune down our existing effective force, while the force with which he designed to replace it was at that moment only on paper and might indeed be only an aspiration. He would like to consider for a moment the constitution of this force which was
  1558
  to replace those who had been reduced, in other words the Territorial Army, and of course he wished to consider it as it would be when it was completely organized and in full working order. What its, fighting value would be was of course a very large speculation, but he must confess that the views of the officer, who was, he understood, the Commander-in-Chief-Designate of the British Army, in the event of war, were certainly not sanguine or very encouraging in this connection. Sir John French, in reporting upon the manœuvres of 1907, made these remarks, he understood, to all the officers of the Aldershot Division with regard to the fighting value of the Territorial Army. He said that assuming that three divisions of the Territorial Army had been mobilised for three months it was impossible to estimate their value as compared with Regulars, but it was not too much to say that the military value of the whole of the three divisions did not equal that of one regular division. That was not a very sanguine statement, but after all the General's estimate was optimistic, because he assumed that in the event of war the Territorial Army would have at last three months embodiment in which to prepare. Was there any ground for assuming that? If this country was to be invaded at all it would be by surprise and the period available for preparation was not likely to be anything like three months. We should be lucky if it was even as much as three weeks-Before he passed away from this point of the training and the state of preparedness of the Territorial Army, he wished to dwell for a few moments upon a very interesting point, at least a point which was very interesting to him, and that was the question of the proposed Territorial Field Artillery, an arm which after all required far higher and more scientific training than any other arm in the proposed force. He had had some slight spars with the right hon. Gentleman on this subject, before, but he was sure he would admit that it was a very serious subject, and he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would recognise that any criticisms he made were uttered solely because he was particularly interasted in this branch of the service. A short time ago he asked the right hon. Gentleman two

  1559
  questions in this House. The reply to the first he was in complete agreement with, because the right hon. Gentleman said the duties of the Territorial Artillery in the event of war in no way differed from similar duties of "the regular artillery. Then he asked the right hon. Gentleman whether it was the opinion of the Army Council that the Territorial Army field batteries, armed with a considerably less efficient weapon and considerably less trained, could be properly confronted with the quick-firing batteries and high trained personnel of a Continental Army. The right hon. Gentleman's reply to that was certainly peculiar, and he could only assume that it was meant to be humourous. He said that these converted 15-pounder guns would be more mobile and better adapted for use within the close wooded terrain, such as the Territorial Army would usually operate in. He did not know whether the right hon. Gentleman had any reliable information as to the part of our coast which would be invaded, but there were many points which were open to attack which were not wooded and which would not lend themselves to the right hon. Gentleman's convenient theory. Then the right hon. Gentleman went on to say that he (Mr. Lee) had not applied his mind to the subject, but if he would read an interesting little book which had been recently published by a distinguished officer he would find it laid down that it was "absolutely vital that the artillery should be of the most mobile character, and the range of the guns necessarily short," and that was put forward to justify a statement of the right hon. Gentleman that the range of these new field guns was an effective one, although it was a thousand yards less than that of the guns supplied to the Regular Army. He took the right hon. Gentleman's advice and he invested the sum of 3s. 6d. in this book which he recommended him to study, and he had done his best to apply his mind to it. But why the right hon. Gentleman asked him to direct his attention to this particular work he could not imagine, because the writer, Colonel Callwell, who was a very distinguished officer and a man for whose opinion he had a great respect,
  1560
  stated, although making them far more clear than he could have hoped to do, the precise objections to the training and equipment of the Territorial Artillery which he had ventured to urge on more than one occasion. He did not wish to go into the matter at any great length, but he would allude to one or two points from the chapter specially recommended for his perusal. Colonel Callwell said that there were many areas in the United Kingdom where the ground was open and where artillery would play as prominent a part as in Flanders or Manchuria. He further said the invading batteries would be of the highest class and of the highest efficiency in regard to personnel and power of armament, and he asked the question if our batteries would merit so flattering a description. Further he said that we could not afford to ignore that the management of artillery in the United Kingdom presented exceptional difficulties and called for an exceptionally high standard of training, and that only highly trained and thoroughly compete nt personnel could hope to get a full effect, and then Colonel Callwell added, as a final refutation of the right hon. Gentleman's argument, that numerical superiority in guns could not avail. His concluding argument, which was interesting, and to him new, was that field-guns were not the most important weapons for this purpose of home defence, but light howitzers and mountain guns would, under the peculiar conditions of fighting in this country, be more effective weapons. Colonel Call-well's theories were reinforced by most students of war and by our military attaches in Manchuria, who had shown that it was impossible for inferior guns to stand up with success to guns of greater range and greater power. General Sir Ian Hamilton said, in a lecture at the United Service Institution a short time ago, that possibly three or four of these Territorial Army batteries might give a warm time to one battery of the kind now in the possession of Continental armies. That was a disputable, but, at the best, not a very encouraging opinion. After all we came down to this was the Territorial Army intended for war or was it not? The right hon. Gentleman said he trusted it would never be called

  1561
  upon to fight at all, and if it was not intended for war it was a pity that money was being wasted on it. But if it was intended for war he ventured to reiterate his assertion that both as to its training and equipment it was hopelessly ineffective and handicapped for the task which it would have before it. His criticism came under two heads, first personnel, and; secondly, materiel. He dealt with the personnel question and the training at some length last year, and he did not wish to weary the Committee by going into it again, but he might say that further consideration and consultation with artillery officers only confirmed and strengthened the belief which he expressed on that occasion. Moreover, he believed, from all he could ascertain, that the officers of this proposed Territorial Artillery were awakening to ths fact that they were being asked, or were going to be asked, to perform duties which they could not possibly discharge under the conditions proposed. Taking as a sort of touchstone the amount of training that was given to the Lancashire Militia Field Artillery, which produced results which were exceedingly creditable to the officers and men concerned, but which were not in any way high or very efficient, they could see that under the right hon. Gentleman's scheme he proposed to give to the Territorial Field Artillery not more than a quarter or a fifth of the training which was given to the Lancashire Field Artillery, and he did not provide what was the mainstay of that corps, a stiffening of one Regular gunner to every two Militiamen, and also 40 or 50 per cent, of the non-commissioned officers from the Regular Army. As to materiel, he was much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for giving him an opportunity of going down to Woolwich and seeing this new gun of the Territorial Army. It was most interesting, and he must say that the ingenuity with which the efficiency of the gun had been increased reflected the utmost credit upon the officers of the Ordnance Factory at Woolwich. They had succeeded in making a very passable brick with, exceedingly little straw, but, after all, the gun itself was precisely the same gun that we had during the South African War, with the same range, ammu-
  1562
  nition, and rifling, and as far as the man at the other end was concerned—the enemy—the shell that reached him was precisely the same as it was before, although it might reach him at a slightly greater rate of fire. But the individual round was no more and no less effective than it was before. The carriage had been altered and greatly improved, and the result of that alteration and improvement was that it was steadier and led to an increased rate of firing, which he believed had advanced to the maximum of ten or twelve rounds a minute, unaimed fire, as compared with the eighteen or twenty of the quick-firing gun of the Regular Forces. At any rate, it had only two-thirds of the rapidity of fire attained by a true quick-firing gun, which was so-called because the business of loading was one operation. The cartridge, the shell and the ignition were all in one. In the gun for the Territorial Army the cartridge, shell, and means of ignition were separate, and there were three operations required for loading as compared with one, and it was that fact which reduced the rapidity of firing. Moreover, the result of the adoption of the very ingenious carriage made the gun more complicated than that of the quick firing-gun supplied to the Regular Forces. This handicapped comparatively untrained troops. It had another serious disadvantage. The right hon. Gentleman in answer to his Question had spoken about the gun as being more mobile, but he found that the gun as now altered was much heavier than it was before; it was, in fact, no lighter than the 18-pounder quick-firing gun supplied to the Regular Army.
  MR. HALDANE: It is more mobile because it carrries a good deal more ammunition.
  MR. ARTHUR LEEsaid he could not admit that a larger amount of ammunition was the same thing as increased mobility. It had nothing to do with mobility; therefore, the right hon. Gentleman's contention about the gun's increased mobility fell to the ground. Then the gun had not a defensive shield such as was supplied to the guns for the Regular Army.
  MR. HALDANE: It will have.
  ME. ARTHUE LEEsaid he was very glad to hear that. Its absence would have a very bad moral effect on untrained troops when they had to fight. To sum up, he admitted to the full that the 15-pjunder converted gun was a much better weapon than it had been, but was still considerably inferior to the gun supplied to the Regular Army. Its effective range was much less, and it would be outranged and outclassed by the guns with which it would have to fight. He must here relate his own personal experience of the lamentable moral effect that the equipping, of untrained troops with inferior weapons was bound to produce in war. During the campaign in Cuba he witnessed Volunteer regiments absolutely demoralised, because they had been sent to the front with inferior weapons to the Regular troop'. Yet 1hey also had been told that the weapon which they had was most efficient and better suited, perhaps, to their requirements than any other, and that although the range was a little less, yet the bullet was more powerful. But, as soon as they came under fire, the effect of this was that there inexperienced troops were beaten before the fight really commenced. He thought that was the universal experience of war. But to return for a moment to the book which the right hon. Gentleman had recommended, and to its most interesting conclusions on the question of Home defence, Colonel Callwell said that what we wanted, in view of the character of this country, were mountain guns and howitzers. This field gun did not approximate either of those. Was the right hon. Gentleman going to accept the advice of this distinguished officer? Was he going to provide mountain guns and howitzers for the Territorial Amy?
  MR. HALDANE: I think they are included.
  MR. ARTHUR LEE. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would give them some more definite information as to the weapons with which the Force was to be armed. On this point, he ventured to urge upon the right hon. Gentleman, both
  1564
  from the point of morale, and of fighting efficiency, that if they were going to have this Territorial Artillery at all, it should be armed with a gun at least equal to the gun of the Regular troops, alongside which they would have to fight. After all, those extra guns would be invaluable as a Reserve; they would facilitate cooperation in war between the Regular Army and the Territorial Force, because they would avoid the confusion of two kinds of ammunition, and altogether he thought it was a point to which the right hon. Gentleman must address his attention. The Territorial Army was bound to fail in war unless it was adequately trained and efficiently armed. In addition, he thought it was bound to fail in peace unless it was adequately, and even generously financed, and that entirely by the State. He did not believe it was possible to count upon any extensive private financial aid being forthcoming for the right hon. Gentleman's scheme. He was already asking a great deal. The service in the Territorial Force, and perhaps even more, the service on the County Associations was very onerous. It was being given at present without stint and particularly by that class, the landowners of the country, who were the object of special attack by some of the right hon. Gentleman's friends behind him. But there was a growing determination, so far as he could judge, in the County Associations, to resist any kind of private subscriptions for the Territorial Force. As far as he could see the citizen was perfectly willing to give his service, but the State must foot the Bill, and foot it amply. He believed the right hon. Gentleman's scheme would collapse from sheer want of men unless there was some-more generous financing in the direction, first, of providing separation allowance to all married men in the ranks, and not merely to non-commissioned officers; and, secondly, that the one shilling a head which was to be placed to the credit of the commanding officers must be expendable at their discretion, after consultation with their men. At present there was undoubtedly wide-spread alarm in the force, owing to the uncertainty as to what it was the War Office was going to ask of the Territorial soldier. He was talking the other day with a Volunteer

  1565
  officer, who told Mm that 100 men out of the 113 in his company, as soon as they saw the attestation form, announced that they would not join the Territorial Force. It was only by giving them a supper, with liberal refreshments, that he persuaded them to defer their decision, and they promised to wait until the new attestation form was issued. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would bring it out at the earliest possible moment and that it would be of a reasonable character. If it was not, the Territorial Army, which was the right hon. Gentleman's baby, would, he was afraid, not survive its bringing into the world. With regard to the very important question of the shortage of officers, the deficiency which the right hon. Gentleman disclosed was very alarming, 5,000 at home, and 3,000 in India. This was a pressing problem, and the right hon. Gentleman's proposals to replace that deficiency were very optimistic, and, he feared, ineffective, to produce a class of officer sufficiently trained. The qualifications which the right hon. Gentleman proposed were so sketchy that they would really give these officers very little military value, if any at all. Take his scheme of à la suite officers. The right hon. Gentleman, who was a great linguist, was adopting a French expression to describe a German idea, and when he translated it into English it lost the whole of its substance. What was this à la suite system which he suggested as a parallel to that obtaining in Germany? There they allowed a young man who had satisfied the most severe educational, physical and social tests, to serve for one year, as a private, In the Regular Army as an "ein-jahrige" Volunteer. In that year he was spared nothing of the tremendous training which the Prussian private soldier has to undergo. After he had again passed the educational, physical, and social tests, he was given a commission as second lieutenant in the Landwehr. Every year after that he was called out for service with the same fully - mobilised regiment in which he would have to serve in the event of war. Yet, after all this, it was a matter of complaint in Germany that these officers were not sufficiently trained. The right hon. Gentleman's proposed scheme
  1566
  of à la suite officers was a mere caricature of what he had described. It would give no serious training at all. The right hon. Gentleman was going to take young gentlemen from public schools and the universities, who, comparatively speaking, had been playing at soldiers in the Volunteer corps of those institutions, and then, as the result of that very limited experience, he was going to let them off eight months out of the twelve, and was going to attach them for four months to a battalion at Aldershot. This, no doubt, would be a very interesting and enjoyable experience for them. They would do a certain amount of work, tempered with weekend visits to town, and he hoped he would not be thought wanting in respect if he suggested that they might be called "The Wild Oats Contingent." At any rate, they would have little, if any, serious value as officers, and he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would stiffen up the conditions for these Reserve officers, if he wished them to be in any way effective. In conclusion he would only say that whilst the intentions of the right hon. Gentleman no doubt were admirable, yet so far he had only reduced the substance of our defensive forces and offered us a shadow in exchange. The Government was mainly intent upon a reduction of Army expenditure, but the reduction they had effected in money was extremely slight, while the reduction in men was extremely serious. While the right hon. Gentleman had initiated a vast scheme dealing with both the Regular and Auxiliary Forces, they had yet to reap the projected benefits of it. While he did not wish to taunt the Secretary for War with swapping horses when crossing the stream, he did feel that the right hon. Gentleman was open to the charge of having hamstrung both his noble steeds as a preliminary to essaying the passage.
  SIR CHARLES DILKEsaid the non-professional cavalry and. artillery were a point of the scheme of the right hon. Gentleman which they had seized on last year as being the touchstone to the value of the new proposals. The non-professional cavalry had already disappeared and with the exception of

  1567
  the Irish Yeomanry the scheme of attaching any non-regular cavalry to the expeditionary force for any purpose whatever had been abandoned. As regards field artillery, those of them who had for a great number of years advocated the trial of the experiment of a partly non-professional artillery, that was to say, of the Lancashire system, had always shrunk from the attempt to create a Volunteer Artillery, purely Volunteer, or even a Militia Field Artillery, purely Militia. They had suggested a mixed basis or a Militia basis with a longer training than the ordinary Militia training. These experiments, of which the late Secretary for War preferred the Volunteer to the Militia and of which some of them rather preferred the Militia or Lancashire experiment, were stopped by the present Secretary of State, and he proposed to substitute a Field Artillery on the territorial system which had been described with a certain necessary amount of vagueness up to now. The very deep doubts that many of them entertained with regard to what was being done on this subject forced them to give special attention to the matter. With regard to other matters, they were very much in the position in which they had been for some time past, but this was one which was extremely pressing at this moment because the rural Volunteer was being swept away. The whole infantry of his own Parliamentary division, for instance, which brought a great many recruits to the Regular Army, had been abolished, and the only thing that remained in the whole division, with the exception of a few troopers of the Gloucestershire Hussars, was Garrison Artillery, which he presumed would either be abolished or turned into Field Artillery. An hon. Member had told him the other night, that he was called upon by his County Association to put down two battalions of Infantry Volunteers and to create Field Artillery. That gentleman's brother, who was in the Regular Artillery, had informed him that the latter task was impossible of performance. It was a very pressing matter all over the country just now. It was a pity that in the answer to which reference had just now been made the technical word, "quick-firing"
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  should be used of the converted gun. In the technical sense it was not a quick-firing gun. It did not answer to the definition of a quick-firing gun, so that it was rather a mistaken name. In regard to weight, of course, our gun, even of the Regulars, was the heaviest of all guns. We had adapted a heavier field gun than, any other Power, and all the other Powers, concurred in thinking our Regular gun far too heavy. Now he came to the matter he wished to deal with in connection with this subject. The discipline of our Horse and Field Artillery had. triumphed over the difficulties of the South African War. There was no portion of the British Army which had shown such a consistent discipline and. courage in South Africa as did the Regular Artillery, and they came through the War on universal admission triumphantly. The reduction of that force was a reduction which prima facie should not take place until they saw their way to the new scheme by which it was to be replaced. It was a great pity that the experiment which was begun some years ago was not continued and that a proper trial was not made of the Lancashire scheme. Here again, as in many matters, there was no party capital to be made out of it. A large sum was taken year by year in the Estimates for increasing the three batteries to nine, but it was never done. Again with the mountain gun, the Monmouthshire mountain battery was abolished by the late Government, and many of them raised a violent protest against the change at the time it was made. But there had been a tendency to represent the retention of the number of men of the Field Artillery by his right hon. friend as waiting until he had something to put in its place. They could trace the extent to which the artillery had been retained rather accurately by the number of artillery horses, and in all previous changes they had been accustomed to take the number of horses as the test of the condition in which they were kept up. In recent years the Artillery horses in India had been constantly increased. A very large increase had taken place in the last two years for which they had figures. In this country they had been, constantly decreased. His right hon. friend had ninety-nine batteries of Field Artillery at home. He was going to keep

  1569
  eighty-one of them as four-gun batteries, horsed, and eighteen as two-gun, horsed. He kept all, therefore, on what they used to call the lower establishment, and eighteen on an establishment lower still. As for the Artillery to be substituted, for this they had the right hon. Gentleman's own words as a test. He had said several times that no Artillery was of any use except the very best, and these words had been repeated by several officers of distinction who took part in two debates at the United Service Institution, one on the Canadian system and one on the Swiss system of Field Artillery; There it was pointed out that a very much larger amount of training both in Canada and in Switzerland was given to Field Artillery than to the ordinary Militia, and the increasing need for it was obvious when they remembered the difficulties of that indirect fire which was now almost the only artillery fir in certain countries, and when they remembered the claim which the French had rightly made to have a four or five years start over Germany by the mere fact of their knowledge of the quick-firing gun. That claim was acknowledged by the Germans, and there were German military writers of much distinction who had called attention to the permanent inferiority in which they stood. The importance of artillery was shown by the fact that the French, who had a diminishing proportion of the population and of the money that Germany had, were nevertheless going to increase their artillery by no less than a third, bringing their artillery in proportion to their Army to a far higher strength than had ever been attained before by any Army in the world. He had asked the other day whether even the short training of the Field Artillery now to be created was a real training. Were even the number of drills set down real drills? He had quoted recently the addresses given by two commanding officers and one adjutant, as to the number of these drills. The whole attempt of these officers was to persuade the men that there was nothing in it and that, having been nominal garrison gunners or infantry private Volunteers, they could easily assume the new responsibilities. They were told, for instance, that they
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  would not be fined if, by force of circumstances, they were debarred from attending drills. Any genuine excuse would be accepted. No commanding officer would exercise pressure on the men. They would be in the same position as before. For recruits, the number of drills was to be forty-five, of which thirty must be put in before camp, but sometimes they would get three drills in one day. One of the officers asked what provision would be made for the drivers getting in their drills. Of course that was a most essential point. The driving accounted for the larger portion of the skilled or trained men in the artillery. There were some, of course, who were more highly trained still, but they were fewer in number. The Colonel's reply was that forty-five drills were required in the first year, but that three might be put in in one day. The adjutant said drivers would get a drill if they put in an appearance, and that presence at lectures would count also. Camp was only for eight days, but if a man particularly wished it it might be extended to fifteen days, and there would be ample time for the men to get in the required drills. These reassuring promises to the Volunteers where they were changing to Field Artillery when they had had no experience whatever of artillery, except a certain amount of garr son artillery work, led him to think that they would not be able to attain a high standard, even a Militia standard, for this Field Artillery. He did not believe in invasion or the probability of war, but they were going to spend a great deal of money on the creation of this Force and from any point of view it was necessary that the experiment should be tried under circumstances likely to give satisfactory results. Supposing the artillery were to be employed, as was intended, against raids and in the defence of fortified river mouths, it was always assumed that there would be Territorial Field Artillery available, as well as the-Garrison Artillery in the batteries on the spot. For such a service as that even they would require an amount of training, to get any results worthy of their expenditure, such as this system was not likely to provide. In the attempt to create a Divisional system with its proportion of Field Artillery they were getting rid

  1571
  of Infantry Volunteers, who wished to remain in districts where a great deal of valuable service was given and where a spirit was kept up which was the very essence of the Volunteer movement, and which they would lose. It was, of course, much easier to get the men together in towns, but what would be the effect of these proposals upon that spirit, which they wished to retain, and upon the recruiting for the Regulars and the Yeomanry? He was afraid it would mean the total extinction in all the rural counties of the existing Infantry Volunteers. What had happened in his own division he imagined was happening all over the country in the rural parts. In his division of Gloucestershire they had three companies of infantry, but one had already come under the Welsh scheme. It was too far for the Gloucestershire men to go, and the result was that they had been disbanded. Only that day he had received the information that the Gloucestershire County Committee had disbanded the other two companies, so that they were now left with no Territorial Infantry at all in his division. In the rural parts good results could not be obtained so cheaply as in the more closely concentrated districts. For this reason, he expected that his Artillery would also be disbanded. They would not be able to get the same men to come into their Field Artillery, and it was idle to rely upon the chance of getting the same men to come into the new Territorial Artillery. The present diminution in the strength of the artillery, in spite of the retention of 2,000 men, was, he thought, clear from the figures as to artillery horses. The total of Horse and Field Artillery horses at home had fallen off very fast indeed. Last year they had fallen to 9,880, and they had fallen this year by between 800 and 900, and, in addition, they must deduct, he thought, 1,500 as being admittedly unfit. That fall had taken place before anything had been created to put in its place. Infantry were being got rid of, and the proposed experiment, which had already broken down in the matter of attaching Yeomanry as divisional cavalry to the Regular Army in the field, was destined to failure as regards artillery if pursued on the same plan.
  MR. BELLOCsaid the remarks he was about to make were intended for the purpose of affording some suggestions upon vital points touched upon by the right hon. Gentleman opposite and by the right hon. Baronet the Member for the Forest of Dean. In the first place, by the turn the debate was taking it was clear that the House appreciated, as he thought all weighty opinion in Europe appreciated, that artillery was the point. Gunners were often amused by the other arms of the service, and nowhere more than in Germany, of exaggerating the importance of their arm. He could not see how any man of historical reading, still less any man with a knowledge of contemporary Europe, could doubt that artillery was invariably the point. In the future, other things being equal, in a contest between two rival forces the artillery would more than ever be the deciding thing. In the case of the particular Auxiliary Force which they were proposing to establish the question before them was whether the artillery was sufficient for its purpose or not. Nobody would deny that if this country had a bottomless purse and unlimited resources, with a different history and past, they would prefer a Regular Force and that force only. They had, however, to recognise the fact that it was proposed to form an Auxiliary Force and that the artillery for that force should also be auxiliary. He knew that there was a great deal to be said against that proposition. For example, a somewhat parallel case— though not strictly parallel—was Austria-Hungary, where there was a system of Militia Reserve, but the artillery was kept professional. In Switzerland, the artillery received a more extensive and regular training than the infantry. There were circumstances in this country, and chiefly social circumstances, which would probably make for the strengthening of an Auxiliary Force if the artillery of that force remained auxiliary. So long as they depended upon an Auxiliary Force, with the present temper of the English people and the comparatively small choice offered, all these things probably made it wise that our Auxiliary Force should be homogeneous, and that the artillery should be auxiliary like

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  the rest. What they had to consider next was whether for the moment the artillery proposed passed a certain minimum of efficiency, and when they were dealing with what he would not call a makeshift, but a second best, that was the point they had to decide. He agreed that it was not all they wanted, but they had to consider whether what was proposed in regard to the artillery passed that minimum of efficiency as far as personnel and materiel were concerned. As to the personnel, he had said before in that House, and he thought it was the very generally received opinion, that more training for the artillery would be a good thing, and especially for the drivers. He was not going to return to that subject at any length, but they could not make a driver in forty-five drills, and they could not make a driver at all with lectures. The training, in his opinion, was insufficient, and there was a very strong case indeed for increasing the efficiency of the personnel. How that would fall upon the financial side of the scheme he could not say, but if one had a perfectly free hand in the matter, the first thing one would think about would be an increase in the efficiency of the personnel, which he thought ought to be kept auxiliary. As to the materiel, there were, he thought, strong points of criticism against the converted 15-pounder. The weight behind the team was, with its ammunition, over 40 cwt. That was too heavy, and so was the 18-pounder. He believed that the 18-pounder was designed in a hurry after the lesson of the South African war, and before that lesson had been sufficiently digested. But since that time they had had the lesson of the Manchurian campaign, in which the Japanese Artillery, of which the initial velocity was wholly inferior to the Russian, had the great advantage of lightness, and that probably made the chief difference between the two artilleries. But if they complained of the weight of the converted 15-pounder, they must complain, also, of the weight of the 18-pounder. There was no great advantage in the substitution of the one for the other in the matter of weight behind the team. The converted 15-pounder did not use fixed ammunition, and that was a disadvantage which
  1574
  it was difficult to exaggerate. The whole feeling of a man who used fixed ammunition was different from that of the man who used ammunition in which the ignition charge and projectile were in three separate pieces. If they took men out of the Auxiliary Force—which was not at all an improbable circumstance—and tried to turn them into trained artillery, the fact that they were not in the habit of using fixed ammunition would be a very serious drawback. Granting the disadvantages of which he had spoken, and which might be taken as temporary, no one doubted that they would eventually have to convert their limbers and waggons for the use of fixed ammunition, and the whole thing turned upon whether they got sufficient rapidity of fire, and, in his opinion, rapidity of fire would be everything in modern warfare. The whole thing turned on the question whether they could get rapidity of firing sufficiently. The House knew that there was considerable controversy on the Continent for many years as to the advantage of this rapid firing. There was a considerable school in Germany who denied that it was an advantage, but they had been converted. We also had been converted, though very tardily. This was not a matter suitable to debate, but by way of affirmation of that view, if his personal opinion was worth anything, he would state that rapidity of fire would be everything in the moment of war. The results of the 15-pounder gun compared with the regular gun as 12 to 18. The House would agree with him that rapidity of fire depended more on the personnel of the Army than anything else. They might have a gun that would nominally get rid of thirty projectiles a minute, but the coolness of the man who was laying it counted for more in the rapidity of firing than anything else. The fact that one gun had a somewhat slower rate of fire than another was not the important point. What we wanted was the proper personnel to work the guns. As to the question of range, he thought it was the experience of all those who had seen an actual campaign that when they got beyond 4,000 yards it did not very much matter with Field Artillery what the range was. The

  1575
  fact that the 15-pounder had more initial velocity than the 18-pounder was for our climate and under any circumstances in which it was likely to be used comparatively unimportant. What happened in the Manchurian campaign was a stronger point in regard to the question of range than any theorising on the matter. The fact that the converted 15-pounder had a shorter range than the 18-pounder did not seem to matter, and the fact that the projectile was of less weight seemed to him to be actually an advantage. He did not think the weapon, which was merely a transition weapon, was a matter of very great importance, but the training of the personnel did seem to him to he a matter of grave and immediate importance.
  THE SECRETARY OP STATE FOR WAR (Mr. HALDANE,): I do not rise for the purpose of replying generally to the broad points which have been raised in the debate. I desire to answer the questions which have been raised in regard to the artillery. I think it will be for the convenience of the Committee that I should deal with these points now. The first is a broad one, and it has been admirably dealt with by my hon. friend the Member for South Salford. We had to face the broad i question whether it was desirable to give the Territorial Force artillery at all. My right hon. friend the Member for the Forest of Dean rather considers that it would not be desirable.
  SIR CHARLES DILKE: I am in favour of a mixed system.
  MR. HALDANE: I am not sure how far the hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite goes—whether he would take the Austrian Militia system of giving Regular artillery to the Volunteer Field Force. On that I have to say that the Government took a very strong view, and I myself took a very strong view. I do not believe that you can put heart into a Territorial Force raised on a volunteer basis unless you show that you are relying upon them for all arms. And how are you going to get the finest quality of men unless you give them a chance? The Field Artillery is recruited
  1576
  from big towns in the main like Glasgow and Sheffield, where you have artisans who are very highly technically trained men familiar with the working of the complicated mechanism that modern guns possess, and who are far in advance by their previous civilian training of the average man whom you take into the ranks and train. Sheffield and Glasgow have been particularly to the fore in the past, and they are showing a disposition to lead in the future. I admit that I have no hope of getting artillery as good as you could get if you gave men a very long training and took them together, but I do think it is worth while in making a beginning to try and get the best civilian talent in the country. I do not believe you will get a Territorial Army unless you make it an Army complete in all arms. The very essence of the plan is to bring in all arms and have as complete an organisation as you can, and as like to the organisation of the Regular Army. It is perfectly true that it is difficult to get people to give a great deal of time to this matter, and that the training for Field Artillery makes a great strain upon the time of the average volunteer. But if the hon. and gallant Member opposite had seen, as I have seen, the keenness with which the artisans in the towns have come out and manned their batteries, worked at them, taken a pride in them, studied their mechanism, and gone out into the field with Regular artillery with a full desire to show that they can do as well as the Regular troops, he would realise that there is a stimulus behind these men which makes up for a good deal of the lack of opportunity. We have considered it worth while to make the experiment, and our only desire is to ask for as much training as we can get consistently with the civilian occupations of these men. I have spoken so far of the personnel.
  I come now to the materiel, and I think there has been a good deal of exaggeration as to the shortcomings of the gun. I admit at once that it is not as fine a weapon as our own new field gun, which is second to none in the world. I am glad to say we are ahead in our field gun— I will not say of France—but of most of the other Powers. But when you compare the converted 15-pounder with, the German gun it is very instructive.
  MR. ARTHUR LEE: Is this the latest German gun?
  MR. HALDANE: It is the gun that the German Army have. The German gun has an effective range of 5,500 yards, our converted 15-pounder of 5,900 yards, so that we are ahead in that. 'The muzzle velocity of the German gun is 1,525, and of our gun 1,581. In regard to the number of bullets in the shrapnel, ours is 230, and the Germans 300, and as regards the weight of projectiles, ours is 14 against the Germans 15. That is a very good comparison, for you cannot say that a gun which has a greater muzzle velocity and a greater effective range is deficient when compared with another. But even admitting—which I think is questionable—that the German gun is a better gun, it is not very largely a better gun, and it cannot be said that you are arming the Volunteer Force with an imperfect gun. I would like to arm the Volunteer Force with the 18-pounder, but I suppose the House realises that that is a process which would run away with a great deal of money.
  SIR HOWARD VINCENT: Never mind that.
  MR. HALDANE: I would like not to mind it, but there are other people who would mind me, and very properly, if I were guilty of any such extravagance. "We are beginning by giving the citizen Army a weapon which is good and efficient, but you are not bound to give it the best weapon all at once. Now I come to the other point about this gun. It has a more rapid rate of fire. Of course, it has not fixed ammunition, and the other gun has fixed ammunition, and the result is that, working at high pressure, you can probably get twenty rounds out of the 18-pounder for twelve that you can get out of the new gun. But to get that rate at all it is a fancy performance. It can be done, but you cannot do it in the aimed firing. But when you come to taking aim as an ordinary thing the approximation is probably closer, for the time that it takes to adjust the shrapnel limits the use of the gun. Therefore, no doubt you do get materially quicker fire when you have fixed ammuni-
  1578
  tion. Fixed ammunition is an extremely stimulating thing, but the disadvantage is not so overwhelming as to put the gun with compound ammunition out of the category of a good and effective gun in the field. Fixed ammunition is heavier to carry. In the case of the converted 15-pounder there are forty-six rounds in 42 cwts., and in the case of the 18-pounder there are twenty-four rounds in 42 cwts. I do not deny that the fixed ammunition, when it is got up to the gun, is much more satisfactory for the purpose of quick firing in large quantities.
  MR. ARTHUR LEE: Will the right hon. Gentleman explain in what way the converted 15-pounder is more mobile than the 18-pounder?
  MR. HALDANE: Simply because more ammunition can be carried with fewer wagons. What is the use of mobile guns if you have not mobile ammunition? The two go together. I agree that the question of mountain artillery has been neglected in this country. In order to meet that difficulty the Government are arming the Highland Division Artillery with mountain guns. With regard to the Regular Artillery, on which I have been challenged, when the Government came into office we found a state of things which I am sure could not have been anticipated, but which shows the difficulty of military organisation. There are nominally on paper, ninety-nine batteries of field artillery at home, but you could not put more than forty-two batteries in the field, because no provision had been made for the increased number of men of the ammunition columns. No Power, so far as I know, possesses in its divisional ammunition columns a large proportion of highly-trained soldiers. They put in any sort of people who have sufficient training to go into the ammunition columns. The Government propose to do better than that. The first question we asked ourselves was, what number of guns is wanted for a field force composed of all or nearly all the troops which we have at home for the purpose of the Cardwell system, and organised in six divisions? Six divisions so

