Sitting of 14 May 1908

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

  PRIVATE BILL PETITIONS (STANDING ORDERS NOT COMPLIED WITH).
  Mr. SPEAKER Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the Petition for the following Bill, the Standing Orders have not been complied with, viz.:—Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Tramways (No. 2) Bill.
  Ordered, That the Report be referred to the Select Committee on Standing Orders.
  Interoceanic Railway of Mexico Bill [Lords]. Read the third time, and passed without Amendment.
  Southwell District Gas Bill.—Read the third time, and passed.
  Camborne Water Bill.—As amended considered; to be read the third time.
  Audenshaw Urban District Council Bill [Lords]; Skegness Urban District Council Bill [Lords].—Reported, with Amendments, from the Police and Sanitary Committee (Section B). Reports to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
  Garw and Ogmore Gas (re-committed) Bill.—Reported, with Amendments; Report to lie upon the Table.
  Metropolitan Police Provisional Order Bill.—Reported, without. Amendment [Provisional Order confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table. Bill to be read the third time to-morrow.
  Fishguard and Rosslare Railways and Harbours Bill [Lords]; North-East London Railway Bill.—Reported without Amendment; Reports to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
  St. Marylebone Borough Council (Superannuation) Bill [Lords]; Camberwell and other Metropolitan Borough Councils (Superannuation) Bill [Lords]; Argentine North-Eastern Railway Bill [Lords]. Reported with Amendments. Reports to lie upon the Table, and to he printed.

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to dissolve the marriage of Honoria Hurly with Maurice Randall Hurly, a Major in the 93rd Burma Infantry, her now husband, and to enable her to marry again; and for other purposes." [Hurly's Divorce Bill [Lords.]
Hurly's Divorce Bill [Lords].—Read the first time; and ordered to be read a second time.
Holderness Water Bill.—Petition for additional Provision; referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

PETITIONS.
  AGRICULTURAL HOLDINGS ACT, 1906.
  Petition from Easter Ross, for alteration of Law; to lie upon the Table.
  CHILDREN BILL.
  Petition from Stoke Newington, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  COAL MINES (EIGHT HOURS) (No. 2) BILL.
  Petitions in favour: From Alloa; Alva; Clackmannan; Devon; Newtown (No. 1); and Tillicoultry; to lie upon the Table.
  EDUCATION (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petition from Kilmallie, for alteration; to lie upon the Table.
  ELECTIONS AND REGISTRATION (LON- DON) BILL.
  Petition from Kensington, against; to lie upon the Table.
  ELEMENTARY EDUCATION (ENGLAND AND WALES) BILL.
  Petition from Hertford, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  ELEMENTARY EDUCATION (SCHOOL ATTENDANCE) BILL.
  Petition from Worcester, in favour; to lie upon the Table.

  LICENSING BILL.
  Petitions against: From Bishops Stortford; Gloucester (two); Saxton cum Scarthingwell; and Stroud; to lie upon the Table.
  Petitions in favour: From Aberdeen; Allerton; Arundel; Bangor; Birmingham; Blairgowrie; Bolton; Bournemouth; Bradford; Broughton in Furness; Bryngwyn; Brynrodyn; Camrose (two); Carnoustie (two); Darwen; Dunbar; Edinburgh; Ferry; Fife; Garstang; Glasgow; Gloucester; Hertford; Kirriemuir; Leeds; Little New Castle; Liverpool; Llangybi; Llethrnchaf; Manchester; Montrose (two); Moylegrove; Newburgh; Newcastle-on-Tyne; Newport (Pem.); Oxford; Panbride; Penarth; Rhosycærau;
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  Rosehearty; St. Davids; St. Dogmells; St. Ives; Saundersfoot; Sheffield; Stanley; Stockbridge; Swinton; Trevor; Walsall (two); Waltham Cross; Ware; Watford; and Willesden; to lie upon the Table.

  LIQUOR TRAFFIC (LOCAL OPTION) (SCOT- LAND) BILL.
  Petitions in favour: From Carnoustie; Castle Douglas; Cockenzie; Edinburgh; and Kirriemuir; to lie upon the Table.
  PUBLIC-HOUSES (EXCLUSION OF CHILDREN) (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petition from Glasgow, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  SHOPS BILL.
  Petition from Kensington, against; to lie upon the Table.
  WOMEN'S ENFRANCHISEMENT BILL.
  Petition from Kensington (North), in favour; to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  TREATY SERIES (No. 13, 1908).
  Copy presented, of Treaty of Commerce between the United Kingdom and Servia. Signed at Belgrade, 17th February, 1907. Ratifications exchanged at Belgrade, 31st March, 1908 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  TRADE REPORTS (ANNUAL SERIES).
  Copies presented, of Diplomatic and Consular Reports, Annual Series, Nos. 3997 and 3998 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  EAST INDIA (RAILWAYS AND IRRIGATION WORKS).
  Address for "Return showing the estimated position, as regards capital expenditure, of the several Railways and Irrigation Works under construction in India on the 31st day of March, 1908, and the proposed expenditure thereon during 1908–9 (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 150, of Session 1907)."—(Mr. Robert Price.)
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CIRCULATED WITH THE VOTES.

  East Hardwick School, Yorkshire.
  LORD BALCARRES: To ask the President of the Board of Education if he will state upon what date the plans to carry out the requirements of the Board as regards the provision of a playground and cloak room for East Hardwick school, West Riding, were submitted to the Board; on what date were the plans in question returned; and what has been the explanation of the delay.
  (Answered by Mr. Runciman.) Plans for the improvement of the premises, but not including a playground, first reached the Board on 6th July, 1905. They were re-submitted on 15th December, 1906. The same plans, but including the provision of a playground, appear to have reached the Board on 5th March, 1907. On 16th May, 1907, the Board decided, after consideration of all the circumstances of the case, that a new council school was necessary. This decision was communicated to the local education authority and the managers on 16th May, 1907, and, in letters dated 17th June, and 18th July, 1907, the Board explained to the managers that they had taken the proposals of the managers into account in forming their decision that a council school was necessary, and that they considered that, even if the alterations, including the provision of a playground, were carried out, the premises would still be very poor and not fit on that account for recognition permanently. The plans were, by inadvertence, not returned to the managers when the Board's decision was communicated to them, and the managers did not call attention to the omission until 16th April, 1908. The plans were returned on 30th April, 1908. It will be seen that the delay in returning the plans did not in fact prejudice the position of the managers.

  Greenwich Hospital Old-age Pensions.
  CAPTAIN CRAIG: To ask the First Lord of the Admiralty what are the conditions under which the Greenwich Hospital old-age pensions
  1300
  is granted; and can he state the number of pensioners from the Royal Navy eligible for, but not paid, this pension, and the reasons for withholding it.
  (Answered by Mr. MCKenna.) Greenwich Hospital age pensions are given entirely at the discretion of the Admiralty to naval life pensioners (this term does not include marine deferred pensioners) whose characters, while in and after leaving the service, have been good. Naval pensioners are eligible for age pensions of 5d. a day on attaining the age of fifty-five if they have been pensioners for five years, and for the increase of such pensions to 9d. a day at the age of sixty-five if they have been pensioners for ten years. The number of pensioners from the Royal Navy eligible for, but not in receipt of, the Greenwich Hospital age pension is approximately 4,080. The funds of Greenwich Hospital are insufficient to provide age pensions for all eligible men, and the vacancies occurring from time to time are filled by selection from among the oldest and most necessitous candidates.

  Irish Cattle-Drives.
  CAPTAIN CRAIG: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that cattle-drives took place on Sunday and Monday, 3rd and 4th May last, from a farm at Derrymaclaughlin, Loughgeorge, and Claregalway district, from a farm at Ballyglass, near Tinloughmore, and from a farm at Brierfield belonging to Mr. Morris of Loughgeorge; what arrests have been made; and what sentences have been passed on the perpetrators of these outrages.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) I am informed that no cattle-drives from the two farms first mentioned took place on the 3rd or 4th May, but, as I stated in reply to a Question on Monday last, the cattle were driven from Mr. Morris's farm at Brierfield on 30th April. For that offence forty-six persons were arrested, of whom forty-two were bound to keep the peace.

  Miss Bradley's Case.
  MR. FIELD: To ask the Postmaster-General whether he

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  has yet reconsidered the case of Miss Bradley, who was compulsorily retired at the end of last year.
  (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) As indicated in my letter of 7th April last to the hon. Member, I am unable to reconsider the case of Miss Bradley.

  Irish Savings Bank.
  MR. FIELD: To ask the Postmaster-General whether he will state the main details of the approximate total cost of having the Irish Savings Bank work done in London, and the main details of the approximate total cost if such work were done in Dublin.
  (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) I regret that I am not in a position to furnish the hon. Member with the desired information.
  MR. FIELD: To ask the Postmaster-General whether, seeing that several Savings Bank women clerks of Irish nationality, who had, or who had not, registered their names as desiring transfer to Dublin, were asked by the Savings Bank authorities, either privately or officially, some time before the present Government came into office, if they would be willing to serve in Dublin; that the average vacancies for women clerks in Dublin number only one or two a year; that several Savings Bank women clerks of Irish nationality had already registered their names as desiring transfer to Dublin; and that it is now officially denied that the late Government contemplated the transfer of the Irish Savings Bank work in Dublin, he will now say why such a number of Savings Bank women clerks were, at the time referred to, asked whether they would be willing to serve in Dublin.
  (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) I cannot find that any such promise was given or implied.

  County Kerry Postal Delivery.
  MR. J. MURPHY: To ask the Postmaster-General whether he can arrange for an evening collection and delivery of letters at Kilcummin, Killarney, County Kerry, having regard to the inconvenience caused to residents
  1302
  of the district by present arrangements, the facts in connection with which have been already supplied to the Department.
  (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) I have called for a Report on this subject, and on its receipt I will communicate with the hon. Member.

  Foreign Trawlers in the Moray Firth.
  MR. ESSLEMONT: To ask the Secretary for Scotland whether he can state the number of foreign fishing vessels which have been observed trawling in the Moray Firth during the year 1907, what proportion of these vessels discharged at Grimsby, the quantity of fish landed, and the total sum realised.
  (Answered by Mr. Sinclair.) Twenty-five foreign vessels were observed on 201 occasions, nineteen of which landed fish at Grimsby, the total quantity recorded by the Fishery Board as being landed amounting to 10,525 cwts. The Fishery Board have no record of the sum realised.

  Royal Naval Mechanicians.
  MR. CARR-GOMMTo ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether, since the introduction of mechanicians into the Royal Navy, Royal Naval Reserve engine-room artificers have been sent with mechanicians to receive any form of instruction; and whether, in any of the ships of the Channel Fleet, mechanicians have completed work which Naval Reserve artificers had been detailed to do.
  (Answered by Mr. MCKenna.) Both mechanicians and engine-room artificers, Royal Navy Reserve, have been sent to ships of the Channel Fleet for their respective periods of training. The arrangements of their instruction are in the hands of the officers of the ships, and there is no information at the Admiralty to enable a reply to be given to this inquiry.

  Devonport Dockyard—Vacancies for Senior Writers.
  MR. MALLET: To ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he is aware that there have been vacancies for senior writers in the constructive

  1303
  and engineering departments at Devon-port Dockyard for over eighteen months; and, if so, whether he will state when it is expected that the vacancies will be filled, and what remuneration, if any, has been or will be paid to those members of the writing staffs of the two departments named who have been carrying out the duties of the senior writers since the vacancies arose.
  (Answered by Mr. MCKenna.) The filling up of the vacancies for senior writers has been deferred pending the revision of the establishment, which is now wider consideration. As soon as this has been settled, the claims of the writers who are in the meantime acting in a superior capacity will be duly considered.

  Home Fleet.
  MR. BELLAIRS: To ask the First Lord of the Admiralty, in reference to an official Answer on 17th June, 1907, stating that in the Home Fleet six first-class battleships, six armoured cruisers, and five other cruisers are kept fully manned and ready for immediate service, whether he can state what were the names of the five other cruisers, whether they are classed as cruisers in the Navy List, and what cruisers other than armoured cruisers are now kept in full commission in the Home Fleet.
  (Answered by Mr. MCKenna.) The names of the five vessels were "Saphire," "Attentive," "Pathfinder," "Patrol," and "Skirmisher," of which vessels the last four are classed as scouts in the Navy List. One cruiser and two scouts are now kept in commission with full crews in the Home Fleet, in addition to six armoured cruisers.

  H.M.S. "Cyclops."
  MR. F. E. SMITH: To ask the First Lord or the Admiralty whether the Admiralty purchased in 1906, from the firm of T. B. Royden and Company, a vessel now known as H.M.S. "Cyclops"; whether the purchase price has been fully paid; and, if not, what is the justification for delaying such payment.
  1304
  (Answered by Mr. MCKenna.) Of the total purchase price of £95,000 for the "Cyclops," purchased by the Admiralty from Messrs. T. B. Royden and Company under agreement dated 19th January, 1906, £50,000 was paid before the end of January, 1906, an additional £35,000 was paid in the first week of February, 1906, and £9,000 of the remaining balance of £10,000 was paid in the first week of March, 1906, leaving £1,000 unpaid till now. The technical conditions involved have prevented, till the last few days, steps being taken to pay off this balance of £1,000. A claim for interest for such portion of the delay in payment as may be adjudged not due to Messrs. T. B. Royden and Company is under Admiralty consideration.

  Naval Mechanicians and Board of Trade Engineership.
  MR. CARR-GOMM: To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether mechanicians leaving the Royal Navy will be qualified and eligible to sit in examination for certificates as Board of Trade engineers: and whether warrant mechanicians will be entitled without examination to certificates of service as second-class engineers.
  (Answered by Mr. Churchill.) Mechanicians leaving the Royal Navy will be allowed to sit for examination for certificates of competency as engineer, issued by the Board of Trade on the same conditions as engineers in the mercantile marine. The reply to the latter part of the Question is in the negative.

  Stamped Glass Measures.
  MR. PIKE PEASE: To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he can state the number of glass measures stamped by the London County Council during each of the last seven years ending 31st December, 1907, respectively.
  (Answered by Mr. Churchill.) I understand that the London County Council do not keep a separate account of the numbers of glass measures stamped.

  Cost of Housing and Town Planning Bill.
  MR. PIKE PEASE: To ask the President of the Local Government Board if

  1305
  he can state what is the probable amount of municipal debt increase annually, estimated, on account of the passing of the Housing and Town Planning Bill.
  (Answered by Mr. John Burns.) I do not think it is possible to give any estimate on this subject, so much must depend on the action taken by individual local authorities.

  Irish Co-operative Creamery Societies.
  MR. J. MACVEAGH: To ask the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture (Ireland) whether he is aware that a number of co-operative creamery societies in Ireland erected Pasteurising machinery in the interest of the public health whilst deriving no trading benefit whatever from its use; if the only aid given by the Department to these societies consisted in loans of £200 repayable in five years with 3 per cent. interest, whilst at the same time free grants amounting to about £20,000 were made to the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society in Dublin; and, seeing that many of these societies are indebted to banks and thereby handicapped in the work of maintaining the Irish butter trade against the competition of capitalists at home and of the State-aided creameries of Denmark and other foreign countries, will he apply a portion of the surplus at the disposal of the Department in recouping these societies for the outlay incurred by them in the interest of the public health.
  (Answered by Mr. T. W. Russell.) Twenty-five co-operative creamery societies have obtained from the Department loans varying from £100 to £350 each for the erection of Pasteurising plant. The money was advanced at 3 per cent. interest, repayable in five years. The loans were made to societies presumably affiliated with the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society. Technical advice in matters connected with the creamery industry is also afforded by the Department free of charge to such societies as desire to avail themselves of it. The Department are of the opinion that the creameries derive sufficient trading benefit from the use of Pasteurising plant to repay them for their outlay thereon.
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  The Department do not propose to apply any portion of their funds in recouping these creamery societies for their outlay on Pasteurising plant.

  School Managers and Bankruptcy.
  CAPTAIN FABER: To ask the President of the Board of Education whether, under the rules and orders issued by the Board of Education for the regulation of the appointment of school managers, an undischarged bankrupt is not eligible to act as a foundation manager but is eligible to act as a representative manager.
  (Answered by Mr. Runciman.) It is the practice of the Board, in making final orders under Section 11 of the Education Act, 1902, to provide that any person who is adjudicated a bankrupt shall cease to be a foundation manager. The Board have no jurisdiction to make rules and orders as to the qualification of managers appointed by the local education authority or the minor local authority. The Board are not aware of any rule of law which debars those authorities from appointing a bankrupt as a manager.

  Defaced Silver in Ireland.
  SIR THOMAS ESMONDE: To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will state what steps are being taken for the withdrawal of defaced and worn silver coin from circulation in Ireland.
  (Answered by Mr. Lloyd-George.) The Mint authorities are in communication with the principal banks in Ireland with a view to improving the arrangements at present in operation for the withdrawal of such coin from circulation.

  Consols.
  MR. B. S. STRAUS: To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will give a Return showing the amount of Two-and-a-half per cent. Consols outstanding on 1st April of each year from 1900 to 1908.
  (Answered by Mr. Lloyd-George.) The following is a statement showing the

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  amount of Consols remaining at 1st April in each of the years from 1900 to 1908:—

  At 1st April.

  Amount of Consols.

  £

  s.

  d.

  1900

  502,657,132

  13

  0

  1901

  501,442,052

  2

  8

  1902

  559,958,418

  3

  1

  1903

  590,619,005

  16

  4

  1904

  588,361,592

  4

  8

  1905

  586,584,901

  8

  4

  1906

  585,116,399

  7

  4

  1907

  583,245,235

  7

  9

  1908

  577,342,017

  8

  6

  From 5th April, 1903, the rate of interest on Consols has been 2½per cent.

  Appointments in the Irish Services.
  MR. FIELD: To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he can state and give the names of private secretaries of Ministers and high permanent officials who within the last ten years have been imported into Ireland and given lucrative posts, to the detriment and prevention of promotion of competent Irish officials of long service.
  (Answered by Mr. Lloyd-George.) I am not aware of any such cases, and I do not think that any useful purpose would be served by a scrutiny of the appointments which have been made in Ireland during the last ten years.

  Marine Works in Ireland.
  SIR THOMAS ESMONDE: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland when he proposes to introduce his promised Bill to enable Irish county councils, outside the congested districts, to construct marine works.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) My hon. friend the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture proposes to introduce a Bill on this subject at an early date.

  Irish Land Purchase—Condition of Mortgage.
  COLONEL MCCALMONT: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the dissatisfaction that exists in parts of Ireland at the purchasing tenant being prohibited from mortgaging or charging his holding for a
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  sum not exceeding ten times the amount of the purchase annuity (The Irish Land Act, 1903, Section 54, Sub-section 3); and whether, in any amending Act he may introduce, he will see his way to removing such prohibition.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The subject in question has engaged the attention of the Royal Commission on Congestion, whose Report is about to be circulated, and I understand that the Commissioners have expressed the unanimous opinion that greater stringency, rather than relaxation, is needed in respect of the power of mortgaging holdings which are subject to the payment of land purchase annuities.

  Carrickfergus Corporate Lands.
  MR. J. MACVEAGH: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether, in view of recent litigation before the Court of Appeal, the Land Commission, in dealing with the Carrickfergus corporate lands, County Antrim, will take steps to see that the sub-landlords prove their title to the land.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Estates Commissioners presume that the hon. Member refers to the recent decision of the Court of Appeal in the case of the estate of Hugh Gillmore Wilson. The Commissioners will have due regard to that decision and the judgments given in cases of landlords holding under the Carrickfergus Corporation and all other vendors.

  Hudson Estate Evicted Tenant.
  MR. JAMES O'CONNOR: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Estates Commissioners have received from Francis Murphy an application for reinstatement in the farm at Slieveragh, Baltinglass, the Hudson Estate, from which his father, Michael Murphy, was evicted in 1896; whether the Commissioners have rejected Murphy's application; and, if so, on what grounds.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Estates Commissioners have noted the name of Francis Murphy as that of a suitable person to receive a holding in the

  1309
  event of their acquiring untenanted land in the locality. The case has been referred to an inspector with the object of providing Murphy with a holding if possible.

  Kenmare Estate Evicted Tenant.
  MR. J. MURPHY: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if the Estates Commissioners can say what effective steps they have taken to restore Mr. Michael Casey, an evicted tenant on the Kenmare Estate, County Kerry, to his holding.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Estates Commissioners understand that Casey's former holding is in the occupation of a tenant, but they will endeavour to provide Casey with another holding.

  Cragg and Ardcrone Farms, Kerry.
  MR. J. MURPHY: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if the Congested Districts Board propose to retain the farms of Cragg and Ardcrone, County Kerry, in their possession, against the wishes of every representative person in the district; and whether, as a matter of fact, the lands have been in the hands of the Board now for several years without being used for any useful purpose.
  MR. BIRRELL: I would refer the hon. Member to the Answers which my predecessor gave to the numerous Questions put by him on this subject, and in particular to the Answer of 6th March, 1906. The persons for whose reinstatement claims have been locally advanced are not evicted tenants, but were defaulting annuitants under the Land Purchase Acts. The Congested Districts Board purchased the lands in question for the relief of congestion and must use them for that purpose only. As already repeatedly stated, it would be entirely against public policy to reinstate persons who have lost their holdings owing to default in payment of their annuities.

  University Senates and Working Class Representatives.
  MR. J. MURPHY: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he proposes to add the names of any direct representatives of
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  the working classes to the Senates and governing bodies of the proposed new Universities and their constituent colleges.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Answer is in the negative.

  Burke Estate, Galway.
  MR. HAZLETON: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the tenants on the Burke estate, of Lebid, Kilcreeventy, and Knocknagar, County Galway, were recently negotiating with the landlord for the purchase of their holdings, along with two grass farms held by graziers named Quinn and Ryan, but that the Land Commission, having been appealed to, has decided to hold a court at Dunmore next month for the fixing of fair rents on this estate; and whether, in view of the fact that the graziers referred to have additional land, amounting to close on 1,750 acres, the Laud Commission will refuse to take any steps likely to prevent in the future the division amongst the tenants of the two grass farms in question.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) I am informed that proceedings for the sale of this estate have not been instituted before the Estate Commissioners. No special application has been made to the Land Commission to fix judicial rents on the estate, as the Question suggests, but some six applications to fix fair rents upon holdings on the estate have been listed for hearing in the ordinary course.

  Mountmellick Grazing Ranch.
  MR. DELANY: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Estates Commissioners have purchased a large grazing ranch upon the estate of William Kemmis, Esquire, Killeen, situated at Kilmainham, near Mountmellick; and whether he can say that in the distribution of the said lands the application of Mr. Thomas Higgins, Brocca, Clonaslee, for an economic holding thereon will be considered, in view of the fact that Higgins' father was evicted off this estate for registering his vote according to his conscience before the passing of the Ballot Act.

  1311
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Estates Commissioners are making inquiries with a view to entering into negotiations with Colonel Kemmis for the purchase of certain untenanted lands on his estate. In the event of their purchasing the lands, the application of Thomas Higgins will receive due consideration.

  Irish National School Programme.
  MR. BARRIETo ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Irish National School programme for 1908–9 is now printed; and whether he will ask the Commissioners for National Education in Ireland to have copies of it forwarded to the teachers without delay.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Commissioners of National Education inform me that the official programme for the school year 1908–9 is at present in the press, and copies will be forwarded to the managers and teachers at an early date.

  Lurgan Public Park.
  MR. J. DEVLIN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the proposal to establish a public park for the town of Lurgan, and to the protest made against the proposal by a meeting representing all classes of the ratepayers on 16th April last; whether he is aware that the rates in Lurgan are proportionately high, and that the proposed scheme for a public park would mean a considerable increase in the liability of the ratepayers and a corresponding rise in the rents paid by the working classes, that the ground selected for the park is low-lying, wet, and unsuitable, and the price to be paid out of all proportion to the value of the land, and that the park is unnecessary, since no part of the town is more than ten minutes' walk from the open country; whether he has any official information showing that the proposed expenditure would be better applied to improving the market accommodation of Lurgan; and whether, in view of all the circumstances, he will instruct the Local Government Board to make careful inquiry into
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  the proposal before permitting it to be carried out.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Local Government Board have received an application from the urban district council for sanction to a loan of £3,500 for the purpose mentioned, but they have no information as to the protest referred to in the Question. The Board are taking steps to hold a local inquiry into the application for the purpose of investigating the whole circumstances of the case. Public notice of the inquiry will be given, and any person interested may attend and make objections to the application.

  Royal University of Ireland—Degrees to Non-Collegiate Students.
  MR. J. DEVLIN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state the number of non-collegiate students who have obtained degrees in the Royal University of Ireland since its establishment; the total number examined and passed in each year; the total number of private students, and the number examined and passed in each year; the numbers of non-collegiate and private students examined and passed in each year from Dublin, Belfast, Cork, and Galway; and the numbers of collegiate students similarly examined and passed from these same centres.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) I have referred this Question to the secretaries of the Royal University, who inform me that no Returns classifying the students as collegiate and non-collegiate are in existence. The compilation of Returns giving the information asked for in the Question for the twenty-eight years since the University was established would, they inform me, occupy a considerable time, and could not be undertaken till the summer examinations are Over some two months hence.

  Carrickfergus Harbour.
  COLONEL MCCALMONT: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether he has received any communications in regard to Carrickfergus Harbour, adjoining roads, etc., and its claims for financial aid from the Govermnent;

  1313
  and whether he can favourably consider such claims.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane). I have received a communication from the hon. and gallant Member on this subject. The Army Council, after giving the matter full consideration, are of opinion that the circumstances of the case do not justify a departure from the general principle which precludes contributions from Army funds for harbour purposes.

  British and German Army.
  MR. HAROLD COX: To ask the Secretary of State for War what is approximately, according to the latest figures available, the total war strength of the German Army; what is the annual expenditure by the German Empire upon the Army; and what are the corresponding figures for the British Army, including in that term all troops paid for by the taxpayers of the United Kingdom and by the taxpayers of India.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) The approximate figures for 1908–9 are as follows:—German Army: War strength, *4,110,000; cost, £51,000,000. British Forces: War strength, 1,066,000; cost, £49,000,000.

  Press and War News.
  MR. PIKE PEASE: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether he can now make any statement in regard to the question of secrecy of the Press in time of war, as previously promised.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) I am not in a position at present to make any statement on the matter mentioned in the Question.

  Territorial Army Special Reserve Battalion Bands.
  MR. PIKE PEASE: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether any allowance for a band is to be made to the officer commanding a special reserve battalion under the Territorial Army scheme, and, if so, how much.
  * These figures do not include the Landsturm amounting to about £3,000,000.
  1314
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) An annual allowance of £25, or so much less as has been actually expended, will be granted to each unit of the Special Reserve for a band.

  Royal Field Artillery.
  MR. ASHLEY: To ask the Secretary of State for War what was the strength of the Royal Field Artillery at home and abroad on 1st January and 1st May.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) The figures are as follows:—

  1st January, 1908.

  1st May, 1908.

  Home

  15,600

  15,021

  Colonies

  1,161

  809

  India

  8,708

  8,563

  It should be pointed out that the figures for the Reserve have proportionately increased from 9,029 to 10,518.

  Probate on Brewery Property.
  MR. WHITBREAD: To ask the Prime Minister whether, in the event of the Licensing Bill becoming law, the Inland Revenue authorities will, in determining the value of brewery property for probate and estate duty, be instructed to accept approved estimates of the gross value of such properties, based, during the time-limit, upon the compensation proposals contained in Section 10 of the Licensing Bill.
  (Answered by Mr. Asquith.) The value of property, brewery and otherwise, for the purpose of estate duty is the market value at the date of death. This principle will not be in any way affected by the proposals contained in the Licensing Bill.

QUESTIONS IN THE HOUSE.

  Australian Naval Defence.
  MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: I beg to ask the First Lord of the. Admiralty what is the new arrangement as to naval affairs arrived at with the Australian Commonwealth.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. MCKENNA,): No arrangement has yet

  1315
  been made with the Australian Commonwealth. The question is still under consideration.
  MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: Is the subsidy of £200,000 a year still paid by the Commonwealth, and, if so, when will that cease?
  MR. MCKENNAasked for notice.
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when the Papers asked for two months ago—when the House was told that a despatch had just been sent—will be ready?
  *MR. MCKENNA: Any Papers would he presented by the Colonial Office, but I do not think there will be any ready for some time.