  1579
  organised are a much larger expeditionary force than we have hitherto been in a position to send abroad. What the Government aimed at doing was to arm that force with just so much artillery as would enable us to mobilise that force effectively, and not merely on paper. From the ninety-nine existing batteries of field artillery we took sixty-six batteries, including howitzers. We propose to form the remaining thirty-three batteries into training brigades at a low establishment, and to train people on a Militia basis so as to provide the 15,000 men who are wanted for the ammunition columns and the wastage of war.
  MR. WYNDHAM: Are the thirty-three batteries mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman to be taken for the Artillery Special Reserve, and not for the Territorial Force?
  MR. HALDANE: For the Artillery Special Reserve only.
  MR. WYNDHAM: There will be sixty-six battalions left. If fifty-four batteries are taken for the expeditionary force, what will be done with the balance?
  MR. HALDANE: The sixty-six batteries include howitzers, just as the ninety-nine batteries include howitzers. I believe there will be fifty-four batteries of field artillery and twelve of howitzers. The training brigades, if they are successful, will provide 15,000 men. They are at work, and into them will be converted the Garrison Militia Artillery which have ceased to be of use and which have a personnel of over 12,000men. The purpose is to provide, not for the Territorial Force, but for the Regular Artillery. The Government have gone on the principle of keeping the artillery of the Territorial Force and of the Regular Force absolutely distinct. To use one for the other would be to go back to the old state of confusion. We cannot get military efficiency unless we have clear principles, and clear principles demand that we should not use what belongs to one force for another force. That being so, we are producing sixty-six batteries of field artillery, including howitzers, to be the artillery complement of the six divisions of the expeditionary force.
  1580
  The point made against me is, "What is left?" Why should there be anything left? Nobody contemplates that the whole of the six divisions shall be sent abroad unless we feel that we can rely upon the Navy and the Territorial Force to protect us against invasion. If there is reason to apprehend invasion we can keep two divisions at home. That will give us a much larger and more effective force than we have ever had before, because it is a force as large as two Army corps, and complete in all arms. This force will be provided with artillery and ammunition columns, and with six months wastage of war, which we have never had before. I am speaking, not of that which has been accomplished, but of what the Government hope will be produced by the machinery that is at work. I do not pretend that these things have been worked out. We are discussing a plan; and the most perfect plan is a plan that will give us, not only ammunition columns, but also wastage of war. That is what we will get by turning thirty-three batteries into training brigades. Therefore this is an infinitely better arrangement than the old one. If anybody asks where should we be if we were invaded and wanted Regular Artillery and our six divisions were away, my answer would be, where should we have been if we had sent our forty-two batteries of artillery abroad and the remainder of the guns of the ninety-nine batteries? Under the new system we shall be better off by twenty-four batteries than under the old system. We shall have a much larger expeditionary force, and if we apprehend danger we shall not send the whole of it abroad. We shall be able to do as much as before and still preserve our safety. The Government wish to work the artillery of the Territorial Force and of the Regular Force independently of each, other, except in certain points where we have specially connected them. To mix up the artillery of the two forces would be a cardinal sin against that principle.
  SIR HOWARD VINCENTsaid he was highly pleased to-hear the statement which the right hon. the Secretary of State for War had made with regard to the artillery of the Territorial.

  1581
  Force. They were cordially indebted to the right hon. Gentleman for maintaining with difficulty the view he had adopted in the face of expert opinion. The Volunteers had done what they could with regard to the artillery and were willing to try and do more. He referred particularly to the efforts which had been made by the people of Sheffield and Glasgow. But he would not be doing right if he did not tell the right hon. Gentleman that there was a little feeling in Sheffield about the battery of horse artillery being taken away and put into a rural district in the West Riding. The experts, of whom the Secretary for War spoke, said that the artificers who resided in Sheffield would not be able to take part in the battery drills. That was a question which the Secretary for War should look into again. He thought that the Secretary for War owed some apology to the right hon. Member for the Forest of Dean and the hon. Member for the City of Edinburgh with regard to the whole cost of the Territorial Force. These Members told the right hon. Gentleman last year that the cost of the Territorial Force would be largely in excess of that of the Yeomanry and Volunteers; and the hon. Member for Shropshire told him that his calculations were erroneous. To-day the Secretary for War had admitted in full that the new Territorial Force was going to cost a great deal more per man than the old Yeomanry and Volunteers. That was a very different statement indeed from the assurances given last year on the strength of which the House passed the Territorial Army Act. No one could accuse the Secretary of State for War of intentionally misleading the House, but still the fact remained that he came down now and said that all his prophecies of economy had been falsified and the force, it appeared, was going to cost a very great deal more per man than the old Yeomanry and Volunteers. It was to be hoped that the country would get an improved value for this extra cost, and that they would get as many men as they did in the old Volunteers and the Yeomanry, but at the present time it did not appear that they would. He hoped that the extraordinary old attestation forms which went
  1582
  out would be cancelled, but he did not know whether they had been altered or not. He had not himself seen or heard any authoritative declaration on the subject.
  MR. HALDANEsaid the new form had been in the Vote Office since Monday afternoon.
  SIR HOWARD VINCENTwas glad to hear that the document had been, withdrawn. It was high time it was, as it was such a foolish one. How it could possibly have been issued he could not conceive, but it was a great waste of money to have 500,000 of them printed and sent round and then withdrawn. In connection with the Territorial Force he hoped that in the future before any document of such a character was issued, the greatest care would be taken not to put into it ridiculous things about imprisonment and hard labour, religion and baptism, and all sorts of things. He had not seen the new form, but an hon. friend near him said that hard labour was in it still; it was a great pity if that was the case. He wished to know whether the organisation of the Territorial Force in London would be continued under the old system of brigades, under colonels of the several regiments of Guards. Of course, nobody had the slightest fault to find with regard to those gallant officers who had always taken the greatest interest in the Volunteers, and had done all they could to advance their efficiency. The object of the new organisation was that the brigadiers should be with their brigades if they were mobilised. Would not the colonels of Guards in the event of mobilisation be required by their own regiments?
  MR. HALDANE: No; their duties in their regiments can be performed by substitutes. These officers will go to their brigades of the Territorial Force and command them.
  SIR HOWARD VINCENT: Will they receive tho same pay as the brigadiers in. the country?
  MR. HALDANE: No; because in peace-time these officers still have to

  1583
  Perform their duties in connection with their regiments.
  SIR HOWARD VINCENTsaid he understood that the brigadiers in the country received an allowance of £150 while these colonels of Guards got £800 a year.
  MR. HALDANE: As colonels in the Guards.
  SIR HOWARD VINCENTinquired if that was to continue, and if a war occurred they were to give up their colonelcies of the Guards and go as brigadiers of the Territorial Force.
  MR. HALDANE: Yes.
  SIR HOWARD VINCENTsaid it seemed to be rather an extravagant way of managing that a brigadier should receive £150 a year in the Provinces, and £800 a year as a colonel of the Guards in London. If the right hon. Gentleman did not look closely into the expenses of every detail he would find the cost of the Territorial Army would very much exceed the cost of the old Volunteers and Yeomanry. The right hon. Gentleman had a paper scheme of cavalry, infantry, and artillery in exact numbers, no redundancy here or there, but whether he would find that the officers and men would come forward so readily under such a system was he thought very doubtful indeed. But whatever he did the right hon. Gentleman would have to watch very carefully the registration of the force and the expenses, and not make a difference between the expense of carrying it on in the counties and the Metropolis, and members of the Territorial Force should have equal opportunities of advancement in all parts of the country.
  MR. BENNETTsaid he would like, with the permission of the House, to refer for a few minutes to a question already discussed at some length on these Estimates, he meant the question of the shortage of officers. He had known from personal experience how difficult it was to have to command a company of Volunteers for years without the help of any subaltern
  1584
  officer; but apart from this note of personal grievance, he felt sure that every Member of this House would agree with him that the question was one of really vital importance to the efficiency and success of our Army. He had no doubt that the figures given by the Secretary of State for War were accurate, but he did not quite understand how the right hon. Gentleman arrived at them. He took for granted that the shortage of 5,000 officers for the Home Forces did not apply in any great degree to the infantry battalions of the Line, for most infantry regiments appeared to be fairly complete in that respect, and in the case of regiments which had lost battalions through disbandment, there were a number of supernumerary officers waiting outside, so to speak, and ready to join as any opportunity for re-absorption presented itself. The startling deficiency of officers in the Brigade of Guards appeared to have been made good. The shortage in question therefore seemed to exist mainly in cavalry regiments the Special Reserve, and Territorial battalions. The lack of an adequate supply of officers for cavalry regiments seemed, as usual, to be due almost entirely to the expense of living in such regiments. And, as long as present social conditions continued, he did not see how life in a cavalry regiment could possibly be made comfortable for a poor man, even if official and necessary expenses were cut down to the lowest possible figure. So far as any deficiency in the commissioned ranks affected infantry battalions it was due first and chiefly to the absence of a "living wage." He had known scores of men at the University and elsewhere who had been compelled to abandon any thought of military service on those grounds. Young men of promise and ability naturally thought twice before they embarked on a career which provided them with £90 at the start, and £200 when they had risen to captain's rank. That question of the inadequate payments made to an officer would have to be faced by the country sooner or later; in that case, as in all cases, if the country wanted a really good article they ought to pay a reasonable price for it. Any small and paltry increment in the pay would be useless; in fact, glad as he and other Members of this House were to see the private soldier in the receipt of more money, he felt rather sceptical as to the real efficiency

  1585
  of this increased pay in the matter of securing additional recruits. Most officers who had experience of recruiting would, he thought, admit that not one recruit out of a dozen when he enlisted cared about or knew about the payment which he would receive. This question of pay was not really one of the most operative causes in the supply of recruits for the Regular Army. On the other hand, no heavy increase in an officer's pay seemed, at any rate for the moment, to be expected in view of the swollen Estimates. A second cause which probably tended to act as a deterrent was the discomfort and heavy expense entailed upon married officers from constant removals and changes, and further, the lack of houses for themselves and their families at military centres like Tidworth and the Curragh. Further, it was probably fair to say that the unjust obloquy sometimes directed against our officers in newspapers and public utterances acted as a source of discouragement. Officers were frequently spoken of as if they were hopelessly lazy, self-indulgent, and inefficient. They all remembered the unworthy epigram of the South African war period, "Lions led by asses." And a noble Lord, who was intimately connected with military affairs and ought to have known better, alluded the other day to subalterns who were to be found after one o'clock reading a novel with their feet on the fender. He ventured, however, to think that most military messes would be drawn blank in the afternoon, and even if a tired subaltern were found at such an hour reading a novel it was quite likely that he had already been hard at work from 6 a.m. or 7 a.m. onwards—an hour at which his noble critic had not yet emerged from his bed—or had even spent the preceding night at some damp spot on Salisbury Plain or the environs of Aldershot. He would, however, like to join issue on one point with the exceedingly interesting speech of the hon. Member for South East Durham, who had maintained that the alleged stringency of our Army examinations kept many suitable young men from joining the service. The hon. Member had spoken of examinations as a method of weeding out incapables—or words to that effect—but a qualifying examination like that of the Army Entrance had of course a positive aspect—it guaranteed to the nation and
  1586
  the taxpayer a certain standard of ability in the young men who were to train our troops and control our forces. The hon' Member had described our young officers as "paragons of virtue and knowledge," but, so far at any rate as knowledge was concerned, such a description was really extravagant. He had acted as an examiner for many years in the entrance examination for Woolwich and Sandhurst, and he could assure the House that the standard of that examination, while quite creditable and adequate, could not be fairly described as unduly high. The young men who succeeded in it appeared to correspond with, say, the rather better class of pass men at Oxford or Cambridge; and as regards the mathematical test to which the hon. Member alluded very few indeed of the Infantry and Cavalry Cadets took the more advanced paper, and the general standard was very far removed from that of the humblest honour man in the class lists of the Universities. As to examinations for promotion, such tests were, of course, always irksome to any man after twenty-five, but nevertheless he thought that few thoughtful soldiers would seriously advocate their abolition; in some cases, indeed, if these further examinations did not exist, an officer would never open another military book after he joined his regiment. The familiar statement had been made in a previous speech that owing to the severe educational tests at present in vogue the great Duke of Wellington were he alive to-day would be unable to enter the service. He probably would not, and if he succeeded he would be of very little use. These analogies from the early part of last century were quite valueless. Doubtless badly educated officers and men fought well in the Peninsula or at Waterloo, but then they fought against armies as badly educated as themselves. The hon. Member for S.E. Durham had told the House that he had come across highly educated men who could not fight. What inference did he wish them to draw—that uneducated soldiers were more efficient than educated ones? He sincerely hoped that that popular athletic fetish — the man with a minimum of brains, a modicum of character, and a great deal of muscle— would not be unduly worshipped at the War Office. To recommend any lowering of the standard of military education seemed to him a veritable counsel of

  1587
  despair in an age when warfare was daily becoming more scientific, and specialised knowledge was, so to speak, in the spirit of the times. Could anybody imagine such a proposal being made at Berlin or Tokio? The military value of badly educated enthusiasts was not at all borne out by experience. The so-called "lessons of the South African War" had long ceased to interest the British public, but after all the fact remained that the brunt of such carnage as took place in that war at Colenso, Belmont, Graspan, Magersfontein, Spion Kop and Paarde-berg, was borne almost exclusively by British Regular troops, led by trained and educated officers, while irregular officers possessing equal courage, but the merest modicum of training were, as a general rule, from a military standpoint, hopelessly inferior. As regards the supply of officers for the Special Reserve and the Territorial Army, he thought that the grant of £20 in the former case would prove most useful, and would often be a real inducement to a young man of limited means. The right hon. Gentleman's scheme for securing a supply of officers from fourteen Universities was highly ingenious, and he hoped it would work well. But there was one rather disconcerting fact. Something like 50 per cent, of the young men who served in the University corps at Oxford—the same was probably true of Cambridge—were intending to take Holy Orders. The bacillus of warlike enthusiasm seemed to find a peculiarly acceptable resting place in the clerical organism. The University corps usually numbered some half-dozen clergymen among its officers, and he considered that the presence of young clerics in red jackets at a military mess was ridiculous and somewhat depressing. He was afraid that that fact—the large percentage of future parsons in a University corps would seriously upset any calculations as to the supply of officers from such a source. At any rate he sincerely hoped that not a penny of public money would be spent on any young man who, after his period of training, intended to take orders. No less a sum than £8 10s. a year could, under the new regulations, be spent on a man who in a year or two would exchange his red jacket for a black coat and so become quite useless — he meant, of course, from a military point of view. A great deal of nebulous and ill-informed talk was indulged in with
  1588
  reference to the question of promotion from the ranks. The hon. Member for Stoke felt strongly upon this point, but then he was a confirmed optimist in military matters. He had, e.g., declared that directly an invader set foot on the shores of England a "million bayonets would flash in the sunlight." The hon. Member probably believed that officers could be produced with equal facility, and the only foolish thing that his hon. friend the Member for Leicester ever said in his hearing was his suggestion that military training was of little practical value, and that if a shrewd Scottish labourer were turned out on a dark night and told to find his way to some definite point—perhaps, say, a public-house—that would be far more useful training than anything that could be supplied at Sandhurst. The fact was that there was probably very little demand amongst the rank and file for promotion—at any rate under existing economic conditions. What sergeant-major at, say, thirty-five, would seriously desire to become a subaltern with less than £2 a week, and the certainty that if he were still a captain at forty-five he would be compelled to leave the service? As regards the County Associations he regretted that in some cases they had not co-opted a larger number of the local employers of labour—the most fruitful source for furnishing fresh recruits. Further, there was undoubtedly a lurking suspicion abroad in many places that the War Office officials did not evince a very sympathetic spirit towards the new Territorial Army. He hoped that this suspicion was not well founded. He welcomed the new form of attestation in lieu of the forbidding document previously issued. He believed that a highly placed official at the War Office in reviewing the earlier and more drastic edition of the form in question had said, amongst a number of officers, "Well, if that doesn't choke them off nothing will." Unless the new movement had real and practical sympathy and encouragement from the authorities he was afraid that those in the counties who were doing their best for the Territorial Army would be seriously handicapped.
  MR. WYNDHAM: I feel some compunction in intervening thus early, all the more after the breezy speech of the hon. Member, which has

  1589
  exhilarated our proceedings. I do not propose to follow in a similar vein. I owe an apology to the Committee for venturing to address them at all when suffering from a cold, and I hope they will extend their indulgence to me, if I have difficulty in making myself heard. I should like to express my very great regret that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Croydon, is prevented from taking part in the debate by illness, which keeps him at home. So far, the debate has turned almost exclusively upon artillery and the relation of artillery to the Territorial Force. But this Vote affords the proper occasion for scrutinising the Army policy of the Government as a whole, and to-day it is, I think, invested with unusual interest by the fact that we had last week from the Secretary of State for War a detailed account of the progress which he has made with a plan, the importance of which nobody will deny, and he accompanied that account with a very frank admission that the plan could not be completed for a numbers of years. That suggests that we shall not be wasting our time, if we scrutinise fairly, but very closely, that plan at this comparatively early stage in the evolution of the right hon. Gentleman's projects. If I am to attempt that scrutiny with anything like reasonable brevity, I must waive certain quite legitimate arguments that I may resume upon another occasion. I do not propose to criticise the alleged economies which the right hon. Gentleman sometimes claims and which we find to be of a somewhat illusory character. I do not propose to comment upon the fact which the right hon. Gentleman admits that his strengths are very far below his establishments and may not reach those establishments. I want to look at his plan: and not at his merits as a frugal administrator or the amount of material at his command for completing that plan. I shall, therefore, speak in terms of establishments and not of strengths. But if we are to scrutinise his plan fairly, we must recognise, that in common with any plan which ever has been or will be proposed to the House, it is at once limited in extent and complicated in its design. Any such plan must be limited by the prior obligation of maintaining our sea-supremacy and
  1590
  must be complicated by the great variety of objects for which the British Army exists. I do not know that it is necessary to refer to these objects again, but if I do so briefly, it may enable the Committee to follow more closely the bearing of what I have to say about the plan. Our Army has in the first place to maintain our garrisons abroad, and therefore we must have a Regular Army at home as well as a Regular Army abroad. In the second place, we have to organise the Regular Army at home in order that it may liberate the Fleet, reinforce the foreign garrisons and deliver a counter attack if the war is ever to be finished, except at the cost of financial exhaustion. In the third place, we have to give to some other forces that amount of training which is necessary to liberate the expedition, to expand and support it, and to maintain confidence at home when both the expedition and the Fleet have gone from our shores. Admitting the difficulties of any Secretary of State for War who has to face that complicated problem, I say, if we are to scrutinise this plan effectively as well as fairly, we must test it by looking most closely at those points of weakness which are, I believe, inherent in any plan which any Secretary of State for War can produce under these conditions. Under any plan your Regular Army, consisting of bodies of troops trained for a considerable period, is going to be smaller than your non-Regular Army, consisting of troops trained, it may be, for a very short period. That being so the points of weakness in this plan and in every plan are to be found in those essentials to an Army ready to take the field which take time to create and which cannot be made efficient unless they are practised with units and with larger bodies of troops, with battalions, and brigades, in time of peace. What are they? First comes that which has figured so prominently in this debate, artillery. Secondly comes the regimental officer. Thirdly, I think I would mention the leader of a combined body of troops, the brigadier or divisional-general. In the fourth place we have to think of creating Reserves of trained Regulars for the wastage of war; and I do not think we can omit from our regard

  1591
  in the fifth place the provision of supplies and munitions of war and stores and, above all, horses. I leave out cavalry, because I am satisfied with the plan in respect of cavalry. When I speak of supplies of munitions of war and stores you have to think of something more than merely supplies. You have to think of the power of expansion in your sources of supply. These are the weak points in our position. You can make any number of guns in an arsenal, but you cannot make batteries in an arsenal. You can make an expert in the study, but you cannot make a regimental officer in the study. You can make an inspector of brigades, the units of which are trained separately for a fortnight, but you cannot make a brigadier. If you have a small long service Army you do not make a Regular Reserve. You make pensioners. In the most crucial part of the right hon. Gentleman's plan he is taking boys of seventeen for part of the year, mainly in the winter, for initial training, and is going to call them up at uncertain intervals for twenty-one days in the succeeeding five years. By doing that you will add to the ranks of the unemployed, and I deny altogether that you will create a trained Reserve of Regular soldiers. So, too, in respect of supplies, you can accumulate reserves of supplies at the risk of their decaying. But you cannot by that means maintain a power of expansion in your own Factories, or the workshops of the country. And, certainly, you cannot improvise horses. It takes six years to breed and train them. In the light of these general considerations let us look at the right hon. Gentleman's plan; and, first, at the completed part of it, which consists entirely of reductions. I need not dwell very long over it, but I must repeat that we dissent in toto from two of his reductions. We dissent altogether from the reduction of nine battalions of infantry in view of what I have said, and from his diverting thirty-three batteries of artillery to the purpose of creating his Special Reserve of Artillery. Take the remainder of his reductions affecting what were the old Auxiliary Forces; the abolition of twenty-one battalions of Militia, and the absorption of all the other battalions of Militia into what I hope I shall be able to show are mere
  1592
  depots, and not very good depots; and take again his reduction of a great number of Volunteer battalions, even obliterating a battalion of regular infantry and asking them to become Artillery or Yeomanry soldiers instead. By reducing the number of these battalions and making their shape more uniform I do not think the right hon. Gentleman is proceeding upon the best lines when he has to deal with a voluntary system. In a voluntary system it is unwise to reduce the number of your cadres. I wish we had an English word for that. "Mould" would do. We mean a receptacle of a suitable shape which is not necessarily filled with the material you desire. In a voluntary system it is a mistake to reduce the number of your moulds and to insist on uniformity of pattern. For, if they are fewer it is more important that they should be filled; and if they are all the same shape, less likely. I pass that general criticism upon the completed part of the right hon. Gentleman's plan. I say of these reductions, emphatically of the reduction of infantry battalions and the diversion of thirty-three batteries of artillery and, though with less emphasis, of the reduction of the Militia and their absorption into depots, and the reduction of the Volunteers and the impressing on them of a rigid type of uniformity; all that part of his plan, I say, must be placed on the debit side of the account. To see what, the credit side is and whether it will balance the debit side, we have to look at the speculative part of his plan. Surely, it will be admitted that the whole value of the speculative part of his plan must turn upon this. Supposing we were at war again; supposing we were engaged in a great war, perhaps greater than the South African War, should we have a better condition of things than we had in March eight years ago? I think that is a fair test. At that time the criticism which was put forward with greater justice than some criticisms which had been put forward, was that after sending a considerable expedition over sea, and after some months had elapsed, we had no adequate machinery in this country for training fresh troops to supply the waste of war. Will it be better when the speculative part of the right hon. Gentleman's plan becomes

  1593
  effective? I do not want to trouble the House with figures. I am going to talk in establishments as I promised. Taking his plan and his establishments, before the war we shall have at home 130,000 Regulars with the colours, 135,000 in the Reserve, and that is a very favourable view, 80,000 in the new Special Reserve, 315,000 in the Territorial Forces, or a total of 660,000 men. Looking at their organisation from the point of view of infantry alone, there would be eight battalions of Guards, seventy-four battalions of the Line and 101 of the so called Reserve battalions which figure on page 167 of the Estimates under the Special Reserve. Then the Expeditionary Force of 160,000 goes abroad: the 68,000 men form the colours, the 70,000 from the Regular Army Reserve, and the 24,000 from the Auxiliaries. What number would then be left for training in order to make good the wastage of war, to expand and support the expedition, and to make the Territorial Force a real security for public confidence when the Regular troops have been dispatched? There would be 62,000 men left with the colours and 65,000 with the Reserves, but those left with the colours would be the boys not fit to go on active service, and those left with the Reserves would be those less fit to go abroad. They would number 127,000, and where are they to go? They would of course occupy all the space in the barracks filled by the 130,000 men with the colours before the war. Under these circumstances the right hon. Gentleman would not have much barrack accommodation for proceeding to train the other parts of the Army. Perhaps the answer I shall receive will be that we must look to the Special Reserve. I may point out that for these 127,000 there will be very few definite units in existence. The right hon. Gentleman says he is going to send fifty-four batteries of Field Artillery abroad with this expedition, but then he will have no Field Artillery left in this country, consisting of Regulars, who have been fully trained. Therefore, the men with the colours, the artillery, and the men coming back from the Reserve will not find a single battery with which they can be trained. There will be only two battalions of Guards and eight battalions
  1594
  of the line left. I may tell the right hon. Gentleman that the task of organising; 127,000 men into any force which can support or expand the expedition will be a formidable one. He will probably say that he has the Special Reserve, and that is the crux of the whole plan. If the Secretary for War can satisfy the Committee and the country that his Special Reserve is what he hopes it will be, he will lift a load of anxiety from the minds of many, who are really anxious that his plan should not fail. As it stand I cannot believe that this Special Reserve will lift any anxiety from the minds of any men who really scrutinise it. It is to be in two parts, artillery and infantry, and (in so far as the artillery part of the Special Reserve is concerned) we dissent, from the right hon. Gentleman's policy. We doubt its wisdom, and we think he will have to retrace his steps at a great cost to this country and a loos of time even more serious in the work of reparation for war. With regard to the infantry, the plan stands in great need, of amendment, but in respect of both I should like to say that until this Government resumes the barrack policy of their predecessors it will be impossible to train troops after the outbreak of war. It is clear that under these circumstances the existing barracks will be filled up by the 127,000 Regulars. What, then, is the right hon. Gentleman going to do with the 62,000 infantry and the 15,000' artillerymen of the Special Reserve? He cannot push them all into seventy-four depots, for he has admitted that you can only train 200 at a time in the depots. Under these circumstances how are these men going to be trained and taught? I wish to point out that in regard both to the artillery and the infantry the plan. is purely speculative unless you proceed to provide the necessary barrack accommodation. The right hon. Gentleman has this afternoon asserted that by retaining only fifty-four batteries of field artillery and howitzers up to sixty-six, and using-thirty-three batteries as a training school for this section of the Special Reserve, he has made our position far better than, it has ever been before. I very much doubt whether our position under this plan will be any better than it was eight years ago. The right hon. Gentleman has reverted absolutely to the very figure