Cruisers.
MR. NIELD: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether the Government contemplates substituting a protected cruiser for the large armoured cruiser provided for in the Estimates.
MR. MCKENNA: The reply to the hon. Member's Question is in the negative.

H.M.S. "Aquarius."
MR. NIELD: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether the distilling vessel "Aquarius," attached to the Channel Fleet, recently went aground; and, if so, whether he will state the time and place of the occurrence, how long the vessel remained in that position, and the extent, if any, of the damage sustained.
MR. MCKENNA: H.M.S. "Aquarius," when at anchor in Oitir More Bay, near Oban, on the night of the 29th March, was struck by a heavy squall, dragged her anchor and ran ashore, remaining there for four hours and then coining off under her own steam. An examination of the vessel has been made in dock and it has been ascertained that it will be necessary as the result of grounding to effect some repairs to outer bottom plates, frames and bilge keel.

Admiralty Temporary Clerkships.
MR. GEORGE ROBERTS:I beg to ask the First Lord of the
1316
Admiralty whether he is aware that candidatures for temporary clerkships in his Department are restricted to persons above the age of 20 and under 25 years of age; and whether he will have this restriction, which is not in force in other Government Departments, removed.
MR. MCKENNA: The limits of age applied to candidates for employment as temporary clerks in the Admiralty Departments have been adopted as best suited to the requirements of the service. If they should be found to militate against the selection of the most suitable clerks, they will of course be reconsidered.

Transfers of Naval Officers.
CAPTAIN FABER: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether it is the practice to transfer officers and men at short notice on to ships proceeding to manœuvres; and what is the shortest notice which has been required for such a transfer.
MR. MCKENNA: As a general rule, the officers and men appointed to ships for manœuvres have ample notice. Changes in these appointments, however, are bound to occur at the last moment, due to officers or men falling sick or being unable to join for other reasons, &c., in which case others have to take their places practically without notice.
CAPTAIN FABER: Then may we take it for granted that except in exceptional circumstances there are no transfers at short notice?
MR. MCKENNA: Yes, they are only made in urgent cases.

The Army Council.
MR. BOWLES: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether the Army Council as such has any authority over military affairs in this country; and, if so, whence that authority is derived.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. HALDANE,): The Army Council has authority over military affairs in this country by virtue of the letters patent; of course, full control is preserved to Parliament, and to Parliament the Secretary of State is made directly responsible.
MR. BOWLES: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he will state how, and by whom, a meeting of the Army Council can be summoned; whether its meetings are held at fixed intervals, and, if so, at what intervals; and whether any complete and official record is kept of all its proceedings.
MR. HALDANE: The meetings are summoned, whenever necessary, by the secretary under instruction from the Secretary of State. A record is kept of the decisions arrived at.

War Office Contracts for Brushes.
MR. T. F. RICHARDS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he will state what firms have secured the contracts for the supply of painting brushes to his Department.
MR. HALDANE: It is not the practice to give the names in eases of this kind. The War Department never publishes the names of firms who secure Army contracts.
MR. CURRAN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is a firm producing War Office materials the wages of whose workmen are much less than it costs to produce the same material at Enfield?
MR. HALDANE: Perhaps the hon. Member will give me further information on that point.
MR. CURRAN: The War Department has already been supplied with the information.

Volunteers and the Territorial Force.
MR. GEORGE ROBERTS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether any Volunteer corps have refused to serve under the Territorial Forces Act; if so, will he give the names of such corps; and also state what action he has taken or proposes to take in the matter.
MR. HALDANE: I am not aware of any corps having refused to serve under the Territorial and Reserve Forces Act.

Indian Administrative Reforms.
MR. HART-DAVIES: To ask Secretary of State for India whether he expects to receive all the documents which have been recorded in India on the subject of the reforms initiated by the Government circular of 24th August last; and whether an opportunity will be given to this House to discuss the proposals before a final decision is arrived at.
THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Mr. BUCHANAN,): The documents referred to by my hon. friend will be sent home by the Government of India, and some of them are already on the way. I cannot, however, undertake that they will be submitted to the House for discussion before the Secretary of State in Council has come to, a decision upon them, for which, of course, the Government will be responsible.
MR. HART-DAVIES: Will the document come over in the original or only a Précis?
MR. BUCHANAN: In the original.

Horse-shoes for the Indian Army.
MR. HAROLD COX: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for India whether it is the practice of the Government of India, in ordering horseshoes from this country for the Indian Army, to require that such shoes shall be supplied exclusively by British firms and manufactured in this country; whether he is aware that the War Office has discovered that this practice leads to the formation of a ring against the purchasing department; and whether, in the interest of the taxpayers of India, he will provide that for the future tenders shall be thrown open to all responsible firms.
MR. BUCHANAN: Tenders for horseshoes for Indian service have hitherto been invited only from English makers. There is no reason to believe that any ring exists among the manufacturers of horse-shoes in this country. The Secretary of State for India will be happy to, consider tenders from any competent makers.
MR. HAROLD COX: But the Secretary for War stated that there was such a ring.
MR. BUCHANAN: I am only responsible for the India Office.

Madras Land Estates Bill.
*MR. REES: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for India whether the Madras Land Estates Bill of 1905 has yet received the assent of the Viceroy; and whether he is aware that the Amendments made in the original Bill, subsequently it is believed to the receipt of a despatch from the Secretary of State, have not satisfied the Madras Landholders' Association in regard to the new provisions respecting right of occupancy, waste lands, purchased lands, compulsory commutation, prohibition of contracts, and enhancement of rent.
MR. BUCHANAN: No intimation that the Governor-General has signified his assent to the law in question has been received. The Secretary of State is aware that the amendments made by the Madras Legislature have failed to satisfy the Landholders' Association.
*MR. REES: Is there a memorial from the Landowners' Association under the consideration of the India Office?
MR. BUCHANAN: Yes.

The Amir and the Frontier Outbreaks.
MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for India whether the Amir has replied to the representations of the Government of India with reference to the participation by Afghans in the recent frontier outbreaks; and whether any explanation has been given of the hostile demonstration in the Khaibar.
MR. BUCHANAN: A communication has been received by the Government of India from the Amir on the subject referred to, and he has given satisfactory assurances as to the efforts he has made to dissuade Afghans from joining the tribesmen. It would be contrary to the public interest to go into details of the correspondence.

Temperance Movement in Poona.
MR. HERBERT ROBERTS: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for India whether the attention of the Secretary of State has been called to the recent temperance movement in Poona and to the prosecutions instituted by the police against temperance workers who have endeavoured to dissuade persons from entering liquor shops; and whether he is in a position to make a statement upon the subject.
MR. BUCHANAN: The Secretary of State's information is to the effect that the methods of the temperance workers in question and others who joined them were not compatible with the maintenance of order, and that on one occasion a somewhat serious disturbance arose. The Secretary of State believes that no hindrance whatever has been placed in the way of bona fide temperance work by the action of the authorities.

Indian Locomotive Boiler Contract.
MR. T. F. RICHARDS: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for India whether he will give the names of the contractors who obtained the orders to supply his Department with the locomotive boilers as advertised for in the Engineer newspaper for 31st May, 1907.
MR. BUCHANAN: The contract for the twenty-one locomotive boilers referred to was placed with Messrs. R. Stephenson and Co.; The Vulcan Foundry Co.; and Messrs. Kitson and Co.

Australian Mint.
MR. HAROLD COX: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether any proposal has been made by the Government of the Australian Commonwealth to establish a mint in Australia for silver coinage, so as to obtain for the Commonwealth Government the profit on silver coinage which now goes to the Government of the United Kingdom; and, if so, whether the Commonwealth Government has proposed any alternative method of refunding to the taxpayers of the United Kingdom part of the expenditure which they now incur for the defence of Australia.
THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Colonel SEELY,): The Answer to the first part of my hon. friend's Question is in the affirmative, and to the second part in the negative.
MR. HAROLD COX: May I ask my hon. friend whether he will make representations to the Colonial Government on that point?
COLONEL SEELY: I cannot undertake to do that, but I can say that we have not yet come to a conclusion.
SIR GILBERT PARKER: Is it not the case that the Australian people are already heavily taxed for their own defence and that they contribute to the Treasury of this country something like £i80,000 a year for the Navy?
COLONEL SEELY: That is a question which should, I think, be addressed to my hon. friend behind me. It is in a somewhat argumentative form.

Mosambique and Asiatics.
MR. HAROLD COX: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that the proposed anti-Asiatic legislation in the Portuguese province of Mozambique contains important exemptions in favour of Asiatics who are Portuguese subjects; and whether he will take care that in any anti-Asiatic legislation in the British Colonies of South Africa similar exemptions shall be made in favour of Asiatics who are British subjects.
COLONEL SEELY: No, Sir; I am not aware of the proposed Portuguese legislation.
*MR. REES: Would such communication be addressed to the Foreign Office?
COLONEL SEELY: We should be bound to receive information if such legislation were passed.
*MR. REES: Will a copy of the Bill when it comes be placed in the Library?
COLONEL SEELY: I should like notice of that Question.

Transvaal Civil Service.
MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the
1322
Colonies whether he is aware that the Transvaal Civil Service Bill contains a clause empowering the Government to alter all the conditions of service from time to time by regulations which shall be in force and effect notwithstanding that they are not published in the Gazette; and, whether in view of the feeling of insecurity which is entertained among the British members of the public service, the details of this measure will be considered by His Majesty's Government before the Royal Assent is given to its provisions.
COLONEL SEELY: I have seen a statement to this effect in the Press, but have no official information on the subject. The Act will be duly considered by the Secretary of State before tendering any advice to His Majesty with regard to it, but the control of the Civil Service is prima facie a matter for the Government and legislature of the Colony.

South African Federation.
SIR GILBERT PARKER: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he can state what are the conditions of representation and apportionment of delegates of the different Colonies of the sub-continent of Africa at the proposed National Convention, whose object will be to prepare a draft constitution for a federated South Africa.
COLONEL SEELY: No, Sir, I have as yet no official information. We are expecting a Report from Lord Selborne by mail.

British Civil Servants in the Transvaal.
SIR GILBERT PARKER: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the Transvaal Civil Service Bill has been under the review of this Government, and whether it will be laid upon the Table; if this Government is satisfied that the best interests of retrenched British Civil servants, for which it has an acknowledged responsibility, are adequately protected; and whether the Bill provides that as British civil servants are retrenched the vacancies may be filled up by ex-republican officials under fifty years of age.
COLONEL SEELY: The Bill has not yet been received, and until it has been received and considered, I cannot make any statement with regard to it.

Flogging Sentences in Natal Courts.
MR. BYLES: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is cognisant of the almost daily recurrence, in certain of the magistrates' Courts in Natal, of sentences of flogging imposed upon native and Indian subjects, the severity and frequency of which punishments are provoking severe strictures in the local Press; and can he see his way to any step which would tend to bring up Colonial tribunals more nearly into conformity with the humanitarian practice of English Courts of Justice.
COLONEL SEELY: I have seen some of the severe strictures in the Natal local Press, to which my hon. friend refers, and which relate to the exceptional action of certain individual magistrates. Any action must rest with the Government and Legislature of the Colony.

British Garrison in Egypt.
MR. KETTLE: On behalf of the hon. Member for East Mayo, I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what is the extra charge now borne on the revenue of Egypt in consequence of the increase of the British garrison which followed the Denshawi affair; and whether the time has come when Egypt may be relieved from this burden.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir E. GREY,): The extra charge borne by the revenue of Egypt in consequence of the increase of the Army of occupation in 1906 is £50,000 a year. As regards the remaining portion of the hon. Member's Question, I beg to refer him to the Reply returned by me on 12th March to the Question asked by the hon. Member for East Tyrone, and I must once more point out that the increase referred to was decided before the Denshawi incident took place and had no connection with it. There was no increase made in consequence of the Denshawi incident. A considerable reduction of the garrison
1324
had been made a year or two previous to 1906. Events which occurred early in that year made it necessary to increase the garrison again, which was done as the result of a review of the general situation.

African Railway—Walfisch Bay.
MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any proposals are before His Majesty's Government for linking up the British and German African railway systems; and whether Walfisch Bay is in any way the subject of negotiations between the British and German Governments.
SIR EDWARD GREY: The Answer to the first part of the Question is in the negative. With regard to the second part, the only negotiations which are proceeding between His Majesty's Government and the German Government are with a view to the settlement of the boundary between the British territory of Walfisch Bay and German South-West Africa.

Egyptian Administration.
MR. KETTLE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, according to present political arrangements in Egypt, the Khedive is not competent to grant a constitution or a representative legislature to the people of Egypt; and, if this be the ease whether he will state what are the treaties, conventions, or other political instruments by which the Khedive is rendered incompetent in this regard.
SIR EDWARD GREY: I beg to refer the hon. Member to the reply winch I returned to the Question asked by him on 2nd April. There is no specific instrument by which the Khedive's liberty in this respect is limited.

Old Age Pensions.
MR. TOULMIN: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in connection with the old-age pension scheme, he can give approximately the number of married couples where the husband is over seventy years of age and the wife under seventy years of age; and will he consider the advisability, where the wife is

1325
over sixty years of age and under seventy years, of taking the income of husband and wife jointly into account in deciding the eligibility of the husband for a pension.
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE,): I have no precise information as to the number of married men in the United Kingdom of seventy years of age and over whose wives are under that age, but the number may be estimated approximately at 113,000. I will note my hon. friend's suggestion for consideration along with others when the details of the scheme come up for discussion.
MR. CATHCART WASON: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in the old-age pension scheme, where a husband and wife are living separate by mutual consent, the full pension of 5s. a week will be paid to each of them; and whether, when husband and wife have agreed to live separately, and the husband or wife has an income in excess of the amount which would entitle him or her to the benefit of the pension, but the other has no income, the husband or wife, as the case may be, who is destitute will be entitled to the full pension of 5s. a week.
MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: The proposal is that the reduction in the amount of pension in the case of married couples, and likewise the disqualification on the basis of joint income, shall be applicable only to the case of such couples actually living together.
MR. CATHCART WASON: Is that not rather encouraging old couples to live apart?
MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: I do not think so.
MR. J. DEVLIN: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in view of the Budget proposals with regard to old-age pensions, he will direct that a short Memorandum be prepared setting forth the leading facts in connection with the working of the
1326
old-age pensions schemes in Germany and in New Zealand, for the information of Members and the public.
MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: I will consider the hon. Member's suggestion.
MR. J. DEVLIN: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he can state the number of persons in Ireland over seventy years of age who would be likely to benefit under the proposed scheme of old-age pensions, including the estimated numbers of married and unmarried persons; also the number of such persons who would be debarred owing to their being in receipt of Poor Law relief; and the estimated average amount per head and total amount which would be payable in Ireland under the scheme.
MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: I am afraid that I have not information at my disposal which would enable me to answer the hon. Member's Question fully. It is estimated that the number of persons in Ireland of seventy years of age and upwards is 173,359, and that the number who would be qualified for pension is 87,585; but the hon. Member should bear in mind that the figures are estimates and that no exact information is attainable.
MR. CATHCART WASONI beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer if he could state approximately what would be the probable cost of admitting aged persons now in poorhouses or workhouses to the benefit of the old-age pension fund provided it could be shown to the satisfaction of the pension officer that proper provision would be ensured for their comfort by their friends or relatives.
I beg also to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in view of the fact that any system of old-age pensions must be to the benefit of local rates, he will take into consideration the desirability of allowing aged persons now in poorhouses or workhouses or in receipt of outdoor relief, on abandoning any claims on parish relief, to receive the benefits of the pension fund.
MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: Perhaps my hon. friend will allow me to answer these

1327
Questions together. The additional cost for a full year of admitting persons at present actually in receipt of Poor Law relief to the pension scheme is estimated to be approximately—

£

For indoor paupers

750,000

For outdoor paupers

2,250,000

3,000,000

I have no basis for estimating what would be the financial effect of the proviso suggested in the latter part of the second Question.
MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: When shall we have the Old-Age Pension Bill in our hands? It would be of great convenience to our proceedings.
THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY, (Mr. ASQUITH,): It cannot be circulated until it is introduced.
MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: When is it to be introduced?
MR. ASQUITH: I hope very soon; not next week, but probably the week after.
MR. CATHCART WASON: Are we to understand that these questions will receive consideration from the Government?
MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: Much depends on the Report of the Poor Law Commission.

The Sugar Duty.
MR. WILLIAMSONasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, after receiving the deputation that waited on him on the previous day, he had come to any conclusion as to the advisability of granting a rebate on existing stocks of duty-paid sugar, or of postponing for a few weeks the reduction of the duty so as to allow such stocks to be disposed of.
MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: I have received a number of deputations on these two points, and after careful considera-
1328
tion of the arguments and figures submitted I have come to the conclusion that, having regard to the admitted benefit that will result to the trade as well as to the consumer from the decrease of the sugar tax, and to the loss to the revenue that would follow a rebate on existing stocks, I should not be justified in sanctioning any rebate. An extension of the time would cause such a dislocation to the trade that it would not be to the interest of the trade itself.
MR. HAROLD COX: When the right hon. Gentleman removes the remainder of the duty will he give longer notice?
[No Answer was returned]

Workmen's Compensation.
MR. JOHN WARD: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been drawn to the case of Alfred Parker, of Holloway, N., who was injured by accident while working for Messrs. Gray, Hill, and Company, causing the loss of the use of both arms; whether he is aware that the firm has since gone into liquidation, and that the National Assurance Company, of Bedford, with whom the firm were insured, have also gone into liquidation; and seeing that this fact has deprived Alfred Parker of the compensation to which he was entitled under the Workmen's Compensation Act, 1906, what action, if any, he proposes to take to secure to injured workmen the compensation which the law allows.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. GLAD-STONE,): I have no information with regard to this case, and, as I stated on 4th March last in answer to my hon. friend the Member for Montgomery Boroughs, I do not see what remedy can be provided to meet such cases except by the establishment of some system of compulsory insurance.

Alleged Intimidation at Poplar.
*MR. BOWLES: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is aware that the steamship "Zambesi" was boarded and taken forcible possession of on Saturday last in

1329
the Surrey Commercial Dock by a mob of 200 persons in order to intimidate her master into breaking his lawful contracts with certain foreign seamen; whether he has received any reports from the police officials concerned as to the identity of the ringleaders of the mob in question; if so, whether he will cause them to be brought to justice; and what steps he proposes to take, whether by affording increased police protection to vessels or otherwise, to prevent a recurrence of such events.
MR. GLADSTONE: The incident referred to took place on the private premises of the Surrey Commerical Dock Company, who employ their own police; but I have made inquiry and I am informed that the description of the incident which has appeared in the Press is exaggerated and that no disorder occurred. While the "Zambesi" was discharging cargo on the afternoon of the 9th instant a party of nineteen Chinamen arrived, followed by a number of English members of the Seamen's Federation, who protested against the employment of foreigners. A conference took place on board, as a result of which the Chinamen left and the Englishmen were signed on. I am informed further that the "Zambesi" was not taken forcible possession of; there was not a mob of 200 persons; and, so far as can be ascertained, there was no intimidation.

Franco-British Exhibition Accidents.
MR. ARTHUR HENDERSON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he can give the approximate number of fatal and non-fatal accidents which have occurred at the works of the Franco-British Exhibition at Shepherd's Bush since its construction began in 1906; and how many of such accidents have been reported to factory inspectors.
MR. GLADSTONE: Two fatal accidents have occurred, both of which were notified to the inspector. I regret that I am not able to state the number of non-fatal accidents notifiable to the factory inspector which have occurred. Thirty-two have been so notified, but the inspector reports that a very
1330
much larger number have undoubtedly occurred. The matter has been occupying the attention of the inspectors, and proceedings have been taken against ten firms engaged at the works for failure to comply with the requirements of the Act. In each of these cases, with the exception of one which is still outstanding, convictions were obtained and substantial penalties were imposed.

Accidents on Large Building Works.
MR. ARTHUR HENDERSON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has considered the Report and recommendations of the Departmental Committee dealing with accidents on buildings; whether he purposes adopting any or all of them; when such regulations may be expected to take effect; and whether any proposal is contemplated requiring the contractors for large works to provide suitable hospital accommodation for injured workmen.
MR. GLADSTONE: Yes, Sir, I have had the Report of the Committee under my consideration. Their recommendations cannot be carried out without further legislation, and I propose to introduce a Bill in the present session to give me the necessary powers. In the meantime, the question of the regulations is necessarily postponed. The suggestion in the last part of the Question is outside the scope of the Factory Acts.

The Inebriates Acts.
MR. GULLAND: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he can now say whether he will appoint Scottish representatives to the Departmental Committee on the Inebriates Acts.
MR. GLADSTONE: I have conferred with my right hon. friend the Secretary for Scotland on this subject, and we are agreed that the best plan will be for my right hon. friend to appoint a small Committee to deal independently with the difficulty which has arisen in Scotland.

Birmingham Police Band.
MR. T. F. RICHARDS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home

1331
Department whether he is aware that the police band connected with the Birmingham force is allowed to take private engagements, thereby depriving civilian bandsmen of their means of livelihood; and whether he will take steps towards discontinuing the practice wherever it prevails.
MR. GLADSTONE: This is a matter for the discretion of the Watch Committee, with which I have no authority to interfere.

Life Insurance.
MR. J. MACVEAGH: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to the decision in the King's Bench in the case of a domestic servant in Preston, named Brown, against the Britannic Assurance Company, Limited, in which it has been held that the policy holder having no insurable interest could not recover; whether he is aware that the County Court Judge found that the plaintiff was an innocent party, whilst the defendant company knew from the beginning that it was an illegal contract; whether his attention has been called to the statement of the Judges of the King's Bench that insurance agents are in the habit of inducing innocent people to enter into these policies; and whether, having regard to the prevalence of these practices, and to the fact that industrial insurance companies have extracted from working people hundreds of millions of pounds by lapsed policies on which they did not pay any surrender value, he will cause an inquiry to be held.
I beg also to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to a recent summons by Annie O'Hare, 4, Kingston Street, Belfast, against the Liverpool Victoria Legal Friendly Society for the amount due on a life policy; whether he is aware that the company successfully pleaded that they were not responsible for the misrepresentations of their agents, and that the magistrates passed censure upon the circumstances; and whether, in view of the frequency of such cases, he will now cause an inquiry to be held into the operations of insurance companies amongst the working classes,
1332
including women's and children's death-dividing clubs and kindred bodies.
THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. CHURCHILL,): My attention has been called to the cases referred to in the two Questions of the hon. Member. The whole matter is now receiving the earnest consideration of the Board of Trade in consultation with the Treasury, which is the Department concerned with friendly societies. I shall be glad to receive any further information on this subject which the hon. Member is in a position to supply.
MR. J. MACVEAGH: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the gravity of this question was recognised as far back as 1891, when the Unionist Government introduced a Bill seeking to deal with some of the evils, and can we not expect the right hon. Gentleman to reintroduce that Bill?
MR. CHURCHILL: I do not think I can undertake to introduce legislation at this moment.
MR. RAMSAY MACDONALD: Has the right hon. Gentleman considered the advisability of appointing a Departmental Committee to consider the whole question?
MR. CHURCHILL: Perhaps the hon. Member for Leicester will put down a Question at an interval of a week or ten days, and I shall then be able to give him a little more information on the subject.
MR. JOWETT: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the advisability of calling for a Return from the various industrial insurance companies, showing the extent to which they gain financially by reason of lapsed policies?
MR. CHURCHILL: That is a very large and complicated question. Perhaps the hon. Member will give me an opportunity of going into details by putting down a Question on the subject.
MR. J. MACVEAGH: Will the right hon. Gentleman do something to keep

1333
these insurance sharks from England out of Ireland? There are some things you have in England we do not want there.

Census of Production.
MR. MITCHELL-THOMSON: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will state what progress has been made in carrying out the provisions of the Census of Production Act, 1906.
I beg also to ask the President of the Board of Trade when he will lay upon the Table of the House copies of the forms of inquiry drawn up for issuing to manufacturers in accordance with the provisions of the Census of Production Act, 1906.
MR. CHURCHILL: The Schedule relating to coal and ironstone mining has already been issued after the details were approved by the Advisory Committee appointed for that industry. A copy of this Schedule was laid upon the Table of the House in February last together with certain rules prescribed by the Board of Trade. A number of other schedules are now practically complete and will be laid upon the Table very shortly. It is hoped that about half the factories of the United Kingdom will be in receipt of their appropriate schedules by the end of the current month. For the purpose of considering the framing of the schedules under the Act, Advisory Committees were appointed by the Board of Trade for seventeen leading industries mainly consisting of representatives of trade associations and prominent manufacturers. Thirty-five meetings of these Committees have been held. In addition to these formal Committees, steps have been taken, by means of interviews at the Board of Trade, and by the employment of skilled investigators, who have visited manufacturers in various districts of the United Kingdom, to prepare schedules for the great majority of the industries of the country, in order that they may meet, as far as possible, the special conditions of each particular industry.

Midland Railway Dining-Car Attendants.
*MR. WARDLE: I beg to ask the President of the Board of
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Trade whether he is aware that the dining-car attendants in the service of the Midland Railway Company are occasionally called upon to perform Sunday duty after having been on active service for seventy-five to eighty hours during the week, which, with the Sunday duty referred to, increases their hours of labour to about ninety per week; and whether, in view of the nature of such service, he will make representations to the Midland Railway Company with the object of reducing the number of hours service of dining-car attendants where they are at present excessive.
MR. CHURCHILL: Dining-car attendants do not appear to come within the scope of the Railway Regulation Act, 1893, but I will obtain the observations of the railway company on my hon. friend's Question and communicate with him in due course.

Railway Superannuation Fund Inquiry.
MR. PIKE PEASE: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether it would be possible for His Majesty's Government to place some representative of officers and clerks of the railway clearing-houses on the Committee inquiring into railway superannuation funds, in view of the feeling which exists on this subject.
MR. CHURCHILL: I understand that communications on this subject have already passed between the hon. Member and my hon. friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade. I have made arrangements for a gentleman to be added to the Committee, who will especially represent the interests of railway clerks.

Engine Drivers and Colour Blindness.
*CAPTAIN FABER: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he will call the attention of the railway companies to the invention now being used on American engines to avoid colour blindness, namely, the fitting of a disc of purple glass into the fire-box door of railway engines.
MR. CHURCHILL: I am advised that this device is of doubtful utility

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as among other reasons the fire-box door must be open when a man is firing.

Engine Drivers' Risk.
*CAPTAIN FABER: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he will consider the desirability of calling the attention of the railway companies to the American device on railway engines, by which the drivers can pass through a door in the weather board when they go forward to oil their engines when running, and thence into a frame which is railed in as well, whereas the English driver has no choice but to clamber round the outside of the cab when the engine is running.
MR. CHURCHILL: I am advised that such an arrangement is not only impossible in this country (owing to the smaller size of the locomotives and the space between the tracks), but also to a large extent unnecessary, as the more important parts of the mechanism can be lubricated from the footplate. Enginemen should not leave the footplate while the engine is running except in cases of emergency.

Hop Cultivation Abroad.
MR. COURTHOPE: I beg to ask the hon. Member for South Somerset, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, what Consular or other Reports, dealing with the cultivation and sale of hops on the Pacific coast of America, have recently been received by the Board of Agriculture; and whether they will be laid upon the Table of the House.
MR. CHURCHILL: Four Reports have been received; two from San Francisco and two from Portland (Oregon). I shall have no objection to laying them upon the Table if the hon. Member will move for them.

Vaccination Officers' Fees.
MR. COURTHOPE: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether any steps have been, or will be, taken to compensate vaccination officers for their loss of fees, owing to the increasing number of conscientious objections and the decreasing number of vaccinations.
THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. JOHN BURNS,): In a few instances representations have been made to the Local Government Board by vaccination officers to the effect that the circumstances referred to in the Question have seriously affected their income. I do not think that sufficient time has elapsed since the Act of last year came into operation to enable a definite opinion to be formed as to its effect on the work and remunerasion of vaccination officers.
MR. COURTHOPE: If the right hon. Gentleman finds these officials do suffer in this way, will he take their case into consideration?
MR. JOHN BURNS: I cannot commit myself beforehand.
MR. LUPTON: Is it not the fact that the work of these officers in reporting exemptions is greater than that of reporting vaccinations?
[No Answer was returned.]

Local Indebtedness.
*MR. REES: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether, in view of the increase in the debt of local authorities in the United Kingdom, any action is contemplated in the direction of limiting their borrowing powers; and to say that the adjective "alarming" which was originally inserted before the substantive "increase" has been struck out at the Table.
MR. JOHN BURNS: I am rather glad that it has been. I am afraid that, so long as Parliament continues to impose additional duties on local authorities which involve capital expenditure, it would not be practicable to take action with a view of limiting their borrowing powers.
*MR. REESasked the right hon. Gentleman if he could say anything to allay the alarm existing on the subject.
MR. JOHN BURNSreplied that if alarm existed he could only call attention to the case of London. London had

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a gross debt of £105,000,000, of which £51,000,000 were revenue-producing.
*MR. LEVERTON HARRIS: Does revenue-producing debt produce any revenue?
MR. JOHN BURNS: In the matter of electric lighting no one knows better than the hon. Member that there is a substantial surplus, and in water, housing, tramways, and many other undertakings there is a considerable surplus.
*MR. LEVERTON HARRIS: Steam boats?
MR. JOHN BURNS: Yes, even the steamboats might pay if they were properly managed.

Out-Relief.
MR. GEORGE ROBERTS: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board, whether, in the case of an applicant for outdoor relief presenting a medical certificate attesting to his unfitness to work, boards of guardians may refuse relief unless the applicant secures a further certificate from a Poor Law medical officer.
MR. JOHN BURNS: I am not aware of the circumstances of the particular case which have given rise to this Question, but I may say generally that, if a board of guardians had to determine whether an applicant for outdoor relief was fit to be set to work or not, it would be competent for them to require that a medical certificate on the subject should be obtained from their own medical officer.

Education (Provision of Meals) Act.
MR. GEORGE ROBERTS: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Education whether instructions have been issued to local education authorities restricting the application of the Education (Provision of Meals) Act, 1906, by insisting that the Board's sanction be secured for monthly periods; and whether he will consider the advisability of allowing education authorities to administer the Act according to the needs of the children instead of by seasonal considerations or time periods.
THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Mr. RUNCIMAN,): The sanctions, to which my hon. friend refers, were expressly stated to be of a temporary character to allow of the consideration by the Board of certain general questions arising at the commencement of the second year's working of the Act. These questions have now been determined, and I propose in future, as a general rule, where the conditions imposed by the Act are satisfied, to issue Orders, the operation of which will extend to the end of each financial year.

Imports of Fodder.
MR. JOHN WARD: I beg to ask the hon. Member for South Somerset, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, whether he has received any protests from trading firms in Stoke-on-Trent against the Foreign Hay and Straw Order, 1908; whether such protests contain statements that the prohibition of the importation of hay and straw used for the purposes of packing china and earthenware is crippling the trade of the district, that there is not sufficient of this class of straw grown in the district to supply one-tenth of the demand; and whether, under these circumstances, he will consider the advisability of revoking the Order at the earliest possible date.
THE TREASURER OF THE HOUSEHOLD (Sir EDWARD STRACHEY,): We have received representations on this subject from a firm of hay and straw merchants in Stoke-on-Trent, but it does not appear at present that any general difficulty exists in meeting the requirements of the trade in china and earthenware. As my hon. friend will remember, the outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease which recently occurred in Edinburgh had their origin in hay brought from abroad, and the Order in question was issued to prevent any possibility of any similar occurrences in the future, and there is no intention at present of revoking it.

Small Holdings and Allotments.
MR. COURTHOPE: I beg to ask the hon. Member for South Somerset, as representing the President of the Board

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of Agriculture, how many small holdings have been created under the Small Holdings and Allotments Act, 1907, and how many acres they contain.
I beg also to ask the hon. Member for South Somerset, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, how many allotments have been created under the Small Holdings and Allotments Act, 1907, and how many of these exceed One acre in extent.
SIR EDWARD STRACHEY: We cannot as yet give particulars as to the number of small holdings or allotments created under the Small Holdings and Allotments Act, 1907, but full information on the subject will be published in the Board's annual Report on their proceedings under the Act. I may add that up to the present time over 245,000 acres have been applied for by 15,570 applicants.

Experimental Small Holdings.
MR. COURTHOPE: I beg to ask the hon. Member for South Somerset, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, what steps have been taken to establish experimental small holdings and how the sum provided by the Act of 1907 for that purpose has been expended.
SIR EDWARD STRACHEY: In view of the activity of county councils, the Board have not considered it necessary as yet to take any steps to establish experimental small holdings, and it has not, therefore, been necessary to draw on the Small Holdings Account for this purpose.

Crown Lands in Wales.
MR. ELLIS DAVIES: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, in view of the unanimous recommendation of the Welsh Commission, presided over by Lord Carrington, that a Commission should be appointed to survey Crown lands and rights in Wales and to make a proper extent of all rents, dues, etc., payable from such land, whether any, and, if so, what steps have been taken to carry out the recommendation.
THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. HOBHOUSE,): The recommendation seems to have been founded on a misapprehension as to the sources of information already available, and was accordingly not adopted by the Government of the day. Surveys are in existence, which are periodically brought up-to-date, of practically the whole of the Crown property in Wales, and all rents and dues are properly rentalled. Since the date of the Commission considerable progress has been made in ascertaining the Crown's rights in the comparatively few cases where doubt existed, and under the present system of management no difficulty that the Department is unable with the means at its disposal to deal with, arises in connection with the oversight and protection of the Crown's rights. In the Report of the Welsh Land Commission there is a statement that "188,828 acres of land had been allotted to the Crown in severalty under Inclosure Acts and Awards, and were afterwards sold by the Crown," and that "if no sale had taken place the Crown would have at this moment in Wales an estate in severalty freed from Common rights of nearly 200,000 acres." It seems desirable to point out that the above statement is a mistake. If reference is made to the paper printed in the Appendix to the Report it will he seen that 189,828 acres represent the whole area of land allotted and divided amongst various owners under Inclosure Acts, and not the land allotted to the Crown in severalty, which only comprised a very small portion of this large acreage. The mineral rights under the whole area were reserved to the Crown and are now held and exercised.

The New Forest Fires.
SIR ROBERT HOBART: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he has now received a further Report from His Majesty's Commissioner of Woods and Forests respecting the extensive burnings of gorse and heather recently carried out by the Crown authorities in the New Forest; whether he is aware that these wholesale burnings have absolutely destroyed the beauty of the forest

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along many miles of roads, which will not be recovered for several years; whether there are numerous complaints and protests from the commoners and other inhabitants of the New Forest against this wanton destruction of their amenities as detrimental to their property and interests; and whether he will forthwith grant a special and independent local inquiry into the matter as the only fair means of investigating and allaying the feeling of indignation that exists.
MR. HOBHOUSE: I propose to make a personal visit to the locality.

The Sugar Duty.
MR. CHARLES ROBERTS: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury if he will state the average number of hundredweights of sugar and its equivalents used in brewing for the last three years for which the figures exist; and the annual sum which on this average the brewing trade stands to gain by the reduction of the sugar duty proposed in the Budget.
SIR GILBERT PARKER: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman can also tell us what gain will be likely to go to the manufacturers of marmlade in Dundee.
MR. HOBHOUSE: The House will hardly expect me to take the last question seriously. [Cries of "Why not?"] The average quantity of sugar annually used in brewing for the last three years is 2,827,568 cwts. The varieties of sugar thus used are so numerous and so diverse in nature and in quality that it is not possible to give an estimate of the duty paid thereon or the prospective gain to the brewers from the reduction in the duty.
MR. MITCHELL-THOMSON: Is it not a fact that a much larger proportionate quantity of sugar is used in the manufacture of ginger beer and lemonade?
MR. HOBHOUSEwas understood to say that he was not versed in the manufacture of these articles.
MR. LUPTON: Is it not a fact that by the reduction of the sugar duty the
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brewers will gain a quarter of a million a year?
MR. HOBHOUSEIt has been so stated.
MR. J. MACVEAGH: Then our beer will be cheaper.

Death Dividing Clubs.
MR. J. MACVEAGH: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to the fact that in licensed premises in many manufacturing towns women's and children's death dividing clubs are held; whether they are registered or controlled in any way; whether the members can enforce their claims at law; and whether the Board of Trade will cause inquiry to be made into the matter.
MR. HOBHOUSE: The Answer to the first part of the Question is in the affirmative. With regard to the second part of the Question, it is impossible to say whether any such dividing societies are registered without knowing their name, but an inspection of the rules would at once show in each case whether a certificate of registry is attached. Every registered society or club must have a certificate of the Registrar of Friendly Societies attached to its rules. If the society be registered, the members can enforce their claims according to its rules; if it is not registered, their remedy is under the common law. I do not think the existence of these societies calls for an inquiry, at any rate at present.
MR. J. MACVEAGH: If these death dividing clubs are not registered and members have no redress at law, cannot something be done to prevent the existence of such clubs?
MR. HOBHOUSE: They only come under the control of the Registrar of Friendly Societies if they are registered. If they are not registered, the only remedy is under the common law.

Military Pensioners and Income-Tax.
MR. COURTHOPE: I beg to ask the Paymaster-General at what date during 1907 the forms of claim for reduction of

1343
income-tax on earned incomes were issued to military pensioners; and what steps have been taken to remedy the injustice imposed on those who received the form too late to make their claims before the specified date.
THE PAYMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. CAUSTON,): Forms for declaration of income were posted to military officers on retired pay or pension between the 15th August and the 19th September, 1907, and in no case was the form issued too late to enable a claim to be made for assessment at the lower rate of income-tax before the last day of September. If the particulars of any case of alleged hardship be furnished to me, I shall be very pleased to cause an investigation to be made.

Ruchill Hospital, Glasgow.
MR. WATT: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland whether a Local Government Board inquiry into the management of Ruchill Hospital, Glasgow, was held in February of this year; if so, what was the result of that inquiry and what were the recommendations of the Commission; have these recommendations been carried out; and, if not, will he explain to the House what has prevented the finding of the Commission being carried into action.
THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (Mr. SINCLAIR,): In February Commissioners appointed by the Local Government Board held a public inquiry into the complaints of overcrowding and understaffing of the Ruchill Fever Hospital, Glasgow, and on its administration and management. The result of the inquiry was that the allegations as to overcrowding and under-staffing were shown to be well founded. No recommendations were made by the Commissioners. The Report has been considered by the local authority and steps are now being taken with a view to remedying the defects revealed by the inquiry.

Scottish Universities—Medical Classes.
MR. WATT: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland when he expects to be in a position to make the appointments to the chairs in the medical faculties in
1344
Glasgow and Edinburgh Universities; whether he is aware that the professors to be appointed will have the duties to perform of examiners for pass certificates, and that the students will suffer disadvantage from the fact that the offices of lecturers and examiners will this session be dissociated; and whether in these circumstances he will see that no further delay occurs.
MR. SINCLAIR: I hope shortly. The point mentioned by my hon. friend shall not be lost sight of; and no avoidable delay shall occur.

Registration of Tithe (Scotland) Commission.
MR. C. E. PRICE: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland when the Royal Commission on Registration of Title in Scotland was appointed; how many meetings have been held; and when it is expected the inquiries will be finished and a Report presented to Parliament.
MR. SINCLAIR: The Royal Commission on Registration of Title in Scotland was appointed on 23rd May, 1906. Eight meetings have been held. I appreciate my hon. friend's anxieties on this question, but I am advised it is impossible at present to forecast the duration of the Commission, or to say when the Report will be ready for presentation to Parliament.

Scottish Police Grant.
MR. WILLIAMSON: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland if he has received a memorial from the County Council of Morayshire, and other bodies, asking that the Government grant for police pay and clothing should he increased so as to amount to one-half of the actual cost, as in England; and, if so, whether he will take the matter into favourable consideration.
MR. SINCLAIR: I have received the memorials referred to by my hon. friend on the general question, and as explanatory of the differences in method adopted in England and Scotland in this matter I may refer to my Answer to the hon. Member for St. Andrews Burghs on 18th

1345
February, 1907. I appreciate the importance of the question and it shall continue to receive my serious consideration.
*MR. GULLAND: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that his scheme for pooling the grants under his Education Bill will be seriously endangered if this grievance is not remedied?
MR. SINCLAIR: I do not see how that arises.

Irish Agricultural Department (Veterinary Branch).
MR. DELANY: I beg to ask the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture (Ireland) whether there are gentlemen in the Department's Veterinary Branch who have fourteen years continuous service, and who are doing higher class duty, but who are being denied the right of entrance into the second division because of the opposition of certain higher officials; and whether such opposition will be allowed to persist.
THE VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE FOR IRELAND (Mr. T. W. RUSSELL,): There is no foundation for the allegation in this Question.
MR. DELANY: How is it the hon. Gentleman allows the chief clerks to get the blind side of him?
MR. T. W. RUSSELL: At the hon. Gentleman's own request I personally investigated this matter, and the answer I have given exactly expresses my own views.
MR. DELANY: Oh, I knew these gentlemen before the hon. Gentleman did.

Irish Sea Fisheries Development.
MR. MCHUGH: I beg to ask the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture (Ireland) how much money was spent by his Department on the development of sea fisheries in Ireland from 1899 to 1906; and is he aware that, while the value of the fish returned as
1346
landed on the Irish coasts in 1899 was £460,368, the value of the fish landed in 1906 was only £373,491.
MR. T. W. RUSSELL: The sum of £10,000 per annum is specially provided for and is expended on the purposes of sea fisheries. About £4,000 of this is required for marine police work. The cost and upkeep of the dredger is also charged to this fund, as are also expenses in connection with the construction of piers. The Department also have at their disposal the Sea and Coast Fisheries Fund out of which loans are made to fishermen. Over £20,000 was issued in this way by the Department since 1899. The spring mackerel fishing has fallen off in the quantity and quality of the fish in the period referred to in the Question, and the bad weather of 1906 had much to do with the shortage of that year.
MR. MCHUGH: I beg to ask the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture (Ireland) whether he is aware that the value of the fish landed on the coast of Ireland in 1906 was £373,491, while the corresponding figures for England and Scotland, respectively, were £7,965,369 and £3,049,915; and can he explain why it is that those engaged in the sea-fishing industry in Scotland earn ten times as much as those engaged in the same industry in Ireland.
MR. T. W. RUSSELL: The fisheries of Ireland are carried on in home waters, while the steam-fishing vessels (owned by large public companies) from which the great supply for the English markets is derived, fish from Iceland to the coast of Morocco, including the seas around Ireland, and deliver the gatherings from this huge area into the ports of Great Britain. There would be no object in landing any of this fish in Irish ports, as all of it, as well as much of that caught by Irish fishermen, must eventually go to the English markets. The herring-fishing areas of Scotland and England are of much greater extent than any off the Irish coast.
MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: Is it not the fact that the smallness of the figures relating to the Irish fisheries as compared with

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England and Scotland is largely due to the want of facilities for the fishing industry on the Irish coast? Are the Department going to do anything in that matter, especially in the County Clare?
MR. T. W. RUSSELL: I agree, but the Department cannot do it without money.
MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: Has not the hon. Gentleman power to help in the building of harbours where local contributions are forthcoming? Is a Bill necessary for that purpose?
MR. T. W. RUSSELL: Yes, legislation is necessary.
MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: And it has been long promised. When will a Bill be brought in to enable the county councils of Ireland to join the Agricultural Department in carrying out this important work?
MR. T. W. RUSSELL: There is a Question on the Paper as to that.

Sligo Fisheries.
MR. MCHUGH: I beg to ask the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture (Ireland) whether he is aware that nothing has been done for many years by his or any other Department of the Irish Government to assist in the development of the sea-fishing industry on the seaboard of County Sligo; whether he is aware that a fishing pier was started at Ballyconnell last year and that the work when half completed was stopped; and what does his Department propose to do in regard to this matter.
MR. T. W. RUSSELL: The Department have issued £145 by way of loan to the Sligo fishermen since 1899. The greater part of the Sligo seaboard is scheduled as congested. The Congested Districts Board inform me that they have expended upwards of £840 upon landing places within the scheduled area, in which, according to the last census there were only 167 fishermen, the sea fisheries being of small value. The Board have also issued loans amounting to £788 to assist fishermen in the same area. The Board did not commence the pier at
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Ballyconnell, but they expended £141 in clearing stones from the landing place.

Irish Land Purchase Delays.
MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the delay in land purchase in Ireland is largely caused by the inquiries into title; and it he can say how many examiners there are and whether steps will be taken to avoid delay in this matter by hastening the procedure.
THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. BIRRELL): I have been, and am still, making searching inquiries into the cause of the delay in land purchase in Ireland, and I have ascertained that no delay whatever is occasioned by inquiries into title prior to the advance of the purchase money. After the advance is made or sanctioned, the rights of the various claimants to the purchase money are inquired into by the examiners, of whom there are fourteen, with a view to the distribution of the money. These inquiries necessarily occupy a considerable time, but I do not think that any real delay is due to an insufficient number of examiners. It may be that the entire work in connection with land purchase requires reconsideration. I rather think that at present the chief delay may arise in the investigations and inspections which take place before cases reach the stage at which advances can be sanctioned.

Rent Reductions in Queen's County.
MR. DELANY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he has received a copy of a resolution passed by the Rosenallis, Queen's County, branch of the United Irish League, calling attention to the inadequacy of the reductions given in the Land Sub-Commission Court in Queen's County by Messrs. Tuckey and Hawkins; can he say whether he has already received complaints with regard to the action of those two officials; and what steps he proposes taking with regard to them.
MR. BIRRELL: The Land Law Acts provide that if either party to a case is

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dissatisfied with an order of the Sub-Commission fixing a fair rent he can apply to have the ease reheard by the Appeal Court in the manner prescribed by statute. The decisions of Sub-Commission Courts are judicial decisions with which the Government have no power to interfere.

De Vesci Estate—Evicted Tenants.
MR. DELANY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state upon what grounds the Estates Commissioners decline to take action in the case of Mr. Samuel Maxwell, Attanna, Abbeyleix, Queen's County, whose wife claims reinstatement as the representative of her brother, who was evicted from a holding on the De Vesci estate, Abbeyleix, Queen's County, within the statutory limit set down under the Land Purchase Act of 1903.
MR. BIRRELL: Mr. Maxwell, who is a postmaster, applied for the evicted farm as being the husband of a sister of the deceased evicted tenant. The holding has for many years been in the occupation of another tenant; and the Commissioners, having fully considered the circumstances of the applicant and the character of his claim, have decided that the case is not one in which they should take any action.

Irish Audit Fees.
MR. HAZLETON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland on what basis are the fees for auditing the accounts of local bodies fixed by the Local Government Board for Ireland.
MR. BIRRELL: In determining the audit fees in each case, the Local Government Board take into consideration the nature and extent of the work done, the time occupied, and such other circumstances as may assist them to arrive at a decision.

Irish Local Government Auditors.
MR. HAZLETON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether it is intended to appoint an additional auditor this year under the Local Government Board for
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Ireland, and, if so, for what reason; what will be the duties of the person appointed; what will be the qualifications required; will they include a condition that the person appointed shall be a member or an associate of the Chartered Accountants' Society of Ireland; and, if not, will he explain why this condition is not imposed.
MR. BIRRELL: No decision to appoint an additional auditor has been arrived at.
MR. HAZLETON: Is not provision made in the Estimates for the appointment of an additional auditor?
*MR. BIRRELL: I will inquire. It may be that power to appoint one has been taken, but no decision has been arrived at as to the necessity of doing so.

Maybery Estate Evicted Tenants.
MR. BOLAND: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is now in a position to state what arrangements have been made for the reinstatement of evicted tenants on the Maybery estate, near Kenmare, County Kerry.
MR. BIRRELL: The Estates Commissioners have received eight applications for reinstatement on this estate. In five cases the Commissioners have made offers to purchase, but have not yet received replies from the owner. In one case, in which the holding is occupied by a tenant, the Commissioners will provide the applicant with a holding elsewhere if one can be found for him. In the two remaining cases the Commissioners have decided to take no action.

Irish Secondary Schools.
MR. BOLAND: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Intermediate Education Board are now prepared to furnish members of the Joint Committee of the heads of Irish secondary schools with copies of their proposed new rules as soon as those new rules are laid upon the Table of this House; and whether facilities will be given for the discussion of these rules in Parliament.
Mr. BIRRELL: I would refer the hon. Member to the Answer to his Question of 29th April which my hon. friend the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture gave on my behalf. For the reasons then stated the Board of Intermediate Education do not propose to promulgate copies of their rules until they have lain before Parliament for the statutory period. When the rules are laid before Parliament full opportunity will doubtless arise for discussing them. That, indeed, would appear to be the object of the provision that the rules are not to become operative until they have lain on the Table for forty days without being disallowed.
Mr. BOLAND:When will the new rules be laid
Mr. BIRRELL: I cannot say.

Afforestry in Ireland.
Mr. SHEEHAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he has received a copy of the resolution of the Cork County Council urging upon the Government the necessity of immediately providing the annual grant of £44,525 estimated to be required for the first ten years to establish a State Department of Forestry; and will he state whether it is the intention of the Government to establish such a department on the lines recommended by the Departmental Committee on Forestry.
Mr. T. W. RUSSEL: My right hon. friend has asked me to reply to this Question, and I can only repeat the Answer which I gave recently to a similar Question. The Report of the Departmental Committee is under consideration, but there has not yet been time to arrive at a decision upon the recommendations of the Committee. The importance of dealing with the matter is fully recognised, and the Government will come to a decision upon it as soon as may be possible, having regard to the financial and other considerations involved.

Carlisle Pier Dispute.
Mr. JOHN REDMOND:I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he will now lay upon the Table of the House any correspondence that
1352
has passed between the Board of Works, as representing the Treasury, and the London and North "Western Railway Company on the question of the dues to be paid by tho latter for the use of the Carlisle Pier, Kingstown Harbour
Mr. HOBHOUSE: I am afraid I have not the Answer here. The Question was down yesterday but the hon. Member was unable to be present.
Mr. JOHN REDMOND: This is a different Question from the one on the Paper yesterday which I intended to withdraw. I will repeat this one.
Mr. HOBHOUSE: If the hon. Member will speak to me later perhaps I shall be able to understand exactly what he wants.

Carlisle Pier Dispute.

  Down Survey Maps.
  MR. HAYDEN: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury will the reproductions of the Down Survey barony maps which have recently been prepared by the Irish Ordnance Survey Office be exact copies of Sir William Petty's maps made for the Commonwealth in 1654–1656, and at present in the Record Office, Dublin; can he state when the maps will be issued; and will they be distributed as Parliamentary Papers.
  Sir EDWARD STRACHEY: Perhaps my hon. friend will allow me to reply to his Question. The maps to which he refers have been published and can now be obtained from the Ordnance Survey agents in Ireland. They were prepared photographically from Sir William Petty's originals, which are now in the National Library at Paris, and they portray in black and white only the colours of the originals. It is not proposed to issue them as Parliamentary Papers.

  Re-election of Ministers on Appointment to Office
  Mr. EVELYN CECIL: I beg to ask the Prime Minister whether he is prepared to propose legislation to avoid the necessity of any of His Majesty's Ministers seeking re-election on appointment to office.
  Mr. ASQUITH: I can only repeat the Answer which I gave to my

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  hon. friend the Member for Rotherham the other day—namely, that in my opinion the necessity for seeking reelection is out of date, and not in accordance with public interest or convenience, but that its removal would require legislation for which in the pressure of more urgent matter, there is not at present room.
  MR. R. DUNCAN: Is it not sometimes value to have the public verdict as to the fitness of a Minister for his office?
  MR. ASQUIH: That is a matter of opinion.

  Old age Pensions Bill.
  MR. FELL: I beg to ask the Prime Minister if the Bill to provide for old-age pensions will he brought in before the conclusion of the discussion of the Budget.
  MR. ASQUITH; Yes, Sir.

  Business Committee.
  MR. PIRIE: I beg to ask the Prime Minister whether, in view of the expressed intention of the Government to set up a Business Committee as the complement to their scheme of revision of the Rules of Procedure, he can now take steps to give effect to that intention, so that the time for the various measures now before the House may be apportioned by that Committee?
  SIR F. CHANNING: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider some more elastic procedure than the decision of a Business Committee?
  MR. ASQUITH: The matter is under consideration. Such a Committee could only be set up by something approaching general consent, and I regret to find that much difference of opinion prevails as to both its constitution and its functions.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINasked the Prime Minister what the course of business would be next week and when the Committee stage of the Licensing Bill would be taken.
  MR. ASQUITH: I cannot say at present when the Committee stage of the Licensing Bill will be taken. With regard to next week's business, on Monday I shall move in Committee of the Whole House the Resolution standing in my standing in my name referring to the proposed monument to Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman. We shall then take the Second Reading of the Elementary (England and Wales) Bill; and that debate will be continued, and, I hope, concluded, on Tuesday. On Wednesday we shall proceed in Committee of Ways and Means with Budget Resolutions relating to England, and on Thursday there will be Irish Supply.
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: The right hon. Gentleman does not mean to confine the general discussion on the Budget to half a day?
  MR. ASQUITH: Oh, no; but we might make substantial progress with it.
  MR. JOHN REDMONDasked the Prime Minister if it was intended to proceed with the proposal enabling Finance Committees necessitated by certain Bills to be taken after 11 p.m.
  MR. ASQUITH: I hope it will meet with general consent. It may be necessary to move it on Wednesday before we proceed with the Budget Resolutions.

  REGISTRATION OF CLUBS (IRELAND) BILL.
  Reported, with Amendments, from Standing Joint Committee A. Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. (No. 143.) Minutes of the proceedings of the Standing Joint Committee to be printed. (No. 143.) Bill, as amended (in the Standing Committee), to be taken into consideration upon Monday, 1st June, and to be printed. (Bill 229.)
  NEW MEMBER SWORN.
  Robert Vernon Harcourt, esquire, for the Montrose District of Burghs.

  SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEES).
  Sir WILLIAM BRAMPTON GURDONreported from the Committee of Selection;

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  That they had discharged the following Members from Standing Committee A (in respect of the Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) Act (1887) Repeal Bill): Mr. Secretary Gladstone, Mr. Attorney-General, and Mr. Herbert Samuel; and had appointed in substitution (in respect of the Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) Act (1887) Repeal Bill): Mr. Birrell, Mr. Attorney-General for Ireland, and Mr. Solicitor General for Ireland.
  Sir WILLIAM BRAMPTON GURDONfurther reported from the Committee; That they had added to Standing Committee A the following Fifteen Members (in respect of the Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) Act (1887) Repeal Bill): Mr. Lonsdale, Mr. Moore, Mr. Hugh Barrie, Mr. MacCaw, Mr. HavilandBurke, Captain Donelan, Mr. William O'Brien, Mr. Hayden, Mr. Harrington, Mr. John O'Connor, Mr. Hazleton, Mr. Ryles, Mr. Glendinning,. Mr. Horniman, and Mr. Weir.
  Sir WILLIAM BRAMPTON GURDONfurther reported from the Committee; That they had discharged the following Members from Standing Committee C (in respect of the Irish Universities Bill): Mr. Cheetham, Viscount Morpeth, Mr. Thornton, Mr. Walker, Mr. Soames, Mr. Ainsworth, Mr. Young, Mr. Kcarley, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Sir Edward Strachey; and had appointed in substitution (in respect of the Irish Universities Bill): Mr. Hazel, Mr. Charles Craig, Mr. Hugh Barrie, Mr. Secretary Haldane, Mr. Illingworth, Mr. Massie, Mr. Boland, Mr. Birrell, Mr. Attorney-General for 1reland, and Mr. Solicitor-General for Ireland.
  Sir WILLIAM BRAMPTON GURDONfurther reported from the Committee: That they had added to Standing Committee C the following Fifteen Members (in respect of the Irish Universities Bill): Lord Edmund Talbot, Mr. Butcher, Sir John Randles, Mr. Campbell, Captain Craig, Mr. Moore, Mr. Thomas O'Donnell, Mr. Dillon, Mr. Sheehan, Mr. William O'Brien, Mi. John Redmond, Mr. Devlin, Mr. Kettle, Mr. Hutton, and Mr. Walsh.
  Reports to lie upon the Table.