  1595
  at which the plan for organising the field artillery of our Home Army stood in the year before the South African War. The year before that war I introduced the Army Estimates, and I asked for fifty-four batteries of Field Artillery in the Regular Forces at home, and that proposition was almost ridiculed by the right hon. Gentlemen the Member for the Forest of Dean. At this date eight years ago we had actually sent thirty-six batteries of field artillery and six batteries of howitzers out of this country, apart from India and the Mediterranean. Now the right hon. Gentleman is going to revert to the same number of Field Artillery batteries in the Home Army that we asked for in 1899, although the lesson of the South African War was that we needed 150 batteries of Regular Field Artillery in all. If there was any lesson which was burned into the minds of all those who went through that war, it was that you had largely to increase your Regular artillery. I regret to note that the right hon. Gentleman is decreasing the artillery even below the danger limit, and by reverting to six years' service with the colours he is depleting the Reserve of the artillery which the Member for Croydon and Lord Midleton did so much to fill up. If you preserve your 150 batteries it will be easy to have some short service men, but the right hon. Gentleman is now going back to the prewar standard so far as Regular trained artillery is concerned, and therefore we must as an Opposition absolutely dissociate ourselves from that part of his policy.
  May I now look for a moment or two at the infantry part of the Special Reserve? I ask the Committee to consider it, first; in the light of the provision of officers; and, secondly, in the light of the provision of trained men. The hon. Member who spoke last had a good deal to say on the question of the provision of officers. I am aware that we have to face a shortage of officers on mobilisation. The officers whom the right hon. Gentleman hopes to get, by certificates and attachment a la suite to a regiment, may be a valuable adjunct to our Army at the time
  1596
  of mobilisation, but they cannot be regimental officers. They may be able to read a great deal, but it does not follow that they will be able to lead at all. You can teach a man to read. But you cannot teath him to lead. There is, even, one form of reading which cannot be taught. That is the reading of maps. It is really easier to teach an intelligent youth to make a map than to teach him to read it with that accuracy, rapidity, and confidence which is necessary if he is to reach a place on the earth's surface indicated on the map. No one can read a map so as to be able to lead troops unless he has been in the habit of reading maps, therefore I dismiss these officers who are to be four months with a Regular regiment probably when the regiment is very busy. I dismiss them from my mind as regimental officers who could be put in charge of troops. Thus we have to look at the Special Reserve. Now what sort of training will those officers get, and what sort of officers will you get for the Special Reserve? Taking the establishments, there are to be twenty-six officers, Militia officers, who have not been fully trained in the Regular Army. The right hon. Gentleman has got to attract those officers to this work in connection with the seventy four Reserve battalions in depots, and twenty seven battalions elsewhere. What attraction is he going to offer? You can only get them by paying them in money, in opportunities for amusement, or in, shall I call it, glory? or general respect, and interest in their profession? There is no other way. Now, is any man going to come into these depots to grind away at boys at seventeen or eighteen years of age during the winter months, and then grind away at other boys, winter and summer, for five or six years? The right hon. Gentleman says that an officer has to do it now at the depot. But I would remind him that this work is now done by the permanent staff, who are men in the regular career and profession of a soldier, with hopes of promotion. Any one of them may become a colonel or a general. But these twenty-six officers of whom I am speaking are expected to grind out their lives under these sordid conditions, and in insanitary barracks

  1597
  upon unpromising material, without hope of promotion. The right hon. Gentleman is very sanguine indeed if he believes he will get the officers under these circumstances. Under the scheme 62,000 infantry are required for the Reserve battalions. I want to ask a question, but I think I have the answer to it, because it was given to-day to my hon. friend the Member for Fareham. I wanted to know whether the recruit coming into these depots was at liberty to join the Regular Army at any time after going to these battalions, or whether he had first to complete his training. The recruit I now understand must serve six months before he goes in to the Regular Army. I think that is right, but has the right hon. Gentleman realised what it entails? It entails the cutting down of that stream of recruits which the Army has hitherto received from the Militia. When the men enlisted under the old system they could be taken by the sergeant the next day to go into the Regular Army at eighteen, and it was by that means that you fed your Regular Army. After they reach eighteen the right hon. Gentleman will allow them to go into the Regular Army but not before. To that extent you somewhat stint and diminish the stream of recruiting which used to come from the Militia into the Regular Army, and you prejudice jour chance of filling up your home battalions. But who are the others who do not go to the Regular Army but remain in the Special Reserve? They are boys of seventeen. They are those youths who are never going to be tested. And, yet, it is upon them that the right hon. Gentleman is going to rely for his trained Regular Reserves who are to make up the wastage of the Regular Army. In the old days it used to be said that of every three men who went into the British Army only one survived to be of use in the Reserve. I think that was putting it too high. I think it was one in every four. But even for that system there was this to be said. A man who had been seven years with the colours was a man whose constitution was firm and who knew his business. On the other hand, these youths will never be tested under the system now proposed. The Special Reserve, unless it is very much amended, will crumble under
  1598
  the stress of war, and when it crumbles it will reveal what we have always said is the great defect of the right hon. Gentleman's scheme. It will leave a great gap, or chasm, between the Regular Army and the citizen Army. There is in this scheme no plan for bridging that gap in time of peace. If you try to bridge it in time of war, you will only produce a chaotic result. I have endeavoured to scrutinise the plan fairly; and, certainly, closely. I am far from saying that it is incapable of being amended. If the right hon. Gentleman will make his infantry Special Reserve a Reserve of battalioas, and not a Reserve of depots, I think more could be said for it. At present it is a mere set of recruiting shops. The right hon. Gentleman the other night professed great regard for the Cardwell system. If he will make these Reserve battalions into battalions regularly and progressively trained during a whole year, he will be carrying out the Cardwell system to the conclusion which Lord Cardwell seems to have thought necessary if it was really to supply this country with the Army it needed. The Cardwell system was at one time exposed to a great deal of criticism and even obloquy. It was restored to its position in the public confidence largely by the action and evidence of one man, Sir Patrick MacDougall. He said that, if the Cardwell system was to work, you must do two things. The first was to identify the Militia more closely with the depots of the Line. Well, the Government have done that with a vengeance. They have absorbed the Militia in the depots of the Line. But he went on to say that that was useless if they attempted to turn a depot into a battalion during the "hurry and rush" of a war. That is what will happen if the right hon. Gentleman does not amend his scheme and make these battalions battalions in fact as well as in name—battalions in which the recruit will be trained progressively in squad drill, battalion drill, and brigade drill, and in which he will attend manœuvres during one year of his life. I think it ought to be two years. If the right hon. Gentleman does not do that, he will be courting disaster. I have endeavoured to show that the value of the plan depends upon the conditions it will give us some two or three

  1599
  months after an expedition has started in a war. I have said that, those conditions will depend, in the main, upon this part of the right hon. Gentleman's scheme, namely, the Special Reserve. We reject the artillery part of that scheme, and we do not think the infantry part will stand the strain of war unless it is amended in the direction I have ventured to indicate. I ought to answer a question which suggests itself to my mind, namely—What of the Territorial Force? We wish that Force well. I do not see how the right hon. Gentleman will ever be able to mobilise that Force unless the Government resumes the barrack policy of their predecessors. I have indicated earlier that he cannot mobilise his Special Reserve under the existing conditions of barracks. Apart from that, the new Territorial Force is now the old Volunteers and the old Yeomanry paid a little bit more or a little bit less, trained a little bit more or a little bit less, but we do hope, better equipped, better staffed, and better led. I hope all those anticipations will be fulfilled. But I cannot say too earnestly that, unless the right hon. Gentleman by amending the Special Reserve portion of his scheme, places something substantial between the citizen army and the Line, a burden will be cast on the citizen force which it cannot bear —which it cannot be expected to bear— except at a cost infinitely above any sum which has been mentioned in the House, and, in my opinion, some compulsory provision adopted, not for the sake of fighting efficiency but for the sake of fairness as between man and man, when you are asking the citizen to give up not only, as he does now, his holiday, but, as he must then, a considerable portion of his working and wage-earning time.
  MR. REESsaid that after all this great scheme depended in a great measure upon the County Associations, and he wished to ask something connected with the Territorial division of his own county. It was proposed that there should be a North Wales Infantry Brigade, with headquarters at Wrexham. That brigade was to consist in part of companies of infantry drawn from Merionethshire and Montgomeryshire. Merionethshire was not so
  1600
  much worthy of the attention of the right hon. Gentleman as Montgomeryshire—a county that had always provided the Army with Regular soldiers, militiamen, volunteers, and yeomanry. It was worth the while of the right hon. Gentleman to take special pains to encourage a county like Montgomeryshire, which was not backward in. performing its duty in this all-important respect. Ho did not believe they would get very many men from Merionethshire. Then it was decided that their Militia battalion was to be disbanded and that their colours were to be handed over to the Territorial Force. Notices had been sent round asking the officers and men whether they would serve in the new Territorial battalion. He was happy to tell the right hon. Gentleman that the officers had all consented to do so. They naturally did not like their regiment to be abolished after having been in existence since the days of Queen Elizabeth, serving in the Crimea and fighting in South Africa. That was to their credit, and nothing else could be expected. They felt the abolition very much and so did the county. As regarded the men, they were behaving very well, and were willing to transfer, but the transfer must be made quickly, or they would retire or go into another force. He begged the right hon. Gentleman, in order to ensure his scheme a good trial in Montgomeryshire, to keep the Cardiganshire company at Aberystwyth for Montgomeryshire and to see that the transfer from Militia to Territorial Army was effected as early as possible. A matter in connection with the present state of affairs which he would like the right hon. Gentleman to reconsider was his refusal to make the Volunteer regimental sergeant-majors warrant officers. He was not an expert, and he did not see the objection to that being done. He knew that one advantage would be that it would greatly please these officers, and he would beg the right hon. Gentleman to give the matter his best consideration. He would also appeal on behalf of the quartermasters. They were men whose future appeared to be somewhat precarious. A great amount of work had fallen on them during the past few months, and it would be hard if they were to be thrown out of employment,

  1601
  and if they did not get some consideration in the shape of pay for the work they had done in connection with the new scheme. He regretted, too, that reparation allowance was not given to privates in the Territorial Army, and commended this matter to the attention of the right hon. Gentleman. The Secretary of State had shown a conciliatory disposition in other matters, and he was sure he would consider the points to which he had called attention. If he had not brought them before the House these matters might not have received that full recognition which they deserved. As regarded the secretary to the County Association, in his county the secretary, Major Mytton, received the magnificent salary of £40 a year. There was once a curate who was passing rich on £40 a year, but they could not get a War Minister even for a County Association on that sum, and he would like this gentleman to get better pay. It was quite true that he made his salary up to £60 by adding on the duties of Merionethshire, but he should have more, because he was a good officer who went out to the Boer War, had influence in the county, and would do the work well. They had also a capable and energetic chairman in Mr. Lomax, and he believed that affairs would march. Many hon. Members had attacked the Cardwell system of linked "battalions for supplying our Army abroad, but he had not heard of any other working system which would do the work so well. If there was such a scheme it would be interesting to know if it possibly could be regarded as a substitute for the Cardwell system. There was, so far as he knew, only the alternative of a locally raised long-service Army for India, but he did not think that the men could be raised in that way as in former days. These old soldiers were splendid fighters, who fought in forage-caps, drank brandy, used language, and defeated with great slaughter every enemy they were sent to attack. But they could not get such men now in India, neither would public opinion of the present day regard them altogether with approval. The right hon. Gentleman had referred to the cadet corps in his speech. Did he refer to the cadet corps in the public schools only or to
  1602
  the other cadet corps as well, and was any difference to be made between them? Were the rifle corps at Eton and Harrow, for instance, to be changed in any way?
  MR. HALDANEsaid that the cadet corps of public schools like Eton and Harrow were now organised under the General Staff as Volunteer corps, and would be part of the Corps of Officers being trained. They would be in no way discouraged; on the contrary, they would be continued as at present.
  MR. REESsaid he was very glad indeed to hear it, as it was a very admirable training for the boys of these two schools, who had lately fought a bloodless and interesting battle on the plains of Uxbridge. The system was admirable, and he had the opportunity of seeing how good it was mentally and physically for the boys, and how it developed in them a sense of discipline, and of combined action, as well as teaching them how safely and usefully to handle their weapons. The hon. Member for Woodstock had referred to various matters which he thought tended to discourage the right sort of men coming into the Army as officers. One reason which made the Army unpopular as a profession was the unnatural and unreasonable fuss and criticism which was made when any domestic disturbance occurred owing to any officer not being able to get on with his brother officers. He thought that the officers of a regiment formed the most just tribunal in the world, and he did not think that any hon. Member in the House could display more tact, consideration or kindliness than they showed to comrades who had risen from the ranks, or to any brother officer, unless he set himself against the excellent traditions, habits, and customs of the average British officer He must say that he had always admired that in the officers in the Army. It had not been proved that officers combined to oppress other officers who were not likely to turn out efficient and the manner in which some commanding officers had been treated when a charge of that kind was brought forward was enough to turn good men away from the Army. Their conduct was not only brought

  1603
  before the Army Council, but before the hon. Member for South Donegal, who claimed some special jurisdiction in such matters, and before the House. They were tried and retried before the whole matter was over, and though they had done their best, and often deserved sympathy quite as much as the so called victims, they were treated as malefactors. He was certain that officers were rather afraid, not of doing their duty at the front in the day of battle, or of doing it day by day in time of peace, but of being haled before the public in that way and disparaged in the newspapers and the House of Commons. Too much was made of what he regarded as domestic matters in the regiments affected, and he pleaded for forbearance, and urged that regiments knew what was good for them and for the Service, at least as well as the Press and Parliament.
  MR. CROOKSsaid he wished to ask the indulgence of the House as he did not feel quite robust after his long illness. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War would give some better assurance than he had done in regard to national public safety as to the condition of things at Woolwich. Last year, for reasons, they were shut out of an opportunity of discussing the discharges at Woolwich Arsenal, and what was called the "minimum." Numerous questions were asked, but the answers to them were on the whole unsatisfactory. There were many deputations and demonstrations which took the side of Woolwich as Woolwich, and said that it was a national danger to deplete the Arsenal of the best kind of workmen. The Secretary for War had absolutely ignored the conclusions of the Committee over which the hon. Member for Barnard Castle had presided, and the result of the policy adopted by the right hon. Gentleman was that the indirect expenditure for the work being done on armaments had increased in some cases by 40, 50, and 100 per cent., while machinery which cost £250,000 was lying idle in the Arsenal at the present moment The best workmen were now looking askance at Government employment' whereas the nation should aim at safe-
  1604
  guarding the employment of such, men and show an example to private employers. 1898 could be taken as a normal year; from 1886–87 until 1898 there was a steady increase in the number of men employed as the Army Estimates increased. In 1898 the Army Estimates—had reached £20,096,000. This year they were £27,459,000, an increase of £7,363,000 over the year 1898, yet the normal strength of the Arsenal had been reduced by 3,400 men, and the productive strength by 4,130 men. If the Navy Estimates were taken with the Army Estimates, it would be found that the expenditure was increased by over £20,000,000 since 1898. Yet the Arsenal was reduced below the productive peace strength of 1898 by over 4,000 men. The increase in strength of the Arsenal up to 1898, as the Army Estimate increased, and the decrease in the strength of the Arsenal since the war, notwithstanding the continued increased Army expenditure, showed pretty conclusively that during the war the contractors had got a grip on the permanent officials that had resulted in the policy of the minimum for Ordnance Factories. As to Establishment Charges, in the year 1898 when the number of productive workers was 13,479 the strength of the Central Office Stores and Medical Department was 510 men. Now it was 642. The total charges for establishment and indirect expenditure amounted approximately to £900,000 per annum. On a basis of 9,000 for "minimum," and not 8,400 as fixed, this meant that every productive worker had to earn. £100 per annum besides his wages to cover establishment and indirect charges. It actually worked out at more than this, but he had taken round figures for purpose of illustration. Was that business? What did the business men of the House say to a policy that was costing the nation hundreds of thousands of pounds per annum? Both the Murray Committee and the responsible Ministers agreed that it was necessary to keep the establishment on a war footing while reducing the productive side to a minimum. The consequence was that every job done for the Army and Navy, whether by the Ordnance Factories or the contractors, cost the country more. In the Royal Carriage Department the

  1605
  percentage charged on production for indirect expenditure had reached over 100 per cent. Every job given away from Woolwich which could be done there meant a less chance of reducing the enormous percentage of indirect expenditure, and consequently an enhanced cost to the nation. He would give an illustration. Recently the Royal Carriage Department was asked for an estimate for the manufacture of stores. The estimated price worked out at £9,633 12s., as against £7,964, the trade price. As the loss of the order would have meant a further discharge of men in the Royal Carriage Department, which was already below the "minimum," an analysis of the price was submitted to the Army Council with the view of obtaining the order although the estimated price was higher than the trade price. The analysis proved that of the £9,633 12s. no less a sum than £2,417 1s. was charged as general indirect expenditure, which would have to be met whether the Royal Carriage Department had the order or not. That was to say if the Arsenal was kept fully employed the price could be reduced by £2,417 1s., making the price £7,216 11s. as against the £7,964 of the trade. The serious part to business men was that if the work was given to the trade it would mean that the cost of the job would be £7,964 plus £2,417 which the Ordnance Factories were taxed with because it was not fully employed, making a total of £10,381 1s., as against the £9,633 12s. charged by the Royal Carriage Department, including the percentage of indirect expenditure. The Master-General of Ordnance, in submitting the analysis to the Army Council with the recommendation that he should be empowered to give the work to the Royal Carriage Department, made the significant comment—
  "Although the prices quoted by the factory will involve some extra expense (over trade price) it must be remembered that the work will assist in reducing the proportion of in-direct charges borne by our other orders."
  The Army Council agreed that the Master-General of Ordnance—
  "Should give such orders to the factories as will enable him to provide the necessary employment for the minimum establishment of the Royal Carriage Department when the
  1606
  estimated cost is not more than 20 per cent. in excess of the trade price."
  On this decision of the Army Council the even more significant comment was made by a responsible officer—
  "That in view of increased indirect expenditure (now 100 per cent.) 60 per cent. increase over trade prices appears to form a fairer basis of comparison than 20 per cent."
  Both from a business point of view, and the point of view of the safety of the nation the minimum stood condemned. The illustration he had given showed how on a £10,000 order the enhanced cost to the nation, by reason of the minimum, reached the sum of £2,400. The percentage charged for indirect expenditure on production when the Arsenal was employed as in 1898 was between 40 and 50 per cent. On the minimum it was 100 per cent. It was therefore a simple sum in proportion to find out what the policy of the minimum was costing the country. The "minimum" also tended to remove that competitive check on contractors' prices, which hitherto had been some sort of a safeguard against "ring" prices. He thought the facts he had quoted were sufficient to show that the War Office or the Army Council could have kept the Arsenal fully employed without loss to the nation. Even the Murray Committee were constrained to report, after suggesting that the minimum should be 8,000, that the Chief Superintendent of Ordnance Factories had given in evidence—
  "That he considered the present total of 14,037 (employed in November, 1906) was not susceptible of any further reduction."
  The Committee after recording this grave warning said—
  "We do not feel able to make any definite recommendation as to the exact number to be adopted for the minimum establishment, which requires further examination, and a fuller knowledge of the circumstances of each of the factories than we can claim to possess."
  Private inquiries went to show that the serious warning of Mr. Donaldson but feebly expressed the fears of the administration of the Arsenal under this policy. It was an open secret in Woolwich that many shops had been so depleted that it would be impossible to expand quickly to a maximum output at a time of national crisis as at the South African War, when the Leader of the

  1607
  Opposition himself confessed that the small arms ammunition stores were depleted within a few weeks of the commencement of the war. It was only because of the splendid staff of the Arsenal that it was possible to cope with that national crisis. Yet the bulk of these men had been scattered to the four corners of the globe. The whole difficulty in this case seemed to be not that we could get more men than officers but that we had more officers than men. If the Government really wanted a number of men to do some training for the Territorial Army he thought they might relieve the Arsenal of these superior employees. He asked the right hon. Gentleman to look at this case, not because he happened to be the Member for Woolwich or because he represented the men who had been put off. He appealed for the men who were there and asked the House not to sanction a policy which had distributed all over the world the workmen who saw the country through the crisis of the South African War. The best workmen now looked askance at Government employment. The reductions which had been made were a national disgrace and danger, and he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would give them some assurance that the points which he had raised would be looked into, and where it was possible to place work in the yards, not on the establishment charges but at a fair price, it should be so placed. They should give the men a fair chance and not put on their backs this heavy and evil burden which they could not bear. The Government had the plant, the machinery, and the skill, and they ought to be able to utilise them in the interests of the workers, and to the best advantage of the nation.
  COLONEL KENYON-SLANEYsaid the hon. Member's advocacy of Woolwich Arsenal had been so strong that he hoped he would not think it was because of want of sympathy with him that he did not follow him in the line he had taken. What he had said, was sufficient to impress the adamantine heart of the Secretary of State for War. He wanted, however, to refer to some previous points in the debate. Whenever he had listened to a debate upon Army matters, especially
  1608
  to a debate in which the welfare: of the new Territorial Army loomed so large, he had been utterly disappointed by the tone, adopted by so many speakers. He had heard, for instance, three or four speakers; who prefaced their remarks by saying: "If the Territorial Army was ever wanted," "We hope it never will be" and "We think it never will be." He thought that that was the wrong attitude to take if they wanted to criticise with any effect and the Territorial Army was to be a reality and not a sham. They should look at it from the point of view that it was going to fight, and if it was going to fight they wanted it to win. That was the line which he should wish to be taken by the House and the country in regard to the Territorial Army if they wished it to be a real instrument which, should satisfy the necessities of the; nation. The proper view was that it would have to fight, and it would have to fight under circumstances of peculiar difficulty, circumstances which would make the most exacting demands on its powers of discipline and warfare. It was only honest and fair that they should not exaggerate the capabilities of the Territorial Army, but they had heard quoted two or three very great authorities who had served His" Majesty the King. First, Sir John French was reported to have said that, assuming that he had three divisions of the Territorial Army mobilised for three months, then he thought that those three divisions might be equal for war to one Regular division. Did anyone suppose that our possible enemies, those against whom we created a Territorial Army, did not lake note of these criticisms and the opinion of our best soldier that they had only to bring one soldier to three. Again they had that brilliant and most trusted soldier, Sir Ian Hamilton, who was said to have stated that if three or four batteries of the Territorial Force were engaged with one battery of the enemy they might be able to give them a hot time. That just supported his contention throughout that they were deluding and humbugging the country if they told them that the Territorial Force they proposed to train was an effective force; they were throwing dust, in their eyes, because what the country meant by an effective force was a

  1609
  force of their own soldiers who would meet a force of any other country at least man for man. They did not want a force in which each of our men was to be reckoned as only one-third of a man in a foreign country. What they had heard that evening intensified the argument which they had had brought before the House, that the training of the Territorial Force was not sufficient to make it effective, and what they ought to insist upon was that the right hon. Gentleman should make that fact patent and clear to the country. He thought the Secretary for War was earnest in desiring that the hat should not go round and private subscriptions be brought in for the aid of the Territorial Army, but undoubtedly there was a very considerable suspicion in the country that if that Army was to be made a success it would have to depend upon local effort and local subscriptions. If so the Territorial Army was doomed and it became a worthless thing. Another point was that the right hon. Gentleman in. bringing in such a great scheme as this had found it impossible to avoid treading on a certain number of local toes. It had been necessary for him to ask from counties that which they could not provide, and to ask other counties to give up that which they had provided and were proud to provide. In the rural counties the result of the scheme would be largely to disembody the force now existing. He knew of one county in which there were two straightforward and satisfactory battalions. By the right hon. Gentleman's scheme only one battalion was to be taken from that county. The disappointment had been so great that he was afraid it was doubtful whether they would get even one battalion. In the rural districts they could only raise what used to be called Volunteer battalions. But now the Territorial battalons were to be on the basis of units of companies. They could not get a. company unless the district was sufficiently large for the whole company to be recruited pretty close at hand. They could not expect men to join who lived in scattered villages, and who would have to walk some miles to their drill. They would practically get their Territorial battalion on the basis of company units from centres which would in themselves suffice for the
  1610
  formation of companies. Therefore, if in a county in winch they had two battalions they abolished one, thus taking 1,000 men instead of 2,000, they must recollect that they could not get that number by saying they would take such and such a unit from such and such a town or district, but they must have the units in the locality, otherwise they would not raise their rural battalions. He quite sympathised with the right hon. Gentleman, who was in earnest and in love with his own scheme. He was an ardent lover, and naturally he did not wish to see any imperfections in the lady of his affections, and, so far did the right hon. Gentleman go, that he was almost inclined to sacrifice a really efficient fighting force in order to get the symmetry he would like to see in the Territorial Force. Although the Secretary for War himself acknowledged that he did not think that he would raise a Territorial Artillery that would be as good as the Regular Artillery, yet it appeared that, for the sake of symmetry the right hon. Gentleman would prefer to run the risk of asking the Territorial Force to provide him with that extraordinary basis of service which he acknowledged in his own words he could not hope to get so good as it ought to be. There was another another subject upon which he had a rather strong feeling. The right hon. Gentleman had told them that at the present moment the recruiting was going on, he hoped, fairly satisfactorily for the Regular Army. But this was the point he wished to raise, and it was one which, touched the feelings not only of the Regular Army but of the whole community, in regard to the men who served the country as soldiers or, sailors. He wondered whether the right hon. Gentleman realised that the case he was about to explain actually existed, for it touched the popularity of the Army and the question of justice. Perhaps the House would bear with him while he put a curious case. He would take three brothers, A, B and C. The man A joined the Civil Service at the age of twenty. At the age of sixty, he retired on a pension which was forty-sixtieths of what he was receiving at the end of his term. His brother B joined the. police service. He was in the police, say, for twelve years, and then

  1611
  he passed into the Civil Service. He was allowed to reckon the twelve years police service towards full pension, but he was also allowed to reckon four years for every three of his police service, so that he would be allowed to reckon fifteen years towards Civil Service pension. He then went on to the age of sixty, and before he reached that age he was absolutely able to claim his full pension by virtue of the recognition given to his police service. They now came to C, the soldier or sailor. He joined the Army, say, at the age of twenty, and served for twelve years. At the end of twelve years he went into the Civil Service. Perhaps some people would say that he might have served in the Army. But in many cases they were not allowed to serve in the Army to the end, because there was an arrangement by which under certain circumstances only 10 per cent. might go on, and it very frequently happened that a man who might wish to continue could not continue. He had given twelve years of service in the Army, and he joined the Civil Service, working up to sixty, in the same way as his brothers, but he was not allowed to reckon his twelve years service in the Army towards the Civil Service pension. Instead of forty-sixtieths he only got twenty-eight-sixtieths. That was a gross injustice. From every point of view, from the point of view of recruiting and of inducing men of the best type to join the Army, the soldier or sailor should have the same rates of pension as the policeman who entered the Civil Service. Then as to the reasons for this. The policeman was allowed the extra time on account of his services, which were considered to be onerous and, perhaps, even especially dangerous. But they had to remember that the policeman, if he stayed in the force, could get his pension at the end of twenty-four years. As to the soldier, surely no one would say that his service was less dangerous or onerous than that of the policeman. Out of his twelve years it was extremely probable that he had to spend some in India, or at all events in some foreign country. It was also extremely probable that he had spent a good many months of his service in extreme personal danger to life and limb. In the Army at the end of twenty-one years a soldier was entitled
  1612
  to pension, and he believed that the pension of both the policeman and the soldier was based on the fact that their service had some peculiar dangers, and that, therefore, the men ought to have their pension at a proportionately earlier period. Why, therefore, when the soldier or sailor joined the Civil Service, of course with a good character, should he be deprived of the opportunity of counting his years of loyal service in the Army or Navy towards the civil pension? Again, a boy joined the Army at the age of eighteen, and served on the frontiers of India, getting the distinguished service medal and other medals. He came back with the very best of characters and of certificates, and why should he at the age of sixty, after he having served twelve years in circumstances of special danger, and earned the gratitude of his country, be debarred from getting full pension. He believed that he had stated the case absolutely accurately, and he hoped the right hon. Gentleman, if he acknowledged its justice as he thought he would, would not be stopped by any trifles of inexpediency, but would say that this was a matter to be considered on its merits. He was not asking that the soldier should get the extra years which were given to the policeman, though his service had exposed him to danger just as much, but that he should be at least allowed to count the twelve years he had actually served. These were the points which he wished to impress on the right hon. Gentleman, and he left it in his hands to give him sooner or later such an answer as would assure him that the strong case which he had made would receive his consideration.
  MR. MACLEANsaid with reference to the point raised by the hon. and gallant Gentleman who had just sat down as to pension on transfer of service, he hoped that the right hon. Gentleman would be able to give it consideration, though it might not be possible to do anything without legislation to remedy the matter. From many of the speeches made on the other side of the House, and from some made on his own. side, one would imagine that the main object of the country was to spend as much money as possible. If

  1613
  they were to carry out all the suggestions which were made across the floor of the House for an enormous extension of expenditure, the country would find itself in the position of the man with £600 a year, who, out of it spent £450 on insurances of various descriptions against burglary, loss of life and other risks, leaving himself with £150 to meet his social necessities. The real object of the finance of this country should be directed to social reform, and the amelioration of the condition of the people; and he found that the scheme of his right hon. friend was in general directed to that proposition, namely, as far as possible, to keep military expenditure in this country within reasonable limits. The main object of the country was the social betterment of its poorer people. He wished to add a remark upon the subject of canteens. At present he understood there were three systems under which the soldiers could be supplied at the canteens—the regimental system, the tenant system, and the mess and canteen co-operative society. As he understood, the regimental system had fallen largely into discredit, and it was only the tenant system and the co-operative society which were in competition for the supply of the soldiers in these canteens. All he desired to say on this point was that he hoped that his right hon. friend would see with regard to these competing agencies that there was a fair field and no favour. In reference to the co-operative society he was not making the slightest reflection on the bona fides of those managing it, but there were very large opportunities—he did not that those opportunities were made use of—for giving an unfair advantage to the co-operative society, managed by officers, as against the tenant system. What he did strongly plead for was that the field should be kept open in the interests of the soldiers themselves. The field should be absolutely clear, and let the best tenders be dealt with on the principles which obtained in the open market.
  MR. MOONEYsaid he wished to ask the right hon. Gentleman a question on a subject which was prominently before the House in the discussion of last year, viz. the policy of the War Office with respect
  1614
  to cordite and other explosives. Last year the right hon. Gentleman said that the policy of the War Office was to follow on the lines of the report of the Committee which he was about to appoint to inquire and report on the whole subject. That Committee was appointed, he understood, as the result of a statement which the Secretary of State made in that House. The right hon. Gentleman stated that, when he was about to appoint that Committee, the House was taken into the fullest confidence of the Government, and that he intended to appoint a Committee of the most scientific experts to advise and inquire on the matter. In the last few days questions had been put asking if the Report had been submitted to the War Office, and if so what were its terms. He understood the answer to be that it was not in the public interest to publish the Report. But in View of the fact that the right hon. Gentleman had said he would take the House into his confidence he ought to give some explanation of why he had changed his mind. He would ask further if it was the fact that while the Committee was sitting he had taken into the public service cordite which had previously been rejected on the ground that it was unsafe. If that was done in accordance with the Committee's Report they were entitled to know whether they had reported that the ingredients complained of had no injurious effect whatever. The right hon. Gentleman was not justified in sheltering himself behind the plea of public policy and refusing to give any information.
  MR. HALDANE: The reason that has influenced me is this. There is litigation pending by Messrs. Kynoch against the War Office on which the Report materially bears, and it would be very wrong of us to publish any document which prejudges questions which might arise in the litigation. As soon as the litigation is out of the way the situation will be cleared. It will be a great convenience if we might take Vote A. by agreement of the House and then continue the discussion on Vote 1. That is the common practice, and if there is general agreement the discussion could be a perfectly open one, just as free as upon Vote A. I would appeal to my hon. friends to let us take Vote A. at