  NEW BILLS.
    ASSOCIATION OF PORT SANITARY AUTHORITIES (EXPENSES) BILL.
    "To remove doubts as to the legality of certain payments by Port Sanitary Authorities," presented by Mr. Ferens; supported by Mr. Howell Davies, Mr. Stuart, Mr. Guy Wilson, Mr. Luke White, and Mr. Stanley Wilson; to be read a second time upon Wednesday next, and to be printed. [Bill 230.]

  SUPPLY [6TH ALLOTTED DAY].
  Considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)

  CIVIL SERVICE AND REVENUE DE PARTMENTS ESTIMATES, AND SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATE, 1908–9.

    CLASS II.
    1. £5 (Supplementary), Stationery and Printing.
    THE FINANCIAL SECRETRAY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. HOBHOUSE,): This Supplementary Vote has been put down for the purpose of enabling the Committee to come to some decision upon the Report of a Committee which, under the chairmanship of the hon. Member for the Stroud Division of Gloucester, reported last year to the House. The precedent which may be taken in support of the Motion this afternoon will be found in a Vote which was put down in 1900 to enable the House to discuss the subject of hospitals in South Africa, and the precedent then set we shall follow this afternoon. The reporting of the debates in the House of Commons has formed the subject of inquiry by various Select Committees and Joint Committees of Lords and Commons for a great number of years past. In 1878 a Select Committee decided against any official reporting of the debates in this House. In 1888 a Joint Committee reported that the debates were reported inadequately and at great cost, and recommended that the form and time of publication of reports should be carried out in accordance with the wishes of Parliament from time to time expressed. In 1892 a Select Committee of this House recommended

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    that there should be what is technically known as a "full" report of all speeches alike, to be delivered at 4 p.m. on the afternoon of the day following that upon which the debate took place, and that proofs of the speeches as recorded should not be sent to Members for correction. To come down to the last inquiry held on this subject, last year, if I may sum up very briefly the Report of the Committee, it was to the effect that the House of Commons should hare a reporting staff of its own, under the control of a Sessional Committee, who should be in consultation with the Speaker and the authorities of the House, and should work in conjunction with the Stationery Office. They also recommended that a full report of all speeches should be given and should be delivered to Members on the following morning, and that with this report should be incorporated the Votes and Proceedings of the House. As regards printing, the Committee recommended that there should be either a Government printing office, or, failing that, a contract system under the management of the Stationery Office. As matters stand at present, the arrangements are more or less briefly these. The present contractors have had the contract for reporting debates in this House for something like nine and a half years, but it has been found necessary to modify the contract from time to time, and last year the contract was modified, as I shall show in a moment, to a very considerable extent. The contract established five years ago ran out in June, 1907. It was provisionally extended until June of this year, and from that time, from June, 1908, it is liable to be terminated by six months' notice on either side. Reports of occupants of either Front Bench, Ministers or ex-Ministers, are as a rule in full, using the word "full" in a technical sense. The speeches of private Members of the House are reported at not less than one-third of the total substance of what they say, but very often, of course, as hon. Members are aware, at much greater length than that. Perhaps I might just express to the House what is the meaning of the word "full," used in its technical sense. It means a verbatim report, trimmed of all those excrescences and redundancies with which Members are perhaps in the habit of filling up the matter of their speeches. In fact, a "full" report puts
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    into something like literary shape the efforts with which we endeavour to express our thoughts. What is called the full report of Ministers and ex-Ministers, coupled with the obligatory one-third report of private Members, was fully sufficient so long as the newspapers and journals were in the habit of reporting the debates in the House at considerable length. What was interesting to one provincial or local paper was uninteresting to another, but Members representing the neighbourhood in which that journal or newspaper circulated were naturally reported at considerable length in it, and there was an opportunity and the means of all Members of the House practically getting a full report. But times have changed a great deal in that respect. There has come into existence what is called the "sketch" report, which has taken the place of the full report that used to occupy a very prominent place in all the morning papers, and that has forced upon this House, if I may venture to say so, a change which will be more in consonance with the methods of reporting adopted, not by the official reporters of this House, but by the majority of the papers represented in the Press Gallery upstairs. A change is desired also from another point of view. There can be no doubt whatever in the mind of anybody who reads the evidence before the Committee that the reporting of the debates of this House has been conducted under conditions which entailed the greatest hardships on the persons who do the work. The hours are excessive, the conditions under which the work is done oppressive, and it is only a matter of common justice to gentlemen who do their work under great difficulties that we should bring our methods of reporting up to date. There are other aspects of this case which are not altogether satisfactory. Anybody who has troubled to read the official report of the Prime Minister's Budget speech and compared it with that of The Times will have noticed an identity of omissions and commissions which cannot be explained as being altogether accidental. It leads one to suppose, and indeed I think it is admitted by the official reporters, that much use has been made of The Times reports for the official reports. That cannot be a satisfactory method to Members of this

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    House. The Government have decided to recommend to the House the following proposals, but they do so on the clear understanding that, while the House shall be quite free to accept or reject them, if they reject them, which I hope will not be the case, because we think the proposals are reasonable, then we must continue the present arrangement which I must describe as unsatisfactory. The proposals the Government make to the House are these: that there shall be a staff of reporters, ten in number, who shall be servants of the House, and engaged at an ample remuneration. Then to control that staff of reporters there shall be a chief of staff. A full report of all speeches both of Members, experts, and private Members alike, shall be delivered to Members at 4 o'clock in the afternoon following the day on which the debate takes place, but the power of correction of their speeehes which Members now enjoy will be limited to some extent. The printing will continue to be done as at present by contractors under contracts made by the Stationery Office, and the full reports will be delivered at or about 4 o'clock. That report is to be confined to the debates in the House itself—
    MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Does that exclude Committees?
    MR. HOBHOUSE: It includes Committees in this Chamber but not Committees upstairs. In order to carry out this arrangement satisfactorily, Mr. Speaker, aided by the authorities of the House and working through the special Sessional Committee to which I made reference a short time, ago, will take charge of the arrangements and work them in connection with the Stationery Office. The cost of such an arrangement will be as nearly as can be estimated about £11,000 or £12,000. That is about the cost of the present arrangement.
    MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: About the same, but for a full report.
    MR. HOBHOUSE: For a full report the cost will be no more than the cost under the old arrangement for the present report. At the present moment Mr. Speaker, as is well known, controls the Press Gallery upstairs and the printing
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    of the Journals and the Votes and Proceedings of this House. It is therefore very proper, and following the traditional practice, that we should extend that control under these arrangements to the debates of this House. With regard to the Sessional Committee of which I have made mention, it will be an extension of the Select Committee on Official Publications, which sat, I think, in 1906. The Sessional Committee will have very important duties to perform. It will have to bear the brunt of the limitation of that power of correction to which I referred a moment or two ago. There is very strong evidence in the Report that there is a very great cost attached to these corrections by Members of the reports of their speeches. It extends to as much as 33 per cent. of the cost of composition, and it has on one occasion, I believe, gone up to 75 per cent. That is clearly a very undesirable practice, and the power of correction ought to be limited in future to matters of substance. Before a Member is allowed to correct he ought to ho able to go to the Sessional Committee and say, "They have put down things or figures which I have not said." There should be power to correct matters of substance only, and this process, of what witnesses before the Committee call stringing together, should not be allowed.
    MR. CHARLES ALLEN: The power of correction should be limited.
    MR. HOBHOUSE: The Stationery Office at the present moment prints the Votes and Proceedings, and, I think, the Journals. It makes a contract, under the supervision of the Treasury, with the present contractors as a suitable medium by which the contract may be carried out in future. On the whole question of printing I propose to say a word later on. With regard to the staff of reporters, it is not only clear that there is great over work under ordinary circumstances, but it amounts to a piece of inhumanity in times of pressure and all-night sittings. I believe there was one all-night sitting of twenty-seven hours mentioned in the minutes of evidence, and the same staff of reporters had to go all through that night relieving each other without outside aid. No Member could justify to himself the employment of men under that great strain. There is some

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    difference of opinion in the evidence given before the Committee as to the number of reporters that it is desirable to employ. The present number is six, with a gentleman called the chief of staff who controls them. There is an equivalent number in the House of Lords, who are brought in to fulfil their duties when required.
    MR. CHARLES ALLEN: Hansard reporters?
    MR. HOBHOUSE: I think so.
    MR. CHARLES ALLEN: No; the hon. Member is mistaken.
    MR. WIILLIAM REDMOND: Including the House of Lords reporters there are ten altogether.
    MR. HOBHOUSE: I am willing to accept the correction of the hon. Member, as I know that he was a Member of the Committee and took an important part in it. There is evidence before the Committee that the number of reporters should be either ten or twelve; but if hon. Members will turn to Question 973, they will see that a Mr. McCallum was asked—
    "And you think that to give us a full report such as you have mentioned, ten reporters could accomplish that properly?—I believe so. Ten for the House of Commons only is the House of Commons I am thinking of."
    Ten reporters would be able to supply the House with a full report of speeches made here by four o'clock in the afternoon following, though twelve reporters have been described as necessary in another part of the evidence. That is only on the supposition that the report has to be delivered by ten o'clock. That, however, is an unnecessarily early hour. Four o'clock is sufficiently early to enable Members to have a report of the speeches they made on the previous day. All will agree I think that that will be sufficient information to make Members thoroughly conversant with what has taken place. Coming to the question of remuneration I suggest, subject to correction, that the remuneration should be not loss than £8 8s. for each reporter.
    AN HON. MEMBER: For the Session?
    MR. HOBHOUSE: Yes; there is evidence before the Committee that, while the present staff have found the hours of work far too laborious, they made no complaint against the salary. That salary is £7 7s. a week. It is also in evidence that it is possible to get the best reporter procurable at a salary of £8 8s. a week. I, therefore, take the salary considered to be adequate for obtaining the best possible reporter, and I suggest that £8 8s. is a proper remuneration, week by week, as the session goes on. That will amount to between £220 and £300 for each reporter according to whether there is or is not an Autumn Sitting. Then I come to the case of the chief of the staff, as he is technically called, a gentleman who at present exists, and has the control of the reporting upstairs, and I suggest that the proper remuneration for him will be found to be £500 or £600. I think the present chief of the staff receives £300, but I am told that that is not an adequate sum for a gentleman occupying that position and that it is not sufficient to enable the contractors to get the full use of his time. Therefore it is suggested that there should be much higher pay. I would add that, as far as possible, the present staff is to be utilised in order to prevent individual hardship. I come to the question of what is known as a "full report," which I have already described, and which is recommended by the Committee. If the House accept the proposals of the Government upon this point they will be acting in accordance with the recommendation of the Committee of 1892, as well as in accordance with the recommendations of the Committee of 1907. I hope, therefore, that there will be no indisposition on the part of Members to accept the proposals of the Government on this head. I have dealt with the question of corrections and the limitation of alterations. Let me say one word on the question of protecting Members from the possibility of accidental misrepresentation. I think it will be found in the evidence of Mr. McCallum before the Committee, that in Scotland, and the case may be similar in England, an official reporter is appointed in the Courts of Justice, who is entrusted with the official report of the proceedings which, speaking with submission, are even more important than

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    the speeches of Members of this House, and the record made by the official reporter is accepted in regard to matters of legal intricacy. Therefore, I think we may be perfectly content to take the view that the official reporter, reporting under the authority of this House, will record the speeches of hon. Members with nothing more than an occasional and accidental misrepresentation of what is actually said. There is one point with regard to the full report which cannot be altogether left out of sight, and that is the addition to the bulk of Hansard, already sufficiently bulky, which might take place. But in view of the enormous amount of matter which is recorded in Hansard, a good deal could easily be taken out. Certain information, so the Committee found out, is recorded no less than seventeen times in the session. A good deal of other information is printed four times—in the Table of Contents, in the Index, in the Journal, and in the Votes and Proceedings of Parliament. Surely it is perfectly unnecessary to have a recapitulation of—I do not know that I am justified in using the word "information"—of facts which I think Members of the House would be perfectly satisfied to have recorded once and no more. The Table of Contents has been reduced under the modification to which I alluded a little time ago. It has already been reduced by one-third, but a much greater reduction can and ought to take place, and in accordance with our proposals will take place. I will deal, in conclusion, with the question of printing, which is being done by contract. There is no direct recommendation by the Committee—I use the word "direct"—on this point. But in Paragraph 13 of the Report it is stated—
    "With regard to the printing of the reports your Committee understand that the Select Committee on Official Publications has reported in favour of the establishment of a Government printing office. Should such an office be established, which your Committee hope may be the case, they consider that the printing of the debates should be amongst the earliest work to be undertaken."
    Therefore, I am justified in saying that there is no direct recommendation, but, on the other hand, there is an indirect representation. But such a scheme, if all the departments of the Government
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    had to be filled up with machinery, or if a central printing office had to be established to deal with all the Government printing work, would cost £200,000 or £250,000, and would entail the upkeep of a large stuff. The evidence on which the Committee founded their statement in Paragraph 13 was that of one gentleman only, the Controller of the Stationery Office. I hope I am not unduly suspicious if in this matter I look with some doubt on the evidence of any gentleman who has charge of a Department of Government. He is only anxious to magnify the importance and value of his office. One is apt to do the same thing oneself, and, in spite of the testimony of a single gentleman, however eminent and however acute, I think his cannot be taken as the last word to be said on so important a subject as this. The Departmental Committee, which was appointed to inquire into the subject, reported against it, and the Select Committee on Official Publications, in 1906, only recommended that a Government printing office should be created for the purpose of printing confidential documents, but they reported directly against the establishment of an office to do all Government printing. Therefore, the Government propose to the Committee that the printing should be continued as at present, under contracts made by the Stationery Office. But I think it is quite clear that some of the conditions under which the printing is done ought to be revised in any contract to be made hereafter by the Stationery Office. The Department can very easily provide for the amelioration of any conditions with regard to the actual printing which it may be considered are required. I have presented what I hope is a clear and satisfactory statement of the case. I think it will be found that if the Committee accept the proposals of the Government, they will lead to a far more satisfactory state of things in regard to the reporting of the debates in this House than has hitherto existed.
    MR ARTHUR LEE: I would like, if I may, to congratulate the hon. Gentleman and also the Government on the decision at which they have arrived in regard

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    to the reporting of the debates. I think it must be admitted on all hands that the present arrangements for reporting the debates are extremely unsatisfactory. They have been long condemned by individual Members, and we have it now stated in terms by a Committee of the House. I am glad to say that I have no personal complaint to make with regard to reports of my remarks. I have always been reported at quite as great length as I deserve, even when reduced to one-third. There are many Members of the Front Bench who are so treated, while no doubt the remarks of hon. friends who sit behind me are reported at greater length, or are reported at considerable length.
    MR. HOBHOUSE: I would point out to the hon. Gentleman that it is stated in the evidence that hon. Gentlemen who frequently address the House are very often "cut down" to the legal minimum.
    MR. ARTHUR LEE: My point is this, rather, that it is admitted on all hands to be objectionable that the decision as to what is or is not a good speech, or a redundant speech, should be left to a contractor. Then as to the price which is paid for a copy of the clay's proceedings, that it also should be left to the contractor is a matter of general complaint. Hon. Members who desire to obtain a single copy of the day's proceedings must have found that the price varies front 1s. to 2s. or 2s. 6d.; whereas in other countries and in our own Colonies, where the debates are reported fully, 2d. or 3d. is the most that is charged. I do not think the contractor should be allowed to recoup himself for any loss out of the pockets of hon. Members who desired to obtain reports of the speeches. We have been told by successive Secretaries to the Treasury that we ought always to rely on the reports in The Times. I am sure that all parties in this House owe a great debt of gratitude to The Times for the fulness and excellence of their reports; at the same time, we do not know that those reports will always be continued. There are many people in this country who regard
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    the long reports which appear in The Times as very dull reading. It is difficult for us to understand why that is so. There is an increasing desire for what are called descriptive reports—reports which convey none of the substantial features of the debates, but give great prominence to any humorous incident, even describing the features and possibly the clothing of hon. Members, but which are hardly a serious record of what has taken place. Then again we are left to the discretion of outside and in a sense irresponsible agencies. If I may be permitted a digression I would state that I remember very well going into this question some years ago in Canada. I was informed by the head of a telegraph agency, something similar to the Associated Press, that they supplied provincial papers with news which it was thought would be congenial to the tastes of the different localities, but sometimes it was not approved. For example, a newspaper in the West, at the time of the illness of the Emperor Frederick of Germany, an event which was being followed with sympathetic interest all over the world, and was referred to in the agency's daily dispatch, sent the following telegram to the manager—
    "Send less German Emperor and more baseball."
    I do not think the reports of proceedings of this House, as regards provincial Members, should be left to the discretion of any outside agency whatever. This is the only Legislature in the world, I believe, which does not have a full and complete official report of its proceedings, and I am very glad to hear that the Government are proposing to adopt the recommendation of the Committee, to the effect that a full report should be supplied. I am aware that it is a little difficult to understand what is meant by a full report. There is a long definition in the Report of the Committee, and the hon. Member, I think, has a little evaded that definition. He talked about redundancies. The observation that a good many remarks made in this House are redundant, I presume only refers to repetitions. Then the hon. Gentleman spoke of putting speeches into literary shape. That is rather a large order.
    MR. HOBHOUSE: I do not wish to be misunderstood. I was referring to the fact that some hon. Members in this House are in the habit, when the proofs are delivered to them, of setting to work to trim them up.
    MR. ARTHUR LEE: I am delighted to hear that it is proposed to stop that practice. There is only one point of serious objection, as far as I can see, to the proposals of the Government, and that is that the report will not be available until four p.m. the next day. I do not understand why that is necessary. It is clearly shown in the evidence before the Committee that in the House of Commons of Canada, where the conditions are very similar to our own, the reports are always delivered between nine and ten in the morning. That also applies to Washington. It was shown, and I think it is recommended by the Committee, that when the new system comes into force the reports should be available early the next morning. The right hon. Gentleman said that four o'clock would do just as well because the report would be available before the next day's debate, but I do not think really that is quite the case. For instance, it may be that the hon. Member who opens a debate has to reply to an exceedingly important speech delivered the night before. It is hardly enough to hand him the report at four o'clock in the afternoon just as he is getting on his legs. I think it is not too much to ask that he should have it the next morning in time to see what was actually said, and it has been clearly proved by the evidence, by the statements of the head of the Stationery Office, and by the recommendations of the Committee, that the report could be got out at nine or ten o'clock in the morning without any serious additional cost. I hope, therefore, the Government will reconsider that point. Of course, if they can show that the cost is prohibitive it is another matter; but I cannot believe, if we are to take the statements of the Committee, that there would be really any additional cost at all, and it would be the greatest possible convenience to Members of the House. There is one point of detail on which the hon. Gentleman did not give us any information, and that is in what way he
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    is going to facilitate the operations of the reporters, because, after all, apart from the question of the qualifications of reporters, with which he has dealt, I feel that the necessity which has arisen in the past for a great deal of correction has been largely due to the fact that it has been a physical impossibility for the reporters to hear what is said, unless it is an important speech and the House is quiet, and hon. Members are giving the speaker and the reporter, so to speak, a fair chance. A great deal of evidence was given before the Committee on this point, and I think it was made clear that it was almost impossible for the reporters, if confined to their present positions, to be certain of making an accurate report of what is said, and I had before hoped the hon. Gentleman would be able to give us some information as to how the reporters would be accommodated in a better fashion.
    MR. HOBHOUSE: I should be very glad to do that later on.
    MR. ARTHUR LEE: There are to be greater facilities?
    MR. HOBHOUSE: Yes.
    MR. ARTHUR LEE: I think otherwise the scheme asks for something which cannot possibly be done. We are to be dependent in future upon unrevised reports. I have no objection to that in principle so long as the reporter has a fair chance to report what is said. I am very glad to hear that the hon. Gentleman is going to deal with that point. I think it would be to the general convenience, and certainly to the general interest, if the hon. Gentleman could tell us whether the new system would come into force during the present session, or if we are to wait until another year. The hon. Gentleman and the Government, by their proposals, are removing a long felt grievance, and one which affects every Member of the House, except possibly the Leaders on both sides who have, I presume, nothing to complain of, except the fact that the reports come late so that they are very little use except for historical purposes. The hon. Gentleman, by his proposal, has removed this grievance, and I offer

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    him hearty thanks for what he has proposed.
    MR. CHARLES ALLEN, as Chairman of the Committee, heartily thanked Government for accepting practically in full their chief recommendation, and a good many details of the Report as well. The main principle of the Report was that the House should do what practically every other Legislature in the world did—set up a staff of its own reporters to do its own reporting in its own way. In doing that they were only doing the right thing. Hitherto, the system had been that the reporting was given out to a printing contractor who found his own reporters. The Committees had gone very carefully into that, and found that the system was bad, first of all because, subject to the conditions that all Questions and Answers from Ministers would be reported in full, that debates in Committee and on Private Bills were to be reported as fully as debates in the House, and that no Member was to be reported at less than one-third of his speech, the length of the reports was left absolutely to the contractor. That seemed to mean that it was absolutely in the discretion of the contractor to decide at what length, and whether in the first or third person, any Member was to be reported. That did not seem to be fair to the ordinary Members of the House. Of course it was true, as the contractor had said, that most Members were reported at a considerable greater length than one-third, and it was also said that specialists were always reported in full. The question immediately arose as to who were the specialists, and he was not able to decide. At any rate it seemed to them that the system was not calculated to give a true reflex of what really was said in the House. A second and an even stronger reason was that the contract system led, and must lead, to the employment of too few reporters. The contractor naturally wanted to make money, and nobody blamed him for it. The result was that he employed the actual minimum number of reporters who could turn out the kind of report that he required. The evidence of the Hansard reporters, and of their inde-
    1370
    pendent colleagues in the Gallery, showed that they were working under conditions which were not at all creditable to the House. Practically it came to this, that the Hansard reporters were turning out a longer report than that of The Times, who employed double the number of men. That did not make for good reporting, and certainly was not creditable to the House. The third reason which induced them to report against the contracting system was that, subject to the condition that the reporter must always be present in the Gallery, the contractor was allowed to get his reports where and how he liked. That meant, of course, that the reporter might make use of newspaper reports. He had to take home a great part of his notes and write them up by two o'clock the next afternoon, and, naturally, in the morning he took The Times, the Telegraph, the Bradford Observer, or any other paper wherein he thought he would find a good report of some local member, and fitted it in to his own notes. It was permitted, and the reporter would have been a fool if he had not made use of that system. Such a system must detract from the independence of the final version given in the official report, although the reporter took a full note for his own purposes. He hoped the new system would be fairer to Members and juster to the reporters, and would, for the first time, give them a real, genuine account of what had been said in the House the day before. He was a little sorry the Government was not going to give them the report till four o'clock in the afternoon. The evidence was that it could be given the first thing in the morning with twelve reporters. Still he was a practical man, and he wanted to go for what he could get. This was the first step, and he hoped they might get the others later on. The Committee certainly contemplated that Members would be able to correct their speeches. Still the principle they had fought for had been accepted, and he would not quarrel with the Government on that account. It was certainly true that correcting had gone too far on many occasions. There was one famous instance where two speeches were actually dropped out altogether. The contractor also had given instances in which Members had looked through

    1371
    their speeches, and he thought corrected them, and asked that the asterisk should not be put in in order that they might not be held responsible. That was against the spirit and the letter of the rules. What a man said in that House he ought to stand by. In the future he had little fear that correction would be necessary. How often had they to correct The Times? He hoped that in future they would have as good a report as The Times report, even more ample and equally correct. The Committee had not recommended the reporting of Grand Committees. He was anxious that nothing should be said as to that, because it might prejudice the principle they were fighting for. At the same time he thought the reporting of Grand Committees by an official staff was inevitable sooner or later. He knew the Government objected at present and he was sorry, they did. Grand Committees meant a great deal more work, work done more quickly than in the past, but it also meant that from the cognisance of a large number of Members the work was taken away. The Children Bill was now in Grand Committee. They would know what was the final form of the Bill when it came up for Third Reading, but they would not know how it arrived at that final form. But he was not going to quarrel with the Government on that point. Finally, he wished to make an appeal to hon. Members to help this new system, and they could do it very easily. Anybody who had read the evidence knew how difficult it was for reporters in the Press Gallery to hear what was going on. They had bitter complaints from many witnesses, but if hon. Members would only realise how difficult it was for the reporter to hear, and how the dropping of the voice at the end of a sentence made all the difference in writing it out afterwards, he was sure they would try and do their best to make the new system a success. The best results, of course, could only be got by having a reporter on the floor of the House, and the Committee would have recommended that course if they had for a moment imagined that the two Front Benches would agree to it, but they felt sure that they would not. [Cries of "Why?"] In conclusion, he once more thanked the Government for having
    1372
    adopted the main principle of the Report of the Committee, and he hoped the system would improve and develop as time went on.
    MR. STUART WORTLEYsaid it was one of the characteristics of the British nature to be averse to State interference in all things, and therefore they entrusted as many things as possible to the unchecked action of private enterprise. This particular industry of the reporting of the debates, which was, above all, a State interest and no other, had been perhaps left the longest to the action of private enterprise. It was absurd to leave this matter to private contract and private enterprise, because there was not the same reason in this particular case for economy as in other matters of State action. There could be only one official report of the House of Commons proceedings, and therefore to have it well done, even if it was expensive, could not serve as a precedent for doing every other branch of the State's work extravagantly. As result of the system of leaving this work to the casual action of private enterprise, they had always had the reports of their Parliamentary proceedings affected with the taint of journalistic as distinct from historic considerations. That was inevitable. They had discovered, according to the Report of the Select Committee, that what they imagined was an independent report was something which had been "doctored" up with newspaper cuttings. Some of them had gone even further than that and suspected that Hansard reports had sometimes been identical with those they had observed in London and provincial papers. Obviously the journalistic quality was totally different from what they wanted in the official Parliamentary reports; they wanted historical and scientific lines to be pursued in reporting. After listening to what the Financial Secretary had suggested, he was not quite sure that they were going to eliminate all those defects unless they provided that no member of the official reporting staff should be allowed to act in the Press Gallery as reporter for any other newspaper. As Chairman of one of the Standing Committees he had a strong opinion that the time had more than come

    1373
    when something ought to be done to get an effective report of the proceedings in those Committees. From the conversational nature of the debate, it was difficult for the members of the Press, with the unsatisfactory accommodation provided for them, to hear adequately what was going on. As they did not get an official report of the proceedings in Standing Committees it was all the more necessary that the dry official record should be as full as possible. When he was in the chair he always did his best to see that this was carried out. According to the antique practice of this House, when a new clause was moved in Committee, the practice in the official record was only to give the title of the clause. How important this might be was shown by the fact that in 1894 or 1895, when the Employers' Liability Bill was before the House, a clause relating to contracting out went backwards and forwards between the two Houses and eventually proved the wreck of the Bill, and became a matter in dispute between the two great Parties in the State at a general election, and vet there was the greatest difficulty in finding out the actual facts in regard to that clause in the official records of the House. That was an absurd practice.
    MR. BOWERMANthanked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury for giving life to some of the recommendations embodied in the Report of the Select Committee. He had been told that the Committee was appointed for the purpose of shirking the question, but he had been reassured on that point by the statement made by the Financial Secretary. With regard to the reporting staff he thought it was quite time that they had some protection from the House. It was not so many years ago that the reporting staff of Hansard, employed as they were by a contractor, were stranded so far as their wages were concerned, and on that occasion the debates copy was very properly retained by the reporters until they secured the wages to which they were entitled. That being so, it was high time for the State to step in and endeavour to obtain for these gentleman who worked so hard in the interests of the House security so
    1374
    far as their wages were concerned. It was made clear to the Members of the Committee that, by comparison with their colleagues in the Gallery, the official staff were, to use a well-known expression, being sweated week after week. This was unfair to them as professional men and certainly unfair to hon. Members who made speeches in the House. When the Committee had ample evidence that these men were being underpaid and overworked, they felt fully justified in recommending that an official staff should be appointed and paid out of the funds of the State. Although he gathered that the Hansard reporters were, in future, to receive a higher salary, he was not quite sure whether they were to be employed all the year round, or simply for the session. If it was only for the session he thought it was very unfortunate. It was unfair to the gentlemen who composed the official staff that the House should avail themselves of their services during the session and then tell them that their work was over until the House resumed and they must find occupation elsewhere. He thought there should be some recognition on the part of the House that the official staff were servants of the House, or at any rate that their services should be secured for the entire year. With regard to the hour of publication, he understood that the Financial Secretary did not see his way to insist that the report should be published before four o'clock in the afternoon. He would like to know what reason there was for not publishing the report at the same time as the daily papers, which could publish from sixteen to twenty pages of matter every morning before breakfast. There was not the slightest reason why the doings of this House should not be on the breakfast-table of every Member at the same time as his daily paper. The creation of a night companionship was a very simple matter, and it would be much more satisfactory to the House and even to the reporters themselves that an effort should be made to get the official reports published at eight or nine o'clock in the morning. The Financial Secretary had given some reasons for not setting up a Government printing office, and he had stated that the official who