  1615
  8.15 and then go on with the open discussion on Vote 1.
  MR. ARTHUR LEEsaid they would have no objection to that course if they had the assent of the Chair to the discussion on Vote 1 being just as general as on Vote A.
  MR. CHAIRMAN: As I have been appealed to I will just say I will give my consent to any arrangement of the kind made by general consent.
  MR. ARTHUR LEEsaid he supposed the general discussion would go on before the Amendments were called, otherwise they would be restricted to the particular subject on the Amendments.
  THE CHAIRMAN: May I just say with regard to that matter that if an Amendment is moved to-morrow for reduction of the whole Vote it would still be possible to continue the open discussion, but if a reduction is moved on an item it would not be possible to continue the open discussion.
  MR. MOONEYasked for an answer to his question whether it was a fact that the Government had taken into the public service explosives which had been previously rejected.
  MR. HALDANE: Not that I know of, unless it was some that was specially investigated by the Committee and found to be safe after it had been subjected to severe tests.
  MR. MOONEYasked if it was not a fact that the War Office having rejected 100 tons as being not fit for use, after wards took into the public service 30 tons of the very cordite which 'hey had previously refused.
  MR. HALDANE: I know nothing about it. If the hon. Member will put down a Question I will look into it.
  MR. LUTTRELLsaid he wss very unwilling to put any opposition in the way of the arrangement come to by the Front Benches, but he was asked to move in the matter by
  1616
  a considerable number of supporters of the Government and it would be necessary for him to move a reduction of men. He moved it in no spirit of hostility to the Government of which he reckoned himself a loyal supporter, but their reasons for doing this were provided by the speeches and actions of the occupants of the Front Bench themselves. They had continually made speeches in favour of a reduction of the Vote—true, when they were in a different position—but the fact that they had gone to the Front Bench ought not to alter their principles. They had been influenced also by their policy. He was not blaming them but paying them a very high compliment indeed. It was because they had been at peace with, the world and because there were no clouds on the horizon that they were able with confidence to ask the House to reduce the Army by 10,000 men. It was in no spirit of hostility to the Secretary of State that he moved this. He appreciated and valued his great ability and his remarkable energy and industry, but he would remind his right hon. friend that he was not only Secretary of State for War, but he was; Secretary of State for Peace, and he hoped in reality more a Secretary of State for Peace than for War. He believed his persuasive powers were such that he might have induced the generals themselves to turn their attention to economy had he exercised those powers. He was inclined to think that the right hon. Gentleman had studied efficiency somewhat to the neglect of economy, and he wished he would study economy and spell it with a very big E indeed. The number of men was the only test they could have of the cost of the Army. It was no use making small economies. If they wanted really to economise they must reduce the number of men. It was in excess of requirements and could with safety to the Empire be reduced to the extent he proposed. In 1895–6, just before preparations were being made for possible contingencies in South Africa, the Home Army numbered 116,153; to day it had grown to 130,000 odd, an increase of nearly 14,000 men. In Africa we had then 4,888, and a temporary contingent of 1,066 men in West Africa; to-day we

  1617
  had 20,173, an increase of 14,219. In America we had then 5,928, which had been reduced now to 2,356, our troops having been withdrawn from Halifax and Barbadoes. In Asia, exclusive of India, we had 6,300 men; to-day we had 9,735, an increase of 3,405. In the Mediterranean the number had decreased from 14,451 to 11,479, but in Egypt the number had increased from 4,267 to 5,771. The difference between the total numbers we had in 1895–6 and to day was no less than 26,609 increase. During the year 1895–6, we had in India 73,168 men, but to—day we had 76,155, which was a considerable increase. His contention was that the increase in India had been far too great, and it was the duty of the Government to bring the military expenditure in India back to what it was in 1895–96. The Cardwell system as now adopted necessitated keeping at home the same number of troops as were maintained abroad. That was the policy which the Secretary for War was pursuing, and in pursuance of that policy he was bringing four battalions of infantry and one regiment of cavalry from South Africa. That was not real economy, because when those troops came back they would not be disbanded. That could not be claimed as economy.
  MR. HALDANE: It saves £170,000 a year.
  MR. LUTTRELLsaid that that was the only gain they got, and there was no real economy in it unless the establishment was reduced. Small savings like that were not real economy; that could not be secured unless they reduced the number of men. He agreed that the men should be properly trained and housed, but they had far too many of them. The so-called Cardwell system which the Government were following was practically that they should keep a battalion at home for every battalion abroad. He believed that Mr. Cardwell was a great economist and his main object was to run the Army for as little money as possible—to have as many men as possible trained to arms, but not under arms, and that was why he instituted the short service system. The Cardwell system had been fully explained by the right
  1618
  hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War, who said—
  "The Cardwell system has the advantage that it reduces the question of the size of the Army to the function of a single variable. That variable is the number of troops which it is essential at any time to keep abroad in the colonies, in India, and the Crown possessions When you have determined the size of this variable you at once determine the size and character of the Army which you will require to support it, and it gives you a clear principle according to which you can lop off what is unnecessary or build up what is essential."
  They wanted the right hon. Gentleman to do a little lopping off, because the Army was too large both at home and abroad. They were told that they required 160,000 men for an expeditionary force which was called the striking force. Whom did they want to strike T Under the guidance of the right hon. Gentleman they had started a Territorial Army, which was going to cost a lot of money and cause a great deal of trouble and naturally they supposed it was going to be of some use for defensive purposes. Surely under these circumstances they expected the Regular Army to be smaller. The Secretary for War had said there were seventy four battalions at home, and sixty six of them were required for the expeditionary force, and eight battalions would be left. His excuse for this large expeditionary force was that we were not keeping more at home than we had abroad. "If," he said, "there are seventy four battalions, at home, and sixty six are required for the expeditionary force, there will be eight battalions surplus. Therefore, the expeditionary force is not eating up a single man whom you would not otherwise require to keep up." Why should they keep so many men abroad? He contended that there were far too many abroad. He thought he had said enough to prove that the number of troops maintained at home were fax ins excess of requirements. If he could prove that their requirements abroad did not necessitate so large a force as seventy four battalions, then it followed that they did not require seventy four battalions at home. Now his right hon friend had stated that "the question of the size of the Army is not one the Minister for War can answer unaided The answer must depend on the view of foreign policy taken by the Foreign

  1619
  Secretary, the Secretary for India, and the Colonial Secretary, and it is one that must be determined by the Government as a whole." He would also give the opinions of other Ministers. The Prime Minister (the cause of whose absence they so deeply deplored) in 1903, said—
  "The hon. Member for Oldham has said that up to 1897 our Army was a good one and sufficient for our purposes. That is true. The idea was then that we should never contemplate anything more than an expeditionary force of 70,000 or 80,000 men; and that was more than accomplished with the machinery and material that we had. The question is, What has caused since then an increased demand on the Army? If the Army was strong enough in 1897, why should it need to be stronger now? H the expenditure of £18,000,000 were sufficient in 1897, why should we now require an expenditure of £30,000,000? …."
  Speaking on 11th March, 1903, five years ago that very day, the Foreign Secretary said—
  "If the Navy insures our safety at sea, and if the defence of the Indian frontier be safe, "we then could have time to develop our military power for striking purposes. If that be so, and the 120,000 is not a definite number, I think there is a prima facie case at any rate for asking the Government to show whether the country would not be better off with a smaller expeditionary force of 80,000 or of 40,000 men, if they were prompt and ready, and a much larger and better equipped body of auxiliaries behind them on whom we could draw afterwards."
  He thought a considerable reduction might be made in the Army abroad. In South Africa they were bringing back lour battalions of infantry and one regiment of cavalry, whereas the increase in the number of troops in South Africa had been no less than 14,219 men. So that if the troops in South Africa alone were reduced by 10,000 they would still The over 4,000 in excess of the number there previous to the Boer War. Why should such a force be kept there? They prided themselves that they had given representative Government to 'South Africa and that there was now absolute peace there, and why under those circumstances should such a large force be kept there? There might also be a reduction of the forces maintained in Asia, Hong Kong, and Egypt. We had entered into a Treaty with Trance, and there was less danger in Egypt now than at any previous time, and why should we keep such a large force in that country? The size of the
  1620
  British Army under the system to which he had referred was largely dependent on the number of men we kept in India. He thought we were keeping in India men vastly, in excess of the number really required. Since 1895 there had been an increase from 73,000 to 76,000. He could not see why we required to keep 3,000 more now than in 1895. It seemed to him that the arguments were all in favour of keeping fewer. We had entered into a treaty with Russia which ought to make things very much easier for us. Questions relating to Persia, Afghanistan, and Tibet had been settled for many years to come. He asked the Secretary of State for War why we were keeping more men in India now than before. The right hon. Gentleman had stated that the British Army in India was kept there not for aggressive purposes, but to preserve internal order. Was it necessary to keep this large force for preserving internal order? Lord Lawrence did not find it necessary to keep more than 60,000 men there. In 1879 Lord Roberts was a member of a Commission which reported in favour of keeping 61,000. Only a few years ago we were content to leave India with 63,000, and that was at the time of the Boer War, and if ever we had a time of difficulty in India it was then. Why should we require 13,000 more to day? He thought the number there could be reduced by 10,000 or 15,000 with absolute safety. At the time of the Mutiny, when we had only a small force in India, there were only 400 miles of railway, while to day there were 30,000 miles. This made it far easier to do with a small force. He had said enough to prove that we did not require so large a force abroad as we had at the present time. The Army should be brought up to date; we were behind the times. He and his friends who shared his views did not think it necessary to keep up in peace time a war establishment, and. they hoped that the policy which had been adopted by the Government, namely, the policy of pursuing the paths of peace, would be continued. He was convinced that if the Government would be courageous in following that policy it would be absolutely unnecessary to keep up the large force which we were at present maintaining. The country

  1621
  wanted peace, and he appealed to the right hon. Gentleman to hold out some hope that the Estimates next year would show that the Government were studying economy as well as efficiency, and he would say that they should put economy before efficiency. He and his friends wanted to see the country properly defended, but they wanted to see the houses of the people at home properly furnished before battlements were were put on the walls.
  MR. BYLESsaid he must join in the renewed expression of disappointment at the enormous demands made for the Regular Army in the Estimates now before the Committee. He hoped the Government would not try to abridge the discussion of this most important question. He had noticed the eagerness with which the chief Government whip had been watching the clock and conferring with the Chairman, and no doubt the Government desired to get the Vote before a quarter-past eight. If they did not get it to-night, they would probably get it early tomorrow, and nothing would be lost if the discussion did not close now. He believed they had now entered upon what was really the most important question which could possibly engage the attention of the representatives of the people in regard to our preparations for Imperial defence. The technical details which had been discussed that afternoon were all, no doubt, of importance, but they were beyond his ken, but the Committee had now come to the essential question in which the country was interested, namely, why did we want this big Army? They had never been told why the country wanted 160,000 men as an expeditionary force. A great portion of last session was occupied in trying to formulate measures for the construction of a Territorial Army. If the citizens of this country had to defend themselves against
  any marauders who might come here he would be the very first to help them in that defence, but he was not one of those who believed in what a Bishop in the other House called the menagerie theory, that neighbouring nations were waiting to devour us up when we lessened our armaments. If Germany were to put down her army and navy, should we desire to take a single acre of her territory? Why should not we believe the same of Germany? Why should we always suppose that Germany was waiting to swallow us up? Surely England was strong enough to go her own way without being influenced by the votes of the Reichstag. He was one of those who desired to promote international friendliness, and he believed that international friendliness was by far the strongest defence we could have. He wondered whether the Government quite realised the extent to which it was—he would not use the word alienating, but chilling; the enthusiasm of its followers by the enormous proposals it made for both the Army and Navy. This was going on further within the Party than the War Minister really recognised. He was sure the right hon. Gentleman did not miss the significance of the division which took place in the House last week. It was with the greatest reluctance that he voted against the Government. It was a most thankless thing to do. He and his friends received all sorts of buffets and taunts, but they were not afraid of them. A colleague on leaving the House last night was positively dejected, disappointed, and despairing.
  MR. HALDANErose in his place and claimed to move, "That the Question he now put."
  Question put, "That the Question be now put."
  The Committee divided:—Ayes, 186; Noes, 41. (Division List No. 38.)

  AYES.

  Abraham, William (Rhondda)

  Baring, Godfrey(Isle of Wight)

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

  Acland, Francis Dyke

  Barker, Sohn

  Berridge, T. H. D.

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

  Barlow, Percy (Bedford)

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

  Agnew, George William

  Barran, Rowland Hirst

  Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon)

  Allen, Charles P. (Stroud)

  Barry, Redmond J. (Tyrone, N.)

  Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine

  Armitage, R.

  Beale, W. P.

  Boulton, A. C. F.

  Baker, Sir John (Portsmouth)

  Bell, Richard

  Brace, William

  Balfour, Robert (Lanark)

  Bellairs, Carlyon

  Bramsdon, T. A.

  Branch, James

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

  Richardson, A.

  Brigg, John

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

  Ridsdale, E. A.

  Brocklehurst, W. B.

  Hobart, Sir Robert

  Robertson, Sir G. Scott(Bradf'rd

  Bryce, J. Annan

  Horniman, Emslie John

  Robinson, S.

  Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn

  Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

  Robson, Sir William Snowdon

  Burns, Rt. Hon. John

  Hudson, Walter

  Rose, Charles Day

  Cameron, Robert

  Hunt, Rowland

  Rowlands, J.

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

  Hyde, Clarendon

  Runciman, Walter

  Cave, George

  Jackson, R. S.

  Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)

  Cavendish, Rt. Hn. Victor C. W.

  Jardine, Sir J.

  Sears, J. E.

  Cawley, Sir Frederick

  Jenkins, J.

  Seaverns, J. H.

  Chance, Frederick William

  Johnson, John (Gateshead)

  Silcock, Thomas Ball

  Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R.

  Johnson, W. (Nuneaton)

  Simon, John Allsebrook

  Cleland, J. W.

  Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)

  Sinclair, Rt. Hon. John

  Collins, Stephen (Lambeth)

  Kekewich, Sir George

  Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie

  Compton-Rickett, Sir J.

  Kelley, George D.

  Soares, Ernest J.

  Corbett, CH (Sussex, E Grinst'd)

  Laidlaw, Robert

  Stanley, Albert (Staffs, N.W.)

  Cox, Harold

  Lambert, George

  Stanley, Hn. A. Lyulph (Chesh.

  Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S.

  Lamont, Norman

  Stewart-Smith, D. (Kendal)

  Craig, Herbert J.(Tynemouth)

  Layland-Barratt, Francis

  Stone, Sir Benjamin

  Crooks, William

  Leese, Sir Joseph F.(Accrington)

  Stuart, James (Sunderland)

  Davies, David(Montgomery Co.

  Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich)

  Summerbell, T.

  Davies, Ellis William (Eifion)

  Lewis, John Herbert

  Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

  Davies, W. Howell (Bristol, S.)

  Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David

  Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

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

  Lyell, Charles Henry

  Tennant, H. J. (Berwickshire)

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

  Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

  Thomas, David Alfred (Merthyr)

  Duncan, C.(Barrow-in-Furness)

  M'Callum, John M.

  Tillett, Louis John

  Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne)

  M'Crae, George

  Torrance, Sir A. M.

  Edwards, Enoch (Hanley)

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

  Toulmin, George

  Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor)

  M'Micking, Major G.

  Valentia, Viscount

  Elibank, Master of

  Maddison, Frederick

  Wadsworth, J.

  Esslemont, George Birnie

  Markham, Arthur Basil

  Walters, John Tudor

  Evans, Sir Samuel T.

  Marks, G. Croydon (Launceston)

  Walton, Joseph

  Everett, R. Lacy

  Marnham, F. J.

  Ward, John (Stoke upon Trent)

  Faber, G. H. (Boston)

  Mason, A. E. W. (Coventry)

  Wardle, George J.

  Fenwick, Charles

  Menzies, Walter

  Waring, Walter

  Findlay, Alexander

  Micklem, Nathaniel

  Wason, Rt Hn. E.(Clackmannan

  Fletcher, J. S.

  Middlebrook, William

  Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

  Fuller, John Michael F.

  Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall)

  Waterlow, D. S.

  Fullerton, Hugh

  Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen)

  Watt, Henry A.

  Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West)

  Morse, L. L.

  Whitley, John Henry (Halifax)

  Glendinning, R. G.

  Murray, James

  Whittaker, Sir Thomas Palmer

  Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford

  Myer, Horatio

  Wiles, Thomas

  Gooch, George Peabody

  Napier, T. B.

  Williams, J. (Glamorgan)

  Gulland, John W.

  Newnes, F. (Notts, Bassetlaw)

  Williams, Osmond (Merioneth)

  Haldane, Rt. Hon. Richard B.

  Parker, James (Halifax)

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

  Hall, Frederick

  Partington, Oswald

  Wilson, John (Durham, Mid)

  Hamilton, Marquess of

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

  Wilson, J. H. (Middlesbrough)

  Hardy, George A. (Suffolk)

  Philipps, Col. Ivor (S'thampton)

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

  Harmsworth, Cecil B.(Wore'r)

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

  Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

  Harrison-Broadley, H. B.

  Radford, G. H.

  Haslam, James (Derbyshire)

  Raphael, Herbert H.

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES—

  Haworth, Arthur A.

  Rea, Russell (Gloucester)

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

  Hedges, A. Paget

  Rendall, Athelstan

  Helme, Norval Watson

  Richards, Thomas (W.Monm'th

  Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

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

  NOES.

  Alden, Percy

  Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles

  Jowett, F. W.

  Baker, Joseph A. (Finsbury, E.)

  Duncan, Robert (Lanark, Govan

  King, Alfred John (Knutsford)

  Byles, William Pollard

  Fell, Arthur

  Lamb, Edmund G. (Leominster]

  Castlereagh, Viscount

  Gill, A. H.

  Lupton, Arnold

  Clynes, J. R.

  Gordon, J.

  Macpherson, J. T.

  Coates, E. Feetham (Lewisham)

  Guinness, Walter Edward

  Moore, William

  Cobbold, Felix Thornley

  Higham, John Sharp

  Nuttall, Harry

  Collings Rt. Hn. J.(Birmingh'm

  Hills, J. W.

  O'Grady, J.

  Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

  Holt, Richard Durning

  Cremer, Sir William Randal

  Houston, Robert Paterson

  Pirie, Duncan V.

  Curran, Peter Francis

  Hutton, Alfred Eddison

  Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)

  Dalrymple, Viscount

  Jones, Leif (Appleby)

  Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool)

  1624

  1625

  Salter, Arthur Clavell

  Taylor, John W. (Durham)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES—

  Seddon, J.

  Vivian, Henry

  Mr. Murray Macdonald and Mr. Luttrell

  Smith, F.E. (Liverpool, Walton)

  Walsh, Stephen

  Bill read a second time, and committed to a Standing Committee.

  On the Question being put—
  MR. BYLES: There is an Amendment moved.
  MR. LUTTRELL: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman —
  THE CHAIRMAN: Order. If the hon. Member has any point of order to raise, he must put it to me after I have put the Question.
  The House resumed, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair—
  And, it being a quarter past Eight of the Clock, further Proceeding was postponed without Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 4.
  MR. LUTTRELL: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I wished in Committee to move a reduction of the Vote for men in the Army —
  MR. SPEAKER: I do not know of anything which has occurred in Committee.

  DUBLIN METROPOLITAN POLICE.
  MR. MEAGHER (Kilkenny, N.),in moving, "That this House is of opinion that the system whereby the maximum amount sanctioned by law at a time when the valuation of the city of Dublin was comparatively low still continues to be levied is unjustifiable, in view of the fact that the valuation of the city has greatly increased, and that the number of police has not appreciably increased; that the crimeless condition of the city does not warrant this heavy expenditure; and that the control of this police force should be vested in the local authorities, as is the case in cities in Great Britain," said that the cost of the upkeep of the Dublin Metropolitan Police Force was quite unnecessarily large and should be borne by an Army Vote and not by the contributions of the ratepayers of Dublin.
  1626
  In 1836 an Act was passed to make more effective provision for the police of Dublin and other places within certain boundaries. The cost of the police in that area in 1836 was £40,511, and when the Act was passed it was considered that the rate for the maintenance of the police force should not exceed a total amount of £40,511. But he found that the cost charged on the rates had increased in 1870 to £99,000, and in 1905 it amounted to £160,950, or an increase of £61,950. Comparing the amount of crime and the amount of expenditure on the police, he found that the number of indictable offences in 1870 was 5,186 and in 1905 3,235. The summary convictions in 1870 numbered 47,310, and in 1905, 29,916, or a diminution of crime to the number of 19,345 cases. Notwithstanding that, the increase in the charge on the rates during the period 1870 to 1905 was £61,950. He wished to draw the attention of the House to how Dublin was situated, contrasted with other cities in the so called United Kingdom. The population of Dublin was 390,187, and that of Sheffield was 409,071, but in Dublin the police numbered 1,426, and in Sheffield 550. In Glasgow the population was 840,910, or more than double that of Dublin, and the police force only numbered 1,519. In Dublin they had 8d. in the £ police charge—the highest in the United Kingdom. They had 327 of the population for every policeman. In Sheffield it was 4Jd. in the £, and 794 people for every policeman. In Glasgow it was 3½d.in the £, and 523 people for every policeman. More startling still, in Bolton they had 3d. in the £, and 950 people to every policeman. Were they to infer that the population of Dublin were all lions, and the population of Bolton all lambs, or was it the fact that one policeman in Bolton was as good as three in Dublin. [A Voice: The other way about.] He should think so, as was demonstrated in South Africa when the British ranks swerved before the Boers and the Dublin Fusiliers went forward and showed them how to do their work. It was a monstrous thing, and he was

  1627
  sure Members of the House would not find in any part of the world an instance to compare with the city of Dublin in this matter. If they walked the streets of Dublin they would find two burly policemen standing against the street corners, with two or three between them. He wished to know what they were there for. So far as he could see they were there for nothing but to obstruct the public thoroughfare. Let them go to the Castle Yard. He was there a few times for the purpose of seeing that great edifice of English tryanny and oppression. He walked round the Castle, and if one was a good judge of human nature he would see that the policemen were doing nothing. [An HON. MEMBER: Except minding the jewels.] He would not be associated with the disappearance of the jewels. He was not responsible for their disappearance, nor were the Dublin police credited with their safekeeping. The Dublin police appeared always to be sleeping. They always seemed to be conspicuous by their absence when any purse snatching or pocket picking was going on. When all was right they came on the scene and took out their books. In Sheffield, Bristol, Glasgow, Nottingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Bradford, Hudders field, and Birmingham, the police were members of the fire brigade and were inspectors under the Contagious Diseases Act and inspectors of workshops. In Dublin they were not. They were lounging round the lower Castle Yard or in some Department where they could sleep their time away, and the unfortunate ratepayers were compelled to pay 8d. in the £, or 8s. 4d. for every man, woman, and child of the population. It was too much to expect this thing could continue. Year after year they were making a demand for the redress of that awful grievance. Honeyed words were not good enough for them. They had too much of honeyed words in the House. He preferred a reduction of 8d. in the £. His Majesty's Fleet could carry off honeyed words. How were the Dublin Police constituted? There were on the active list two commissioners, and on the retired list two commissioners; on the active list seven superintendents, and on the retired list, nine; on the active list, twenty four inspectors, and
  1628
  on the retired list, forty three. The inspectors retired at the age of fifty three on a pension of £260 a year. It was as plain as a pike staff what was increasing the police rates year after year. He had brought with him a letter which showed an awful state of things with regard to the Dublin Police, but he did not intend to read it because it was anonymous. [A laugh.] If the hon. Member desired him to read it he would do so. The hon. Member referred to several cases, including one mentioned in the anonymous letter, of misappropriation of money by police officers, which, he said, had been dealt with in an unsatisfactory manner, and it was little surprising that huge sums were expended year after year when the police took sums intended for the payment of their comrades in the force. Some time ago a circular was issued by some superior officer of the force, giving the name and rank of every constable, with the particulars of the cases in which he had been engaged for the last twelve weeks or the last twelve months, and that was only a corollary to the action of a sergeant who issued a mandate that each constable should afford five cases a week. This meant that they should do something for the purpose of getting credit for their industry. In this sense they had too much crime in Ireland, and he appealed with confidence to the Chief Secretary to deal with this matter. Let no hon. Member be mistaken, however, as to his attitude towards the right hon. Gentleman; but for the underlying current behind the scenes, he believed he would be a good friend to Ireland. He hoped they would have something more than honeyed words from the right hon. Gentleman. They had unfortunately had too much, of them to rely upon them in the future. When the hon. Member for College Green moved last year to reduce the Vote, the Chief Secretary made some very honeyed remarks. He had he would hesitate, to express an opinion of his own as to whether Dublin was over policed, but he was disposed to think there was a larger body of police there than will necessary to maintain peace and order in that great city. He was glad to notice that everybody who had spoken had paid a high tribute to the general character and integrity of the Dublin Police. The

  1629
  right hon. Gentleman agreed that it was the duty of the Corporation of Dublin to make reports as to the necessity of reducing the cost of the force, and he was disposed to think the Government would safely and wisely do something in that direction. He wished to know from the right hon. Gentleman whit had been done from that day to this. What had been done to reduce the enormous cost of the Dublin Metropolitan Police? He noticed that, later on, the right hon. Gentleman said that so far as the Treasury was concerned the view was that they should be approached with a view to fixing the amount of their grant. His hon. friend the Member for College Green asked if the Government would assist the Corporation of Dublin in finding out in what proportion the money was paid away. He wanted information as to how reductions should be made. The right hon. Gentleman, in replying, said that the hon. Member's request was absolutely reasonable; but no definite conclusion could be arrived at as to how a reduction of such a force of men could be effected without a complete knowledge of all the circumstances. The right hon. Gentleman was now in the harvest of his power to do justice to Ireland. He was sorry to have to admit that the spring-time of his administration was attended with very unsatisfactory results. The seed sown by him on that occasion was blown away; and he hoped and trusted that his efforts to redress the many grievances under which Ireland suffered would be attended in the future with very much better results. He appealed to him to grapple with this question in a comprehensive manner. There was at present an element of suspicion underlying the whole thing, and, if the Government did not take the matter in hand in a very short time, the people of Dublin would be very dissatisfied. He pressed the right hon. Gentleman to make some such encouraging move to redress this awful grievance as he yesterday made in regard to the lie of contempt of Court in Ireland. It was one of the most crying grievances that could be considered, and he trusted the right hon. Gentleman would not hesitat, to grapple with it in a comprehensive spirit which would do justice to his administration and to the people of
  1630
  Ireland, who were already handicapped by excessive rates. He begged to move.
  MR. J. P. NANNETTI, in seconding, said that he rose with some diffidence to call attention again to this pressing grievance. He dissociated himself from some of the remarks used by his hon. friend in reference to the manner in which the Dublin Metropolitan Police conducted their operations in the city. They were the creatures of circumstances, and, if there were too many of them, and they hung round corners in couples, it was not their fault. They were a disciplined body and were bound to obey orders. He thought he echoed the sentiments of the citizens of Dublin when he said they were proud of the force as a body of men as respectable, as sober, and as well conducted as any force in the United Kingdom. This grievance had at all times met with sympathy from the Treasury Bench, but the time had arrived when something more than honeyed words should be given and some redress vouchsafed. He did not speak as the representative of one section of the community of Dublin; he voiced the sentiments of all sections. Unionists and Nationalists were one and all agreed that the imposition of 8d. in the £ was unwarranted and could not be justified. He would, of course, be met by the answer that the number of police in Dublin was necessary for Imperial purposes; but they did not want an Imperial Force for the maintenance of law and order in Dublin; and, if an Imperial Force was required, it was the duty of the Imperial Exchequer to pay for it. He believed a far less number of men would be competent to keep the peace of the city. When he last brought forward the question, a paper in Dublin, whilst sympathising with them in every way, said they would not be parties to the reduction of the force. He did not know why the paper took that line. All he could say was that the number of police in Birmingham, Sheffield, and Belfast was less than in Dublin. Dublin was the most law-abiding city, and therefore, the number of its police should be far less. The question had become a burning one in Dublin, and if the Chief

  1631
  Secretary did not want more trouble —he did not say it with the slightest intention to threaten—he would advise him to see if he could not redress the grievance. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover, when Chief Secretary, admitted that there was a great grievance and that something should be done to remedy it, but nothing had been done. He had filled a responsible position in Dublin for the last two years, and he knew that, if the question was not dealt with, there would be a strike against levying the rate. He was not in favour of any such thing. He thought it would be a suicidal policy on the part of the corporation, for, if they declined to levy the rate, at the end of the year they would be some £38,000 or £40,000 short in their budget, and the Government would be able to deduct that amount from the Local Taxation Charges. That would mean that there would be no money to pay the men who did the corporation work, and the state of the labour market in Dublin would be aggravated by throwing out of employment that large army of men. It had, however, been moved in the corporation not to levy for the Police Rate, and the motion was only defeated by three votes. That minority might, when the question came up again, be turned into a majority. That three votes might be turned from a majority into a minority in the course of a month. As a member of the Dublin Corporation he could not think with equanimity of the position of his unfortunate people if, at the end of the year, there was no money to carry out necessary sanitary work in connection with the corporation. It would be of no use for the Chief Secretary to say, as he said last year, that he agreed that the impost was too heavy and that the police were too many. Was that any answer to the corporation? They were not responsible for the rate. They had not the control of the police and could not reduce a single man of them. That was the Chief Secretary's duty. It was on him that the responsibility lay, and he would have to solve the problem. In no other town of the United Kingdom was there anything approximately near what they had to contend with in Dublin. He knew the Chief Secretary meant well to their country, and he would be the last
  1632
  to harass him in his work. He desired that his term of office should be peaceful, and that nothing should arise which, would be the means of creating strife or discontent and give him an uneasy time of it. According to the London Police Act 9d. was the maximum, but they had never attempted to come near it. Eight pence was the maximum for Dublin when the valuation was only £645,000. To day it had trebled; a revaluation was taking place and a further increase was expected; they had the consolation of knowing that as the valuation went up, so did the eightpences. The number of men employed, was only sixty four more than in 1850, and yet the sum had increased to its present enormous figure. What was the cause of this? When getting up a meeting of the representatives of Rathmines, Kingstown, Blackrock, and the City he had endeavoured through the. town clerk to ascertain why this enormous sum was needed and how it was. spent. The answer they got from the Castle was that they could look at the Estimates in that House. But they got very little information from the Votes. The money was largely spent on the pensioning of officers, of whom there were, more then there were on the active list. Dublin had four police magistrates, while Manchester had two, and Leeds, and Liverpool but one. It was not even in increased wages to the men that the money went, because their position had in no way been altered. He regretted that the police were not under the control of the local authority. If they were they would be a more efficient body, would do the duty for which they were paid, and would be very much reduced in numbers, because they would not be required. He did not blame the men. They were not responsible for it and they had to do as they were told. He had spoken to several of them, and they all admitted that a terrible grievance was placed on the citizens of Dublin. Where the money went God only knew. It would take somebody with more influence than he had to find out, for the ramifications of Dublin Castle were such that nobody could get very much information there with reference to anything: they had had evidence of that in the last couple of

  1633
  months. He sympathised with the right hon. Gentleman, who had to go and be associated with the individuals there. He was only sorry that when the Government took office they did not cut off Dublin Castle altogether. That would be the best day's work they had ever done, and they would have some prosperity in the country. If these men were to be kept for the purposes of Dublin Castle let the Castle pay for them. It was hard on the corporation that no redress should be given them, and that Ministers, while admitting the grievance, should let it go on from year to year. He hoped this would be the last time they would have to bring before the House this scandalous imposition. He knew he was speaking to sympathetic ears, and that they had the feeling of Members above the gangway with them in this protest. He spoke as much for the Unionist as for the Nationalist members of the corporation. He appealed to the Chief Secretary not to let the matter go on any longer; it would save him from the trouble, which, he anticipated were ahead of him. It was acknowledged on all sides that they had a grievance, and they asked the Government to make an honest and determined effort to remove it.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House is of opinion that the system whereby the maximum amount sanctioned by law at a time when the valuation of the City of Dublin was comparatively low still continues to be levied is unjustifiable, in view of the fact that the valuation of the city has greatly increased, and that the number of police has not appreciably increased; that the crimeless condition of the city does not warrant this heavy expenditure; and that the control of this police force should be vested in the local authorities, as is the case in cities in Great Britain."—(Mr. Meagher.)
  Mr. T. HARRINGTON, who was indistinctly heard, was understood to say that they had brought before the House a condition of things which could not be found in any other portion of the United Kingdom. There was no other town that paid a higher police rate than 5d., and in some it was as low as 2½d. In Dublin it had
  1634
  been 8d. ever since it was first established: fifty years ago. They were not asking for a change in the law or in the government of the police. These things must come under different circumstances, and on a different occasion. What they asked was that the citizens of Dublin: should not be required to pay a rate of 8d. in the £, especially when the revaluation was about to take place and the valuation might be increased by 25 per cent. The police did their duty well and intelligently and they were proud of them as a body. They were not asking for a reduction of police. Of course 500 would be quite enough. There were no grounds whatsoever upon which such an: expenditure could be justified. If the corporation refused to levy the rate the Lord Lieutenant could step in and stop the money out of other funds due to the corporation. That was the position of affairs of which he appealed to the Chief Secretary to do something to relieve them. It was a condition of things which would b 5 a disgrace to any city. Why should Dublin pay double the amount paid by all the principal cities and towns, in the United Kingdom in the shape of a police rate? He appealed to the right hon. Gentleman to address them in some practical form that evening. He knew the last answer they got when a similar appeal was made to the Treasury. A more monstrous condition of things could not exist, and if the Chief Secretary could not do anything immediately he could at least inform them whether he intended to seek some means of reducing this burden. The present rate was made fifty or sixty years ago and it still continued, and every time attempts were made to improve the city and enhance its value they were obliged to pay additional rates.
  MR. GORDONsaid that so far as the question of police rating in Dublin was concerned he did not profess to know anything about the rights and wrongs of the case. The Royal Irish Constabulary were paid for out of the Imperial revenues, and the city of Dublin was the only place in Ireland where there was a direct tax upon the people for the support of the police force. He did not think that Dublin benefited to such an extent from

  1635
  the police force as compared with other parts of Ireland as to justify this rate of 8d. in the £. That rate seemed to him to be too much in proportion to other districts in Ireland. He quite agreed that there was a very strong feeling in Dublin and in the townships contained in the metropolitan area that they were suffering a considerable hardship and grievance in having to pay that rate. Whether that was right or wrong he thought that those who had control of matters of that kind ought to make an effort to satisfy the mass of the people on the point, and to give an account of how the money contributed by the ratepayers was expended. The question was whether the authorities were right in imposing a rate of 8d. in the £ at present, when that was the rate enforced fifty years ago for a smaller population and on a smaller valuation. If the authorities were right, he thought the citizens of Dublin were sensible enough to grin and bear it. If, on the other hand, they were wrong, then the people of Dublin should not be placed under an exaction which was unreasonable and unfair. With that part of the Motion he was in agreement, and if the Resolution was pressed to a division he would support it if the second part dealing with the control of the police was omitted.
  MR. KETTLEsaid that they complained clearly and definitely of two things. In the first place they complained that the cost was exorbitant in proportion to the police necessities of the city of Dublin; and, secondly, they contended that the police should be brought under the control of the city authorities. He might say, however, that no reduction in the cost of the Dublin police would be satisfactory to the Nationalist Party unless it was accompanied by a reform which would bring the police force under the control of the elected representatives of the city. The average salaries of the officers and men in the Dublin Police Force worked out at between £120 and £125 per annum. That compared favourably not only with salaries earned by national and secondary teachers in Ireland, but also with the earnings of some members of the learned
  1636
  profession in the city of Dublin. They had to pay through the nose for the police force. At the age of fifty three an inspector in the Dublin Police was able to retire upon an allowance of £266 13s. 4d. per annum. The police rate was fixed by Act of Parliament, passed sixty years ago. It laid down what the rate was to be, quite irrespective of any increase in the valuation. That was a matter with regard to the cost of the force. Then with regard to control, he did not know whether any Member of the House entirely realised what it meant. Some three or four years ago when the late Government was in office, his hon. friend, the late Lord Mayor of Dublin, attended an ordinary public political meeting in his capacity as Lord Mayor, and also as an Irish representative in this House. On that occasion the police were able to be ordered out by the Inspector General to baton down the supporters of his hon. friend. So long as politics did not come into the matter, the average member of the Dublin Police was really a credit to our common Christianity; he not only added to the gaiety but to the beauty of the world. He knew no more ornamental figure than a colossal, blue uniformed member of the Dublin Police. If Socrates were alive to day, he would probably join the Dublin police. He and his friends definitely demanded that Dublin should be raised to the status of any other city, and that it should have some control over its police force. The citizens and ratepayers had attempted to protest against the levy of the police rate. Their corporation some years ago declined to collect the police rate, and the Exchequer contribution was intercepted and handed over for the maintenance of the police force. Their protest was, therefore, absolutely ineffective. This question had been discussed twice since the present Government came into office, and the Chief Secretary had spoken with considerable sympathy upon it. What had the right hon. Gentleman been able to do? The Irish Members had asked for a reform of the law, and they had been told that the business of the session was too crowded, and that the reform could not be carried out. They wanted Dublin well policed. At present it was, perhaps, the most efficiently policed city in the kingdom.

  1637
  There was a mystery, no doubt, about the disappearance of the Insignia of the Order of St. Patrick, but setting that aside, Dublin was hopelessly over-policed. The figures were really striking. The average cost to the ratepayers of Dublin was about four times as great as the cost of the London police to the ratepayers of the City of London. The London police had to deal with an international population. Here there was a professional criminal class, and a considerable number of refugees. In Dublin there were not people of that class to be kept in check. Dublin was free from these excrescences except when pickpockets from this country paid occasional visits when exhibitions were held, and when the King came to Ireland. The valuation of the city increased and crime decreased, but the police rate remained absolutely fixed. He did not know whether the right hon. Gentleman would be able to point to any practical solution of the difficulty. If it was not blasphemy to use the words, he very much feared that the only cure for the evil was Gladstonian Home Rule.
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. BIERELL,): When I had to speak to the House on this subject about a year ago, I had not then what I now enjoy, personal acquaintance with the members of the Metropolitan Dublin Police Force. I am, therefore, able to join in the general concurrence of opinion as to the admirable character of that body of men. They are agreeable in their manners and especially devoted to the safe protection of the Chief Secretary for Ireland for the time being, and I express my recognition for all they have done on my hehalf. The only question, or at all events the first question, we have to consider now is whether there are not far too many of them—in other words, whether Dublin is not very much over policed. Certainly the figures which are within the reach of everybody would indicate that unless Dublin is very much over policed it is indeed a city full of crime and diseension. Take Liverpool, with a population of over 704,000 people, of whom one seventh at least belong to the Irish nation. There you have a seaport city, never, so far as I know, remarkable for its quietude or for its dis-
  1638
  position to obey the law beyond that which is seemly in all citizens. It has a police force of 1,428. Dublin, with a population of 392,797 has a police force of 1,246. In Liverpool there is one policeman for 493 citizens, while in Dublin each of these gentlemen to whom I have referred has as small a number as 315 assigned to his care. Take Manchester, with a population of 606,824. It has one policeman for 520 of the population. All these things, I think, point to the fact that there is room for inquiry as to whether Dublin is not very much over policed, and I cannot but believe these figures. I will not trouble the House with the particulars of Bristol, Sheffield, Leeds, and Cardiff, but the House may take it from me that the figures are equally striking. Therefore, I certainly think there is ground for inquiry as to whether or not Dublin is not very much over-policed. There we have to consider the cost of maintaining this body, and we have been told with perfect truth that for many years the maximum rate the law permits of 8d. in the £ has been charged as police tax in Dublin. Dublin has a great many out townships stretching a long way into the country, upon which this very heavy charge of 8d. undoubtedly falls. No doubt it is true that a new valuation of Dublin and all parts now within the Metropolis is in course of manufacture, and I daresay it may be that when we get that new valuation this tax of 8d. may fall to 6d.
  MR. T. HARRINGTON: May I remind the right hon. Gentleman that that is fixed by statute?
  MR. BIRRELL: NO. Only the maximum.
  MR. T. HARRINGTON: Yes. But they have never taken anything less.
  MR. BIRRELL: I believe that antiquarian research would show that it has been less than 8d. That is far in excess of what is levied in any of the great towns in England, and even on the new assessment the tax would still be largely in excess of other cities in England. In Liverpool this tax amounts to 5d., in Cardiff to something between 2d. and

  1639
  3d., in Manchester to a little over 4d., in Bristol to 4 50d., in Sheffield to 4 32d., in Leeds to 4·56d. At present the tax in Dublin is, as I have said, 8d., and even if it were reduced on a new assessment, it would be very largely in excess of other cities. I have a representative of the Treasury at my side—and I desire to play fair with everybody—and I ask him what is the contribution towards the Metropolitan Dublin Police from the Imperial Exchequer. I do not deny that 8d. appears to be a very heavy tax; but Heaven only knows, or rather arithmetic would only tell, what the tax would be in Dublin were it not for the contribution of the Imperial Exchequer. Instead of 8d. it would be 2s. 2d. In the present state of thing the cost of those 1,426 fine, large, stately policemen in whom we are all so interested, not paid for by the ratepayers of Dublin, but received from the Imperial Exchequer, is equal to a rate of between 1s. 6d. and 1s. 7d.
  MR. MEAGHERsaid he did not think it amounted to that; but it did not matter whether it cost the Imperial Exchequer a penny or a million, when the citizens of Dublin had to pay a rate of 8d. in the £.
  MR. BIRRELL: I listened to the hon. Gentleman's admirable speech with composure and without interruption, and I am not going into the merits of the case as he presented it. I am perfectly disposed to believe that Dublin is over policed, I concede that it is very costly and extravagant in its management. I am only saying that, as a matter of fact, although the ratepayers of Dublin do pay the extravagant sum of 8d. in the £, there is this contribution from the Treasury which amounts to shillings compared with the pence contributed by the City of Dublin. It should be borne in mind, therefore, that heavy as the charge is on the ratepayers of Dublin, the charge on the Treasury is beyond all comparison with what it is in any other city. Whilst in other cities the Treasury does not contribute more than one half towards the cost of the police, in the case of Dublin they contribute two thirds. I quite agree that
  1640
  if Dublin is over policed, and if you can reduce the number of police, you will reduce the cost. I also quite agree that all the reduction should not go into the hands of the Treasury, but that it should be shared with the ratepayers of Dublin, taking the average of several years. I am not in any way or for one moment surprised at the attitude of hon. Gentlemen opposite. My hon. friend who spoke last insisted a little upon the latter part of the Resolution which says that: "The control of this police force should be vested in the local authority as in the case in cities in Great Britain." He said that it was of the utmost importance that Dublin should have the control of its own police as well as its metropolitan rights. The hon. Gentleman probably does not think very much of the Government of which Dublin is the seat, and that it could do very well without it. I do not quarrel with him for entertaining that opinion, but if he wants Dublin to be treated like other cities in Great Britain, apart from the Metropolitan District of London, he must be prepared to pay half the cost of the police. That is what the other cities have to pay which do not claim to be metropolitan cities of the Empire. They pay half the cost of the police, and the Treasury pays the other half. The entire cost of the force is £151,430 a year. About one third of that is paid by the ratepayers of Dublin, and the other two thirds are paid by the Imperial Exchequer. If that expenditure can be reduced, I am quite sure, speaking on behalf of the Treasury, that they would not be in the least desirous to lay claim to and appropriate the whole of the advantage to themselves, but are perfectly willing that the proceeds should be shared between the citizens of Dublin and the Exchequer. I have been told to use no honeyed words. I have not got any honey about me. [AN IRISH MEMBER: You have money.] I wish I had money; any money I could lay hold of would be at the disposal of Ireland as a whole without distinction of creed or class. I am quite prepared, if the hon. Gentleman opposite think it desirable, to appoint a Vice Regal Commission to inquire into the facts relative to the police in Dublin and its management—as to whether Dublin is over policed or

  1641
  not, because there are two opinions on that subject. There are some people who would look with disfavour on the reduction of this fine force; but you cannot have economy without reduction. As the right hon. the Secretary for War would say, it is always very difficult to reduce your force, whether at Woolwich or at any other place, and if you are compelled to do so you are accused of making life hardly worth living, and making the necessities of life harder to obtain. I believe that Dublin is over policed, and that great economy can be accomplished in that way. I cannot say that we have withheld expenditure on the Dublin police force, and if hon. Gentlemen care to consult the Civil Service Estimates at page 331, they will see there very full information as to the expenditure of money on extra pay for the police force. I have no doubt that economies can be made, and that reduction can be made with perfect safety in the police force; and I am satisfied that the economies would be fairly divided between the Treasury, as representing the Imperial Exchequer, and the ratepayers of Dublin and Rathmines. I therefore go beyond what I did last year, having had greater opportunities during the last twelve months of inquiring into the case. I am willing there should be an inquiry into the numbers of the Dublin police force and their cost, including pensions, in order to see what practical economies can be effected. I do not think that I can honestly go further than that. The first part of the Motion is not open to very much objection; but I cannot accede to the last part: "That the control of this police force should be rested in the local authority as in the case of cities in Great Britain." I feel that Dublin is at present entitled to a larger contribution from the Treasury than other cities in Great Britain, on the ground that it is at present one of our metropolitan cities, and the seat of Government—of its kind. [NATIONALIST cheers.] I am glad to receive the support of hon. Gentlemen opposite, but I do not think that the citizens of Dublin are entitled to a larger share from the Imperial Exchequer, assuming that its metro
  1642
  politan rights, and to lay claim to a larger contribution from the Treasury than one-half of the cost, which would be all that they would have if Dublin were treated as an ordinary town. I think they would be well advised if they accepted an inquiry into the police force in Dublin with, a view of discovering if that force can be considerably reduced and whether large economies can be effected so that this tax of 8d. may be materially and substantially reduced.
  MR. JOHN REDMONDsaid that he had been a long time in the House and his experience was that they should always desire to obtain some practical results from a discussion of this kind. He was not much of a believer in Commissions. They had had Commissions innumerable on every Irish subject during the last twenty five years. Most of those Commissions, it might be said, had led to nothing, but still he thought that the appointment of a Vice Regal Commission in this matter was some sort of an advance, and if it was properly constituted and its reference was sufficiently wide some good might come of it. They were dealing with a grievance which was admitted, and the right hon. Gentleman had said that it was an intolerable grievance to all sections of the citizens of Dublin that they should be called upon to pay 8d. in the £ by way of police tax, whereas there was no other town in the United Kingdom which paid more than 5d. and the majority only paid 3d. The right hon. Gentleman had pointed out that there were two questions concerning this case. One was the number of the police, and he thought that no one who knew anything about Dublin would deny that the number was excessive. He was sure that any proper inquiry would lead to a report to that effect, and apparently, therefore, the Commission might have the good result of promoting if not of effecting immediately the reduction of the number. The next question was the excessive cost of the police in Dublin, and there could be no doubt about that, as it was a remarkable thing that the 1,200 policemen in the City of Dublin cost more than 1,200 policemen in London or any city in this country. He had the figures, and it was quite true

  1643
  that, quite apart from what the citizens of Dublin paid, the gross cost of each policeman in Dublin was far more than that of each policeman in London or any city in this country. That was the cause of what the right hon. Gentleman had stated, namely, that the contribution from the Exchequer towards the police in Dublin was larger than its contribution to the police of cities in this country. Why should the policeman in Dublin cost more than in London or elsewhere? It was the same old story; the same cause that ran through the whole of the Government of Ireland in every Department from top to bottom and made it more expensive than the Government of England, Scotland or "Wales. What was true of other Departments was true of the police. He saw no reason why this should be so and why an impartial Commission should not report that the number of police and the cost per constable were excessive. If these two things were found there was no reason why the total cost and the cost to the ratepayer should not be diminished. That being so, while he and his colleagues would prefer that immediate steps should be taken to remedy this grievance, they recognised that this Commission got them somewhat forwarder, and therefore he would be inclined to accept this proposal of the right hon. Gentleman. With regard to the control of the police, there was a great deal to be said, and no doubt if they were to insist upon taking the opinion of the House on their full case with reference to the police they would stand to every syllable of the Resolution and divide the House upon it. But there was something in what the Chief Secretary had said that this question of the control of the Dublin police was mixed up with great political and constitutional questions, and he would not be in favour of refusing this inquiry simply because they were not able to get a satisfactory answer on the question of control. Of course, he was not satisfied; he considered it an intolerable thing that this grievance had gone on un redressed for fifty years, and that they had come to this House for the last quarter of a century with a grievance admitted and nothing done. While he
  1644
  was not satisfied, under all circumstances he thought that for the sake of getting some practical advance his hon. friend would be well advised in withdrawing his Motion and asking the Chief Secretary to appoint a Vice Regal Commission such as he had indicated. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would not only appoint a competent and impartial body but would enter into some consultation with the Irish Members in order that the reference to the Commission might be sufficiently wide to take in all the questions which arose in reference to the excessive cost of the police and the excessive burden on the taxpayers of Dublin.
  MR. WALTER LONG: I rise primarily to congratulate the Chief Secretary on the way his path is smoothed by the hon. Gentlemen below the gangway.
  MR. BIRRELL: Surely I am entitled to some assistance.
  MR. WALTER LONG: I allude to the way in which the hon. Gentleman has acknowledged the very small favour he had got to night.
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: I got nothing from you.
  MR. WALTER LONG: If it had come from us it would have been received in a different way altogether. What did the right hon. Gentleman tell hon. Members below the gangway? He told them that it is very unlikely that this inquiry will result in any very material decrease in the cost of the police to the citizens of Dublin, because the cost of the police is borne now between the Treasury and the local ratepayer, as to one third by the local ratepayer and as to two thirds by the State. The hon. Gentleman who has just spoken has said that the police in Dublin are under this system, more costly than the police anywhere else and he says that that is his experience throughout the government of Ireland. But we cannot on this Motion discuss the general question of the expenditure on. Irish government. With regard to the Dublin Metropolitan Police, I of course raise no objection to the inquiry, and as

  1645
  a Member for the county which contains Dublin, I shall be extremely glad if those of my constituents who are in the metropolitan area derive something from the inquiry. But I think we ought to know what is exactly its scope. The Chief Secretary has said that there ought to be a further inquiry into the actual cost of the police themselves, and to that obviously there can be no objection on our part, because, if it Can be shown that it costs more to keep a policeman to do the same duty in Dublin than in any other part of the United Kingdom, obviously there is a case for consideration, although I hope it will not be assumed that the change will necessarily be one which will injure the police force itself. I confess I was rather surprised and sorry to hear the right hon. Gentleman, who is a distinguished Liverpudlian, choose Liverpool as the town for his comparison and say that Liverpool was not remarkable for its law-abiding character.
  MR. BIRRELL: It is a lively place.
  MR. WALTER LONG: It may be, but I think it is most remarkable for its law abiding character, and as one who once had the privilege of representing a portion of it, I could not allow a remark of that sort to pass unchallenged. But the right hon. Gentleman forgets that there are occasions in Dublin when large numbers of police are called for, not by lawlessness or disorder, but by excitement of popular opinion. The other day a force of police was called to intervene in the Mansion House itself during the consideration of an ordinary Bill. These are causes which lead to the withdrawal of the police from their ordinary duties. I do not say it is any imputation on Irishmen, but I hope it will not be assumed from what has fallen from the Chief Secretary that a case is made out for a material reduction of the force, which might, if it were embarked upon, be a serious danger to the ordinary peace and quiet of the city of Dublin. Subject to those limitations, I have no objections to offer to the course the Chief Secretary intends to pursue, because I understand that while he makes the proposal of an inquiry in answer to the first part of the Resolution, he absolutely refuses to accept the latter
  1646
  part, which proposes to transfer the control of the police from the Irish Government to the local authority. On previous occasions distinguished Members of the party below the gangway have expressed the view—Mr. Sexton himself expressed it during the debate on the first Home Rule Bill— that such a change ought not to he embarked upon and that it would be undesirable, and therefore I hear with profound satisfaction the Chief Secretary's declaration that he is opposed to that part of the Resolution.
  MR. T. M. HEALYsaid that the Motion was one largely in the interests of the constituents of the right hon. Gentleman who had just sat down, but probably he could hardly point out his constituency on the map. So far from there being any disorder in Dublin comparable with what existed in many English cities, he ventured to say that for something like thirty or forty years there had not been fired there rifle shots such as were heard only last year in Belfast, where something like 1,200 or 1,500 men were required to keep the peace. That condition of affairs existed in a certain loyal city in the North of Ireland, which in the last five years had never made one 6d. contribution to the Imperial Exchequer, and now only paid 3½d. in the £ instead of the 8d. they were compelled to pay in Dublin. That 3½d. was only exacted from them by a Conservative administration after they had continually pointed out that Belfast was in the enjoyment of three-fourths of something like 1,100 men without a contribution of 6d. from the ratepayers. There was an additional contribution made in Dublin that had not been mentioned. He referred to the half soverign exacted from every publican under an old Act. Until 1888 every pawnbroker in Dublin had to contribute £95 16s. 8d. to the upkeep of the city. Furthermore, large contributions came from the Fines Fund of the city in aid of the Treasury, and, most exasperating of all, every time they paid 6d. or 1s. to a carman for his car fare they were making a contribution to the Imperial Exchequer, because the whole of the licence duties of the eleven or twelve hundred carmen in

  1647
  Dublin went in aid of the police. The tram company of the city thus actually paid £3,000 or £4,000 a year for the upkeep of the police. Did that exist in Belfast or any other part of the United Kingdom? He challenged any man to deny that a woman, whatever her rank, could walk through the city at any our of the. day or night without insult. So. far as the maintenance of peace and order was concerned he ventured to say there was not a city to compare with Dublin in the United Kingdom, and certainly not in that very loyal portion of Ulster about which they were in the habit of hearing so much. He thought they might make this complaint about the Chief Secretary: he said it to one of the right hon. Gentleman's predecessors in office, and would say it to him: "You do not seem to be the Chief Secretary for Ireland; you seem to be the Chief Secretary for England, because very time the Treasury makes a demand upon our officials, you instantly shrink into your dens and say Oh, we must obey the Treasury. What they wanted was an Irish Secretary. They "wanted some man who would stand up for their country and tell the British Treasury: "Your conduct is unfair; I will not be a party to it." If they had someone who would do that,: men who had, not an English conscience but an Irish conscience, and would say: We will not be any party to your exactions," they would very soon nave a change in the conduct of the Treasury towards Ireland. Upon that be always took his stand on the declaration of Lord Salisbury in the House of Lords, which ought to be rubbed in again and again and again. Lord Salisbury speaking as Prime Minister, regarding the Boer War, placed the whole liability for the misconduct and folly of that campaign on the shoulders of the British Treasury. This body, which was at one time simply regarded as a body that tried to save them from exaction, was now, next to the Press of England, their greatest curse. They had to complain that no consideration was ever given to any of the demands they put forward. As regarded this question of the Dublin Police, while he shared cordially in what had been said as to their general good conduct, they were entitled to
  1648
  ask the Government to put them on the basis of Belfast, which enjoyed a force of 560 men, and received a Treasury, contribution amounting to half the cost. Why should not Dublin be put on the same footing? What had Belfast, the city of riots and disorder, so far as the month of July, at all events, was concerned, done to entitle it to a contribution from the Treasury greater than Dublin received? He sincerely trusted that if the Commission, which the right hon. Gentleman spoke of, issued, it would take into consideration the subject of Belfast, the contribution which Belfast made to the Imperial Treasury, the annual cost to the country of the drafts for the Royal Irish Constabulary going to Belfast in July and August, and whether Belfast should not be compelled to pay a contribution in the same way as Roscommon had to do when cattle driving or any other matter of that kind was in force. The whole condition of the police force ought to be taken into account. He would like very much to see the Commission extended beyond the Dublin area to the police force as a whole. He believed the amount paid to officers as compared with the amount paid to the men was excessive, and that much discontent arose from that fact. If the Government extended the inquiry in this way such incidents as arose in Belfast recently out of the discontent there would disappear, and the police throughout the country would find that so far from there being any desire on their part to see them unjustly treated they were more in favour of seeing pay and promotion, which was at present largely given to officers, fairly and equitably distributed amongst the rank and file.
  MR. MOOREsaid he would not have intervened had it hot seemed to him that in the speech they had just heard there had been a certain amount of somewhat gratuitous challenge and offence to a part of the country which it was not necessary to name and which had only been referred to, not so much to point an argument or adorn a tale as to do what the hon. Member had so frequently done before, to seize the opportunity of dragging his coat across the path of those of his

  1649
  countrymen who hailed from the northern portion of Ireland. Whatever their faults might be, he did not know that they ever refused a challenge of that sort, and less than ever on that occasion did he feel disposed to do so. But before they talked of war they ought to recognise how thoroughly in every department, and on every point, the olive branches of peace had been exchanged between the Chief Secretary and hon. Gentlemen below the gangway. Night after night minatory threats were made as to what would happen to the right hon. Gentleman should he attempt to put off what were called unconditional demands, as he had done that night, with honeyed words. They were told of the wonderful and sudden and calamitous end that would happen to the right hon. Gentleman if he did not yield on the spot to their demands in respect of the repeal of the Crimes Act, of contempt of Court, or of evidence in the case of persons held to find sureties of the peace for good behaviour. The right hon. Gentleman took these threats at their real value. It was not their face value. At present they enjoyed rather a debased currency, because the right hon. Gentleman knew perfectly well that no matter what the threats might be, Gentlemen, below the gangway, in spite of un conditional refusal, would immediately troop into the division lobby behind him. They had seen that time after "time and would probably see it until a certain measure was introduced dealing with higher education in Ireland, for the make of which the insults and grievances under which hon. Members suffered would be meekly swallowed and pocketed. One matter had struck him very much. When the hon. Member for the Harbour Division said it was not really the object of those who thought with him to transfer the present government of the Metropolitan Police and his attention was drawn to the fact that the resolution did not carry out that view, he said that that was a matter of form. The hon. Member absolutely declined to change the present government of the Dublin police and vest it in the Corporation. He knew his own Corporation. Then they had the hon. Member for East Tyrone, whose constituency was a very long way from
  1650
  Dublin. He was quite willing in the name of his constituents that the control of the police should be put under the Dublin Corporation. Then came the hon. Member for North Louth, who was not going to trust the Dublin Corporation with the control of the police. He wanted to treat them as they were treated in Belfast, and to merge them to all intents and purposes in the Royal Irish Constabulary. They did not often find such diversity of opinion amongst hon. Members below the gangway. Whoever had the control of the Metropolitan police in Dublin it certainly ought not to be the Corporation of Dublin, and that was the reason why they objected to this Motion. The hon. and learned Member for North Louth had referred to the fact that there was unfortunately a rifle shot in Belfast last year. He might point out that for ten years there had not been one before. [Cries of "Oh, oh!"] He challenged any hon. Member from Ireland to contradict his statement. If there had been a rifle shot in Belfast it had occurred in the Nationalist quarter, and in an affray between the Nationalists and the police. In Dublin they had a minority whose misfortune it was that they were Unionists, but they never heard of the Dublin minority being brought into conflict with the police. This debate had taken place not in the interests of the police at all. He was glad to note the great change in the feelings of hon. Members below the gangway towards the police, for they were now professing an intense love for the police authorities. This Motion was also claimed to be put forward in the interests of the ratepayers of Dublin. What was the actual position? No less than two thirds of the rates for the Metropolitan area of Dublin were paid by the Unionists of the City of Dublin. Surely they were the people who ought to have a voice in this matter and whose opinion ought to carry weight. The late Lord Mayor of Dublin had put the case clearly before the House on behalf of the employees of the Corporation.
  MR. NANNETTIsaid he spoke on behalf of the Unionists as well as the Nationalists. Upon this question he represented the Unionists of Rathmines