    1375
    had recommended that course had probably some ulterior motive, or that it might he to his own personal advantage.
    MR. HOBHOUSE: No, I did not say to his personal advantage.
    MR. BOWERMANsaid that the official referred to rendered excellent service to the Committee, and he was more than satisfied that his suggestions were based upon what might be termed the interests of the public and this House rather than his own personal interests. As a Member of that Committee he was certainly disposed to pay great attention and to give great consideration to the suggestions made by that official. He understood that the difficulty in the way of setting up a printing-office was the question of expense. That was a question which was not always considered in this House. As a matter of fact at the War Office the State already had a printing office, and a very fine establishment it was. The work was done through a contractor who was paid a higher price for the work done because it was of a more confidential character, although the men actually performing the work were only paid the ordinary wages current in London. That seemed to him obviously unfair. Might he supplement that statement by saying that within the past twelve or fifteen months men who had worked in that office for twenty-five or thirty years had been discarded as if they were old iron or old machinery? These men who had been doing confidential work for the nation all these years were hopelessly placed on the pavement because of passing circumstances. He thought that if the House could see its way even to print the debates such a thing as that would be impossible in future. He did not, of course, make an appeal in regard to these men. He thought it was little short of a scandal that men employed indirectly by this House and the nation should be thrown aside as useless after twenty-five years' service. In conclusion he wanted again to express his satisfaction that the Financial Secretary to the Treasury had seen his way to accept one recommendation of the Committee, and he sincerely hoped that that might simply be the
    1376
    forerunner of the adoption of other recommendations embodied in the Report. If, later on, the hon. Gentleman could see his way to set up a printing office even to make a start with work of this particular character, he was sure that the House would not regret the expenditure, and he thought it would be all the better in the interest not only of the House, but also of the men who were called upon to work in the office.
    MR. WILLIAM REDMONDsaid he desired to join in congratulating the Financial Secretary to the Treasury on inaugurating the system of reporting which he had proposed. He thought it would be regarded as a great reform, and he was sure that, this being the first work to which the hon. Gentleman had set his hand as Financial Secretary to the Treasury, it must be a satisfaction to him to know that he had met them in a very generous manner. He desired most cordially to support what the hon. Member for Deptford had said with reference to the employment of a staff of reporters. The right hon. Member for the Hallam Division of Sheffield had said that the gentlemen who reported the Parliamentary proceedings should not be connected with the Press, but that they should devote the whole of their time to preparing and presenting the serious record of the proceedings of Parliament. He agreed with that view, but he submitted to the Secretary to the Treasury that it would be quite impossible to obtain the entire services of these gentlemen on the official reporting staff unless they were employed regularly throughout the year. He did not know what the financial aspect of that might be, but he felt very strongly, and so did a great many others, that even at the cost of a little extra expenditure the gentlemen who reported the debates should be employed throughout the year, and regarded as servants of the House. When the House was not in session it would be very easy, if they were adequately paid, to engage their services on other public work. He strongly urged that view on the Secretary to the Treasury, and he could assure the hon. Gentleman that it would give great satisfaction to hon. Members belonging

    1377
    to the Labour Party, as well as to his friends of the Nationalist Party, to know that there would be no haphazard sessional employment., but that the gentlemen engaged in the serious work of reporting the proceedings of Parliament would be regularly employed throughout the year. There was no need for him to emphasise what had already been said as to the unsatisfactory conditions of the gentlemen engaged in reporting the proceedings of Parliament, but for the benefit of those members of the Committee who might not have had time to read the Report of the Select Committee he would like to quote a few lines of the Report with reference to the overwork of the gentlemen upstairs. In their Report the Committee said—
    "In the opinion of your Committee this overwork has been persistent, and in some cases very excessive, as, for example, this session, when during the debate on the Army Annual Bill the staff were on duty for more than twenty consecutive hours."
    If they had a record of employment under those conditions presented to them on the part of any private employer in any business throughout the country it would create the utmost indignation, and yet here in the House of Commons they had it on record beyond doubt that the gentlemen who reported their proceedings had been obliged to work under those very trying, and he might almost say, inhuman conditions. He did not know the case mentioned by the hon. Member for Deptford—he had no doubt the statement of the hon. Member was absolutely correct—in which the reporters, being unable to obtain their salaries, by way of retaliation retained their transcript of the speeches which they had taken down in this House. All he could say was that the "copy" was a very bad substitute for their salaries. He could hardly imagine the feelings of a gentleman who, having spent many weary hours in taking down speeches, at the end of the week had to inform his wife and children that he had no salary, though they had been looking forward to it cheerfully. A child might go to him and say: "Did you bring us anything home?" and he might reply: "I have brought home a very long and accurate report of a speech by the hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London." The speeches of the hon.
    1378
    Baronet were highly interesting, but they could not raise a family on them. He was sure that it would be a matter of great congratulation that this was to be put an end to. He hoped that those important officials of the House who reported their debates would, in future, receive proper and adequate consideration. He was surprised to hear the Secretary to the Tresaury state that the reports would be delivered at four o'clock in the afternoon. All the Members of the Select Committee understood that the reports would be delivered simultaneously with the Votes and Proceedings in the morning. They were given to understand that a certain economy could be effected by delivering the reports of speeches, the Votes and Proceedings, and the division lists by the same messenger. But if the speeches were not to be delivered till four o'clock, there would be a double delivery, and there would be no economy and no greater convenience. He asked the hon. Gentleman to reconsider that point. He desired to call attention to the part of the Report in which the Select Committee referred to the strong desirability of the continuance of the publication of the Irish debates in a separate volume. He hoped that nothing would interfere with that. He was astonished to hear the Secretary to the Treasury state that there was no recommendation made by the Committee as to the reporting of the Standing Committees. That was the only point on which there was some slight difference-of opinion in the Committee. In Paragraph 17 of the Report, the opinion was distinctly expressed that under the altered conditions imposed by the new rules there should be, if not a full report, an adequate summary of the proceedings of Standing Committees.
    MR. HOBHOUSE: I personally made no reference to the reporting of Standing Committees.
    MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: I beg the hon. Gentleman's pardon. It was the hon. Gentleman who acted as Chairman of the Select Committee.
    MR. CHARLES ALLEN: The hon. Gentleman is not quite correct as to

    1379
    what I said in regard to that. The hon. Gentleman will recollect that the decision the Committee came to was that these words might be read the other way.
    MR. WILLIAM REDMONDsaid he remembered there was some slight divergence of opinion, and the paragraph in the Report was really arrived at—he supposed he might say so without any breach of confidence—as a compromise, and, as the hon. Gentleman had said, on the understanding that it might be read different ways. Of course, he quite expected that it would be read in the way in which he read it. He did say that undoubtedly some provision should be made for reporting the proceedings of Standing Committees. The Irish University Bill, which was going before a Standing Committee, was a measure of the utmost importance, and it was an absurd thing that such a measure should be inquired into without any official record being taken of the proceedings. He did not press that point now. He certainly would be very sorry to see the scheme of the Government interfered with or stopped in any way by the question of reporting of Standing Committees. He was absolutely certain that the question of reporting the proceedings of those Committees would come up again. Under the new rules Bills of the first importance were brought before the Standing Committees, and it was absurd to suppose that they could go on as they used to do. He hoped that hon. Members for their own convenience, and to maintain the honour of the House in relation to the question of employment, would accept the scheme of the Government. This was the only Parliament in the world which had no official reporting staff, and he hoped they would decide that evening that that state of things should come to an end. He was sure that every Member of the Committee would agree with him that the House of Commons generally was under a considerable debt of gratitude to the hon. Member for the Stroud Division, who was Chairman of the Select Committee. The hon. Gentleman devoted a great deal of time and care to the preparation of the Report, and it must
    1380
    be a source of satisfaction to him to think that his name would be associated with this undoubtedly great and much-needed reform.
    MR. LAURENCE HARDYsaid he did not wish to enter on the general question, for he believed that the House was generally convinced that the Government scheme would be satisfactory to it and that it would lead to a far better condition of things than had obtained in the past. He was sorry that the hon. Gentleman did not deal with the question as to where the reporters were to sit, for that was a very important item in the scheme. A satisfactory and full report without revision could not be obtained unless the Government had made up their minds to place the reporters in a place where they could listen to all portions of the debate even when the House was somewhat disturbed. He agreed as to the desirability of making the appointments of the reporters permanent and not merely sessional. That would be an advantage in every way. They all knew that many Select and other Committees sat during the autumn, and it would be possible to use their services for reporting when the House was not sitting. He would like to ask what was the actual meaning of the words used as to the reports being delivered at four o'clock in the afternoon. If they were to be delivered at their houses in the afternoon, when they were at the House, it did not seem to him to be an efficient way of dealing with the matter or one which would be satisfactory to hon. Members. He believed that the Committee meant that the reports should be delivered in the morning with the Votes and other Papers, so that Members might have an opportunity of looking at their speeches and making any desired alterations before eight o'clock. If the reports were not delivered till four in the afternoon it meant that no alterations could he made until next day. It was necessary that there should be powers of revision, even if they were much more limited than at present. But he chiefly rose for the purpose of emphasising what had been said as to the entire omission of the Government to allude to the

    1381
    suggestion of reporting the Standing Committees. The hon. Member who was Chairman of the Select Committee had said that they could read Paragraph 17 of the Report in two ways. He confessed that he knew of many Statutes passed by the House which could be read in two ways; but he could not imagine that Paragraph 17 could be read in any other way than that the Committee had seriously considered this question and held that it ought to be dealt with, although they acknowledged that it meant some cost. If anybody read the paragraph carefully it could not be disguised that the Committee were in favour of the principle of reporting the proceedings of the Standing Committees. There was not a word about that when the hon. Gentleman explained the new scheme. They were, therefore, justified in asking some explanation from the Government why they still persisted in not reporting the proceedings upstairs. Bills of great importance were now sent to those Committees, and they ought to have an official report, even abbreviated, but full so far as the essential features of the debates were concerned. He thought that the statements of Members in charge of Government Bills ought to be given in full, as they would be very valuable to refer to when the Report Stage was reached. Many Members knew how very essential that was when debating the Report Stage of a Bill. He remembered while the Workmen's Compensation Bill was passing through the House there were several cases where the Home Secretary said in Committee what he would or would not do on Report, and, when an Amendment had been carried against him in Committee, he indicated what would be done at a later stage. Unless there was some official report of what the Member in charge of a Government measure stated in Committee they were at a great disadvantage, first, because many hon. Members were debarred from taking part in the discussions in Committee, and, secondly, because they were debarred from seeing what had been said, especially by responsible Members of the Government. There was another question. They had now eight Chairmen of these Committees, who were granted extremely full powers. At present there
    1382
    was no responsibility for any official record of the rulings of these Chairmen. The Report said that the rulings of the Speaker and of the Chairmen of Committees should in all cases be submitted to them and the proofs corrected. The Committee submitted that these rulings should not only be taken down at the time but should have the imprimatur of the Speaker and the Chairmen. The rulings of the Chairmen of Standing and Select Committees were not at present reported, and the consequence was that differences in practice were constantly arising. He, therefore, thought that with reference to official statements, Chairmen's rulings, and other matters, it was really essential that, in order to have a proper record of the debates and to carry on the proper official continuity of what was going on in the House, they should have some description given officially of the debates upstairs. There was another point. They had Standing Committees sitting almost continually during the Session dealing with private Members' Bills. These Bills were of greater importance lately, because they had. after passing a Second Reading, frequently been adopted by the Government. But they had no record of what went on in the standing Committees. Although there were fifteen or sixteen of these Bills this year probably only two of them would reach the Report stage—possibly not one. But if those Bills were produced in another session of Parliament and proceeded with, Members had no means of knowing what took place in the discussions of them in the preceding session, because there was no official record. The time had come, he thought, when the House ought to deal with this matter and not be diverted from it by considerations of some small expense. It was not a very large matter, but it was of great importance to the House. He would be sorry to force the Government to take any step adverse to their scheme, but he hoped that some assurance would be given that the subject would be dealt with in the future. He felt deeply on the subject, and he was quite sure that the Government ought to adopt the course he suggested and so carry on the good work they had begun in regard to reporting.
    MR. FENWICKsaid he wished to emphasise the importance of what had been said by his hon. friend regarding the possibility of the reporting staff being employed on the basis of a twelve months rather than a sessional engagement. He did not know whether the reporting staff had a difficulty at the end of the session in finding other employment, but he knew that considerable difficulty and hardship arose in other departments connected with the House—particularly in the dining-room and other places—on account of the servants being dismissed at the end of the session and having difficulty in finding employment for the rest of the year. Of course, if the reporting staff were employed by the year the salaries would have to be adjusted accordingly. He thought his hon. friend would be well-advised to take this subject into his very careful and serious consideration. In regard to issuing the reports at an earlier period of the day, it had been stated that by the employment of two additional reporters they would be able to have the Parliamentary reports with their papers in the morning. If that were so the object was well worthy of achievement. He hoped it would be convenient for the gentleman responsible to include in the report a complete list of the divisions on the previous day. Hitherto the selection of the divisions which appeared in the official report seemed to be left entirely to the discretion of the contractors, and when one took down his Hansard for reference and wanted to see the result of certain divisions they could not be found, while in the case of divisions on minor questions there was a record of the full list of Members who voted. He hoped it would be found convenient to give the whole of the divisions that took place during the session. As to reporting the Standing Committees, he agreed with a great deal of what had been said by the right hon. Member for Sheffield. He agreed with the right hon. Member that they should have a complete historical record of all that transpired in the Standing Committees; but he hoped that the Government would not be led into accepting the principle of giving full
    1384
    reports or even one-third reports of the speeches there delivered. He had had considerable experience in the appointment of these Committees, and also as a member of such Committees, and from that experience he maintained that it was the absence of official reports of the speeches delivered that had made their work so effective in the past; and he believed it would be a great mistake if the Government were to yield to the desire expressed here and there for a full report of the speeches in the Standing Committees. Members on both sides of the House knew very well that in a Standing Committee there was little or any opportunity of scoring a party victory by anything they might say in the course of the debate, because it was not likely to appear in an official report, although it might in the local newspapers. What followed? As business men they came to the consideration of the questions which were before the Committee, and they endeavoured to transact the business as business men would transact any ordinary business entrusted to their care. But if they reported fully or to any considerable extent the speeches made in the Standing Committee, he thought they would very materially impede the progress of the work of that body and certainly interfere with the efficiency of the work that was done. But he agreed with the right hon. Gentleman opposite that they should have a perfect record kept of the Amendments moved, of the new clauses, and the rulings given by the various Chairmen. All these things could be kept he thought with greater accuracy and with great advantage to their historical record, but he hoped, if he might repeat himself, his hon. friend and the Government would not be induced to consent to any more lengthy reports of the speeches made in Committee than obtained at the present time. He would like also to support the suggestion and advice which had been given to the House by the hon. Member for Stroud. He regretted more than he could say a tendency which had grown up of late years amongst Members of both front Benches. They seemed to assume that there was nobody interested in anything

    1385
    they said except the Members opposite; their voices were dropped again and again to an undertone, and he was not surprised that the reporters in the Gallery were not able to ascertain clearly what had been said and report it accurately. As had been said, if they would keep their voices up and remember that there were other persons in the House anxious to hear what they said as well as Members across the Table, he believed it would lead to accuracy and fullness in the reports of the debates. He congratulated his hon. friend on having at all events made an attempt to give something like a satisfactory status to the reports of this House, and he hoped that he would not be deterred from the good work to which he had set his hand by the idea of a mere economy here and there, but that in a generous spirit he would carry this matter out to the end.
    SIR F. BANBURYsaid he did not quite agree with the remarks of the hon. Gentleman as to the reporting of Standing Committees. The hon. Gentleman said he hoped there would not be a lengthy report, but he was, of course, aware that there was no report at present lengthy or otherwise. [An HON MEMBER: There is quite enough.] There was nothing, and, at all events, in nine out of ten cases nothing appeared on the Paper in regard to these Committees. Nor did he agree with the fear of the hon. Member that the reporting of the speeches would lead to the debates not being carried on in the same spirit as now. There might be one or two Members who would do what was suggested, but the generality of Members would not. The necessity for some report had arisen since important Bills were sent to these Committees. He was a member of the Scottish Standing Committee which dealt with the land question. He did not remember how many days they sat, but he thought it was sixty or seventy, or something of that sort. He knew the number was very great. It was a very important Committee, and during its sittings very many speeches and statements were made by the three Members of the Government, viz., the Secretary for Scotland, the Lord-Advocate, and the Solicitor-General for
    1386
    Scotland. Statements and pledges were made as to what was going to take place when the Bill came back for the Report stage in this House. In many cases the Members to whom the pledges were given abstained from carrying on the discussion, and agreed that they would reserve further discussion until the Report stage. He thought he was not exaggerating when he said that the Committee sat for two months, and it was quite impossible for any single Member to remember absolutely what pledge had or had not been given. He did not, for a moment, say that the Government did not adhere to their pledges, but it was equally difficult for the members of the Government to remember some fifty or sixty pledges as to what they would do when the Bill Caine back to the House, and he thought in order to avoid Party recrimination alone there should be some report. It was quite possible that, incidentally, a member of the Government might say: "I will consider this favourably and on Report I will express the result of my consideration," and an Amendment would be withdrawn on account of that. It was quite conceivable that the member of the Government concerned with a big Bill might forget all about such a pledge, and it might give rise to the statement, that people had not been fairly treated. He was sure the hon. Gentleman would deplore that, and so would everybody in the House. Therefore, he thought it was very necessary that there should be reports of the speeches of members of the Government who were members of these Standing Committees. He would himself like to see, not a full, but a condensed report of everybody's speeches, but he felt certain that the speeches of Members of the Government who were in charge of the Bill ought to be reported, and he hoped the Government would consider that. He believed the cost would be very small, and he failed to see why the Government should object to it. With that exception he was glad to say that for the first time he thoroughly agreed with the proposals made by the Government. Except with regard to the reporting of Standing Committees he did not think

    1387
    there was any single thing with which he could find fault. His hon. friend beneath him had talked about private Members having greater facilities than Members of the Front Bench, but might he point out that Members of the Front Bench were reported in the first person at length, and that Members behind them only got one-third of their speeches in the third person. Besides that members of the Government had great advantages as they were always called upon when they rose. Then they had an opportunity of speaking from a box so that they could arrange their votes and papers, and it was rather hard upon the private Member rising to address the House that he should not, at any rate, have his remarks reported as fully as the right hon. Gentleman who had ordinarily a seat on the Front Bench and who, in many cases received, he would not say an adequate, but a handsome salary for his services. He was very glad that for the future, the Members of the House would be treated in regard to the report of their speeches in the same way as Ministers. As to corrections, he never corrected the reports of his speeches; therefore, he could not be said to add to the expense, and he really did not see why Members should not trust to the reporters to report them fully. Of course, mistakes would occur. They could not help that, but he believed that with a larger staff of reporters, and with increased facilities—and on that point he did not gather that the Financial Secretary said anything about the increased facilities upstairs—[Mr. WILLIAM REDMOND: He said he would do so.]—a satisfactory result would be obtained. His speeches had always been fairly accurate, and he thought in the future their own staff would report them with accuracy. With regard to the delivery of speeches at four o'clock he understood that if one went to the Vote Office he would obtain a report of his speech at that hour. This was an important question. He would like to ask the hon. Gentleman whether he was right in thinking that he did not propose at four o'clock to send the speeches of the previous day round to the houses of the hon. Members, but that the hon. Member who wanted to see his speech should
    1388
    at that hour be able to go to the Vote Office and obtain it.
    MR. HOBHOUSE: Certainly.
    SIR F. BANBURYwas glad of that, because the previous speaker seemed to think that the speech was to be delivered at one's house. A speech delivered there at that hour would he of no use whatever, and would add to the expense. He thought it would be quite sufficient if the speeches were obtainable at the Vote Office at four o'clock. [An HON. MEMBER: When will they be delivered?] They would not be delivered at all. They would be in the Vote Office and hon. Members must go and get them in the same way as the Votes. He did not, however, want to see his speeches, and he thought it would be a good thing if hon. Members did not see their speeches. The hon. Gentleman had made no reference to putting the reporters on the floor of the House. He had little doubt himself that it would make their task easier for the reporters, but, on the other hand, he did not think it would be a good practice. It would take up a great deal of the floor of the House, and if the advice of the hon. Gentleman opposite, who was gifted with a fine powerful voice, was followed and Members did not drop their voices, the reporters would be able to hear them almost if not quite as well as if they were on the floor of the House. For the sake of their health, he thought they would be better in the Gallery than on the floor, because only a few moments ago there was a most horrible smell. He thought he was out of order, but he wished to communicate the fact to the First Commissioner of Works. With regard to the printing, he quite thought that the Government had taken the right course, because the cost of setting up and establishing a printing office, with all the machinery and the details of staff and accessories would have been enormous; it was far better to put that out to contract. It was quite different from having their own reporters, a proposal of which he thoroughly approved. He was glad to be able to say that he thoroughly agreed

    1389
    with the proposals of the Government, and he would only ask when it was contemplated to initiate these proposals. The hon. Gentleman did not say, but he thought he told them that he could give six months notice in June. The hon. Gentleman had said something about the contract being determinable at six months notice, therefore he presumed it would not be possible to arrange with the contractors to terminate the contract before the end of the year, but he thought if they could have the new procedure at work during the autumn session it would be a great advantage. If the hon. Gentleman could arrange that he thought the sense of all Members of the House would be in favour of asking for it. He hoped the hon. Gentleman would think over the few remarks he had made with regard to reporting the proceedings of Standing Committees. It occurred to him as well as to his hon. friend behind him that they might have moved a reduction of this Vote to call attention to that omission, but the proposals of the Government were so good that he thought it would be a pity to do anything of the kind, and that they should content themselves with a request to the Government to consider what would in his opinion be a great reform. This proposal was the beginning of a new era on the part of the Government, and in conclusion he could only say that ho hoped all their future proposals would be as sensible as this.
    *MR. W. BENNdrew attention to the fact that in the original contract for the reporting of the Debates, it was not only enjoined that the Committees in either House should be reported, but that they should be reported at no less length than the other discussions. Therefore, in as much as Bills which under the former procedure of the House would have been debated in a Committee of the Whole House, were now remitted to one of the Grand Committees, there seemed to be very good ground for having the Committees upstairs reported. He ventured, however, to suggest that this was not a suitable opportunity for the Government to do its own printing. He himself was
    1390
    the only Member of this House who was a Member of the Inter-Departmental Committee which went fully into this question of printing. Whilst that Committee came to the conclusion that the system that existed at present of departmental presses might be extended, they were not of opinion that "book work" could be profitably undertaken directly by the Government. Their view was that the best way to start was further to increase and extend the departmental presses and subsequently to consider whether it would be wise to put up a bigger printing shop to do "book work" The hon. Member had raised the question of the employment of the reporters all the year round, but this argument applied much more strongly to the printing shop. If a shop was set up for the printing of the Debates, what was to become of the people employed in it during that part of the year when the House was not sitting? Of course it might be said that they could be given work from other Government Departments, but the Committee of which he was a Member came to the conclusion that the safer way to increase direct Government printing was to extend the departmental presses. Economy resulted because the cost of the departmental printing came upon the Estimates for the Department, and not upon the Estimates of the Stationery Office, which would be the case if a printing shop was set up for the Debates. In departmental printing, too, there was more exact supervision, the printing was done in the cheapest form and expensive forms of work such as might be sent to a central shop were avoided. Another strong argument against setting up a Government shop to do the Debates was the question of machinery. The machinery required would be linotype machines, which were expensive and which, if there were not enough work to keep them going during the whole year would, to use a cant phrase, "eat their heads off." Another point in favour of the printing being done by contract was that when work was given out to a contractor the contractor very often was prepared to take Government work, with regard to which there was no risk of making bad debts, at a

    1391
    much lower price than the Government could do it for themselves. They had machinery which they must keep going and were often willing to take work at almost cost price in order to keep their shop in full work. A further reason for giving work to a contractor was that his shop was much larger than was required for the work, and in case of sudden pressure at any time, private work might be set aside and precedence given to the Government business. In that way the Government controlled a greater amount of machinery than they could possibly set up for themselves. In making these remarks he must not be taken to say that he was against an increase in direct Government printing; the Savings Bank did, and the Post Office might do, a great deal of work at a great saving, but he was certainly opposed at present to setting up a Government shop for the purpose of printing the Debates.
    MR. HOBHOUSE: I am very much indebted to the committee for the kindness with which they have received the proposal I have submitted to them, and I hope I may be permitted to make clear the few points that have been raised by hon. Gentlemen opposite. Let me first of all correct, if I may, an impression that seems to have fixed itself in the mind of one hon. gentleman, who seemed to think that my observations with regard to the Controller of the Stationery Office had a personal character. That is not the ease. I was only alluding to the particular megalomania which seems to affect all these Gentlemen. All come to me and try to persuade me that their office is the most important in the State, and is most deserving of pecuniary assistance, and the Controller of the Stationery Office very naturally and very properly takes the same attitude. With regard to the delivery of the Debates at four o'clock, which point was raised, I think, by the hon. Member for Northumberland and many others, the reason for fixing four o'clock in the afternoon as the time at which reports of speeches made on the previous day are to be delivered was not merely one of economy, although there is a slight economy in it. There is a more practical and better reason than that. In the first place,
    1392
    there will, I admit, be a small saving, but putting that on one side the real reason will be found if hon. Members will look at Paragraph 9 of the Committee's Report. They will see that it is recommended there that the delivery shall be accompanied with the delivery of the Votes and Proceedings, and all those formal records which do not include speeches made in the House. Any attempt to combine the printing of the Votes and Proceedings and the Reports of the Proceedings in this House with the speeches delivered in this House will require large administrative changes, which it will be quite impossible to combine with the change we are now undertaking, and it is because I do not wish to be stopped in the undertaking we are now putting before you that I ask that the reports of the speeches should be delivered at four o'clock instead of at ten in the morning. We are not prepared to amalgamate the system now settled as to the printing of the Debates and Votes and Proceedings. We do not wish to have any check put upon the prosperity of the immediate future by combining these two functions. It is because we are making an experiment that I ask the Committee to agree, at all events for the present, in allowing me to deliver the report of the speeches in the Vote Office at four o'clock.
    MR. ARTHUR LEE: I think neither I nor hon. Members who spoke upon the subject committed ourselves to the suggestion that the reports of speeches should be incorporated with the official Papers. All we asked was that they should be ready at ten in the morning, and be delivered with the Votes and Proceedings.
    MR. CHARLES ALLEN: The Committee does not recommend the joining of these Reports and Proceedings with the Debates. They say that should be the subject of further inquiry.
    MR. HOBHOUSE: An hon. friend of mine reminds me that the Votes and Proceedings are not delivered at ten but eight o'clock, which only shows the

    1393
    difficulty of making arrangements. I want to go further. I should like to see these two operations combined. The Government are now making an experiment which I believe will be for the benefit of the House, and I hope no impediment will be put in their path by hon. Members asking us to pursue a course which we are not ready to adopt. Therefore I hope the Committee will be content with the concessions we make to them.
    MR. WILLIAM REDMONDasked whether it was intended as at present that the daily parts would be in the Vote Office for those who applied for them, and whether if an hon. Member applied for a daily part he would be precluded from receiving in the ordinary course the bound volume which he now had. At present he could not get both.
    MR. HOBHOUSE: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not press me for these details. I agree it is a very important point. I have not been a sufficiently long time in my office, however, to enable me to determine all these questions. I have made myself acquainted with the leading principles of the matter, but I have not yet had time to go into all the details.
    MR. WILLIAM REDMONDsaid he was extremely reluctant to give the hon. Gentleman any annoyance, but he wished to point out that at the present time, as everybody knew, a Member received a proof of the speech he had delivered. He had an opportunity of reading it, and seeing whether it was right or wrong. He corrected it if he was not satisfied with it, sent it to the printer, and waited for the bound volumes. But under this system he got no proof at all, and if he wanted to see whether the report of his speech was accurate he had to go for it to the office. If he got the daily part as he now got the proof, would that preclude him from getting the bound volumes?
    MR. HOBHOUSE: May I point out that by the scheme shown in Paragraphs 2 and 3 of the Report the delivery of the bound volumes is included.
    MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: In addition to the daily parts?
    MR. HOBHOUSE: Yes; that is practically the estimate on which I have based my calculations. I hope that is a satisfactory answer to the hon. Gentleman. An hon. Member will not have to call at the office for the proof of his speech; it will be forwarded to him. But all these are questions which I hope I may be able to settle satisfactorily hereafter, and I ask the Committee not to press me for the moment, though I shall be only too glad to listen to representations on the subject from any quarter of the House. With regard to the position of the reporters in the Gallery, that is a question which I think has been raised by various Members. The Gallery, as the Committee is well aware, is under the control of the Speaker, and I am very loth to say anything in this House which would impinge on his authority; but it will be perfectly easy, I am assured, to make such arrangements in the Gallery that two seats will be reserved for the official reporters, and that these seats will be in the centre of the Gallery and next to one another, but I cannot pledge myself to anything more definite than that. I may add that there will be no attempt, and we have no desire to make any attempt of any sort or kind, to interfere with the almost traditional privileges of The Times, to the accuracy of whose reporting every Member of the House testifies. With regard to a reporter on the floor of the House, I would like to point out to the Committee that there are substantial differences of opinion amongst the members of the Press Gallery as to the difficulty of reporting in the House. If the Committee will turn to Question 360 in the Report, it will find there that the official reporters receive frequent expressions of approval as to the way in which the reports are now done. That does not look as if there were any very grievous difficulty in hearing what is said in the House. Then again it is said, in the answer to Question 1178, by one of the members of the reporting staff, that a perfectly satisfactory report can be given from the Gallery. It is certain that one of the reasons of having the reporters on the floor in the House of Lords is the extraordinarily bad acoustic properties of that Chamber, and the practice of having

    1395
    the reporter on the floor of the House entails his taking a much longer turn than that to which the reporter is subject in the Press Gallery of the House of Commons. It has been said that such an arrangement would be repugnant to the two Front Benches, and there is a very strong expression of opinion by the Leader of the Opposition, who views with dislike any such proposal. There are other persons of importance to consider as well as the occupants of the two Front Benches, and these are the authorities, and the evidence is pretty conclusive that they would view with deep repugnance any proposal to alter the present arrangements. I think it was the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sheffield who raised the question as to whether reporters are to be solely at the service of the House. That, of course, raises the question whether they are to receive a weekly or an annual salary. If they are to receive an annual salary their exclusive services would he retained for the whole year, and it is quite clear that they could be required not to do other work. It they are to be regarded as weekly employees—I will not say weekly employees—but if they are to he regarded as sessional employees and paid weekly wages during the session, I think that it is quite fair that they should be allowed to add to their earnings.
    MR. STUART WORTLEYpointed out that it was possible under the present system for the reporter to make his official report also serve the purposes of a newspaper published next morning.
    MR. HOBHOUSE: I do not think that could possibly be allowed for a moment. So long as the report is a House report that report should be for the purposes of the House alone and for no other purpose whatever. It is to meet that point that we propose a salary of eight guineas a week. Let me point out to the Committee, who may not be familiar with the conditions of the reporters upstairs, that owing to pressure of work the reporters have now to dictate their notes to other persons.
    MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: They have to do it at their own expense.
    MR. HOBHOUSE: It costs them about ten shillings or a pound a week to do that. We remove that necessity and that expense from them. With the substantial increase of wage which we propose to give them we remove also the various items of expenditure which form a very considerable part of the weekly outlay. I think that, in view of these double advantages which we propose to give to the reporting staff, it is not necessary to make their engagement an annual one. But, on the other hand, I think that it ought to be clearly understood that the employment continues from session to session, subject of course to the usual conditions of efficiency and character.
    MR. BOWERMAN: May I be permitted to point out that if we retained the services of the reporters only for the session and then discharged them, they would be thrown out of employment in the slackest period of the year, and placed at a very great disadvantage.
    MR. HOBHOUSE: That is not the information that reaches me. I made some inquiry to inform myself, before I came to the House, as to what course should be taken, and I am told that there is no such serious difficulty as is anticipated, having regard to the class of reporter that we ought to find it necessary to employ. No doubt a second or third-rate man might find that difficulty but the first-rate man we propose to employ I think would have no such difficulty. Such, at all events, is my information. With regard to reporting the Standing Committees, I think that is the last point. I personally, from such experience as I have had in serving on those Committees, must confess that if I were a non-official Member of this House I should be very loth to see reporting adopted in Standing Committees, because it might destroy the whole scope and character of Committee work. As a member of the Government, speaking here on their behalf, I must make it perfectly clear to the House that the Government cannot accept the proposal to report the work done or the speeches made in Standing Committees. As I understand, at the present moment the Chairman of a Standing Committee has it perfectly

    1397
    within his power, and he very frequently does it, to direct the Clerk of the Committee to keep a record of all that is done, not all that is said, but all that is done in Standing Committee—the Amendments moved, the rulings given, and the action taken during the session of the Committee. That is now within his power, and any amplification of that, if he desires it, lies entirely at his own discretion, and within his own power. Such at least I am informed is the power of the Chairman of Standing Committee. That is I think all that is necessary in regard to the business done upstairs. To report what is said in Standing Committee would, I venture to think, be an obstruction of the whole of the work of that Committee. I think that the natural tendency of Members of this House to explain at length the reasons which move them to oppose or to favour a proposal is not always desirable in Committee. A practical man in Committee should say in the fewest possible words the course which he thinks ought to be taken on a Bill. That rule is not always observed in this House, and I think it very regrettable that it is not always observed upstairs. To report the proceedings of Standing Committee I think would increase the tendency to deliver speeches. Hon. Gentlemen may differ from me, but I think, at all events, that it would make a fundamental change in the character of Standing Committee if the Government proposed to adopt reporting. With regard to the time at which this proposal will come into operation, we must give six months' notice to the present contractor, and we cannot give that notice before June—I forget the exact date. Therefore it is quite clear that this cannot come into operation until the session after the autumn sitting. There is one point more as to the time at which this must come into operation. We must engage our reporters before 1st July. I understand that it is a custom in the trade, if I may use that expression, that reporters are engaged six months in advance, and if we want to get reporters to come into our service on 1st January next we must engage them before 1st July this year. That being so, we must begin to make our arrangements on that basis. I hope that I have answered such points
    1398
    as have been put to me, and that the Committee will now come to a decision.
    COLONEL LOCKWOODsaid he was very much disappointed that the Secretary to the Treasury should have taken up a non possumus attitude to every suggestion made on either side of the House with regard to the amendment of the proposed changes, and he was more especially disappointed with reference to the reporting of Standing Committees. They had heard what was said by the Member for Northumberland about that, and the Secretary to the Treasury had practically used the same words, that the reporting of the proceedings in Standing Committees would tend to an alteration of the work done in them, and decrease their usefulness. He did not see on what that was founded or that the reason was at all adequate. But granting that that was the case, the point made by the hon. Member for Ashford had not been met at all, that it would be of the greatest advantage to Chairmen of the future of the rulings of the Chair were recorded. Then there was another point as to the number of times the closure had been put in Standing Committees. Then again there was the point of the pledges given by the Government, and on that most important point the hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London had pointed to the case of the Scottish Bill of last year, a Bill of a complicated nature, which was considered for an enormous number of sittings during which a large number of pledges were given by the Government. With all the goodwill in the world it was impossible for them to be sure at the end of the time what pledges they had given and what they had not. It would be a very good thing, as these things were so important, that they should have some weight with the Financial Secretary. But he said in answer to the very pertinent question raised by the hon. Member for Clare as to the correcting of the speeches that he did not wish to be pressed. He did not want to press the hon. Gentleman on points of detail, but he maintained that he had met with an absolute non possumus requests put to him from all sides of the House. They had had a most amiable debate, and they were all much obliged to the Government for

    1399
    the way in which they proposed to alter the system of reporting, but he confessed, when it came to a question of allowing him to have a report of his hon. friends' speeches at nine o'clock in the morning, he trusted the Government would not give way. He thought on the question of reporting in Standing Committees the Government would do well to consider it. They had not even told them what the amount of money required would be. Was it on the question of money that the Government refused to give way, or was it on a question of principle?
    MR. HOBHOUSE: I thought I explained perfectly clearly that in the judgment of the Government the whole character of the work done in the Committee would be changed. I did not dwell on the financial aspect of the case. As a matter of fact it would increase the cost by at least 50 per cent., probably by something like 75 per cent.
    COLONEL LOCKWOODsaid he had no doubt it would, but in what way would it alter the character of the debates? Did the hon. Gentleman mean to say that Members were so vain that they would alter the whole tenour of their remarks if they thought they were to be reported? The generality of men who served on Committees were the best working men in the House. The Secretary to the Treasury evidently had come down prepared to resist this demand, put his feet on the ground and his ears back and would not listen to anything they said. Perhaps the Prime Minister with the courtesy that he would assume with the new place that, he had taken—he must remember that he was leading the House' and must consult the feelings of everybody in the House—would consider that they were justified in asking that the proceedings in Standing Committees might be published, not in extenso, but with the rulings of the Chair, the number of tunes the closure was given, and speeches of Ministers of the Crown. The House would regard that as a great concession.
    THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. ASQUITH,): The hon. and gallant Gentleman has paid me rather a back-handed compliment, but I will do
    1400
    my best to acknowledge it by at once rising to tell him I entirely agree with the Secretary to the Treasury upon this point as to the reporting in the Standing Committees. The financial argument is not altogether to be neglected or despised. It would double the cost of the whole operation. But that is not the point. I agree with him that it, would transform and I think transform for the worse the character of our deliberations in Standing Committees if reports of the speeches were printed and circulated verbatim every day.
    COLONEL LOCKWOOD: I did not ask for a verbatim, but for a fairly full report, especially of the remarks of Ministers.
    MR. ASQUITH: The obiter dicta of Ministers in Standing Committee are much better forgotten altogether. Really quite seriously I think it is of the greatest possible importance that our Committee procedure should be as elastic and informal as it is at present. I do not say that Members are vain, but, human nature being what it is and the effect of reporting a man's thoughts and expressions being what we know it to be, I am satisfied that if we once introduce the system a great deal of the informality and business-like despatch would gradually disappear. I hope the Committee will agree with the Government that we should confine our operations to what takes place on the floor of the House.
    MR. THEODORE TAYLORpressed on the Government the importance of having the report in the hands of Members earlier than four o'clock in the afternoon. There was no reason, as Members of the Committee knew, why it should not be ready by nine or ten o'clock in the morning. The impression the evidence created on his mind was that they could very well have it at eight o'clock in the morning. If The Times could have their full report printed at two o'clock in the morning and circulated all over the provinces at eight o'clock, they should be able to have their report printed in the neighbourhood of the House before four o'clock in the afternoon.

    1401
    Just imagine a newspaper saying they could not get a report before four o'clock. The Secretary to the Treasury had not given them a single reason why it should not be done, and it was worth ever so much more to every Member to have the report on his breakfast-table than to have it at four o'clock in the afternoon. A Member wanted to read his own report and correct it. Why should he not have it before he started off to business for the day? It would be worth the extra cost, which would not amount to much. As to the terms on which the official reporters were to be engaged, there was some proposal he understood to pay a yearly salary instead of a fixed weekly wage, making the salary rather less because they would not be at work the whole of the year. One important consideration brought before the Committee had not been mentioned, and that was the difference in the length of the sessions. In 1905, there were eleven volumes of Hansard, and in 1906 there were seventeen. Were they going to pay the men the same for the seventeen volumes as for the eleven? They must pay according to the amount of work done, and less for a short session than for a long one. He understood that their recommendation was to leave these gentlemen at liberty to do other work in the other part of the year. Something had been said about finding them work in some Government Department. But a good reporter was not going to take secretarial work or manuscript work in a Government Department. He would much prefer to take his chance of other work in his own line during the recess than to be a kind of Government hack.
    *MR. STUART WORTLEY: Whether it is because the Prime Minister has joined the debate at rather a late stage or whether it is due to the attitude of the position which his old college friends delight to see him occupying, I am afraid he has not shown us that he has yet quite penetrated to the springs of human nature. What are the causes of prolixity? One is the desire for self-advertisement, and the other is the desire to consume time—the political consumption of time. The existence of an official report would play upon neither
    1402
    of these motives. The fundamental mistake, if I may respectfully say so, that he has made is to confuse the nature and effect of an official report with that of a newspaper report. I do not think the existence of an official report would lead Members either to consume time or to talk for the purpose of self-advertisement either more or less than at present, and if the Government in refusing an official report of the proceedings of the Standing Committee are relying upon the inherent powers of the Chairman to secure a greater or less amount of fulness or accuracy in the official record of decisions, I think they are making a mistake, and perhaps in the end they will arrive at a reform of the kind we are advocating, and the gentlemen who fill the office of clerks in the House will have to add to their qualifications the power to write shorthand. You cannot report the rulings of the Chair without some such auxiliary as that. With regard to the hour of the day at which this official report should be forthcoming I might give the House an interesting experience. I do not know if the Prime Minister remembers Mr. Shield, a Q.C., who was attached to the north-eastern circuit. In my very early years in Parliament the newspapers used to leave London at 5.15 in the morning, and Mr. Shield and I used to take that train sometimes to Leads. I remember Mr. Shield one evening making a speech with which he was very pleased, and after a division had been taken at a late hour we met each other at King's Cross thus early on the following morning. He had The Times in his hand and said: "They have not given me a bad report, after all." That shows what can be done when a really great enterprise puts its back into its work. I hope in some form or other the Government will give us some better report of the proceedings of the Standing Committees.
    *MR. SUMMERBELLthought the official reporting staff ought to be paid an annual salary. It would be a great mistake to have sessional servants, and it would be worth paying extra to have them annual servants, because the Government would then get better men. It was claimed that

    1403
    the proposed change would tend to considerable improvement so far as the reports were concerned. Instead of having one-third of the speeches reported they were going to have full reports, and it was proposed to pay the increased staff one guinea per week more, and yet they had been solemnly assured that the cost was going to be the same as it was before the change. He was afraid that he could not swallow those figures. It was a most extraordinary statement, and he ventured to think the cost would come out much higher. The great benefit that would take place all round by doing away with the contractor and doing the work themselves had been pointed out. It was true that the Committee did not recommend a printing department, but they expressed themselves as favourable to it. The cost of establishing a printing department had been put at the alarming sum of £225,000. The Secretary to the Treasury said that the Committee were advised by only one official. He was extremely sorry, after the very glowing report with regard to the reforms that were going to take place, that the hon. Gentleman had not gone further and definitely recommended that the whole of this printing should be done in a Government printing office. If the Government took that matter up along with the reporting they would save an immense sum of money every year. With regard to full reports he thought it was going to extremes and much less than that would do. What was needed was restriction, not only in the number of corrections, but also in the duration of hon. Members' speeches.
    SIR F. BANBURYsaid that his suggestion was for reports of speeches of members of the Government in charge of Bills in a Standing Committee, so that any pledges given by them might be recorded. Did the Prime Minister agree with that? If the right hon. Gentleman had attended the Scottish Committee he would be aware that the members of the Government in charge of the Bill gave a great number of pledges and there was no record kept of them. It was very important in the case of big Bills that a record
    1404
    should be kept. Did the Prime Minister think that the members of his Government, were likely to be actuated by any feeling of vanity as to their speeches being reported? He was not asking that the speeches of the ordinary private Member on these Committees should be reported, but he attached great importance to the speeches of Ministers in charge of the Bills. Right hon. Gentlemen opposite would agree that their pledges should be adhered to, and there should be some means of knowing what they had said. As to the cost, in Paragraph 17 it was set forth—
    "Your Committee having considered the subject desire to point out that a small addition would be all that would be necessary to enable the proposed stall of reporters to supply a full summary of the proceedings of the Standing Committee."
    What he suggested would cost very little, and it was reasonable and necessary if the proceedings of the Grand Committees were to be carried on in a proper manner. If it was the desire of the Government that nobody should know what went on upstairs then he could understand the opposition to this proposal.
    MR. ASQUITHsaid that that would be the making of an invidious distinction among the different members attending a Standing Committee. As far as his experience went he had found that Ministers who made pledges of any kind were always carefully reminded of them when the proceedings reached the Report stage in the House. He had also found that the hon. Baronet possessed a wonderful memory for pledges, and the assiduity shown by him to remind Ministers of them hardly made it necessary to provide an additional reporter. Besides the public necessity had already provided for what the hon. Baronet desired without any expense at all to the State. The proceedings of the Scottish Grand Committee were reported with the greatest minuteness, indeed almost verbatim, in the Scotsman, because the subject was of much interest to the people of Scotland. Any Bill of great public importance would always secure an adequate record of the proceedings connected with it in the public Press, and this was found

    1405
    to be the case in respect of the proceedings in Standing Committee. He thought that by way of experiment it was desirable to confine their efforts to the House itself and to the more modest proposal suggested by the Government.
    *MR. MORTONregretted that the Prime Minister had put his foot clown so firmly against reporting the proceedings of the Grand Committees, because it was quite as necessary to report them as it was to report the Committee proceedings of the Whole House. Standing Committees had now taken the place of the Committee of the Whole House, and all their Bills, after the Second Reading, were now sent up to a Standing Committee unless the House determined otherwise by vote. His experience of the Scottish Grand Committee was entirely in favour of having an official report. It was quite impossible to remember what had been said previously, and it was essential that they should be able to refresh their memory as to what had occurred in the previous debates. He did not think it would cost a large sum of money. This was not the first time the House had considered the reporting of their Parliamentary proceedings. In the year 1893 he got a Committee appointed and they reported very much in favour of what was now proposed. They did not require a verbatim report; many of them would not like to see a verbatim report of their speeches. On the occasion of the inquiry in 1893 they came to the conclusion that there ought to he a fair report taken and that all Members should be treated alike. They should have a good and fair report or none at all. Difficulties arose with regard to reporting one-third of their speeches, because it was possible that the third reported hon. Members would prefer should not be reported, but that some other third should be. He was glad the Government had come to the conclusion that after this session they would have a fair report. He hoped the Prime Minister would reconsider his decision in regard to Standing Committees. The Members of the Government were always well reported and need not trouble, but in the case of private Members like himself,
    1406
    they felt that their constituents desired to see reports of the speeches of their representatives in order that they should know what their. Members were doing. That particularly applied in his own case. His constituency was 700 miles away, and they could not afford the time or the money to come and hear the proceedings in Parliament, but they were, nevertheless, anxious to know what he was doing, how he voted, and what he said. He was not afraid of them knowing, and they could only know by being supplied with a fair and proper report.
    Vote agreed to.
    2. £405,212, to complete the sum for Stationery and Printing.

    CLASS I.
    3. Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £355,000, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1909, for Rates and Contributions in lieu of Rates, etc., in respect of Government Property, and for Rates on Houses occupied by Representatives of Foreign Powers, and for the Salaries and Expenses of the Rating of Government Property Department, and for a Contribution towards the Expenses of the London Fire Brigade."
    SIR F. BANBURYsaid that in years gone by there used to be a good deal of discussion on the advisability of this Vote. Originally the Government paid no rates on the buildings which they occupied but allowed the ratepayers to bear the burden which ought to have been borne by the Government. Later on, as the result of the outcry in this House against that evasion of payment by the Government, an agreement was come to that a certain contribution in lieu of rates should be made. He asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury how it was that, though a large increase had taken place in the rates, little increase had been made in the Government contribution. The increase only amounted to £19,535. Was it not possible that Government buildings

    1407
    could be rated in the same manner as bulb belonging to private people? It seemed to him that there was no reason why the Government should not be assessed in precisely the same way as private people. In these days when the rates were growing by leaps and bounds, and when the Government were putting up palatial buildings, he did not see why the ratepayers should be compelled to pay any part of the money which ought to be paid by the Government. It was very hard on people who lived in a particular area where there were Government buildings, though he did not deny that it was an advantage to the taxpayers as a whole, because they paid rather less—but it was hard on the people of London, where there were many large Government buildings, that they should be required to pay more than their share owing to the refusal of the Government to bear their proper proportion. Unless the hon. Gentleman could give him a satisfactory assurance on this subject, he would be obliged to move a reduction of the Vote. He wished to know more than appeared in the Estimates in regard to Item A. Salaries to the Treasury valuer, inspector of rates, assistant clerk, and second division clerk. As far as he could gather the only duty which these gentlemen had to perform was to pay the contributions in lieu of rates to the different municipalities in England. Instead of spending £2,615 a year on the salaries of these men, why could not the officials in charge of the buildings pay the contributions? He wished to know why we paid part of the rates in respect of houses occupied by the representatives of foreign Powers. We did not pay their salaries or provide them with houses, and he did not see why we should pay part of the rates on the houses which they occupied. The Estimate for this item said "See below," but when he looked below he saw nothing at all. He found at page 68 that of the total rates amounting to £8,600, the Treasury paid 0,415. On what principle was the sum of £3,415 arrived at? If there was an obligation on the representatives of foreign Powers to pay rates, why should they not pay the whole?
    MR. HOBHOUSEexplained that the representatives of foreign Powers were
    1408
    exempt by law from the payment of certain charges. If they refused to pay them, it would be perfectly impossible to recover by law, therefore an agreement was arrived at to the effect that the poor-rate should be paid by the British Government and the local rates on their houses by the representatives themselves, on the condition that reciprocity was observed in this matter in regard to our representatives abroad. As to the salaries in Item A the explanation was very simple. The official valuer had to perform most responsible duties, and he received a salary of £1,200 it year, while the assistant received £800 a year. They were responsible for the valuation of Government property in every part of the world, and had frequently to make journeys abroad. They received adequate but no more than adequate remuneration for their services. The hon. Baronet opposite was one of the few Members of the House who seemed to be not only surprised, but sorry that the expenditure by the Government in respect of contributions in lieu of rates had only increased by £19,000. He could not share his grief in that respect. On the contrary, it was satisfactory that, while there was an inevitable increase in rates, the sum paid by the Government this year had been kept within moderate dimensions.
    COLONEL LOCKWOODsaid he had no objection whatever to the way in which the Government dealt with the rates on houses occupied by the representatives of foreign Powers. It was a question of reciprocity, and foreign Powers met us in a similar way. He wished to draw attention to the question of the contribution in lieu of rates in relation to Government property in his own constituency. At Waltham Abbey there was an enormous number of buildings, and he urged upon the hon. Gentleman the absolute necessity of assisting the ratepayers of that locality with a further increase in the contribution in lieu of rates. He would like to know whether there had been an increase this year as compared with last, and also how the contribution to Waltham Abbey compared with the contributions to Woolwich, Deptford, and other places where Government Ordnance factories

    1409
    existed. The Government had bought at Waltham Abbey a site which was absolutely unique for their purpose, and it was right, especially in view of the dangerous nature of the operations conducted there in connection with the manufacture of powder, that the contribution in lieu of rates should be largely increased. Not only was there danger to those employed in the factory but to the occupiers of the houses in the immediate vicinity who were heavily rated. There did not seem much possibility of a decrease in the rates, but rather an increase. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would tell him what proportion of the increase of the Government contribution to local rates was given to Waltham Abbey. There had, he knew, been no increase to Waltham Abbey for the last five or six years, and the ratepayers in the district were fairly entitled to a larger contribution than was now given.
    SIR F. BANBURYsaid that he quite accepted the statement of the hon. Gentleman with regard to the payment with regard to the representatives of foreign Powers. The statement was satisfactory and he had no complaint to make with regard to it. But he was afraid he had not made himself clear on the other point. He would be the last person to suggest an increase of expenditure, but rather that it should be decreased where possible. His complaint—and it had not been answered—was that the Government Department did not pay the local rates that the ordinary citizens paid. He thought it was very hard on the ratepayers in those districts where Government property was situated if the Government did not take its fair share of the rating burden. All that the Government said in answer to his complaint was that they made a contribution to the local rates; but he drew attention to the fact that the Government contribution had increased in a very small way. The hon. Gentleman did not argue the point as to whether a proper proportion of rates was paid by the Government, but only that a contribution was made. Why should not the Government make a larger contribution when there was a general rise in the rates? There was a general fair-
    1410
    ness among all the inhabitants of the country; they did not wish to gain a small benefit at the expense of other people, but he thought the Government should pay their rates in the same way as ordinary people did. He believed that the argument was advanced, especially in the case of London, that London benefited so much by the presence of Government officials and buildings that they ought to pay something for that benefit. But, unfortunately, that applied to only one part of London where the ratepayers were mulcted for the privilege of having Government buildings and Government officials in their midst. He begged to move the reduction of the vote by £100.
    Motion made, and Question Proposed, "That a sum not exceeding £354,900, be granted for the said Service."—(Sir Frederick Banbury.)
    MR ALEXANDER CROSSsaid that the question raised by the hon. Baronet was of very great importance and he did not hesitate to commend it to the consideration of hon. Members on both sides of the House. The principle undoubtedly was that the Government contributed to the local rates in places where there was Government property. But the system of contribution had this great defect, that as the years went on the rates of the localities increased while the contribution of the Government remained the same, and therefore the Government were evading their fair share of the expenditure which the locality had to pay. For instance, before the Government took over the telegraphs the telegraph companies made large contributions to the local rates; but when they took over the undertakings of the companies the Government, to his own knowledge, made very tight bargains with the local authorities as to the amount of the contributions they should make in lieu of rates. It was notorious that these contributions, fixed thirty years ago, were wholly inadequate.
    MR. ASHLEYdrew attention to the fact that forty Members were not present.
    House counted; and forty Members being found present—
    MR. ALEXANDER CROSSsaid that the contribution system as applied to the telegraphs had ended in a miscarriage of equity. The bargain was made thirty years ago when the rates were probably one-half of what they were now. In the year 1910 the Government were going to take over the telephones throughout the country. Those telephones were at present charged for local rates at the full percentage. He had no doubt that when the Government came into possession of all the telephones up and down the country they would adopt the same principle as in the case of the telegraphs, and propose to give a contribution towards the local rates; that was to say the respective localities would be deprived of the rates they at present received from the telephone companies. That had already arisen in the case of Glasgow. The private telephone system carried on in that city had been sold to the Government, but the Government had refused to pay a single penny of the rates, which he believed meant a present loss of £2,000 a year to the local authority, which would be increased in a short time to £4,000 a year. And if, when the Government in 1910 took over the whole of the telephones, they treated Glasgow in the same illiberal spirit, the city finances would be short by between £9,000 and £10,000. He could understand the Government saying that they would pay no local rates at all. That was a comprehensible principle, although he did not believe in it. But he agreed with the hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London in the view which he had strongly expressed that there was no reason why the Government, having property in a locality, should not be rated on that property the same as anybody else. Any other system was bound to be unfair and fallacious, and had
    1412
    probably been adopted by some official on grounds of timidity. It was not a fair and square bargain. It had been alleged that where there were Government institutions and Government telephones and telegraphs, there was a certain advantage to the locality. Granted; but he did not think these considerations ought to enter into the case. If they were to weigh considerations of that sort they would get into a perfect labyrinth. He submitted that if the Government were open to conviction, and if tradition did not hold the Financial Secretary to the Treasury too tightly in its control, the whole subject should be reasonably reconsidered. It was no argument to say that the present Government only followed in the footsteps of their predecessors. A Liberal Party was in power, and it was their business to reform everything. If the present system was conceived in iniquity and created in sin that was a reason why the Liberal Government should address themselves to its reform. He hoped the hon. Gentleman would be able to show the Committee some proper system by which the Government contributions to the local rates would advance with the increase in the rates. The old-fashioned practice was for some official to come from the Department and have a talk with the officials in the locality. Then there were deputations sent to London at great expense, and ultimately they struck a contribution which was not very equitable to the locality because the Government made hard bargains. The expenses of the locality went on increasing, but still it was held to its bargain. Was not this a question to be dealt with in a fair and liberal spirit? Was it fair to hold them to a bargain made twenty or thirty years ago when the rates were probably only one-half of what they are now? If the same policy were pursued when the Government took over the telephone system of the country it would mean