  1651
  and Dalkey, and spoke on behalf of the ratepayers who had joined with the Corporation of. Dublin in protesting against this police tax.
  MR. MOOREsaid that one of the arguments of the hon. Member was that the ratepayers for whom he professed to speak would be driven to strike against the rate, the immediate effect of which would be that the scavengers and others in the employ of the Corporation would be out of work, and he made a very strong point of that. Now the right hon. Gentleman opposite knew perfectly well that the Unionist ratepayers, who paid two thirds of the rates, had not the slightest intention of striking against the rate.
  MR. NANNETTIsaid that what he stated was that the Corporation of Dublin had the power of levying and collecting this police rate, and they might be disposed not to levy the rate at all. In that case he said the people employed by the Corporation might be thrown out of employment.
  MR. MOOREsaid the Corporation were powerless in the matter, because if they refused to levy the rate the money could be deducted from other funds. The proposer of this Resolution had said that if this tax was continued there would probably be an anti rate war, that the ratepayers would suffer so much that eventually they would refuse to pay their rates, and that was the pious aspiration of the hon. Member who had moved the Resolution. As the right hon. Gentleman might rely upon two thirds of the ratepayers of Dublin refusing to enter upon a war of that Sort, he could sleep peaceably in his bed. He was a ratepayer in Dublin himself, and any ratepayer who was now paying the ordinary respectable amount of 8d. in the £ would prefer that that rate should continue in perpetuity rather than the metropolitan police should be transferred to the kindly care and control of the Dublin Corporation. The hon. Member for East Tyrone had said that the Dublin police were all very well until politics were introduced amongst them. If the control of the police was transferred to the Dublin Corporation they all knew perfectly well that there would not be a
  1652
  man admitted to that force unless he was nominated by a publican, or an out and out Fenian, or a sworn member of the United Irish League. He had read that day a letter in the Freeman's Journal, written by one of the leaders of the numerous sections into which hon. Members below the gangway were divided, Mr. Arthur Griffith, a Nationalist. What did he say about his own Corporation? This was not the opinion of a bigoted Orangeman, but a bird of the same brood and the leader of the Sinn Fein Party. [A NATIONALIST MEMBER: He is not an Irishman.] He did not know his pedigree, but he was the imported leader of one of the Irish sections. Mr. Griffith wrote complaining of the expenditure each year of thousands of pounds in cheques to English lawyers, to Dublin Corporation officials, and to Members of the Dublin Corporation, under the heading of expenses in London. It was admitted that the name of the Corporation of Dublin was a byword among municipalities. It was pretended that for the good of the country and for the protection of property this fine force should be handed over to the control of such a body, in other words, placed under the heel of an Irish Tammany. He would protest against that being done as long as he had words to do so in this House. The hon. and learned Member for North Louth had compared Dublin and Belfast. The affairs of Belfast Corporation were managed by men who were trusted and respected among their fellows. There was nothing to conceal or to be ashamed of in Belfast municipal life. He objected to the Dublin police force being handed over to the publicans and sinners who composed the Dublin Corporation.
  MR. CHARLES CRAIGsaid he could assure the hon. and learned Member that if he desired to bring to their feet Ulster Members, and especially those who came from Belfast, he had only to speak of that City as he had done in that debate. He was glad to say that he was ready at any time to allow the City of Belfast to be placed in competition not only with Dublin, but with any other city in the three kingdoms; and he was quite certain that if an inquiry were

  1653
  held in matters municipal, social, or economic, Belfast would come out with flying colours. The hon. and learned Member for North Louth, in making one or two comparisons between Belfast and Dublin, had said, for instance, that a lady might walk through Dublin at any hour of the night without molestation. He would tell the hon. Member that a lady might do the same in Belfast. As to the Belfast riots he would only say that, as the hon. Member was aware, those riots were entirely due to persons of his own political persuasion. That fact was known by everybody, and Nationalist Members dared not deny it. As to 12th July celebrations which had been referred to, he would say that nobody resented more than Orangemen that extra police were drafted into Belfast, and no people had more endeavoured to impress upon the authorities that these extra police were absolutely unnecessary. The hon. and learned Member for North Louth knew perfectly well that for ten or twelve years past Belfast had been absolutely peaceful on 12th July.
  MR. SPEAKER: There is nothing whatever in the Motion about Belfast or 12th July. I must ask the hon. Member to confine himself to the Motion.
  MR. CHARLES CRAIGsaid that he was aware of that, and he would not have got up to make these few remarks had it not been for the insulting observations which had been made about Belfast. The hon. and learned Member for North Louth had ended his speech by saying that Dublin should be put on the same basis as Belfast. That was rather inconsistent with the earlier part of his speech, in which he could say nothing too bad for Belfast. That the 12th of July celebrations had passed off absolutely peacefully for several years had been acknowledged.
  MR. MEAGHERasked leave to withdraw the Motion.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

  AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS BILL.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  MR. JESSE COLLINGSin moving the Second Reading of this Bill, said that it had passed its
  1654
  Second Reading with the unanimous consent of the House a few years ago. The object of the measure was, instead of having so much literary teaching in rural schools, to provide for the teaching of agricultural and horticultural subjects, and of Nature study. While these ubjects might be optional in urban schools, they would be compulsory in schools in rural districts, and where possible school gardens for practical instruction in fruit culture, flower growing, and the like should be provided. Unless this was done in elementary schools the teaching in the higher and secondary schools was practically useless. If the children reached the age of fifteen on book learning only, it was too late to get them to take up agriculture. Children trained in these pursuits very early acquired a liking for them, and that continued with them in after life. At the last meeting of the Dairy Farmers' Association he saw a girl of about thirteen milking cows as well as he had ever seen it done in his life. He moved that the Bill be read a second time.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  SIR P. BANBURYsaid the right hon. Gentleman need not be afraid; he was not going to prevent his Bill going through. He only wanted to ask him one or two questions. A sub section of Clause 2 said that a special grant not exceeding 75 per cent. of the cost should be made by the local education authority of these schools. He agreed with the right hon. Gentleman that the object of the Bill in rural districts was excellent; but he asked whether this clause, which contemplated increased expenditure, meant that all the subjects at present taught in the schools were to be in addition to what was provided for n this Bill? For, if so, that would cause a largely increased expenditure. He hoped that on the Committee Stage the right hon. Gentleman would endeavour to make such alterations in the Bill as would cover the object of it, but would not impose increased expenditure on the locality.

  SMALL HOLDINGS BILL.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  SIR F. BANBURYthought that they had had enough of Agricultural Bills at ten minutes before eleven o'clock, and that when they came to another Bill by the right hon. Gentleman, this time dealing with Small Holdings, some explanation of it ought to have been made. He knew something about the Bill, although he had not yet thoroughly looked into it, and he contended that it was absolutely contrary to the Small Holdings Act passed last session.
  MR. JESSE COLLINGS: No, not at all; it only amends the Act of 1892.
  SIR F. BANBURYsaid that that only showed the difficulty in which they were placed when a Bill was brought in without any explanation. After reading the Bill he contended that it was contrary to the measure passed last year, the only principle of which was that it did not include purchase, while this Bill did.
  MR. JESSE COLLINGSdissented.
  SIR F. BANBURYsaid the difficulty was to know what the Bill was about.
  MR. TREVELYANsaid he did not understand what the nature of the Bill was, but he gathered that it was intended to alter the Small Holdings Act of 1892. He thought that it was rather a serious matter after the House had decided only last year to deal with the Small Holding question in a certain way, after having gone into the whole matter at great length, that the promoters of this Bill should have introduced it without some very clear explanation of what alterations in the law they proposed. The right hon. Gentleman was acting in a very curious way to the House. When a Bill was brought in it was generally explained, and the right hon. Gentleman could not expect the House, which had been taken by surprise, because no one expected this Bill to come on that night, to give a
  1656
  Second Reading to a measure which would very materially alter the Small Holdings Act passed last year. They all knew the right hon. Gentleman's anxiety to get small holdings by means, of purchase, but there were a great many Members in the House who were not so anxious to develop small holdings on those lines. Indeed, last year's Act was based on a different principle, that the land should be held by the community, from whom the tenant should rent it. He did not say that the two systems were incompatible, but they did not know to what extent this Bill would cut across the principle of last year's Act.
  And, it being Eleven of the Clock, the Debate stood adjourned.
  Debate to be resumed upon Wednesday, 25th March.

  TRUSTS BILL.
  Read a second time.
  Bill committed to a Select Committee. —(Mr. Renddl.)

  SUPPLY (ARMY ESTIMATES).
  Postponed Proceeding resumed.
  Resolution to be reported Tomorrow;. Committee also report Progress; to sit again To morrow.

  POISONS AND PHARMACY BILL [LORDS].
  Lords Message [5th March], "That it is desirable that the Poisons and Pharmacy Bill [Lords] be referred to a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament," considered.
  Resolved, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Resolution.
  Message to the Lords to acquaint them therewith.—(Mr. Whitley.)
  MR. WHITELEYin moving the Adjournment of the House, gave notice that he would to morrow move the suspension of the Eleven o'Clock Rule.
  Adjourned at five minutes' after Eleven o'clock.

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
Cambrian Railways. Petition of the Cambrian Railways Company under their Common Seal, praying for leave to bring in a Bill for enabling the Cambrian Railways Company to raise further money by the creation and issue of debenture stock, together with a copy of the proposed Bill annexed thereto; read, and referred to the examiners.
Fishguard and Rosslare Railways and Harbours Bill [H.L.]. Report from the Select Committee, That the Committee had not proceeded with the consideration of the Bill, no parties having appeared in opposition thereto; read, and ordered to lie on the Table. The Orders made on the 19th and 26th of February last discharged, and Bill committed.
Tramways Order Confirmation (No. 1.) Bill [H.L.]. A Bill to confirm a Provisional Order made by the Board of Trade under the Tramways Act, 1870, relating to Manchester Corporation Tramways—Was presented by the Lord Granard (E. Granard); read 1a; to be printed, and referred to Examiners. (No. 26.)
Rhymney Railway Bill [H.L.]. Report from the Select Committee, That the Committee had not proceeded with the consideration of the Bill, the opposition thereto having been withdrawn; read, and ordered to lie on the Table. The Orders made on the 19th and 26th of February last discharged, and Bill committed.
Great Western Railway (Superannuation Scheme) Bill [H.L.]. Reported, without amendment.

RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  ARMY.
  Revised forms of attestation for men enlisting into the Territorial Force. Presented (by command), and ordered to lie on the Table.

  SMALL LANDHOLDERS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Order of the Day for resuming the adjourned debate on the Amendment of the Earl Graham (Duke of Montrose), to the motion that the Bill be now read 2a, viz., to leave out all the words after "that" for the purpose of inserting the following Resolution, viz., "This House, while desirous of facilitating on sound economic principles the extension of small agricultural holdings in Scotland, and of considering such amendments of the Crofters Acts as are shown to be required, declines to pass a measure (1) which unnecessarily extends the provisions of the Crofters Acts throughout Scotland; (2) which establishes a Land Court for the whole of Scotland; and (3) which does not enjoy the general approval of the agricultural interests proposed to be affected."
  LORD HERSCHELL: My Lords, I feel sure that you will believe me when I say that it is with the utmost diffidence that I approach this thorny question of Scottish land reform, more especially as I am not myself a Scotsman; and, if anything were needed to bring home to one the enormous difficulties which beset one's path, it would be the extreme conviction with which diametrically opposite views have been expressed by noble Lords in this House. One thing, however, has struck me in the course of these debates, and that is the general and earnest desire which has been manifested for some settlement of this question. I cannot but feel that this fact must enhance the regret which would be occasioned if all the time and trouble which have been given to the measure should be thrown away and the Bill not be given a Second Reading.
  There is a further aspect which I think no one can have failed to notice who followed the debate last year in your Lordships' House. One point which was then brought forward and considerably emphasised has up to the present not been alluded to in this debate. I refer to the alternative of purchase for hiring. Indeed, matters have changed to such an extent that a Bill which has as its principle compulsory hiring has even been brought in by a Member of the Opposition, and been given a Second Reading in

  1439
  this House. I was also struck, in listening to yesterday's debate, with the un-preparedness of noble Lords opposite for the attitude adopted by the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack. The noble Duke who moved the Amendment at present under discussion had obvious difficulty in adapting his speech to the altered circumstances of the case, and he proceeded to make an oration which one cannot but feel would have been more suitable for the debates last year or the subsequent debates in another place. There was, however, one indication that his words had been revised more recently—I refer to the allusion to the autumn campaign of the Government in Scotland, which he described as a complete failure. With that characterisation I confess I feel bound to disagree.
  The noble Duke cited various authorities in support of his opinion, among others the Chamber of Agriculture of Scotland. Now the Chamber of Agriculture never supported the introduction of the English Bill into Scotland, nor did it support the introduction of county councils into the present Bill. Another authority which was cited in the debate was the Report of the Commission sent to Denmark to inquire into the existing conditions of agriculture in that country. This authority, again, appears somewhat faulty, for the Report, being based on the theory of purchase, disagreed just as much with the English Act as it did with the Scottish Bill. The noble Duke also quoted as an authority the East Lothian Farmers' Club, but I find that on 18th April last year this very club carried a resolution in favour of the Government's policy, the one dissentient voice being that of the factor of Mr. Balfour. A prominent instance of the urgent desire which certainly does exist for the passing of the Government's measure was furnished by Caithness and Sutherland in particular where, at the triennial county council elections, which, opportunely, took place last December, occasion was taken to unseat the entire number of the representatives because those gentlemen had, somewhat rashly, and on their own initiative, passed a resolution condemning the Government's policy, and they were in every instance replaced by gentlemen whose
  1440
  avowed opinions were in favour of this Bill.
  This incident in the campaign has given me, at any rate, food for consideration, and I cannot help feeling that it might perhaps be well for noble Lords opposite to also pause. What a vista of disastrous possibilities opens before us if, as certain noble Lords desire, the entire administrative machinery of the Bill is placed in the hands of the local authorities! We have but to go one step further in imagination to picture to ourselves the time when the most important plank in the platform of candidates for county council honours would be the alluring prospect of the establishment of small holdings on the wooded slopes of Buchanan, on the lawns of Beauly, and in t he parishes of Camperdown; and I can show your Lordships that, if local authorities were to be made the administrators of this Bill, the electorate would not be slow in discovering that they could not place that implicit faith in the administration of the measure provided that county councils were constituted in the future as they have been very largely in the past.
  May I cite one instance? Last summer the Board of Agriculture sent round circulars to the various county councils asking them to form committees with a view to ascertaining the extent of the demand for small holdings. The County Council of Argyllshire formed a committee as requested, and, almost simultaneously, an association was formed in the same county with the object of combating the Government's Small Holdings Bill. I am given to understand that subsequently, when the names transpired, it was found that the list of gentlemen who formed the committee for inquiring into the demand for small holdings, and the list of the gentlemen who formed the association for combating the creation of small holdings, were identical. We on this side of the House certainly do not desire to place the administrative machinery of this Bill in the hands of the local authorities. We do not think that such a course would be either popular or practicable, for, if the county councils were to have the control, it follows necessarily that the financial burden must also be placed on the rates; and will any noble Lord opposite suggest that the ratepayers of Scotland are

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  anxious to assume this new financial liability?
  Yesterday we had an extremely interesting and powerful indictment of the Bill from the noble and learned Lord of Appeal, Lord Robertson. There was one point in his speech which struck me as containing, if I may be allowed to say so, somewhat of an inaccuracy. He stated that the Act of 1886 did not distinguish between Highland and Lowland, but between crofting and non-crofting parishes. It is perfectly true that the Act of 1886 did distinguish between crofting and non-crofting parishes, but surely it is difficult to say that it did not distinguish between Highland and Lowland when we remember the fact that at the time of the passing of the Act there were crofting parishes which did not come within the scope of the Act. The noble and learned Lord was at that time the Parliamentary representative of the County of Bute, and it is a matter of -common knowledge that the Island of Arran contains an agricultural population almost exclusively crofting in its character, its habits, and its traditions. Indeed, it was the knowledge of the existence of crofting parishes outside the;seven crofting counties which induced the Ministry of the noble Earl, Lord Rosebery, to introduce in 1895 a Bill for extending the Act of 1886 to the eight additional counties in Scotland which were known to contain crofting parishes.
  When crofterisation is spoken of, one of two things is meant — either that crofting tenure shall be applied to the Lowlands, or that persons who in point of fact are not crofters shall be included in legislation as if they were. As regards the first interpretation, no complaint has been made of the conditions of tenure in this Bill—conditions which, in substance, are the same as those in the English Act, or, at any rate, very closely analogous thereto. A tenure of this kind, when once the principle of compulsory hiring is conceded, must be of a certain type, and that type is common to the English Act and the Scottish Bill. With regard to the bringing in of persons who are not crofters, it is true that this is a distinction, and, as such, contrasts with the English Act. It is admittedly an extremely difficult question, and one which in itself would be
  1442
  sufficient to provide material for an entire debate. But it is still true, as the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack said yesterday, that up to the present no suggestion, no shadow of a hint, of Amendment on this point has been made, and consequently it is impossible to say more than was said by the noble and learned Lord yesterday — namely, that the Government are ready and even anxious to meet in a reasonable and conciliatory spirit any reasonable and fair Amendment that may be proposed.
  If your Lordships give this Bill a Second Reading your power of throwing it out at a later stage would be in no wise impaired; and I cannot but express the hope that even now you may see your way to give the House an opportunity of considering and discussing Amendments. Even if the worst must happen, and if the heated opposition of noble Lords opposite can in no way be appeased, we can, at any rate, comfort ourselves to a certain extent by the reflection that the time and labour which have been expended on this measure have not been altogether lost, since we have succeeded in so far arousing public interest and educating public opinion as to have induced noble Lords opposite to produce an alternative land policy, after a silence on their part extending over no less a period than twenty years.
  THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: My Lords, before I address a few words to your Lordships on this Bill, I am sure you will all join with me in welcoming the noble Lord who has just sat down, and who, with the exception of seconding the Address, has not, I believe, previously spoken_ in your Lordships' House. We all remember his father, and we trust that the noble Lord will worthily follow in his father's footsteps; and if we owe the noble Lord nothing else for the' speech he has just made, we owe thanks to him for having addressed himself to the Bill from the Ministerial side. We have more than once complained that there is a great paucity of speakers on the other side of the House to defend the provisions of this Bill.
  As your Lordships know, I addressed you only a short time ago on this subject, and I thought it would not be necessary for me to say anything on this occasion; but my name was so frequently mentioned

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  yesterday, and in so many connections, that I cannot refrain from saying a few words to your Lordships with reference to the debate upon this Bill. When I introduced my Bill a few weeks ago the noble Earl the Lord President of the Council deprecated my action, and said that if private Members were to continue to behave in this way and to introduce Bills on public subjects when Government Bills were shortly expected to reach this House he did not know what was to happen. The noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack rose to support his colleague, and he did so by differing from him entirely. He said he did not regret the introduction of my Bill, and, although he joined Lord Crewe in saying that that was not the time to debate the subject, he promised that when the Government Bill was before the House there should be a full and thorough debate upon the whole question.
  It will be in your Lordships' recollection that an appeal was made to the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, I think by my noble friend Lord Balfour of Burleigh, to give us, when he moved the Second Reading of this Bill, some reasons for its introduction, and to inform us on what inquiry and on what demand it was founded. I listened yesterday with great attention, as all your Lordships did, to the long and eloquent speech which the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack delivered, but not one reason, so far as I could hear, did he give. He spoke, as he had spoken before, of the evils of depopulation, but he guarded himself by saying at the same time that this was one of many means by which those evils might be averted. But, further than that, he gave us not one tittle of proof that there was any demand for this Bill. We are therefore driven back to this. The only person that I know of who has given a reason for the introduction of this Bill is the Secretary for Scotland. He said that he founded the Bill on the success of the Crofters Acts. Is it certain that the Crofters Acts have been a success? I think it is a matter which is open to doubt, and it is quite possible that on some future occasion I may have to trouble your Lordships on that subject.
  In the meantime we have the recent Report of an independent Commission on this subject. Lord Herschell was
  1444
  mistaken in supposing that is was the Danish Report that was alluded to. He was, no doubt, misled by the fact that several of the members who were on this Commission had been members of the Danish Commission, but this was a. Report made by them after inquiring; independently into the condition of the crofting districts. I will not trouble your Lordships by going at any length into their Report, because it is public property and you can read it for yourselves; and! I trust your Lordships will road it before-you accept the statement that the Crofters Acts have been an unmitigated success The Commission in their Report, say—
  "Our general conclusion as to the working of the Crofters Acts in the districts where they apply is that they have made possible a considerable improvement in crofters' houses given independence to the people, and in some cases stimulated improvement in farming; but they have not, in point of fact, in the course of twenty-one years created a successful or prosperous agriculture. It may very well he the case that economic and other circumstances make it impossible for any agrarian change to bring about this result in the crofting districts, but the fact remains that the crofting system as it exists at present furnishes no possible indication of its capacity to bring about agricultural prosperity. We found no evidence that the Crofters Acts had served to arrest rural depopulation."
  The Commission went on to say—
  "In considering even the limited degree of success which has attended the working of these Acts, it ought not to be forgotten that their influence has been augmented by the. Congested Districts Board. The crofting system has, in fact, received a degree of external support much greater than has been given to agriculture in other parts of the: country."
  If your Lordships will read that Report you will see that it speaks most unfavourably of the results of the Crofters Acts. I was very much surprised that the Secretary for Scotland should have read a casual sentence out of the Report in support of his statement that they approved of the Crofters Acts. Any one who will read the whole of the Report will see that that is not a fair construction to place upon it.
  Further, there are the Commissioners of the Congested Districts. What do they say in their last Report? On the subject of repayment of loans they make, this statement—
  "Serious attention has been given to the generally backward state of the payments made by purchasers of holdings from us

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  towards the annuities by means of which the loans are repaid, principal and interest, in fifty years."
  Your Lordships will remember that the instalment of purchase is 25 per cent. lower than would be a fair rent, and, therefore, it is not in any way the fault of purchase that these persons do not meet their payments. It is because they are not prepared to pay anything. The Commissioners print details of the accounts for each holding in the two oldest schemes, including Barra, carried out by them, and they conclude by saying—
  "We have thought it our duty to intimate that, unless there is an immediate improvement in this respect, steps will have to be taken to enforce payment or to foreclose."
  I shall look with some curiosity to the next Report; but unless the experience in Barra is very different from that which Lady Cathcart has had in that island, it is most improbable that any improvement has taken place in regard to that matter.
  Although the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack did not give us any reason for the introduction of this Bill he did make a comparison between the Government Bill and my Bill—or rather the English Act, as it would be better described; and it seemed to me that he pushed that comparison so far as almost to prove too much. He said that compulsory hiring and dual ownership were to be found in both Bills, the compensation to the landlord was almost the same, and the conditions of tenure were rather more favourable to the landlord in Mr. Sinclair's Bill than in the English Act; and, with regard to the Board of Agriculture and the valuer, he said that, after all, they were not very different from the Land Court. The noble and learned Lord proved, to his own satisfaction, at all events, that there is very little difference between the two measures. Why, then, is he so rootedly opposed to the adoption of the principles of the English Act? As they are nearly the same, should any accident happen to this Bill we shall expect the noble and learned Lord, if he is consistent, and I am sure he always will be consistent, to support the adoption of the English Act as very nearly as good for Scotland as the present Bill.
  Why introduce a new system for Scotland, a system entirely different from
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  that which we heard praised last night and which has produced thousands of eligible applicants who are ready to occupy, and are going to occupy, thousands of acres of land. What more can a supporter of small holdings want? My noble friend the President of the Board of Agriculture, with that rhetorical elegance and dexterity which is so well appreciated in this House, cut away half the ground from under the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack. According to the noble and learned Lord, what are the differences between the English and the Scottish Bills? He said the first great difference is that the county council, which is to administer the English Act, is not to be the authority under this Bill. The noble and learned Lord said the Scottish county councils have never complained. I do not know whether my noble and learned friend has any experience of county councils, but I can tell him exactly why they have not complained. It is because in every case county councils abstain from treating Bills which have anything political in them; and they have carried that to this extent, that even in the case of such a Bill as the Land Values Bill, which is essentially a matter in which county councils are vitally interested, the County Councils Association declined to petition against it, although I believe every member opposed it, and confined themselves to making suggestions for alteration in Committee. The county councils of Scotland have a great deal more ability and common sense than is attributed to them by some noble Lords in this House. They attend to their business and do it, and I think it would be a very excellent thing for the country if some other people did the same.
  The noble and learned Lord complained that I had laid no stress on this point when moving my own Bill the other day; but the county councils were inserted in that Bill. I was not arguing against the Government Bill, but explaining my own. I had no desire to be out of order, as I should have been if I had discussed the Government Bill at that time. I gave the reasons in favour of my Bill, and I asked the noble Earl the Lord President of the Council and the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack to give me their reasons against it. Now is the time to attack the Government

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  Bill, and I say that it is a very great omission and a very great insult to the Scottish county councils not to give them duties which you give to county councils in England.
  The noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack said there was one more capital point of difference, and that was the Land Court. I shall have a word to say about that in a moment. But I wish to point out to him that that does not exhaust the differences between the two Bills. The noble and learned Lord skated very lightly over the most important difference of all, and that is the crofterisation of Scotland. What are you going to do? By a stroke of the pen the whole of the crofter legislation is to be extended to the whole of Scotland. For the benefit of noble Lords who may not be familiar with Scotland, let me point out what that does. It forms a separate and a favoured class. It creates a difference between all small holders in Scotland and all large holders. If a farm is 200 acres in extent it is at the present moment rated upon its value as a holding and as a whole. Cut it into four small holdings, and under this Bill it is going to be rated on the land and the land alone. Is not that creating a favoured class. The crofters are a favoured class; but what reason has been given for saying that all small holders in Scotland are to be a favoured class for the future?
  Then with regard to tenure. This Bill gives fixity of tenure. Very little notice was taken of that point. What is the reason for giving fixity of tenure? You have not given it in England. If fixity of tenure is necessary for small tenants in Scotland, why is it not necessary in England; and, if it is not necessary in England, why should it be necessary in Scotland? The reason given by the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack struck me with some surprise. He said—
  "We believe the tenant will find the means for effecting improvements himself, and will do them more economically and better; the rent will be more safe, and the conditions better for all."
  I would like to know on what experience that statement is founded. If the noble and learned Lord has had experience of small tenants and that is his experience of them, of course I accept it; but I
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  appeal to noble Lords as to what has their experience when improvements have been left to small tenants. It must be remembered that they are tenants. The magic of property is kept away from them by this Bill. They are tenants; but owing to the fact that they are to have fixity of tenure it is believed by His Majesty's Government that they are going to do these improvements more effectually and economically. My own experience is that when small tenants, have improvements to do they are not done at all. They are not, of course, going to lay out any money. The noble and learned Lord may believe otherwise, but all I can say is that people are very credulous sometimes when there are things they wish to believe.
  We are asked to make these revolutionary changes in the law affecting; Scottish agriculture without any reason whatever being given. Mr. Sinclair has but an exiguous acquaintance with Scottish agriculture, but he has a much larger acquaintance with Scottish votes, and it appears to me that this Bill is merely a, vote-getting Bill. It is an appeal to the ploughman. He is told that he will get small holdings and will derive good out of them. The noble Duke, in moving his Amendment, quoted some "heckling" of the Scottish Secretary in Forfarshire, and I should like also to quote what Mr. Sinclair said at a meeting near Dundee on 16th December. A Mr. Bell asked to be informed whether the money required for the erection of buildings and equipment would be granted free to the small holder. Mr. Sinclair replied—
  "Yes, in a sense all the money required for equipping the land, fencing, and making. access; that is the money we propose to spend, on the holding. It does not necessarily go to the landlord or the tenant, but is spent in preparing the ground When it comes houses and buildings we are to lend the small holder money at the lowest possible rate."
  Does that appear in the Bill? No. If it is the intention of the Government that that money is to be given to the small holder I contend it ought to have appeared distinctly in the Bill.
  The Bill says that assistance may be provided for the purpose of dividing, fencing, or otherwise preparing or adapting the land, making occupation roads or executing other works, such as works for the provision of drainage or water supply or erecting or adapting a dwelling-house or

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  dwelling-houses or other buildings, or for any similar purpose, and that the Agricultural Commissioners may provide such assistance by way of loan, or, except as regards dwelling-houses or other buildings, by way of gift. I understand perfectly what will happen. These Agricultural Commissioners, most respectable men with still more respectable salaries, are to be appointed. I can assure noble Lords that there are a great many expectant Radicals. Lord Rosebery said he knew the sort of men who would be appointed. I think I know them too. And what will be the result? The wink will be tipped from the Scottish Office that this money is intended to be given, and, naturally, they will exercise their option in that way. What I want to know is this. Are small holdings in Scotland to be conducted on economic principles as in England? In England it is laid down that they are so to be conducted, but there is nothing of the kind laid down in Scotland. The noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack insisted upon the judicial functions of the Land Court; but why, unless decrees are to be delivered in that almost unknown tongue, is one member of the Court to be required to speak Gaelic?
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: That he may be able to understand witnesses speaking in their own language.
  THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: Where are they to come from? From the Highlands to Edinburgh?
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: In Wales there have been difficulties from a Court not understanding Welsh witnesses, and the reason for a member of the Court knowing Gaelic is simple. Of course the Land Court will deal with the Highlands as well as the Lowlands, and it is, therefore, desirable that one member should be able to speak to a witness in his own language. There is nothing beyond that; it is a reasonable proposal.
  THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: Are the Judges to go on circuit? My conception of the position is that it is the Agricultural Commissioners who are to go on circuit. Who are to go to the various districts and collect the facts upon which the Court will decide?
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Of course they will have to go, and so will the members of the Land Court go into the country, because they will have to do the work of valuation and rent fixing.
  THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: I am very much obliged to the noble and learned Lord for that explanation, because we are getting to understand the position of the Land Court. The Land Court is not going to be exclusively judicial, but is to exercise functions which it is impossible to distinguish from administrative functions. That is the position. Just let us see what they are to do. They are to settle what land one or more holders may respectively be allowed. How are they to do that without seeing the land, and, if they inspect the land, how can they act other than as a valuer does in England? Then they are to settle what is the fair rent for each new holding. How can you settle that point without going into all the circumstanees? They are to discharge functions that on a private estate are performed by owner or agent, and it is impossible to say that those functions are judicial. In England the Board of Agriculture and the valuers are between them sharing the very duties which are to be discharged by the Land Court, and my noble friend and his valuers are at this moment settling questions in Scotland with perfect satisfaction to all concerned, under the Act of 1900. Why do you depart from the principle of the Act of 1900? No reason of any kind has been vouchsafed to us.
  The noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack said he did not know whether it was really the view of many that a valuer was preferable to a Land Court. If that question were put to me, I would say that anything in the world would be better than a Land Court, and that in dealing with land anything in the world would be-better than lawyers. A litigious landlord is a bad landlord, and a litigious tenant should be got rid of as soon as possible; neither landlord nor tenant ever made anything by going to law. This Land Court is, we are told, to administer £100,000. What is going to be the cost of it? There is a salary of £2,000 a year for the Chairman, and £I, 200 for four other members; then there are to be assessors, surveyors, law agents, and

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  valuers as approved by the Treasury. You can put them down at anything you like. Then we come to the Agricultural Commissioners. Their salaries are not yet fixed, but I have no doubt they will be eminently respectable. There is £6,800 for the Land Court, as much as you like for the assessors, and what sum shall we say for the Agricultural Commissioners? Do you think the whole thing will be done for £15,000 a yea? And £15,000 to administer £100,000 a year! I hope the taxpayers will like this. I might mention that this proportion of cost by no means exceeds that of the Crofters Commission and the Congested Districts Board. The amount of rent which the Commissioners revised was about £3,000 and they did it in six years at a cost of £22,000! If that is the kind of Court you are going to set up, the taxpayers will suffer as well as the agriculturists of Scotland.
  The noble and learned Lord said that the English Bill was accepted by your Lordships last year, and accepted with some reluctance. I quite agree. I think that Bill went further than many of us desired, but your Lordships wished to go as far as you possibly could, and it was for that reason, and that reason alone, that the Bill was passed. But this is a very different Bill. Was there any fixity of tenure in the English Bill? Was there any Land Court? And, with regard to the other provisions in the Bill, it is all very well for the noble and learned Lord to tell us that they are very much like the English Act. After all, he is a Scotsman and so am I, and he knows quite well they are very different.
  LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: My Lords, I am sure the House will allow me to join with the noble Earl who has just spoken in offering my congratulations to the noble Lord who resumed the debate this evening upon his participation in our discussions. No one who had the privilege of friendship with his father will do otherwise than rejoice to see the son taking a part in the debates of that House in which his father held so honoured a part. But, my Lords, I think the noble Lord has a grievance against those who instructed him in this matter. He candidly admitted that he did not speak from first-hand knowledge, and I am quite sure that if he had had
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  the opportunity of thoroughly mastering the details of the position he would not have put forward the counties of Caithness and Sutherland as in any way representative of what is best in Scottish agriculture. They are excellent places and have views of their own, and it is true that in those counties there was a spirited contest at the last county council elections turning largely on the matter of small holdings, and that in those counties those who supported the Government Bill obtained majorities. But, my Lords, there were contests turning upon the same point in other counties. In Fife, for instance, the opponents of the Bill were returned, as also in Ayr and other counties.
  Then the noble Lord trotted out our old friend the East Lothian meeting in April last. We know all about that meeting, and in case your Lordships have forgotten what was told you last summer I will repeat the facts. It was a meeting of the Farmers' Club, at which ten people were present. No notice had been sent that a discussion upon this Bill was to be taken. It was sprung upon the meeting and a catch vote taken, and it is true, I believe, that the only gentleman present who protested against that procedure was the factor on the Whittingehame Estate. But after this House had refused to pass the Bill last year a larger meeting of the East Lothian farmers was convened, with due notice, and my information goes to show that on that occasion the Government proposal was condemned with almost alsolute unanimity.
  Before going into the main points of the discussion I want to say a word or two about the proposed separation of Scotland from the Board of Agriculture. I deprecate that separation very much, and it is not to be disposed of by a few cheap sneers on the part of the President of the Board of Agriculture as to whether or not Scotsmen are able to govern themselves. We have our own opinions upon that point. We are not usually thought not to be sufficiently patriotic, but if there is one characteristic of Scottish patriotism more dominant than another it is that it knows how to subordinate its own merely national interests when there are Imperial interests on the other side. The distinction between what should be administered in London and what should

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  be administered in Scotland is a plain one. I speak with some knowledge and some experience, and, speaking generally, the test should be this. When the laws are the same the administration should be in the same hands and should be Imperial; when the laws are different it is reasonable that the administration should be Scottish.
  Take such questions as local government or education. We have distinct systems and we have distinct offices; but in matters like those coming under the Board of Trade we rejoice in Imperial administration. The Post Office is managed from London, and could not be better managed from anywhere else. When you take such Departments as the Home Office you find the same principle carried out. All the functions of the Home Office which are purely Scottish have been transferred to the Scottish Office, even to the length of the important and most difficult duty of judging what course should be pursued in capital sentences, and that because we have a different legal system and a different set of Judges. But when you come to such questions as affect mines and factories they are all under the Home Office, as they ought to be, because you could not have a different administration of mines and factories in the two countries. It is the same with the Board of Agriculture. We have our system of fisheries, and there is a separate Fishery Board responsible in Scotland; but in the administration of the Board of Agriculture as regard agriculture itself questions arise concerning, for example, the admission of foreign cattle, which must be decided by one central authority. I do not know whether either country desires to change the present system, but I say fearlessly that, if the present system is changed, both countries must go together. Otherwise there would have to be a system of espionage in connection with every drove that passed the Border.
  I pass from that point and come to the main parts of the Bill before us. I am anxious to go as far as I can with the noble Lord on the Woolsack, the conciliatory tone of whose speech everyone will recognise. I agree with him as to the importance of small holdings in any agricultural system, and as to the need of care being taken that they shall not be extinguished. I value
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  them in themselves, but even more for the means which they afford to those in the humbler ranks of agricultural life to ascend the social ladder. Anything which will tend to strengthen that or would make it more easy will have my most cordial support. I agree with the noble and learned Lord in lamenting the depopulation of the rural districts, but I wish noble Lords opposite would look facts in the face. Some of their baser agents are going about the country constantly saying that it is the landlords who are depopulating Scotland. That is a calumny of the worst description. If and in so far as there is any decrease of small holdings—and I will deal with that in a moment—the causes which have brought it about, or are bringing it about to-day, are mainly economic causes. They are partly educational, and partly they spring from the growing distaste of the people concerned for the hard life involved in their pursuits. People will not undergo the drudgery now which they would a few years ago.
  It may be that small holdings are fewer in Scotland than they were before, but neither as regards rural depopulation nor the size of holdings is Scotland different from other countries. If one had time to develop it one could show from statistics that the same causes, economic, educational and so on, are operating in other European countries, and the mere fact of the passage of this Bill, or any Bill like it, will not alter the facts. It is very easy to exaggerate the diminution that is going on. It is habitually exaggerated at the present time for partisan purposes. It is easy to allege a connection between rural depopulation and the diminution of small holdings which, in fact, does not really exist. A Government Return was published last year which I have had carefully analysed. It gave the number of small holdings in 1890 and 1906 respectively—by small holdings I mean holdings of from five to fifty acres. When discussing that Return you must first make allowance for the alteration of boundaries; but, in the main, I think that may not be taken very much into account.
  Over all Scotland small holdings have increased 3·9 per cent, while, as the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack said last night, the population has decreased

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  by a little over 4·0 per cent. In the crofting counties small holdings have increased 19·7 per cent., but the population in those counties has decreased 6·4 per cent. In thirteen counties there has been both a decrease of small holdings and a decrease of population; in two counties there has been an increase in rural population and an increase in small holdings; in four counties there has been a decrease in small holdings and an increase in population; and in fourteen counties there has been an increase in small holdings and a decrease in population. I quote these figures to show that there is no necessary connection between the number of small holdings and the increase or the decrease of the population. What is bringing about such changes as are taking place is mainly the economic causes. It depends on the price of the commodities these people produce, on their facility or difficulty of making a living, and to some extent also on the pressure of the rates which are put on agricultural land.
  Will this Bill cure these evils? The noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack was perfectly fair in what he said. He admitted that it would not be a panacea, but he hoped and believed its tendency would be in that direction. I, on the other hand, believe that, if you were to pass the Bill exactly as it stands, its effect would be but as a drop in a bucket of water. I do not think that it would really have the effect which its most enthusiastic supporters allege. It is constantly said that in the crofting districts the population has been maintained upon the soil. It is not so. I have shown you that over the crofting districts there has been a decrease of 6 per cent. in the population. If you could only get at the facts of school attendance you would, I believe, find that so far as children of school age are concerned there has been a very considerable decrease in those very counties; and it arises from this cause, that in the main those who are in the prime of life are moving from those counties to the centres of population. It is, however, very difficult to ascertain the exact facts, because there have been so many changes, school age has been varied, boundaries have been changed, and the general conditions have been altered.
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  I find between the noble Lord and myself another point of agreement. We all agree that some Amendment of the Crofters Act is necessary. But, my Lords, what is to be the real principle upon which that amendment ought to go? I submit that the real principle, the only fair principle, of such an amendment is that originally laid down by the Crofters Commission—that the tenant who has made the permanent improvements is entitled to the proceeds of those improvements; but if the landlord has made them, then I say you must not wrongfully by legislation take from one-man to give to another that to which he has no right. Someone has mentioned the Act of 1895, for which the noble Earl on the Cross Benches was responsible, and it is said that because in that Act it was proposed to extend the crofting area to other counties, therefore those who were responsible for that measure are now inconsistent in opposing this Bill. But, my Lords, the circumstances are wholly different. That measure did not extend the Act to the whole of the counties mentioned in it but only to those parishes in the counties which might be held to be crofting parishes, and only to those places in such parishes where it could be proved that for a. certain number of years crofting conditions had prevailed. The old fallacy of the undistributed middle is involved in reference to crofters in the Hebrides and in the eastern counties of Scotland as if the word had the same signification in both districts. But there is no similarity. The word "crofter" applied to the West of Scotland has a wholly different significance from that when applied to such districts as Aberdeenshire and Banffshire.
  We have heard a great deal about the neglect of the county councils. The noble Earl who has just spoken has fully dealt with that matter, and, as I am not anxious to repeat what has been said by others, I shall pass that by with only this remark, that I think the county councils of Scotland are just as able and willing to administer such a Bill as this as the county councils in England; and as to the counties in which the increase of small holdings is most required—in the Lothians, in Fife, in Forfar, and such places—no one can say a word against the fitness of the county councils for the

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  purpose. The dislike of endowing county councils with compulsory powers is newborn on the part of the Government. I remember that in 1889, when we were passing the Local Government Bill through Parliament, there were Amendments proposed by Mr. Munro Ferguson to give county councils compulsory powers, and a certain Mr. Reid, the then representative of the Dumfries Burghs, proposed to extend them to town councils as well. If county councils twenty years ago, when they had not so much experience, were supposed to be fit to administer compulsory powers, surely it is the height of absurdity now to say that they are not to be entrusted with them.
  I pass to another matter. The Lord Chancellor made an elaborate, and, if he will allow me to say so, ingenious comparison between the powers given under this Bill and those conferred by the English Act. He was very eloquent upon the 16th Clause of this Bill, and the benefits it was going to confer on the landlord. I agree with my noble friend Lord Camperdown that the noble and learned Lord seemed to go rather too far. If the English Act and the powers contained in this Bill are so much alike, if there is the same principle of dual ownership in the two measures, surely we may ask, with some pertinence, why, if you think the two measures so much alike, you will not give us our way and let us apply the English Act to the Scottish conditions? I am not, however, going to dwell on a mere debating point of that kind; but if we see, as we think, differences of vital importance, surely if noble Lords opposite really want to get a settlement of this matter and they see no difference, it will be easy for them to allow us to have our way in regard to it.
  The fact remains—and it is the great central fact which governs the whole of this part of the discussion—that under the English Act the landlord has been given a substantial and responsible tenant for a long period of years—the periods quoted yesterday by the Lord Chancellor, fourteen years and thirty-five years. The landlord knows where he is, and at the end of the term he has a responsible body to deal with, a body who can be sued, if need be', in a Court of law, and justice can be done to him and the other interests
  1458
  involved. But under this Bill there is no such certainty. As the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack himself said, the tenant can go at any time. That is exactly what we complain of. The process is this. He may be put down upon the land against the landlord's will he may, in the landlord's opinion, be wholly unfit; and if he goes away at any time—and should he fail he will go—the loss will fall upon the landlord.
  The noble and learned Lord on the? Woolsack says that the Government intend to be fair to Scottish landlords. But all their fairness, all the provisions of Clauses 7 and 16 of this Bill, are entirely subject to the unfettered discretion of the Commission, and with all respect to the noble and learned Lord, I cannot regard that body as being a judicial body. It is more largely administrative, with certain judicial functions. It will be a judge in its own cause, it will have to judge of its own policy, and it is useless, therefore, to blame us for refusing to accept what noble Lords opposite describe as an impartial court. We have grave doubts about the impartiality, and if you look at Clause 7 you will see that there is not one single act on which it is possible to call the Land Court to account. It is all sic volo sic jubeo. There is no appeal, no control, no independent valuation of any kind provided. It is useless in these circumstances to ask us to trust the value of our property and the interests of agriculture to the unfettered discretion of an unknown and irresponsible tribunal.
  After all, there are two main and important points in this Bill. They were freely set out last night by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Robertson, but let me repeat them, so that there may be no doubt, on the subject. The first is the extension of the Crofters Act to all Scotland, and the second the establishment of the Land Court. The noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack has expressed a. willingness to consider fair and reasonable Amendments; but the extension of the Crofters Act throughout Scotland, and the establishment of a Land Court on the Irish model, are proposals too serious to be left in doubt or conjecture. Are His Majesty's Government prepared, or not, to give up these two provisions?
  What really is the case for this Bill? Over and over again we have

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  tried to find out who asked for it. Has it been asked for by the smallholders themselves? Who was it who first thought of it? It certainly has not been produced as the result of any inquiry, or, as far as I know, of any demand. Indeed, I go further than that and say that it has been produced in almost ostentatious disregard of the evidence which was given before the Committee presided over by the noble Earl the Chairman of Committees in this House. My Lords, who really is in favour of it? The agricultural community of Scotland are solid against it, and the existing smallholders, so far as I know, are against it. There was a petition presented last year from the three north-eastern counties, in which it was stated that an overwhelming majority of the agricultural communities in those counties were against the Bill. It is no use, I suppose, quoting the opinion of landlords and factors, or even large farmers, because they are supposed to have only their own selfish interests at heart. But who are in favour of this Bill? We know that even the Government themselves are not unanimous about it. The noble Lord the First Lord of the Admiralty, like us, prefers the English Act.
  LORD TWEEDMOUTH: I only prefer the use of the county councils.
  LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: I will take it so, but that disposes of the Land Court. Is this House to be abolished, is the authority of the Secretary for Scotland so overwhelming that this House is to be abolished, because it happens to agree with the First Lord of the Admiralty rather than with the Minister charged with Scottish affairs? The noble Lord the President of the Board of Agriculture has never been enthusiastic about the Bill. He gave us a most delightful and amusing speech last night, but of solid argument on the main points of the Bill I think I may say his speech was nearly entirely destitute. On the first point, as to the extension of the Crofters Act to the rest of Scotland, he said it was a Scottish question with "which he was not competent to deal, being a mere Englishman. I have always had grave doubts whether, when he went to Scotland in the autumn of 1906, he had ever really read the Bill. At any rate, his speeches to the Chamber
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  of Agriculture at that time were not enthusiastic in support of it.
  We have Scottish Members in the Cabinet. Mr. Asquith and Mr. Haldane have made speeches to their constituents in the recess, and here and there, now and then, they have made a cursory allusion to the Bill, but there has been no reasoned defence of it, no attempt to justify it in all its provisions. I understand that my personal friend, if he will allow me to call him so, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, is to speak this evening. The noble Earl has been silent up to this time, and therefore I do not think he can have any exuberant enthusiasm for the measure; but the House will, I believe, have an opportunity of judging for itself in a short time. One of my noble friends last night said he believed that if a ballot could have been taken of the Scottish Members the majority would have been against the Bill. He was challenged by the noble Earl the President of the Board of Agriculture, who asked, How do you know that? Well, my Lords, I can give the answer. I know a great many of the Scottish Liberal Members, and am proud to have had to deal with many of them while Secretary for Scotland. I meet them socially and hear what they say on the subject, and if they would only say publicly what many of them say in private, then the doubts of the President of the Board of Agriculture would be resolved once for all. The noble Earl said he had heard something of this kind even within the sacred precincts of Brooks's Club—a place I have always believed was more given to the support of His Majesty's Government than those similar tabernacles which I personally frequent.
  Is the test not really this—Who has done the improvements? If you are going to extend the Crofters Acts, with all their conditions, to the rest of Scotland, you are depriving men of property which they have invested in the land. After I made my speech in this House last autumn, a Radical Member, a friend of mine, wrote expressing surprise. He said—
  "Surely you would like to encourage a saving Scotsman to put his savings into one of your farms?"
  I replied —
  "No. That is exactly what I do not want to eneourage, I want to encourage him to put

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  his savings into the stock and the implements upon his holding, into the improving of the land in such a way as he is protected under the Agricultural Holdings Act. But the one thing which I will do my best to prevent him doing is to acquire any interest in the buildings or the permanent equipment of the farm."
  We, as Scottish landlords, speaking generally, have equipped our holding just in the same way as the man who lets his furnished house has equipped it for a resident. Surely under those circumstances we are entitled to the market value as tested in the open market of what our investment will bring. The moment you depart from that test you are simply putting a premium upon sloth, because you will do away with the power of the landlord to see that the tenant is keeping the land in good heart and condition, and it will be the good landlord and the good tenant who will suffer and the bad tenant who will gain. We are told we speak only for landlords. Really in this matter it is the interest of agriculture that is at state. No Land Court, however impartial, could do the same justice between man and man as to give them the right to make their bargains for themselves.
  The Secretary for Scotland said that a landlord cannot understand the position and views of a tenant or a labourer on his estate because he has never been a tenant or a labourer himself. I think I can understand them perfectly, and what is more to the point, I believe they understand me; but how far are you going to carry this strange doctrine? Is a Judge of the Divorce Court to be required to qualify as a co-respondent? This is a bad Bill, but, even if it were less bad, I would hesitate to assent to the Second Reading under the circumstances in which we stand, because if we make a precedent of this kind, it will then perhaps be claimed that your Lordships have given way to the suggestion that, when the other House of Parliament passes a Bill by a large majority, and passes it twice within six months or a year, this House is therefore bound to accept it. Let the House be very careful before it assents to that doctrine. We are threatened that, if we fail to pass it, it will be worse for us and better for the Government and the prospects of their campaign. I ask the House to cast considerations of that kind entirely behind them. If I were to agree
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  to pass this Bill as it stands I should be ashamed to go back to Scotland. If the House accepts the Bill under the present circumstances the only result will be that your Lordships will merit and will receive the laughter of your opponents and the contempt of your friends.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (The Earl of ELGIN): My Lords, I have heard suggestions of a conspiracy of silence on this Bench; reference has especially been made to myself; I can only say I know nothing of it. If in the course I took last year I was guilty of any want of respect to noble Lords opposite, I tender my respectful apology. I voted for the Bill last year, and on this oocasion I am prepared to state my reasons for supporting it. I take some exception to the doctrine propounded by my noble friend who has just sat down—that we are not sincere in our action in supporting the Bill. I think it is inconvenient that noble Lords should go behind recorded facts and opinions in order to suggest that people are not acting honestly in the course they have taken. When a Bill has been introduced by the Government on its responsibility, and has been supported in the other House of Parliament by an overwhelming majority, I respectfully protest against the suggestion that it has not been brought forward honestly and fairly.
  The noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack has, as has been admitted all round, put before the House the general principles underlying the Bill in so complete a form and in so conciliatory a manner, that I am sure no statement of mine on those general grounds could add to its chances. Therefore, I should prefer to state to your Lordships as shortly as I can certain reasons that have emerged in my own experience of agriculture in Scotland, which have led me to the conclusion that there is a want for a Bill of some such character as this. I am encouraged to take this course because I think it was followed last year by my noble friend who has just sat down. He told your Lordships that for more than forty years he had been in possession of land in Scotland and connected with its management. I am sure my noble friend would admit that my

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  experience in such matters is exactly parallel to his own. I will not yield to him in my high opinion of the excellence of Scottish methods and the excellence of the agriculture which has resulted from it, and especially the excellence of the nineteen years lease system, which has been at the foundation of much of our agricultural prosperity in Scotland. The outstanding feature of the nineteen years lease was that for an adequate period and under suitable conditions it gave to the tenant fixity, or, if you like, security of tenure. The nineteen years lease has also in later times had this additional advantage—that by the adoption of more elastic conditions, which have been framed by noble Lords opposite, as well as by noble Lords on this side, there has been secured to the tenant something like freedom of cropping.
  Therefore I would be prepared to say that wherever the nineteen years lease could be adopted in its integrity it still has great advantages. But is its position the same? Forty years ago did anyone hear of a break in the nineteen years lease? That, I am afraid, is not altogether uncommon now, and to my mind it is absolutely contrary and fatal to the principle of the nineteen years lease itself. I think breaks, and also shorter leases, are sometimes now considered preferable. What the cause of that change has been would take a considerable time to set forth, but, generally speaking, I suppose the change has occurred from the changes in supply and demand, the sources of supply, the means of communication, and the conditions of the labour market. With regard to the latter point, I will mention one case as an illustration which was suggested to me by a practical farmer. Your Lordships will know that the term of engagement of farm servants in Scotland has been yearly. The wage was paid partly in money and partly in the produce of the farm. As regards the payment of the former, six months, I think, was not an unusual interval. But my informant tells me that now all this is changed. The general rule is that the agricultural labourer demands his wage in cash and that it should be paid at intervals of, perhaps, a fortnight. The result is this, that the farmer, instead of having a hold upon the man, the wage lying in his hands, has no hold upon him at all. The young man may desert the
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  farm at any time. All these things tend to alter the conditions of the nineteen years lease.
  Another change which is more important in connection with the particular subject now before the House relates to the terms of payment. At the time I was speaking of the ordinary term of payment of his first rent by the incoming tenant was deferred as a rule for something like fourteen months. That was a great advantage to the tenant, and especially to the smaller tenant who had little capital; but in 1867 an Act was passed which took away that advantage. The additional capital requirements caused by the earlier payment of rent certainly stand in the way of foremen or ploughmen who have saved a little money and wish to start for themselves—a class whom I am sure noble Lords would wish to foster. Anything that can be done to increase the number of men who have worked upon the land in the ranks of those who own, occupy, and cultivate the land is desirable. I hope for some such result from this Bill.
  Under the first sub-section of Section 7—the section which deals exhaustively with the provision of these new holdings— the method suggested is voluntary agreement. Sub-section 6 of the same clause entitles the occupant of a holding so constituted to all the advantages conferring by the Bill. I may observe in passing that it seems to me that those advantages would to a considerable extent do away with the disadvantages that arise out of the Act of 1867. I do not think the opponents of this Bill do justice to the amount of voluntary agreement which is to be found in it. Section 7 contains the machinery by which the new holdings are to be established. It is permeated with the idea of agreement, negotiation, compensation, and the rights and interests of all parties. One would suppose, from the common description of the functions of the Agricultural Commissioner, that he was simply sent out on a roving expedition to pick out the eyes of fertile farms, as the expression is. I assert emphatically that that is not the case.
  If we turn to the Bill, what do we find? In the first place, the Commissioner is to consider whether the demand for small holdings does or does not exist. The fact of that demand has to be proved.

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  Then he has to ask the landlord what land is available, what people would be displaced by the creation of small holdings, and generally the interests affected. When all the preliminaries have been settled, he can proceed to recognise the demand. What does he do then? Again he has to apply to the landlord, and he has to urge him to carry out a scheme by agreement. Therefore, my Lord's, I venture to say that agreement is the goal throughout this clause. To agreement schemes all the boons of the Bill are offered and it goes so far as this, that in the selection of the smallholders attention is in the Bill itself specially directed to be paid not only to the objections but to the preferences of the landlord. If no agreement is possible, then, and then only, can compulsion be exercised. No compulsion can be actually exercised until the case has been brought before the Court and the Court is satisfied. All parties, moreover, are to be heard.
  There are differences of opinion as to the extent of the demand for small holdings, but there is none as to this—that if there is a demand there ought to be means of meeting it. Nobody put that point more distinctly than the noble and learned Lord opposite who speaks with so much eloquence and directness. I submit, therefore, that if the creation of small holdings is a desirable thing, as we are agreed it is, and if there is a demand under the Bill, we ought to be able to rely to a very large extent upon the agreement clauses. If, on the other hand, there is no demand, well, then, no harm is done. We cannot make smallholdings without smallholders, any more than we can make bricks without straw.
  I come to the machinery of the Bill. I confess to a small personal difficulty. I have not yet got over the surprise with which I heard the opinion expressed by my noble friend on the Cross Benches about Edinburgh Boards. I have always been accustomed, as a brother burgess, to look to the noble Earl as the most eloquent exponent of the rights and the privileges of the capital of Scotland. Among those rights and privileges it is not unnatural to include that it is the most convenient place for the local habitation of a Board which has to deal with matters affecting the whole of Scotland. I have
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  some diffidence in expressing an opinion, because I am at this moment, not for the first time, part of an Edinburgh Board, but I do believe that these Boards have in the past done excellent and impartial work; and I should like to bear my testimony to the invaluable services which have been rendered by members of the Scottish Bench and by other members of the Scottish legal profession in connection with those duties.
  I thought that the Lord Chancellor had made it quite clear that the Land Court was a purely judicial body, and, in spite of what has been said, I still think that it is so. It has no share whatever in administration. The Agricultural Commissioners are in no sense subordinate to the Court. They are officers of the ordinary administration of the country, and therefore, in the ordinary way, they are responsible to Parliament. But it is also to be borne in mind that the duties that are proposed for the Agricultural Commissioners are multifarious, and are not confined to the administration part of the Bill. I do not quite agree with the objections expressed by my noble friend opposite to the separation of Scotland from the Board of Agriculture, and I do not see why there should be more difficulty in co-operation on the question of diseases of animals than on the question of the diseases of men, and as to the question of importation, surely that would be a question which, in any case, would have to be dealt with on the authority of the Government as a whole, and there could be no question of there being one rule for importation in England and another in Scotland.
  If any system similar to that proposed in this Bill is established, it is, in my opinion, imperative that there should be a body to determine authoritatively any differences that may arise. There is no question, I think, of any interference in the management of agricultural affairs outside the provisions of the Bill; but within the Bill there is a necessity for an authority to decide matters of difference. This is no new thing, but is implied in the arbitration clauses to be found in most leases. The same principle was involved in the enactments of the Agricultural Holdings Act of 1883. It is quite true that the arbitration under

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  that Act did not fix the rent, but it did deal with points which materially affected the pecuniary interests of landlord and tenant and all the relations arising thereout. It is worth bearing in mind that in the case of the Act of 1883 the Civil Court was introduced, because, if any difficulty arose with regard to the appointment of referees or oversmen, it rested with the sheriff to give a decision; and, more significant still, in all cases of over £100 in value there was an appeal to the sheriff', whose decision was final. I think, therefore, there should be a Court, but, speaking simply for myself, and having a liking for historical sequence in these matters, I confess I should very much like to preserve something of the spirit, and perhaps the name, of the Court Arbitral.
  So far I have been speaking chiefly of new holders. I want now to say something about existing tenants, and I would point out here, also, there is an opportunity for agreement. The noble Duke opposite said that the Land Court did for the landlord what he could do for himself. It is quite competent under the Crofters Act to come to an agreement whereby that right is reserved. Under the fifth Section of the Crofters Act of 1886 agreements are recognised which take the holding out of the provisions of the Crofters Acts. Therefore, it seems to me that, assuming there is a desire to co-operate on the part of both landlord and tenant, and, for my part, I believe it would be found that there would be a great desire on the part of the tenant to co-operate with his landlord in these matters, it will be quite possible for all existing tenants to agree to remain outside the provisions of the Bill. It is possible that tenants who have made improvements may wish to have the advantages of this Bill and the Crofters Act; but I do not think there are many of them. Where, however, a landlord has made improvements, there, I hope, agreements may be come to, and I do not see any reason for wishing to discourage them. So far as the Government are concerned we are aware that there are objections strongly held to the Bill as it affects existing tenants, and we are prepared to keep an open mind and endeavour to meet, if we can, the Opposition on this point, provided, of course,
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  an opportunity is given to us by the Bill going into Committee.
  The noble Duke opposite asked the House to reject the measure, because it had not the general approval of the agricultural interests affected. After all, agricultural societies cannot pretend that they are representative of the smallholders. We all know how such societies come together, and in few of them will you find a large or adequate representation of the small holders. I have spoken all through of tenants and not of owners, and I have done so purposely, because I have a strong opinion of the view really taken by my countrymen in this matter. I venture to think that the Scottish farmer is no fool, and if he has too little capital for cultivation, the last thing he will do is to tie up part of it in acquiring the fee simple of the land. So far as my experience of him goes, if he makes money he takes a larger farm, or it is possible he may take a second farm, but I believe the cases in which he buys a farm are few and far between. He is content with his tenancy if he has sufficient fixity of tenure, and, in my humble opinion, the nineteen years lease in the case of large farms does give him the security he requires. But, for the small holder, I think something more is required, and it is the object and intention of this Bill to supply that.
  It is partly because of the opinion I entertain with regard to the preference in Scotland for leasehold tenure that I doubt the expediency of the introduction of the county councils. I should be the last man to say anything in disparagement of the county councils, for I have received much kindness, both in my own county and in the County Councils Association; but I think that in undertaking the management of small lease-holdings they would be undertaking, for them, a very difficult, very onerous, and almost impracticable task.
  In supporting this Bill I emphatically disclaim any intention of depreciating or damaging the system of agriculture in Scotland. It is rather my wish to do something that may strengthen its defences and outworks where time has shown a weakness. Especially I wish to give to bona fide agriculturists fresh opportunities. I deprecate exaggeration as to the results of this legislation on the

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  one side or the other. Nor should we exaggerate the risks that may be thought to be involved, but which may, I believe, be miznimised by prudent administration. I support the Second Reading of the Bill because I cannot but be of opinion that if fairly and sympathetically considered by the House it might pass in a form which would do injury to no one part of the agricultural interest and would be an advantage to the community as a whole.
  THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, once again this House finds itself face to face with what I cannot describe otherwise than this luckless measure. We have to ask ourselves has anything happened, has anything been said, since it was before us last autumn, to remove the unfavourable impression which it then created? Before I attempt to answer that most momentous question let me say one word of acknowledgment as to the tone and temper of the speeches which have been delivered in support of the Bill by noble Lords opposite. Nothing could have been more moderate or considerate than their advocacy of the Bill, but I must be permitted to contrast that moderation with the very immoderate language used outside by the Government and their supporters in regard to the treatment of the Bill by the House of Lords in August last. I am almost tempted to say that His Majesty's Government, like some great painters, have two manners, a manner reserved for Parliamentary purposes, and a manner reserved for external occasions. We have, at any rate, not to-night and yesterday been lectured because we were not prepared to pass the Bill into law last autumn, when, as the noble Earl on the Woolsack has good-humouredly admitted, it came to us "rather late in the session."
  Well, His Majesty's Government have had six months for reflection, and that reflection has apparently led them to believe that the Bill as introduced last year was absolutely perfect and incapable of improvement, for it comes to us again with hardly a dot or comma altered. But since this discussion began there have been various hints that Amendments might be accepted by His Majesty's Government. A very noteworthy announcement of that kind was made by the noble Lord opposite, to whom we
  1470
  listened with great pleasure while he delivered a speech which reminded us of his distinguished father. He gave us to understand that any Amendment conceived in a reasonable spirit would be dealt with in a not less reasonable spirit by His Majesty's Government. I compare that announcement, evidently made with a considerable feeling of responsibility, with the announcement from the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack last night. He made a similar announcement, but he added this qualification, that any Amendment to be taken into consideration must be an amendment not destructive of the scheme of the Bill.
  That, of course, raises the question what are and what are not essential principles in the Bill. Upon that point we have been left in no doubt; it has been announced by no less an authority than the Prime Minister himself, that the cardinal principle of the Bill is the establishment of a Land Court in Scotland. That and what is conveniently referred to as the crofterisation of Scotland are the bases upon which this legislation is to proceed, and it seems to me impossible, so long as those two principles are to be found in the Bill, that we can entertain overtures, no matter in how friendly a spirit they may be conceived for accepting the Second Reading of this measure. We, too, have had time for reflection, and that reflection has strengthened our belief that such a Bill will be fraught with misfortune to all whom it will affect. The persuasive speech of the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack has not diminished that conviction. That speech, if I may say so, was remarkable, not only for what it contained, but for that which it did not contain—I mean that the speech, able and ingenious as it was, made no attempt to deal with the three or four cardinal arguments upon which, throughout these discussions, we have relied in our objections to the Bill.
  May I in the briefest possible language remind the House what those propositions are? In the first place, we conceive that there is an essential distinction between crofters and farmers who are not crofters. The noble and learned Lord who spoke with so much effect last night dwelt upon this point so fully that I need not further labour it. He showed to your

  1471
  Lordships that what was essential in a crofter was that he should have a hereditary and prescriptive tenure, and that he, and not his landlord, should have been in the habit of making the improvements on the holding. The crofter is the man who de facto has already established a proprietory right upon the farm, aud when you pass out of the areas in which those conditions are to be found, you meet with men whe may indeed be smallholders, but who are not crofters, because they do not differ essentially, except perhaps in the amount of their rent or in the acreage of their farms, from the other tenant farmers living alongside them and holding under the agreements which are usual and customary in Scotland.
  Our second proposition is this. We have denied from the first that our crofter legislation has been on the whole of a successful nature, even in those areas where it has been applied. On this point, to my mind, nothing is more conclusive than the Report of a little Commission known as the Douglas Commission, a Report which has been in the hands of most of your Lordships, and has the merit of being very concise, and, to my mind, very conclusive. What do we find from the Report of the Douglas Commission? Let us not forget that this Commission was not composed of landlords or their representatives. It was presided over by an ex-Liberal Member of Parliament, and was, I believe, mainly composed of farmers with the addition of one gentleman connected with the Dundee Advertiser, a very ably conducted paper, but not usually associated with landlord interests. What is the language of that Report? The Commissioners tell us that the dwelling houses in crofter areas are such as would not usually pass rural sanitary inspection. It is not, it seems, only in the slums of Glasgow that insanitary dwellings are to be found; the farm buildings are described as most primitive; in regard to cultivation we are told that there is very little reclamation; that mis-cropping is usual; that there is less improvement on crofts than on adjoining farms; and that very few of the crofts are self-sustaining. Thirty-five thousand pounds of public money have been poured annually into
  1472
  a district of which the rental is about £65,000 a year, and even with that liberal addition, and even with the assistance derived from the prosecution of the fishing industry, the crofter can only with difficulty eke out a living.
  Then the Douglas Commission also tell us that the new crofts created by the Congested Districts Board are not prosperous They tell us that all expenditure by-landlords in the districts has not unnaturally dried up; and, finally, they dwell upon the arrangement under which the buildings erected on these crofts-enjoy a special immunity from rates. They describe an instance where the rates paid by crofters only amount to an eighteenth of the whole, and they say — not without force—that the result of these exemptions is highly adverse to the success of local administration. Now with this evidence before us, I ask—Would any sane person desire to introduce for the first time a system which has results such as I have described, unless there were local circumstances of a special nature that rendered its introduction inevitable in certain very restricted parts of Scotland?
  Then I wish to point out that in the speeches to which we have listened no serious attempt was made to show why it is necessary that the crofter system, even assuming it to be a much better system than we believe it to be, should be extended to other parts of Scotland. The Secretary for the Colonies indulged in very hopeful anticipations of the way the Hill might work if it became law, but I did not gather from him a single remark that went to show that, there was any necessity for extending; the system to parts of Scotland outside the crofter areas. The noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack put in the forefront of his argument, as he did last year, the necessity of doing something to meet the evils of overcrowding. That reference to-overcrowding, if I may so describe it, forms a picturesque touch in the foreground of the picture drawn for us by advocates of legislation of this kind; but-I hope the noble and learned Lord will forgive me when I say that I never heard anything more halfhearted than, his attempt to connect the absence of security for smallholders in Scotland with the admitted evils of overcrowding

  1473
  in Glasgow. The noble and learned Lord is far too honest a man to wish this House to believe that if you were to pass this Bill, or any amount of Bills of this kind, you would thereby sensibly affect the evils of overcrowding. The colleagues of the noble and learned Lord are less cautious in their statements. I noticed that the Lord Advocate, in one of his speeches, said there were in round figures half a million occupants of one-roomed tenements in Scotland. How many of those occupants of one-roomed tenements would gain one jot or one tittle by the passing of a Bill of this kind?
  I dismiss that argument as not really ad rem, and I venture to suggest that there are two propositions, both of which ought to be established to the satisfaction of the House before we are asked to pass this Bill into law. The first of these propositions is this. It ought to be shown to us that there really is some substantial difference between the farmers of England and the farmers of Scotland outside the crofting areas. In none of the speeches to which I have listened during this debate has any attempt been made to establish that proposition. Let me once again remind noble Lords opposite that when they had to legislate for agricultural tenure two years ago, they dealt with the question north and south of the border by one and the same measure.
  The second proposition that ought to be made good before asking the House to pass this Bill is this. It ought to be shown that the small tenant farmers in Scotland stand in some special need of protection from their landlords. Not one word has been said in the course of this debate to show that these smallholders are really exposed to harsh or inconsiderate treatment at the hands of their landlords. But, again, I point out the difference between the language used in this House and the language used outside. This is not a moment when I am going to make an attack upon the Prime Minister; but I am bound to remind your Lordships of the statement made by him last autumn in reference to this Bill, when he told his hearers that—
  "The liberals are striving for a more wholesome and honest and manly system, under which men may keep their independence without forfeiting their homes and their livelihood."
  1474
  And he went on to speak of families actually dispossessed from their homes, of clearances and evictions, of—
  "risks that an independent man has been, subject to, and is still subject to, when he crosses his landlord's wishes, it may be in regard to the management of his farm, it may be in regard to the disposal of his vote."
  That was the cue given by the Prime Minister; and that cue was taken by every speaker upon Radical platforms during the so-called campaign of last autumn.
  If these things are to be said either in or outside this House, have we not a right to ask what evidence there is that the tenants of Scotland are treated in this manner, that they stand in need of a more honest, manly, and wholesome system of land tenure? Surely, it would be true to say that if things of this kind are happening in Scotland the result would be that the farmers of Scotland would have risen like one man to ask for the passing of this Bill. Have they done so? We have heard of one or two meetings in obscure places, but until I am convinced to the contrary I shall remain under the impression that the agricultural community of Scotland regard this measure, if not with hostility, at any rate with absolute indifference.
  But the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack was far, indeed, from bringing any complaints of that kind against landlords for their treatment of their tenants. He put his case in a much more ingenious manner. What he told us was that it was necessary to protect the small tenant because he was being squeezed out by economic causes. He explained that what he meant by that was that the expense attending the equipment of small holdings was relatively so great that landlords were tempted to consolidate them as opportunity arose. I have considerable doubt if that is the fact, for although there was once a tendency towards consolidation of holdings, I am under the impression that in these days landlords are rather averse to having too many large farms, and are glad to see what we describe as graduated holdings, some small and some large, and some of medium dimensions. But when the noble and learned Lord observes that he wishes to prevent the absorption of those small holdings because they are being absorbed owing to the

  1475
  operation of economic laws, does it not come to this, that at the very moment when in Ireland we are making tremendous efforts to get rid of uneconomic holdings we are being asked here to legislate for the perpetuation of uneconomic holdings in Scotland by means of the Bill now before the House?
  What I think many of us feel is that if you are indeed to try these uneconomic experiments, it is rather hard that they should be tried at the expense of the landlords. Because when we get to close quarters with the question that is what we find is to happen. The truth came out when the noble and learned Lord was discussing the question of purchase. He told us that purchase had been an unredeemed failure in Scotland; and he said there were two reasons. The county councils shrank from embarking the money of the ratepayers in unknown and hazardous enterprises. I think that was the substance of the statement. That was one reason. On the other hand, those tenants who had a little money saved shrank from investing their savings in the purchase of a small holding. So it comes to this. Because tenants have got their heads screwed on the right way, and because the county councils are jealous guardians of the interests of the ratepayers, these speculative enterprises are to be conducted at the expense either of the landlord or of the taxpayer, who is apparently to come to the rescue if things go hopelessly wrong. My noble friend the Duke of Montrose, who moved the Amendment with so much ability last night, brought out triumphantly the manner in which the financial part of this arrangement is likely to operate, and I have only to say, that both as a landlord and as a taxpayer, I object very strongly indeed to the using of funds towards which I contribute in this haphazard and speculative fashion.
  Another proposition which we have affirmed remains absolutely unshaken. We hold that the particular kind of land tenure which you desire to establish in Scotland combines almost every fault which a single system of land tenure can possess. I noticed a very extraordinary statement made the other day by the Scottish Secretary. It was to the effect that some analogous system for giving security to the tenant, was
  1476
  to be found in most foreign countries. I hope we shall be told in what country a system at all corresponding to this can be found except in. Ireland. My belief is that if you will inquire into the systems of land tenure which prevail abroad, you will find that they are based upon either complete ownership or upon hiring under the ordinary conditions of hiring. I do not know whether the President of the Board of Agriculture has made investigations into this question. He may perhaps be able to enlighten us on the subject; but, so far as I have been able to make any researches into it, I am left under the impression that in Germany, in France, and in Belgium you will find that the system where land is hired by one person to another, is that of very short leases, shorter than the leases with which we are familiar in Scotland; and that the tenant enjoys a much less degree of protection than that which every tenant in the United Kingdom already enjoys under the law of the land.
  The Scottish Secretary referred to Denmark, and apparently believed that the prosperity of Denmark was largely due to a system such as he was recommending. I have referred to an interesting Report made by a travelling Committee which visited Denmark and Ireland and which affords some very useful and important information. I find that their statement is that the conditions under which land is leased in Denmark would appear to be "more stringent and binding on the tenant" than are to be found in Scotland. Until I am contradicted I shall maintain that this system which you are seeking to import into the whole of Scotland is a system unlike any other known in civilised countries and possessing almost every defect which a system of land tenure can possess.
  May I say one word before I leave this part of the subject to explain why it is that we so greatly dislike such a system of land tenure? I may be told that it is not the Irish system, that you are only going to give us two instead of the three F's. I see that assent is given to that. But I ask the noble Lord to look up the debates on Mr. Gladstone's Irish Land Act. There he will find that Mr. Gladstone demonstrated to his own satisfaction, and I think to the satisfaction of most of those who listened to him, the absolute impossibility to have fixity of

  1477
  tenure and fair rent without those two principles carrying with them eventually free sale. Of that I have no doubt whatever.
  Why is it that we are afraid of this system of fair rents? A great deal of prejudice is sometimes created by the suggestion that if we dislike fair rents it necessarily means that we want to exact unfair rents. What do we mean when we talk about fair rent? There is no such thing as rent which can be demonstrated mathematically or scientifically as the fair rent for any holding. What we mean by fair rent is not the rent arrived at by the chaffer of the market between the person who lets the land and the person who takes it, but a rent imposed on the parties by someone outside who may or may not really know very ranch about the true capacity and value of the land. I object altogether to the intervention of the State for the purpose of making contracts of this kind unless you are able to show me that the parties are unable to make a fair and reasonable contract themselves; and I have yet to learn that the tenant farmers of Scotland, even if their rent happens to be £45 and not £50, are unable to drive a perfectly satisfactory bargain with their landlords. In these days I do not think it is untrue to say that the tenant occupies a very much stronger position as a bargainer than the landlord, and that the idea of a landlord allowing a solvent and suitable tenant to leave his farm because he will not meet him fairly on the question of rent is absolutely inconsistent with the facts as we know them.
  The noble and learned Lord was at great pains to reassure us with regard to the manner in which this question was likely to be dealt with by the Land Court which he proposes to set up. He explained that the Court was to be an irremovable body, that it was to be a judicial body so composed as to command public confidence, and that it would hear the parties in the most reasonable manner. All this would have made a great deal more impression on my mind if I did not remember that there was a time when we were told exactly the same thing with regard to the Land Court we have set up in Ireland. The three original Land Commissioners in that case were men of conspicuous position, their names were given in the Bill, and we were invariably
  1478
  met by the argument that with such a triumvirate nothing but justice could be expected. But what happened when these matters were inquired into, as they were afterwards by Committees and Commissions? The fact was revealed that these Land Commissioners had never heard one single original case themselves. They had not even issued instructions for the guidance of the Sub-Commissioners working under them; and the result has been to bring about a system which I am not going to take upon myself to describe again to-night, but which was described in the Report of Sir Edward Fry's Commission in words which should be attentively read by all who are in favour of reproducing in Scotland what we have already produced in Ireland. The noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack told us last night that the Land Court was, in the eyes of many of us, a bellua ferox. I rather accept his suggestion, and I would venture to add that, as we have the bellua ferox in Ireland, we had better take care to keep the Irish Channel between us and it.
  Then the noble and learned Lord used a very insidious argument with the object of reconciling us to the procedure involved in this Bill. He said to us in effect:—"You landlords are already under the harrow; you have got the English harrow; it is true that the spikes of our Scottish harrow are a little longer and a little more pointed; but after all it does not make much difference to you; the one system gives you a Land Court, the other gives you valuers, arbitrators, and a Board of Agriculture; it will come to much the same in the end." Will the noble and learned Lord pardon us if we think that, upon this question concerning practical dealings with land, we who have been familiar all our lives with such matters have an opinion which is entitled to as much weight as the noble and learned Lord's opinion would be entitled to if he were enlightening us upon a question of law?
  Let me, then, venture to point out what I conceive to be the fundamental difference between the position which the landlord will occupy under this Bill and that which he occupies under the English Small Holdings Act. Under the English Act, if the Board of Agriculture and the county councils desire that small holdings shall be created, the land is taken and

  1479
  the county council proceeds to dispose of it as it thinks fit to tenants. There may be a question as to the rent and as to other terms, but the position of the landlord in that case is not altogether an undesirable one, because he in fact obtains for his tenant a local body perfectly familar with the local circumstances of the district, perfectly solvent, and a body which is obliged to return the land to the landlord at the expiration of the term in as good a condition as that in which they received it.
  But what would happen under this Bill? The landlord having upon his estate a certain number of holdings below £50 a year, or below 150 acres in extent, but in other respects not distinguishable from the rest, would suddenly find one morning that these particular tenants had had conferred upon them, by a mere stroke of the pen, a great part of the attributes of actual ownership. The landlord has no intermediary between him and the tenants, as in the case of the English landlord; he is left in direct relationship with them. The men may have been recent arrivals, perhaps birds of passage who had hired the land for a term of years, on the clear understanding that at the end of that term the parties were free to reconsider their arrangements. But the landlord is saddled for all time with such men, and although there may be many excellent reasons why he should desire to make a change in the tenancy of his holding, he cannot get rid of them except by litigation, odious, expensive, and always to be avoided if you can possibly do so.
  I cannot help describing an enforced change of such a kind as one flagrantly unjust to the owners of land in Scotland. Surely we ought not to lose sight of the fact that a great part of the letting value, often by far the greater part of the letting value of these farms, which have been for generation after generation improved by the owners, is due, not to the inherent qualities of the soil, but to the outlay of the landlord and his predecessors. There is no doubt about it. I wish your Lordships would look at a memoir of the late Mr. Albert Pell, just published. You will find towards the end of it a most interesting essay on what he calls the making of the land in England. It goes to show that the value of farm land, as
  1480
  we know it now, far from being due to natural causes, or to what we sometimes call the unearned increment, is really due to the exertions generation after generation of those who have owned the land. The point I wish to press upon your Lordships is this. If you are to regard the landlord and the tenant as partners, the contribution of the tenant is infinitesimally small as compared with the contribution of the landlord. It is a cruel injustice, therefore, for no particular reason, to transfer the attributes of ownership from the party who has contributed most to the party who has contributed least to the enterprise.
  I will quote one line from a paper written many years ago by a distinguished member of this House—the late Duke of Argyle. This is what he said—
  "It is good to increase owners, but not to destroy ownership."
  It is because this Bill destroys ownership that I for one cordially dislike it. But I am afraid I must add that a great deal more is involved in this Bill than mere injustice to the landowner of Scotland. This Bill is a deadly blow to the system of agriculture which has for generations past prevailed in that part of the United Kingdom—a system of agriculture which has produced excellent results, and which is the admiration of all who study agricultural affairs. The noble Earl the Secretary of State for the Colonies went out of his way to disclaim any desire to break down the present system of Scottish agriculture. Does he believe it is possible to introduce a system of this kind into Scotland and then confine it within certain limited areas? Here, again, we recur naturally to the Irish precedent. When land legislation of this sort was first attempted in Ireland it was to be restricted to the smaller tenants. The leaseholders were to be excluded from its operation; there were innumerable other safeguards; but they are all gone now, and you have in Ireland one dead level of the disastrous system which this Bill is to introduce into Scotland. I believe this to be a Bill which will do no good to the tenants, certainly no good to the landlords, no good, certainly, to the taxpayers of this country, and I shall therefore give my support to the noble Duke behind me.
  I make only this reservation. If His Majesty's Government are really prepared

  1481
  to alter the Bill at the points to which our fundamental objections apply—I mean, so far as it introduces the crofter system throughout Scotland, so far as it creates a Land Court in that country— if that be the intention of the Government, no doubt a new situation would arise. But nothing which we have heard has suggested to my mind that upon these vital points His Majesty's Government have any intention of giving way, and, that being so, we shall vote against the Second Reading, and we shall lay before the agricultural community of Scotland the Bill of my noble friend Lord Lovat and the Bill of my noble friend Lord Camperdown as embodying what seem to us proper and reasonable provisions for dealing with the small holdings question in Scotland. In my belief His Majesty's Government ought to be extremely grateful, and I cannot help thinking that many of them will be grateful to us, if by arresting the progress of this Bill to night we extricate them from their entanglement with this most ill-conceived and pernicious measure.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord LOREBURN): My Lords, the noble Marquess is mistaken in his anticipation that he will receive any gratitude from the Members of His Majesty's Government for the speech he has made and the action he has recommended. The noble Marquess has dashed the hope which had been entertained that some measure on this subject of such great importance might be passed by discussion and fair dealing between both sides of the House. I feel that after what he has said, after he has extinguished the light, it is hardly much use protracting this superfluous entertainment. I regret very greatly the decision at which the noble Marquess and his friends have arrived. I believe that with good will and examination of the Bill we might have arrived at a satisfactory conclusion. I am certain of this, as, indeed, all your Lordships will he certain, that this Bill or other proposals of an analogous character will again and again be brought before the attention of Parliament, and will some time or other—indeed, soon—have to be settled, because the subject is urgent, and it is common ground that it is urgent. I believe there was an opportunity of coming to a settlement this evening, and
  1482
  I deeply regret that that opportunity has been lost.
  My Lords, the position of the Government is that we cannot be parties to the destruction of our own measure, and the substitution of some other measure in its place. We have stated in perfectly unequivocal language that we were prepared fairly to meet Amendments and suggestions. What we have been asked to do is practically to capitulate to the noble Marquess and his friends. I would ask whether any one of your Lordships in our place would contemplate doing anything of the kind. We, after all, represent the Government of this country. We are supported on this Bill by an overwhelming majority of Members of the other House of Parliament. We have a still more overwhelming majority of the representatives of Scotland upon our side, and for my part I have not yet learned to look for the sense of the country elsewhere than in Parliament—in the House of Commons which represents the country. Under these circumstances the proposal that has been made to us, which is really a proposal for capitulation, is one that no noble Lord sitting upon the Front Opposition Bench would have entertained, and you would not respect us or think us worthy of our position if we entertained it.
  There are other reasons also why I feel that the resolution of the noble Marquess is unfortunate. I am not at all clear about the position of His Majesty's Opposition in regard to this Bill. Why have we not an opportunity of learning by interchange of views in this House what their position is? The step that is to be taken is impossible for us; it is unnecessary for you. If the Government had not been prepared to meet, when they were propounded, Amendments which should be reasonable and which should commend themselves to moderate and sensible men, you were in no way prejudiced by the fact that a Second Reading was granted. The Bill was still under the control of the majority of this House.
  I have been asked repeatedly—Why is the Bill needed at all? My Lords, I thought that necessity was sufficiently indicated by the fact that measures have been brought in by supporters of the noble Marquess for the express purpose of dealing with this difficulty. If there is nothing requiring treatment, why were

  1483
  these Bills introduced? For my part, I have never dwelt on the overcrowding in Glasgow and the other great cities of Scotland as being a thing which would be largely remedied by this measure; but I say it will diminish and check depopulation, and it is depopulation which tends to increase the overcrowding. I cannot help thinking that although many of your Lordships have admitted the argument from necessity—and I do not question the sincerity of the admission—it has not been a deliberate and thought-out admission. For throughout this debate there has been apparent a dislike to every system of this kind, and panegyrics have been pronounced on free contract which are absolutely incompatible either with this Bill or the English Act. We have been told that no justification has been given for the crofterisation of Scotland. Now let us see what is meant by the crofterisation of Scotland. I suppose it means, in the first instance, setting up a particular tenure. I have endeavoured to show a comparison between the tenure set up by the English Act and the tenure set up by this Bill. Substantially and broadly they are the same, or, at least, analogous and similar. It has been said that this Bill applies to existing tenants. We were perfectly prepared to consider Amendments on that subject.
  Complaint has also been made of the Land Court. Now let me see what the Land Court is. It is strictly a judical body. I believe in this Bill it is a complete mistake to say that any administrative functions are committed to the Land Court at all. They are committed to the Agricultural Commissioners. That at 1east is the intention of the Government, and I believe it is embodied in the Bill. You must under any system of compulsory hiring have the functions which are committed to the Land Court discharged by someone. We think it is better in Scotland, accustomed as it is to the Land Court in connection with the Crofters Acts, that it should be committed to a tribunal of men carefully selected and honourably selected, who shall be independent and who shall not be allowed to interfere in any way or have any initiative in respect
  to administration. I do not know whether that meets with the views of noble Lords. I am sure, if they think of it, they cannot wish that any judicial questions should be settled by persons who are Under the thumb of any Department. Our view is that the Land Court will discharge those duties more independently and more efficiently than any other tribunal that can be suggested.
  The last point I will refer to is that relating to the separation of the Board of Agriculture in England and in Scotland. Scotland already manages its own fisheries, its education, and other branches of administration. It would be impossible that the Agricultural Board should interfere in the actual work of setting up small holdings in Scotland from London, while the Secretary for Scotland is discharging all the other administrative duties in connection with that country. I think there is one point on which it is desirable to be perfectly explicit. A fear has been expressed lest the administration of the Diseases of Animals Act and the unity of action which is most desirable in that respect should be impaired by the passing of this Bill. It is quite obvious that it is necessary to preserve unity of administration, and we should be most anxious to introduce the necessary clauses for that purpose.
  Having regard to the limits of time and to the foregone conclusions we have to face, I have gone as far as need be into these various points. I most heartily regret the decision of this House, and I think it will be the prelude of much deserved dissatisfaction in Scotland. I hope that, notwithstanding what has taken place to-night, it may before long be possible by fair dealing and good will to settle a subject the settlement of which is earnestly desired in Scotland and is, I believe, necessary to the welfare of that country.
  On Question, whether the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question,
  Their Lordships divided:—Contents, 33: Not-Contents, 153.

  CONTENTS.

  Loreburn, L. (L. Chancellor)

  Beauchamp, E. (L. Steward.)

  Chestefield, E.

  Carrington, E.

  portsmouth, E

  Athorp. V. (L. Chamberlain.)

  Elgin, L. (E. Elgin and Kincardine.)

  Lucas, L.

  Nunburnholme, L.

  Eversley, L.

  O'Hagan, L.

  Allendale, L.

  Farrer, L.

  Pirrie, L.

  Armitstead, L.

  Fitzmaurice, L.

  Saye and Sele, L.

  Blyth, L.

  Glantawe, L.

  Swaythling, L.

  Boston, L.

  Granard, L. (E. Granard.) [Teller.]

  Tenterden, L.

  Castletown, L.

  Tweedmouth, L.

  Coleridge. L.

  Haversham, L.

  Weardale, L.

  Courtney of Penwith, L.

  Headley, L.

  Welby, L.

  Denman, L. [Teller.]

  Herschell, L.

  NOT-CONTENTS.

  Bedford, D.

  Churchill, V. [Teller.]

  Kilmarnock, L. (E. Erroll.)

  Brandon, D. (D. Hamilton.)

  Cross, V.

  Kintore, L. (E. Kintore.)

  Richmond and Gordon, D.

  Falkland, V.

  Lamington, L.

  Rutland, D.

  Goschen. V.

  Lawrence, L.

  Somerset, D.

  Gough, V.

  Leigh, L.

  Halifax, V.

  Lilford, L.

  Ailesbury, M.

  Hill, V.

  Lovat, L.

  Ailsa, M.

  Hood, V.

  Lurgan, L.

  Bath, M.

  Iveagh,V.

  Macnaghten, L.

  Bristol, M.

  Knutsford, V.

  Meldrum, L. (M. Huntly.)

  Lansdowne, M.

  Llandaff, V.

  Middleton, L.

  St. Aldwyn, V.

  Moncrieff, L.

  Camperdown, E

  Monk Bretton, L.

  Carlisle, E

  Abinger, L.

  Monson, L.

  Carnwath, E.

  Addington, L.

  Mount Stephen, L.

  Cawdor, E.

  Alverstone, L.

  Muncaster, L.

  Clarendon, E.

  Ampthill, L.

  Newton, L.

  Cranbrook, E.

  Ashbourne, L.

  Oranmore and Browne, L.

  Cromer, E.

  Ashcombe, L.

  Penrhyn, L.

  Dartrey, E.

  Atkinson, L.

  Poltimore, L.

  Denbigh, E.

  Avebury, L.

  Ponsonby, L. (E. Bessborough.)

  Derby, E.

  Balfour, L.

  Devon, E.

  Balinhard, L. (E. Southesk.)

  Ramsay, L. (E. Dalhousie.)

  Eldon, E.

  Basing, L.

  Rathmore, L.

  Feversham, E.

  Belhaven and Stenton, L.

  Rayleigh, L.

  Fitzwilliam, E.

  Belper, L.

  Redesdale, L.

  Graham, E. (D. Montrose.)

  Borthwick, L.

  Ritchie of Dundee, L.

  Halsbury, E.

  Brodrick, L. (V. Midleton.)

  Robertson, L.

  Hardwicke, E.

  Burton, L.

  Rosebery, L. (E. Rosebery.)

  Harewood, E.

  Carew, L.

  Rothschild, L.

  Harrowby, E.

  Clifford of Chudleigh, L.

  St. Levan, L.

  Ilchester, E.

  Clinton, L.

  Saltoun, L.

  Lauderdale, E.

  Colchester, L.

  Sanderson, L.

  Lichfield, E.

  Collins, L.

  Sandys, L.

  Lovelace, E.

  Cottesloe, L.

  Sherborne, L.

  Lucan, E.

  Curzon of Kedleston, L.

  Silchester, L. (E. Longford.)

  Lytton, E.

  Dawnay, L. (V. Downe.)

  Sinclair, L.

  Malmesbury, E.

  De Mauley, L.

  Somerhill, L. (M. Clanricarde.)

  Mansfield, E.

  Deramore, L.

  Mar and Kellie, E.

  Dormer, L.

  Somerton, L. (E. Normanton.)

  Morton, E.

  Ellenborough, L.

  Munster, E.

  Estcourt, L.

  Stanmore, L.

  Northbrook, E.

  Faber, L.

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

  Northesk, E.

  Fermanagh, L. (E. Erne.)

  Onslow, E.

  Forester, L.

  Templemore, L.

  Plymouth, E.

  Gage, L. (V. Gage.)

  Teynham, L.

  Stradbroke, E.

  Glenesk, L.

  Tweeddale, L. (M. Tweeddale.)

  Strange, E. (D. Atholl.)

  Harlech, L.

  Vane, E. (M. Londonderry.)

  Harris, L.

  Vivian, L.

  Verulam, E.

  Hay, L. (E. Kinnoul.)

  Wandsworth, L.

  Waldegrave, E. [Teller.]

  Hindlip, L.

  Wenlock, L.

  Westmeath, E.

  Hothfield, L.

  Wynford, L.

  Westmoreland, E.

  Inverclyde, L.

  Zouche of Haryngworth, L.

  Wharncliffe, E.

  Kenyon, L.

  Resolved in the negative accordingly, and the proposed Resolution agreed to.
  1486
  Then it was moved to add to the said Eesolution the following words "and (4)

  1487
  which provides for the transfer to three Agricultural Commissioners of the work at present undertaken by the Board of Agriculture in Scotland, whereas it is essential for the safety of the flocks and herds of Great Britain that the administrative responsibility under the Diseases of Animals Acts should remain in the hands of a single Department." — (The Earl of Onslow); agreed to.

  House adjourned at Eight o'clock, till To-morrow, a quarter past Four o'clock.