    1413
    that localities would be deprived of the rates which were at present paid by telephone companies. He thought the hon. Gentleman might strike away from these old-fashioned traditions and start a system once for all under which property in the counties, cities, and boroughs should be valued like other people's property, and should pay rates like other people's property, and then he would be put in a position at which nobody could cavil.
    *MR. MORTONdid not think this ought to be a party matter. He was one of those who, previous to 1894, called attention to it, and about that year they got from a Liberal Government a great improvement in regard to the question of contributions, although that did not put it on anything like a fair footing. The Government very often paid on an unfair valuation and that was not right. What he said then and what he said to-day was that the question would never be settled until Government property paid rates on the same valuation as applied to other properties. The Government said it was an act of grace for them to pay rates at all, but that was all nonsense. He was very grateful to the Government of that day for doing something, but he was sure that in London at all events the Government were not now paying on the net rateable value of the property in which they were concerned. Everybody who had gone into the question admitted that all properties ought to pay rates, otherwise in some parishes they got a very Unfair and unequal burden put upon a certain class of ratepayers, especially in places where the Government had a large amount of property. He hoped his hon. friend who had just come into office would make up his mind to do justice, and that he would take a fair and business-like view of the question and get the Government to allow their property to be assessed by the local authorities in the same way as that of anybody else. Like anybody else they
    1414
    would have the right to appeal and get the assessments reduced if there was an unfair value placed on them, but the local authorities, who were responsible to the people for the management of local affairs, would never be satisfied until the Government in common fairness and justice allowed their property to be assessed in the same way as that of other people, and thus paid their share of rates and taxes so that there might be fairness and equal fair play to all parties in the State. He did not see that the Government would lose any dignity by doing this, because they said they were willing to contribute a fair amount towards the loyal rates, and surely, they ought to be bound by the assessment authorities when they valued the property. As he had said, this was no Party matter and he asked the Government to make this alteration and do justice all round.
    CAPTAIN CRAIGsaid he would like some details in regard to Ireland, as he thought preference had been given to the Colonies and Scotland. The increase for this year in the case of the Colonies was 50 per cent., in the case of Scotland 4 per cent., and in the case of Ireland only 1 per cent. If there was any principle in the way in which these rates were struck in the various parts of the country surely it ought to work out somewhat equally all round. But they found the Colonies having a preference. He was always willing and anxious to see the Colonies supported in every possible way, but they found in this case an increase from £5,000 in 1907–8 to £7,500 in the following year, while in Ireland the increase was only 1 or 2 per cent. The Government, he thought, had a scheme for purchasing the whole of the telephone system, not only in Scotland but in Ireland, and he supposed the postal authorities would acquire the buildings in which the telephone system was now carried on. What effect would that have in any town where

    1415
    the ratepayers had obtained the ordinary contribution to rates from the telephone companies. The Post Office would come along and claim exemption from the ordinary rateable value of their buildings, and immediately the other residents in the locality would have to be rated to the extent to which the Post Office mulcted the public authority in that particular locality. That it would appear to any business man to be absolutely unfair. He hoped that some adequate explanation would be afforded of the figures which seemed to show that an increase had without justification been given to the Colonies, and of the other points raised. If the rates were not to be paid by the Government on the same basis as those of a private citizen who had a house or warehouse or shop or place of business what guiding principle was there? He supported the Amendment.
    MR. HOBHOUSE: I think this will be a very opportune moment in which to give an answer to some of the points raised in the course of this discussion. The hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London has raised a point, not, I think, for the first time in these debates, as to the method in which the Government gives contributions in lieu of rates. The explanation I shall offer to him is an explanation which I am afraid will not be new to him, but being in accordance with the facts can serve the purpose of refreshing his memory. The valuations upon which contributions in lieu of rates are given are fixed after personal negotiation between the Treasury Inspector and the local authority. During ten years experience of the Treasury valuer there has only been one difference of opinion as to the proper value to be fixed on buildings and other assessable hereditaments between the two contending authorities. And, therefore, if I may say so, these local authorities seem to be rather less dissatisfied with their position than the hon. Baronet.
    SIR E. BANBURY: Have they got any alternative?
    MR. HOBHOUSE: Certainly; they can appeal to the Treasury. In 1907 the borough of Kensington expressed their appreciation of the consideration given by the Treasury valuer to all the circumstances of the case and their acceptance of the value he arrived at. That is only one of many, and they were satisfied as to the method by which the contribution in lieu of rates was arrived at. It has been suggested that there is no variation in the amount contributed by the Treasury. That is not so. If a rate goes up the Treasury contribution goes up, and if a rate goes down the Treasury contribution goes down. There is a definite identity about the amount of the rate which is paid by the local authority.
    MR. ALEXANDER CROSS: Is it not the fact that there have been no additions to the telegraph part of it since it has been taken over?
    MR. HOBHOUSE: I must deal with one thing at a time. I am dealing with the buildings and not the telegraph. It is quite clear that the Government must be protected against the natural inclination of the local authority to assess unduly highly property which has no living representation in the district in which it is situated. On the other hand, it is quite clear that the Government property must make contribution to the expense caused in the locality in consequence of its position in it. The hon. Baronet, whom, I do not see in his place, raised the question of the War Office building. The reconsideration of the value of that building is now taking place, and I have not the slightest doubt that in a short time the contribution which we now make will be largely increased. Then there is the question of contribution for the telegraph and

    1417
    telephone offices. The hon. Gentleman opposite has made a mistake in the statement he has made to the Committee. The people of Glasgow are not going to lose by the transfer of the telephone lines to the Government. The contribution will be paid on both lines and exchanges and there is likely to be no loss in any respect. The hon. Member for East Down referred to the increased contribution made to the Colonies. That has reference to the Colony of Malta, where the Government property is assessed for local rates. The Government property has gone up largely in value, and that is the explanation for that. The reason why Ireland's contribution has not gone up more than it has done is that the value of Government buildings has only increased by that proportion.
    MR. ALEXANDER CROSSsaid it was satisfactory to him to know that Glasgow would not suffer from the transfer of the telephone service to the Post Office, but he did not understand on what principle the valuations were made. There should be an annual revision. He did not suppose that there was any disagreement between the locality and the central authority, or could be, but he failed to see how the valuation was arrived at. His complaint was not only that the property of the Government was assessed at too low a valuation, but on the other hand the rates as assessed were largely going up. The hon. Gentleman was entitled to ask what the increase in the other rates was, and to contribute to them a largely increased sum. He also contended that while the rates were rising, the Government was contributing on a basis fixed forty or fifty years ago, and in any case on a valuation lower than they ought. On these grounds he, as a protest, would divide the Committee on this Vote.
    *MR. MORTONasked whether the hon. Gentleman could arrange to have the
    1418
    Government property assessed by the local authority.
    THE CHAIRMANsaid that would involve a change in the law and therefore it was not in order to discuss it.
    *MR. MORTONsaid in that case he would ask whether he would allow it to be valued in the same way and at the same rate as other property in the district. The appeal which they now had was from the Treasury to the Treasury. That did not strike him as being of much use. But if they appealed would the appeal be heard?
    MR. HOBHOUSE: Certainly.
    *MR. MORTON: They had made a great advance since 1894, because they used to be told they could not go beyond the Government valuation. He knew a great deal of Government property which was not properly valued and he would call attention to that at the proper time, and in some other place.
    MR. ASHLEYsaid that if the hon. Member for the Camlachie Division of Glasgow was satisfied that no injustice would be done by the telephone offices being taken over by the Government, so far as his constituency was concerned he was not, because when these offices came under the Government they would come under the same system as other Government offices, and would be valued at less than other offices, and a great injustice would be done. He did not see how the Government could refuse to come under the same conditions with regard to their property as private owners. The argument of the Secretary to the Treasury in regard to this matter was rather weak. He said there was never any dispute between the Treasury and the local authorities; that the Treasury met the local authority, discussed the matter with them, and came to a decision satisfactory to all parties,

    1419
    Of course, where one of the parties had both hands held behind its back, and knew it must accept the decision of the Government, the settlement was bound to be amicable because there was no chance of getting fair play. Having regard to the fact that the appeal from the Treasury was to the Treasury itself, he should support his hon. friend in the lobby.
    CAPTAIN CRAIGsaid he was satisfied with the answer which he had received with regard to Ireland, but he would urge the hon. Gentleman to give some further explanation so that the Committee might know exactly where they were. Everybody knew that recently there had been a revaluation, but, so far as he understood, in that revaluation the Government property was passed over, the valuer saying he had nothing to do with it. He would like to ask whether in Scotland, where the valuation was annual, or in England, where it was at varying periods, the bargain having been entered into it was not the duty of the valuer to value the Government property in the same way as the property of private individuals. Did the Government mean to say that their contribution of £665,000 was to continue from year to year on the old valuation while the local ratepayers had to pay on the increased valuation? The Government properties were valued many years ago, and there had been no increase in the Government contribution to local taxation. Owing to pressure of public business and different matters outside, he dared say that the Committee would break up without getting a satisfactory answer. They entered their protest against the treatment they received in Committee when they asked straight questions and did not succeed in getting straight answers. They asked their questions and were put off in a light and airy manner by being told, for instance, that Ireland had not done quite so much as Scotland. He
    1420
    wished to know whether some extensions which had been made to buildings in Ireland had been revalued for the purpose of their paying the ordinary rates of the localities where they were situate. He wished to know also whether the same value was put upon those extensions as was put on the original buildings years and years ago. If that was the case it was not fair to those who paid their rates on a proper valuation and had also to pay the difference that was caused by the Government's contributing on an old valuation. The Committee, with a very small attendance, was asked to sanction an arrangement which was obviously unfair on the face of it and was not in accordance with business traditions. An hon. Member below the gangway had addressed a very strong argument to the hon. Gentleman opposite, and what answer had he received? He had got no answer at all.
    THE DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member is repeatedly saying that he has got no answer. He really must confine himself to the Vote under discussion.
    CAPTAIN CRAIGsaid he should not have risen a second time if he had received a fair answer in the first instance. He asked the hon. Gentleman to give them some fair answer.
    SIR F. BANBURYsaid the hon. Gentleman had not met the point. He had merely informed him that he was correct in all the objections which he had raised to the Vote. But then he had gone on to say that there was an appeal. The appeal was this. The valuation was made by the Treasury Valuer and by an Inspector. These were the gentlemen who made the assessments. Were they satisfactory to the people concerned? He did not think they were. The hon. Gentleman had produced a letter from the Kensington Borough Council in which they said that they were satisfied. They might

    1421
    have been satisfied in that particular instance, and he thought they were wise if they were satisfied. But it could not in any way be considered a satisfactory appeal, and it was evident that the unfortunate municipalities were bound to accept whatever the Treasury Valuer might say. What he desired was that these valuations should be carried out in a business like manner. The hon. Gentleman was the representative of a businesslike Government, which they had been given to understand when it came into power was to carry things out in an economical and efficient manner.
    What was to prevent a proper valuation being made on the basis upon which all other valuations were founded? He was glad that he had the support of hon. Members on the other side of the House, and he thought that it was absolutely necessary to express, by dividing the Committee, their dissatisfaction with the manner in which these valuations were carried on.
    Question put.
    The Committee divided:—Ayes, 28; Noes, 199. (Division list No. 94.)

    AYES.

    Acland-Hood, RtHn.SirAlex,F.

    Craig,Captain James(Down,E.)

    Rutherford, John (Lancashire)

    Ashley, W. W.

    Dalrymple, Viscount

    Staveley-Hill, Henry (Staff'sh.)

    Banbury, Sir Frederick George

    Forster, Henry William

    Stone, Sir Benjamin

    Barrie, H. T. (Londonderry, N.)

    Gretton, John

    Thomson, W. Mithchell- (Lanark)

    Bignold, Sir Arthur

    Guinness, Walter Edward

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

    Bull, Sir William James

    Hope,James Fitzalan (Sheffield)

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

    Butcher, Samuel Henry

    Lonsdale, John Brownlee

    Cave, George

    MacCaw, William J. MacGeagh

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr.

    Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

    Magnus, Sir Philip

    Fell and Mr. Cross.

    Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.)

    Parkes, Ebenezer

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

    Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington)

    NOES.

    Abraham, William (Rhondda)

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

    Harcourt,Robert V. (Montrose)

    Agnew, George William

    Compton-Rickett, Sir J.

    Hardie, J. Keir (Merthyr Tydvil)

    Allen, Charles P. (Stroud)

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

    Hart-Davies, T.

    Atherley-Jones, L.

    Cowan, W. H.

    Haslam, James (Derbyshire)

    Baker, Sir John (Portsmouth)

    Cox, Harold

    Helme, Norval Watson

    Baker, Joseph A. (Finsbury E.)

    Cremer, Sir William Randal

    Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

    Balfour, Robert (Lanark)

    Crooks, William

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

    Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight)

    Curran, Peter Francis

    Henry, Charles S.

    Barker, John

    Davies, Ellis William (Eifion)

    Higham, John Sharp

    Barran, Rowland Hirst

    Dewar, Arthur (Edinburgh, S.)

    Hobart, Sir Robert

    Barry, E. (Cork, S.)

    Donelan, Captain A.

    Hobhouse, Charles E. H.

    Bell, Richard

    Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne)

    Hodge, John

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

    Edwards, Enoch (Hanley)

    Hogan, Michael

    Bennett, E. N.

    Elibank, Master of

    Holt, Richard Durning

    Berridge, T. H. D.

    Essex, R. W.

    Hope,W.Bateman(Somerset,N.)

    Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon)

    Esslemont, George Birnie

    Horniman, Emslie John

    Bowerman, C. W.

    Fenwick, Charles

    Hudson, Walter

    Brigg, John

    Ferens, T. R.

    Idris, T. H. W.

    Brocklehurst, W. B.

    Findlay, Alexander

    Isaacs, Rufus Daniel

    Brodie, H. C.

    Flynn, James Christopher

    Jardine, Sir J.

    Brooke, Stopford

    Fuller, John Michael F.

    Johnson, John (Gateshead)

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

    Fullerton, Hugh

    Jones, Leif (Appleby)

    Bryce, J. Annan

    Gill, A. H.

    Jowett, F. W.

    Burns, Rt. Hon. John

    Gladstone, Rt. Hn Herbert John

    Joyce, Michael

    Burnyeat, W. J. D.

    Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford

    Kearley, Hudson E.

    Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas

    Grayson, Albert Victor

    Kekewich, Sir George

    Byles, William Pollard

    Gulland, John W.

    Kincaid-Smith, Captain

    Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R.

    Gurdon,RtHnSirW.Brampton

    King, Alfred John (Knutsford)

    Cleland, J. W.

    Gwynn, Stephen Lucius

    Laidlaw, Robert

    Clough, William

    Hall, Frederick

    Lambert, George

    Clynes, J. R.

    Harcourt, Rt. Hn. L (Rossendale)

    Lamont, Norman

    Layland-Barratt, Francis

    O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

    Strachey, Sir Edward

    Lehmann, R. C.

    Parker, James (Halifax)

    Straus, B. S. (Mile End)

    Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich)

    Partington, Oswald

    Summerbell, T.

    Levy, Sir Maurice

    Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)

    Sutherland, J. E.

    Lyell, Charles Henry

    Pickersgill, Edward Hare

    Taylor, John W. (Durham)

    Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester)

    Pollard, Dr.

    Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

    Macdonald, J.M. (Falkirk B'ghs

    Power, Patrick Joseph

    Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.)

    Macpherson, J. T.

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

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

    MacVeagh, Jeremiah (Down, S.)

    Radford, G. H.

    Thorne, William (West Ham)

    Mac Veigh, Charles(Donegal, E.)

    Rea, Walter Russell (Scarboro')

    Torrance, Sir A. M.

    M'Crae, George

    Reddy, M.

    Toulmin, George

    M'Hugh, Patrick A.

    Redmond, William (Clare)

    Vivian, Henry

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

    Rendall, Athelstan

    Walker, H. De R. (Leicester)

    Maddison, Frederick

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

    Wardle, George J.

    Mallet, Charles E.

    Richardson, A.

    Wason, Rt. Hn. E (Clackmannan

    Manfield, Harry (Northants)

    Ridsdale, E. A.

    Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

    Markham, Arthur Basil

    Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

    Waterlow, D. S.

    Marks, G. Croydon (Launceston)

    Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)

    Watt, Henry A.

    Marnham, F. J.

    Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside)

    Weir, James Galloway

    Mason, A. E. W. (Coventry)

    Robinson, S.

    White, J. D. (Dumbartonshire)

    Meehan. Francis E. (Leitrim, N.)

    Roche, John (Galway, East)

    White, Luke (York, E. R.)

    Menzies, Walter

    Roe, Sir Thomas

    White, Patrick (Meath, North)

    Micklem, Nathaniel

    Rowlands, J.

    Whitehead, Rowland

    Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall)

    Schwann, Sir C.E. (Manchester)

    Whitley, John Henry (Halifax)

    Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen)

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

    Whittaker, Sir Thomas Palmer

    Morton, Alpheus Cleophas

    Sears, J. E.

    Wiles, Thomas

    Murnaghan, George

    Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford)

    Williams, J. (Glamorgan)

    Murray, James (Aberdeen, E.)

    Sheehan, Daniel Daniel

    Wilson, J. H. (Middlesbrough)

    Napier, T. B.

    Shipman, Dr. John G.

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

    Newnes, Sir George (Swansea)

    Silcock, Thomas Ball

    Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

    Nicholls, George

    Simon, John Allsebrook

    Winfrey, R.

    Nicholson, Charles N. (Doncast'r)

    Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie

    Wood, T. M'Kinnon

    Nuttall, Harry

    Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.)

    O'Brien, Kendal (Tipperary Mid.

    Snowden, P.

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr.

    O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

    Soares, Ernest J.

    J. A. Pease and Captain

    O'Doherty, Philip

    Stanger, H. Y.

    Norton.

    O'Dowd, John

    Stewart-Smith, D. (Kendal)

    Question put, and agreed to.

    CLASS II.
    4. £35, to complete the sum for the Mint, including Coinage.
    5. £8,420, to complete the sum for the National Debt Office.

    CLASS VI.
    6. £338, to complete the sum for Miscellaneous Charitable and other Allowances.

    CLASS II.
    7. £23,178, to complete the sum for the Civil Service Commission.
    Resolutions to be reported upon Monday next; Committee to sit again upon Monday next.

  ADJOURNMEN—THE TERRITORIAL FORCE.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—(Mr. J.A. Pease.)
  *MR. ASHLEYsaid he desired on the Motion for the adjournment of the House to raise a question which he thought was of some public importance, namely, the treatment which had been lately meted out to some of the permanent stall of the Territorial Force and the old Volunteer Force. These notices of reduction of salary had been given out in a few cases last year, but in the great majority of instances they were given out only two months ago, and it had, he thought, causes very great dissatisfaction among the Regular soldiers who were employed as instructors of the new Territorial Army, that their pay had been

  1425
  cut down not by 10 or 15 per cent., but by 50 per cent. On Monday he asked the Secretary for War whether the colour sergeants of the Regular Forces who took up the appointments of sergeant-major and sergeant-instructor of the Infantry battalions of the old Volunteer Forces were now on being transferred to the new Territorial Force to receive only about 50 per cent. of their former pay, and the answer he received did not traverse his main contention that the pay had been arbitrarily cut down. He wished the House to be in possession of the exact situation in respect of this matter. What were the facts? These men continued to receive their Army pay. They received it just as if they were serving with their battalions. They received neither more nor less for their Army service, but the House must remember that on taking up their position as sergeant-instructors of the Territorial and Volunteer Forces—a position which he thought the House would agree was a very important one—they lost 6d. a day for acting as colour-sergeants, and 6d. a day for paying a company. They lost, therefore, is a day or 7s. a week. What did they receive in return for this loss of 7s. when they took on under the old Volunteer Force? The amounts varied according to localities, but in nearly all cases rates higher than were permitted under the new Regulations, invariably so in London. Take a typical case in the Metropolis of a well known corps, for the very important post of sergeant-major, 22s. a week, and as sergeant-instructor 12s. a week. That was not an excessive amount of remuneration for these men to receive in view of the very important and hard duties they had to perform. He understood that in some cases the change was made last year, but in the cases which had come under his notice, that was in the London district, it was only in March that the order came from the
  1426
  War Office that the sergeant-majors, instead of receiving 22s., were to receive only 10s. a week—a reduction of more than 50 par cent.; and sergeant-instructors, instead of 12s. were to receive 6s. 8d. a week. These unfortunate men were in this position, that the sergeant-majors for all their extra work got 3s. a week extra, and the sergeant-instructors not only did not get anything extra but lost 4d. a week. He would like to read to the House the answer he received to his Question. It began by saying that undoubtedly the Army pay was the same in the Regular Army as in the Volunteers. That he did not complain of. It went on to say—
  "Extra remuneration was permitted to be given by their corps for extra work performed in addition to military duties."
  He traversed that statement entirely. The extra remuneration was not permitted; it was ordered to be given by the War Office Order of May, 1903, and had nothing to do with the corps itself. The reply went on to say—
  "and is permitted to be given by the County Associations at the present moment."
  He again traversed that statement. That was not so. This reduced pay was owing to the direct order received in London last March from the War Office, and the County Association had nothing to do with fixing the scales of pay. It was plainly stated so at the recent meeting of the London County Association by Lord Esher. When the question was brought up at the meeting, and many of the commanding officers pointed out what a great injustice this order was, and how detrimental to efficiency, Lord Esher said, "I am very sorry indeed, but this has nothing to do with us; we have simply to carry out the orders of the War Office in this respect." Then the answer of the Secretary for War went on—
  "The Army Council, however, cannot approve of payments made simply for the

  1427
  purpose of increasing the remuneration paid to the permanent staff without any reference to the extra work which they are required to do."
  That statement added insult to injury. The County Association could not approve any increase of pay when the pay was reduced by 50 per cent. It was said there was less work to do than in the past. He could not agree to that when they knew that the permanent staff of the Territorial Army had been reduced as compared with the Volunteer battalions, in some cases from four to three. He would press on the Government these two points. First, he thought it was not keeping faith with these men to allow them to take up their appointments on the faith of the War Office Order of 1903 in which the scale of payment was laid down, to make them leave their regular battalions and take their wives and children far away, and now suddenly to leave them in the lurch, perhaps within a year or two of getting their pensions, putting them in the dilemma of serving on at a very reduced income, and possibly—he did not know what view the Army Council took of it—of being obliged to serve on, because after all they were soldiers under military orders, and might not be allowed to go back to the colours. He took even a wider view than this, and thought it stupidity on the part of the Government at this time when the success of the Territorial Army hung in the balance—they knew that only about 30 per cent. of the Territorial Force had been recruited—to cut down the pay of the men who, even more than the officers, had it in their power to make the new force a success or not. Surely if it was to be a success it was not good policy to reduce by 50 per cent. the emoluments of the men who had the power to make or mar the force.
  MR. HOBHOUSEsaid the gravamen of the charge which he understood the hon. Member brought was that faith
  1428
  was not kept with the officers of what was now the new Territorial Force in accordance with the terms of the agreement of 1893.
  MR. ASHLEY: And that you will not get the right class of men for the most important work.
  MR. HOBHOUSEassured the hon. Member that he was appealing to one who was very largely in sympathy with him, but, of course, he had no warrant to speak on behalf of the War Office on this point. But standing there in quite another capacity and as one interested in the success of the Territorial Force, he felt there was great weight in what the hon. Member had said. It was unquestionably a fact that if they did not offer a sufficient consideration they would not get a satisfactory class of non-commissioned officers to come into the Territorial Force from the Regular Force. That was no new difficulty, for it had existed as long as the hon. Member had had any connection with the Auxiliary Forces, and certainly as long as he had had any connection with that force himself. He would take care to represent it to the responsible authorities at the War Office. Of course, he could make no pledge on behalf of the representative of the War Office, but he would represent the hon. Member's views, and, so far as he could, reinforce them.
  *MR. GRETTONhoped the hon. Gentleman would also point out how very important it was to country corps that the sergeant instructors for the Territorial Force should be very carefully selected, and sufficient inducements offered to obtain the services of the most suitable non-commissioned officers from the Line battalions.
  Adjourned accordingly at Twenty minutes after Eight o'clock.

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
The LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House, That the Clerk of the Parliaments had laid upon the Table the Certificate from the Examiners that the Standing Orders applicable to the following Bill have not been complied with: Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Tramways (No. 2).
The same were ordered to lie on the Table.
Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Tramways (No. 2) Bill.—Examiner's Certificate of non-compliance with the Standing Orders referred to the Standing Orders Committee on Wednesday next.
Ravensthorpe Urban District Council Bill [H.L.]; Leith Burgh Bill [H.L.]; Amman ford Urban District Council Water Bill [H L.]; Llanelly and Burry Port Water Board Bill [H.L.].—Leave given to the Select Committee to adjourn over To morrow and not to sit on Monday next till Twelve o'clock.
Bristol Corporation Bill [H.L.].—The King's consent signified; and Bill reported from the Select Committee, with Amendments.
Aire and Calder Navigation Bill [H.L.].—The King's consent signified; and Bill reported from the Select Committee, with Amendments.
Dundalk Urban District Council Bill.—Read 2a, and committed.
Knott End Railway Bill.—Read 2a, and committed for Wednesday next.
Swinton and Mexborough Gas Bill.—Read 2a and committed.
Motherwell Burgh Extension, etc., Bill. Read 2a, and committed.—The Committee to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
Wishaw Burgh Electricity, etc. Bill.—Read 2a, and committed.
Rhymney and Aber Valleys Gas and Water 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 of February and 1st of April last discharged, and Bill committed.
Stratford-upon-Avon, Towcester, and Midland Junction Railway, Evesham, Redditch, and Stratford-upon-Avon Junction Railway, and East and West Junction Railway (Amalgamation) 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 18th of March and 1st of April last discharged, and Bill committed for Wednesday next.
Stockport Corporation Bill.—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 1st of April last discharged, and Bill committed.
Rochester Bridge Bill [H.L.].—Report from the Select Committee, That the Committee had not proceede 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 3rd of March and 1st of April last discharged, and Bill committed.
Lincoln Corporation Bill; Cambrian Railways Bill [H.L.]; North Eastern Railway Bill; Draycott Gas Bill; Leicester Corporation Bill; Blaydon and Ryton Water (Transfer) Bill; Finchley Urban District Council Bill, Motherwell Burgh Extension, etc., Bill.—Report from the Committee of Selection, That the following Lords be proposed to the House to form the Select Committee for the consideration of the said Bills, viz.:—D. Wellington, E. Westmeath, L. Mendip (V. Clifden), L. Ellenborough, L. Kintore (E. Kildare) (chairman); agreed to; and the said Lords appointed accordingly: The Committee to meet on Tuesday next,

1263
at Eleven o'clock; and all petitions referred to the Committee, with leave to the petitioners praying to be heard by counsel against the Bills to be heard as desired, as also counsel for the Bills.
Derby Gas Bill.—Returned from the Commons with the Amendments agreed to.
Local Government (Ireland) Provisional Orders (No. 2) Bill [H.L.]; Gas Orders Confirmation Bill [H.L.]; Gas and Water Orders Confirmation Bill [H.L.]; Tramways Orders Confirmation (No. 2) Bill; Pier and Harbour Provisional Orders (No. 1) Bill [H.L.] Pier and harbour Provisional Orders (No. 2) Bill [H.L.].—Read 2a (according to order).

PETITIONS.
  LAND VALUES (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petition in favour of; of combination parish council of Govan; read, and ordered to lie on the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  LOTTERIES AND INDECENT ADVERTISMENTS.
  The evidence taken before the Joint Committee from time to time to be printed, but no copies to be delivered out except to members of the Committee, and such other persons as the Committee shall think fit, until further order. (No. 64.)
  TRADE REPORTS (ANNUAL SERIES).
  No. 3997. Norway; No. 3998. United States (San Francisco).

  TREATY SERIES (No. 13, 1908).
  Treaty of Commerce between the United Kingdom and Servia; signed at Belgrade, 17th February, 1907. (Ratifications exchanged at Belgrade, 31st March, 1908).
  Presented (by Command), and ordered to lie on the Table.

  WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.
  Report by the Board of Trade on their proceedings and business under the Weights and Measures Acts: Laid before the House (pursuant to Act), and ordered to lie on the Table.
  PORT OF LONDON BILL.
  Message from the Commons that they have appointed a Committee to consist of Five Members to join with a Committee of this House to consider the said Bill, and request this House to appoint an equal number of Lords to join with the Members of their House. The said Message to be considered on Monday next.
COMPANIES (CONSOLIDATION) BILL [H.L.]
  POST OFFICE (CONSOLIDATION) BILL [H.L.]
  Message from the Commons that they concur in the Resolution of this House communicated to them on the 7th instant, that the said Bills be referred to a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament.

PROSECUTION OF OFFENCES (AMENDMENT) BILL.
Brought from the Commons.
Read 1a, and to be printed. (No. 65.)

LAND VALUES (SCOTLAND) BILL.
House in Committee (according to order).
[The Earl of ONSLOW in the Chair.]
Clause 1:
*LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGHhad on the Paper an Amendment to subsection (2)—
(2) Subject as hereinafter provided, there shall be entered under the last-mentioned heading the capital land value of the several lands and heritages required by the Valuation Acts to be entered in the valuation roll, not, being lands and heritages falling to be valued by the assessor of railways and canals—
to leave out from the word "roll" to the end of the subsection; or alternatively, to leave out from the subsequent word "heritages" to the end of the subsection and to insert the words "belonging to railway, canal, harbour, gasworks, waterworks, tramway, electricity, or other statutory companies or corporations, where the use of the land is limited by Statute to the purposes of such companies or corporations." He said the Amendment had been put down in an alternative form owing to the extreme difficulty, having regard to the speeches of the Law Officers of the Crown for Scotland, and

1265
especially of the Solicitor-General, of understanding what was the intention of the Government in this matter. The Solicitor-General had over and over again stated that the intention of the Government was to substitute one standard for the other, and to put the whole of the rates on the new standard. That had been disavowed by His Majesty's Government, and therefore the first of his Amendments was obviously inapplicable. But if the object was only to remedy the suburban grievance of holding-up land, the second Amendment was applicable to that particular point.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWNdid not desire to interrupt the noble Lord, but wished to say now, in order not to be precluded from doing so later, that if Lord Balfour proposed to abandon his first Amendment, he (Lord Camperdown) would move it.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES: Lord Balfour did not finish what ho was going to say, but I gathered that he does not propose to move the first of the two alternatives. Therefore, if Lord Camper-down intends to move it, he would come first.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGHsaid that, so far as he was concerned, he thought the first Amendment inapplicable in the position in which they were now placed.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWNthen moved to delete from subsection (2) the words "not being lands and heritages falling to be valued by the assessor of railways and canals." He explained that his object was to bring railways and canals into the Bill. As the clause stood they were excluded, and their valuation would not be inserted in the additional column. As Lord Balfour had pointed out, the Bill left it quite uncertain whether the Rating Bill which was going to follow on this Bill would institute site value as the basis of rating generally, or only of a supplementary rate. The Solicitor-General for Scotland, and the extreme Members in the other House, had declared that the intention was to extend it to all rating. The Lord Chancellor, on the other hand, had assured them that that was not the Government's intention. But the Com-
1266
mittee had to deal, not with intentions, but with what they found in the Bill. As the Bill stood railways would not appear in the additional column, and supposing, for the sake of argument, that the Rating Bill would be limited to a supplementary rate, then railways would not be rated for the supplementary rate at all. Why should that be? If there was to be a supplementary rate, there was no reason for exempting railways and canals, still less the other undertakings set out in Lord Balfour's alternative Amendment. If some land was to be entered in this column then all land ought to appear there, without consideration as to whom it belonged. That was the way in which the matter presented itself to his mind, and that was his reason for moving to leave out these words.
Amendment moved—
"In page 1, line 14, to leave out from the word 'roll' to the end of subsection (2)."—(The Earl of Camperdown.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord LOREBURN)said the effect of the Amendment would be to bring in railways and canals to be entered in the new column of the Valuation Bill.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: Hear, hear.
THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid the Committee should remember what the new column was; it was now a new column of yearly value, and not capital value. The subject of rating railways was a very difficult one, but a system had grown up which was as accurate a method of valuation on yearly value as could be found. Accordingly his view was that the best course would be to leave railways as they were, instead of putting them into a valuation column the purpose of which, as altered through the effect of their yesterday's Amendment, he did not at present apprehend.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWNsaid that if it was the case that railways would appear on their yearly value he would withdraw his Amendment.
LORD HENEAGEasked if there were to be two sets of ratepayers or only one. Were the ratepayers who were to pay the ordinary rate to be the occupiers,

1267
and those who were to pay under the supplementary column to be the owners, or were the owners to pay all the rates?
THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid he could not be expected to say what would happen under the Bill as altered by their Lordships. He could only say what the Government intended the Bill to do—which was to set up a column in the valuation roll stating the capital value, and that afterwards, in another Bill, the incidence of rating should be stated and enacted.
THE EARL OF HALSBURYsaid that, if the purpose of the Bill was as the Lord Chancellor described, the Amendment already carried by the House had negatived that purpose.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I think that is so.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
*LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGHmoved to leave out all the words after "heritages," and to insert "belonging to railway, canal, harbour, gasworks, waterworks, tramway, electricity, or other statutory companies or corporations, where the use of the land is limited by Statute to he purposes of such companies or corporations." The Lord Chancellor had stated over and over again that the real object of the Bill was to get rid of the suburban grievance—that was, the holding-up of land in and about growing towns. Therefore, it seemed to him that the Amendment he was now moving was absolutely necessary. The noble and learned Lord had stated yesterday that the Bill was intended to remedy a purely urban grievance—
THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid he had stated quite explicitly on the Second Reading the full purpose of the Bill as he understood it. What he had said was on record, and he did not wish it to be summarised in a sentence. He did not think he had made the statement that the grievance was confined to urban areas. At any rate, he had not intended to, for he believed the evil existed outside urban areas as well.
*LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGHsaid that, at any rate, one main object of
1268
the Bill was to put a penalty on those who capriciously, and for their own profit, held up land. There wore no doubt other objects hoped to be attained by means of this Bill by supporters of His Majesty's Government. But one of its main objects avowed by the Government was to put a penalty on those who held up land which it was thought might be put into the market for the benefit of those urban districts; and one of the penalties they were going to impose was to rate the owners on something more than the annual value which they were putting into their pockets. It was clear that the companies and corporations dealt with in his Amendment had no power to do anything of the kind. Vacant land such as that to which his Amendment referred should certainly be exempt from this form of penalty, because the companies and corporations concerned could not realise their land for budding purposes, nor did they hold the land for the purpose of profit in the case of resale. Take the case of the Clyde Trust. This trust had duties up and down the whole of the Clyde, from Glasgow to Greenock. It was rated in two or three counties, in six or eight paishes, and in some burghs, and it paid rates amounting to something between £35,000 and £40,000 on an assumed income of £150,000 a year. It was clear that that body, even if it did hold vacant land, could not turn that land to any use except for its Own purposes; and certainly they could not in such a case test the price between a willing seller and a willing buyer because the land could not be sold. The Report of Mr. Ure's Committee in explicit terms recommended that the exemptions from the Bill should include railways, canals, docks, and harbours. The only exemption which he proposed to give to these companies and corporations was that they should not be valued, because it certainly would not be fair to rate them where the use of the land was limited by Statute to the purposes of such companies or corporations.
Amendment moved—
"In page 11, to leave out from the word 'heritages' to the end of subsection (2), and insert the words belonging railway, canal, harbour, gasworks, waterworks, tramway, electricity, other statutory companies or corporations, where the use of the land is by Statute to the purposes of such

1269
companies or corporations.'"—(Lord Balfour of Barleigh.)
THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid that the arguments which had been adduced by the noble Lord, and from which he did not dissent, were those which had led the Government to exclude railways from the Bill. The Bill excluded railways, and the Amendment also excluded them, but he thought it did so in a more complete form; and, if the noble Lord preferred his words to theirs, so far as he was concerned he had no objection. He would have objected to the inclusion of railways if the Bill had remained as it was; it was doubly desirable to exempt railways from the operation of the new system of yearly valuation.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: The object of the Amendment is to make sure of the exemption of docks.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Quite so.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWNdid not quite follow the argument. He had understood from the noble and learned Lord that every sort of land would appear according to its yearly value. Railways undoubtedly had a special mode of valuation of their own. Docks and other undertakings had also a separate mode of valuation. He apprehended that all were to be dealt with alike, and would appear in the third column in the way in which they were valued at the present tune.
THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid the Amendment was an enlargement of the provision in the Bill. The provision left railways as they were now in regard to rating. The Amendment secured that clocks and similar undertakings should also continue to be rated exactly in the same way as they were now. He admitted that the object aimed at was secured more clearly under the Amendment than under the Bill.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Consequential Amendment agreed to.
Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 2:
Consequential Amendment agreed to.
Clause 2, as amended, agreed to.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGHmoved to insert, after Clause 2, a new clause which he explained was consequential upon the Amendment made by their Lordships in Clause 1 the previous day.
Amendment moved,
"After Clause 2, to insert the following new clause: 'Within six months after the passing of this Act, the clerk of every council of a county or a burgh shall convene, with not less than one month's notice, a special meeting of the council to consider the desirability of adopting this Act in that county or burgh, and if the decision of that meeting, upon a vote taken, is in favour of such adoption, this Act shall have force within that county or burgh.'"—(Lord Balfour of Burleigh).
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 3:
*LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH,in moving an Amendment defining "yearly land value" in reference to any lands and heritages as meaning—
"Such part of the rental or yearly value of any lands or heritages or common interest in land as is fairly attributable to the ground if devoted to any purpose to which such land can presently be devoted, subject to all building restrictions and servitudes imposed thereon,"
said that perhaps the most convenient course would be that he should, as shortly as possible, state what the point of difference in regard to this Amendment was, not only between him and His Majesty's Government, but, as he thought, between hint and the noble Lords on the Opposition Benches who desired to amend his Amendment. He thought ho was not wrong in saying that the first part of the Amendment down to the words "if devoted" was really consequential upon the alteration made in the Bill the previous day, substituting yearly for capital value, because if they made that change it was necessary to insert a definition of yearly value. The definition of capital value would not run when applied to yearly value, and therefore his proposal was to omit the definition appropriate to capital value and insert one appropriate to yearly value. He went on, in the course of the Amendment, to suggest an extension of the yearly value as it now existed—an extension

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for this particular valuation. The alteration would not apply to the ordinary column of the Valuation Roll, but to the value of land as it appeared in the new column proposed to be added to the Valuation Roll.
He did not wish to re-argue the question of the relative advantages of capital and yearly value. They had not, of course, converted His Majesty's Government. His desire in framing this Amendment as applied to yearly value was really to afford to those who thought there was a grievance at the present time a means of remedying that grievance. It was, he quite admitted, a somewhat difficult and intricate question. They had it argued yesterday as a grievance that land was capriciously held up from the building market—it might be either on the outskirts of growing towns, it might be as waste pieces within towns, or it might be in one or two other ways. It was said that the land in question, while ripening for building, was occupied for agricultural or accommodation purposes; and, being rateable, it had now to be valued at a rent which a tenant might reasonably give, and this had been interpreted to mean the value to the occupier in its existing state. Here he, for one, was fully prepared to admit that there was a certain difficulty and a certain grievance. He thought the grievance greatly exaggerated in many quarters; it had been deliberately exaggerated for the purpose of getting up an agitation in favour of the taxation of land values and the confiscation of that particular thing known as the unearned increment.
If anyone who cared to do so would take the trouble to look at the Report of the Royal Commission on Land Taxation, of which he was chairman, they would see, whether they agreed with the Commission or not, that the question was fully and thoroughly argued; and, as he understood it, the conclusions to which they came wore on this particular point accepted by His Majesty's Government. But they proposed to remedy the grievance by valuing on capital value in the future. His contention was that that raised difficulties and dangers which were far in excess of what was necessary for remedying the particular grievance in question, and that the easiest way—a perfectly simple and reasonable way—of doing it was to make such a difference in the
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definition of yearly value for this purpose as to alter the decision of the Courts when they gave effect to the motto which, for short, was described as "valuing land in its present state and fur the purpose to which at the moment it was applied." The Commissioners said that in respect of site value of all uncovered land which was intended to be let or could be let on a covenant for immediate building, it was fair to rate at a certain amount in excess of the value actually obtained by the owner, provided the owner could immediately obtain it; and the advantage they claimed for the scheme was that the charge must necessarily be moderate in amount, and that it would avoid the injustice of taxing owners and occupiers of agricultural land upon a capital value which could not be realised.
On the question of the alleged holding-up of land, the Commissioners said—
"It cannot be disputed that land is sometimes withheld from building; but, on the whole, though it is very difficult to obtain definite and exhaustive information, we are inclined to believe that merely speculative holding-up does not occur to any great extent, or for very long periods. The cases in which speculation might appear to be the motive will often be found to be complicated by other anti less simple considerations. e.g., if an estate is being developed as a high-class residential neighbourhood, the owner often prefers to wait a while for desirable tenants rather than grant leases for factories or small houses."
He did not think anyone could say that if an owner in the development of his estate took that course he was doing anything but what was right and proper, and they should not penalise him for it. The difficulty was that noble Lords opposite would make no distinction but would rate upon capital value, even although private property were held up for perfectly legitimate purposes. But there were other cases which it was thought desirable to get at. The Commissioners went on to say—
"There are plots of land which may sometimes be seen in important thoroughfares, lying waste and neglected, destined for no purpose but building, yet withheld from the builder. In such cases we entertain no doubt as to the propriety of imposing a rate on the true site value, or as to the ease with which this object can be effected."
Next, the Commissioners referred to land on the outskirts of towns. The Government had failed to recognise in the provisions of the Bill that

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this was an extremely complicated and difficult question. In the Bill as it stood there were no directions at all to the assessors. He thought it was only fair that the Government should state more clearly in the Bill what the object they had in view really was. If noble Lords opposite would read the criticisms of newspapers which supported the Government they would see that the real object in the minds of some of their supporters was to get at what was called the "unearned increment of the land." What he was anxious to do was to take care that, while remedying the grievance which existed, they should not introduce into their system of valuation or rating anything which would give colour and support to the idea that that was a reasonable proposal. He thought the words he proposed would be fair, and they had boon drafted by two of the most experienced draughtsmen in Scotland. In case it might be said the word "presently" was ambiguous, he might add that it meant in Scotland "the present time." The English meaning of "presently" was "some future time."
The Government would, he was sure, give him credit for having endeavoured to make an honest attempt to settle a real difficulty. If the words which he suggested were not considered by the lawyers who guided the House to be satisfactory, then let them insert others. The point was an extremely difficult and intricate one. It had been argued very fully in the Report for which he was responsible, and to which he adhered absolutely; he believed it to be as true and correct now as on the day it was written. But it had been used by those who wished to purloin the unearned increment on land as giving colour and support to their view. He did not think anyone could honestly say the Report went in that direction. As to rating on capital value, not only was it not mentioned in the Report, but it was not mentioned by a single witness, so far as he could recollect, who gave evidence before the Commission. They appealed to some of the best economic experts on this point and received voluminous papers in reply; but, so far as he remembered, not one single suggestion was made that capital value should be taken. He saw Lord Courtney opposite. If he could pursuade the noble Lord to unburden his
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mind and tell the Committee what he thought of the economic view of rating on capital value as opposed to yearly value, he would be prepared to rely upon Lord Courtney's opinion to guide him in the matter.
If it were said hereafter that the Lords had ruined this Bill by inserting "yearly" instead of "capital" value, he would road from a letter Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman wrote him. Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman had made some good-humoured but caustic comment on the part he took in advising their Lordships last year to reject this Bill on Second Reading. As the attack was delivered in Scotland, near his home, and in view of the high standing of the statesman making it, he wrote Sir Henry a friendly letter challenging the accuracy of some of the things said. He pointed out to Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman that one of the objections he had to the Bill was the rating on capital instead of the yearly value. In the course of a courteous reply Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman wrote:—
"Even if these proposals were all you say of them, they would still remain matters for consideration in Committee, and I may remind you that you took part in the rejection of the Bill on Second Reading—a course which prevented it from ever reaching the Committee stage."
This year the Bill had reached the Committee stage, and now they were told that by substituting "yearly" for "capital" value they had wrecked the Bill. Yet Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman said it was merely a Committee point.
To recur to what was really the main point. If one of the principal objects of the Bill was to remove the suburban grievance of the capricious holding-up of land, then he was willing to help; and he had given an earnest of his desire to do so by putting this Amendment on the Paper. His noble friend Lord Camperdown proposed to leave out the words—
"if devoted to any purpose to which such land can presently be devoted."
If those words were omitted there would be no difference between the definition of yearly value as it stood and as it would be under the Bill. His sole object was to alter the definition to a reasonable and moderate extent for the purpose of getting rid of a grievance—the existence

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of which he fully admitted. It was desirable that the greatest possible care should be taken to make sure that they did, in a matter of this intricacy and difficulty, just what they wanted to do and no more. In view of Lord Camper-down's Amendment he would only move, at that moment, the first part of his Amendment down to the word "ground."
Amendment moved—
"In page 3, lines 16 to 19, to leave out lines 16 to 19 inclusive, and to insert the words "means such part of the rental or yearly value of any lands or heritages or common interest in land as is fairly attributable to the ground."—(Lord Balfour of Burleigh.)
THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid the noble Lord who had moved the Amendment was a master of this very intricate subject, and he thought their Lordships would have realised from the noble Lord's speech the intrinsic difficulty of it, and would extend some, perhaps modified, sympathy to those who were attempting to deal with it. It was possible to take one view and to say that for all subjects of rating the present system was right, and that they were only to take what the property would let for from year to year and rate upon that. That was perfectly intelligible. But there were many—the noble Lord who moved the Amendment was one of them—who thought that was not fair. He certainly thought it was not fair. This Amendment was admittedly based on the assumption that there was something beyond the present rental value which ought to be assessed for rating purposes. His Majesty's Government thought that that was the thing which ought to be assessed—the annual interest of the real value of the property. Taking the real value of the property at £1,000, they thought it ought to be said that the annual value of that £1,000 was £40 on a 4 per cent. table, or £50 on a 5 per cent. table. Therefore, it was reasonable that something beyond the rental value ought to be allotted as the real annual value, and that was a percentage of the sum for which the property would sell to-morrow. This Bill had ceased to be a capital values Bill. It had ceased to effect the purpose for which the Government strove in the only way in which the Government thought that it was possible to attain it.
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Then there was an alternative. The noble Lord thought he could solve the problem of allowing something morn than the annual rental. In his opinion it was impossible to do so if they substituted annual value for capital value. It was not done by this Amendment, and he believed it was impracticable to do it. He would be most happy if he could be shown that this could be done by means of annual valuation. The real question was how to work it out. How did the noble Lord work it out? His Amendment provided that the annual land value should mean—
"Such part of the rental or yearly value of any lands or heritages or common interest in land as is fairly attributable to the ground if devoted to any purpose to which such land can presently be devoted."
He agreed as to the ambiguity of the word "presently," and took the definition to mean—
"If devoted to any purpose to which such land can now be devoted."
Supposing they had a piece of land which would sell for £1,000 to-morrow, but was let for £3 a year; £1,000 represented £40 a year. What rateable value was it intended to put upon that piece of land? He would put £40 a year. He did not mean to say he would tax the whole of that £40. That would be the proper sum to appear in the column, and they could settle by a subsequent Act what imposition they were going to put upon it. What did those who supported the view of an annual value propose to put upon it? Was it £40 a year or a year? He did not believe it could be put in any language if they confined themselves to annual value. It could be done if they had capital value. It was a question of enormous importance. The proposal in the Bill was not revolutionary. Repeated allusion had been made to the danger of taxing unearned increment. In one sense of the word urban land was unearned increment because it was the result of the congregation of the people. If it was proposed to take the whole of that he should object. But it was of immense importance to the inhabitants that the piece of land which was now rated at £3 should bear its fair share of the rates. How were they going to define what that share was I Their Lordships would excuse him if he reminded them that he was now

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entitled to take the attitude of a critic, not an unfriendly critic. He was not quite in the same position the previous day. He was then defending proposals, but to day he was criticising proposals. He did not think they could secure a definition in any language in yearly value. He did not believe that the words of the Amendment would carry out the purpose which the noble Lord had described, and he was afraid he could not suggest any words that would do so.
LORD ASHBOURNEsaid the noble and learned Lord was in the difficult position the previous day of an expositor. He thought his noble and learned friend found that the difficulty of that position grew as yesterday's debate proceeded, and he had no doubt he was far happier in the new role of benevolent critic. He did not think the presentation of the case by the Lord Chancellor met the great difficulties or complexities of the situation. If the Government insisted upon capital value they must be prepared to show that it was free from the gross and obvious injustices that had been alleged against it. Annual value always meant present value. In order to arrive at capital value they had to take into account future value. It did not stand examination. The noble Earl the Secretary of State for the Colonies had admitted the previous day that the change would be from rating on present and existing value to that of real and future value.
*THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (The Earl of CREWE): I said "or future value."
LORD ASHBOURNEsaid that in the majority of cases there would be no offer to purchase and the valuer would have to assess the capital value prospectively—that was to say, what it conceivably might fetch in the future. That was a strong method to apply in a Bill of this kind. If they adopted capital value the assessment would depend on prophecy, speculation, and imagination. The object of every Act of Parliament should be to arrive at justice and to do no more than justice required. The assessor might fix a value which would prove ruinous to the owner, who would be forced to sell; and in a variety of cases, like those mentioned the previous day by Lord Milner,
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immense harm would be done to the locality, which might thus be deprived of open spaces from which great benefit was derived. This was a very difficult problem, and honestly he did not think that the Government realised the difficulties. The Lord Chancellor had expressed the opinion that annual value could not meet the case completely, but Lord Balfour had indicated his willingness to consider any reasonable addition to those words which would achieve the desired object. Therefore the Government were bound to endeavour, with the great opportunities they had for consideration, to draft wording which would do less injustice.
*THE EARL OF CREWEsaid he had listened with close attention to the speech just delivered by the noble and learned Lord, and could not help thinking that he had mistaken the day on which he was speaking. His speech was relevant to the substitution of annual for capital value, but it had absolutely no bearing whatever on the Amendment of Lord Balfour, with which his noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor had dealt. The noble and learned Lord who had just spoken alluded to the few words he (Lord Crewe) said yesterday, in which he endeavoured to define what they meant by capital value. Capital value represented, in his mind, the rental of the immediate future. Therefore if the noble and learned Lord would allow him to add the word "immediate" before "future," that was the definition by which he would abide. But the question as between capital and annual value was not now before the Committee. What they had to consider was the Amendment of Lord Balfour, who desired to define annual value. That was the only matter on which the attention of the Committee Was now fixed, because capital value had been got rid of altogether at an earlier stage. Lord Balfour proposed to include such value as was fairly attributable to the ground—
"if devoted to any purpose to which such land can presently be devoted."
These words Lord Camperdown proposed to omit. The effect of such omission, he imagined, would be that matters would remain exactly as they were at this moment, Therefore they came back to

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the case cited by the Lord Chancellor—the case of a piece of land worth £1,000. It did not very much matter, from their point of view, whether it was rated on £1,000 or on the interest of £1,000; but it did make a very great difference if it was only rated on the £3 rental. The noble and learned Lord who had just sat down had argued in the direction that the valuation should be on whatever the land was producing at the moment. In that case the noble and learned Lord ought to have voted against the Second Reading of the Bill, because if it was going to be maintained that under all circumstances they were never to put any rate on land except one founded upon the rent which it might be bringing in at the moment, to whatever purpose the land might be devoted at the moment, then he hold that the whole Bill disappeared, and it would have been far simpler to have voted against the Second Reading. He confessed he did not entirely see how the words which Lord Balfour used could be confined to land which was injuriously and dangerously held up for building. He thought it could not be disputed that what the noble Lord meant did undoubtedly involve the introduction of hypothetical considerations, because the purpose to which the land could be devoted was the matter in dispute. And unless they put it up for sale they could not prove that the land could be devoted to any particular purpose. So they must either take the existing rent and no more, or else they must indulge to some degree in the domain of hypothesis, and whether they did so by saying the land was worth £1,000, or by saying it might bring in £30 or £40 a year, did not seem to him a matter of the first importance. If they took annual value, it was a very simple matter to arrive at the capital value of the land. Therefore the difference between Lord Balfour and themselves did not seem to be in essentials a very great one. The difference might be that he might say that there were only certain very special instances in which such land ought to be rated; but how they were going to arrive at such special instances seemed to him a difficulty, and he did not think the noble Lord's words provided any means to that end. He was bound to say, however, that if Lord Camperdown moved the Amendment to the noble Lord's Amendment, although
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he did not believe the basis of annual value was the correct one to go on, he should certainly support Lord Balfour against any attempt to strike out the words to which he had referred.
*THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNEthought the noble Earl who had ut sat down was correct when he told the Committee that the time had passed for further discussing the relative merits of annual and capital value. The Committee had decided that question, and had substituted the word "annual" for the word "capital" in the Bill. Lord Balfour of Burleigh had proposed a kind of middle course. He objected as strongly as most of their Lordships to the introduction of what might be called future, or remote, or prospective value, but he gathered that he was, on the other hand, quite prepared to accept a basis of valuation founded upon something which was more than the actual or present value. The noble Lord was ready to accept valuation founded upon the use of the land—
"If devoted to any purpose to which such land can presently be devoted."
He would not enlarge upon the interpretation of the word "presently." He had no doubt the Committee could arrive at an understanding as to that. But he would ask their Lordships to consider for a moment how the plan which he understood Lord Balfour to propose would work as compared with the plan proposed in the Bill. Under the plan of the Bill, an assessor in valuing a site let at the moment for a negligible sum, but with a large potential value, would, no doubt, feeling that it would be grossly unjust to rate the owner immediately upon a value which might not be attained for many years to come, assess the owner upon something less than the full ultimate value; he would discount the value which might some day be fairly supposed to be attainable. Under Lord Balfour's Amendment a valuer, taking a similar site, would endeavour to find out what in the immediate future that site might fetch in the market, if bought by a purchaser who would of course also have regard to the ultimate value, although he too would discount it so far as the immediate transaction was concerned. In each case they went beyond the actual facts and anticipated the

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future, although the future which his noble friend contemplated was a much less remote future than the future contemplated in the Bill. But in the one case the site was to be assessed at something less than the full ultimate value, in the other case at something more than the present value. In either case there must be a departure from the conditions actually obtaining at the moment. He confessed he did not see that the process under his noble friend's Amendment would be very much easier than under the proposal in the Bill. He sympathised with the object his noble friend had in view, and the House should be grateful to him for the patience he had exercised and the courage he had shown in endeavouring to deal with what was really the crux of the Bill. He felt with Lord Balfour that there might be cases where land that ought to be built upon was withheld from the market, or where land was covered with buildings which obviously did not turn the site to proper account, and if they could find words which would cover cases of that sort without admitting, to a dangerous extent, this element of speculative and hypothetical value, he would gaily support his noble friend. But his noble friend had made a proposal which was alarming to many of his friends on that side of the House, and had boon condemned by the Government as unworkable, and he felt, therefore, that it would be useless to attempt to insert it in the Bill. He wished he could offer some suggestion which might be of assistance to the House, but the only one he could think of was that Lord Camperdown's Amendment should be accepted, and perhaps His Majesty's Government could on reconsideration discover words which, while dealing with land wrongfully withheld from the market or not turned to proper account, would not let in that speculative computation to which most of them objected. He did not agree that with the insertion of Lord Camperdown's Amendment there would be nothing left in the Bill; there would still be the separate column and that which the Government so much desired, the dissection of land value from the value of the composite subject, and should there be a desire to strike a separate rate there would be the materials for doing so. It was, therefore, not fair to charge the Opposi-
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tion with demolishing the Bill by accepting Lord Camperdown's Amendment. As they had been frequently reminded, this was not a rating Bill, and possibly in in considering the question of rating the Government might suggest some changes in the law or some instructions to assessors to deal with this difficult point upon which there was a great deal to be said on both sides, but upon which no simple solution had yet been offered.
THE LORD CHANCELLORwas extremely glad to hear from the noble Marquess that he did recognise that something more than the present rental value was a proper subject for assessment. He did not think their Lordships would desire that this matter should be treated as one of fence and parry. What was it that noble Lords were willing to accept? What was it that they meant? He did not say that if he understood that, he would attempt the work, which he believed impossible, of putting in a definition of yearly value; but at least ho would know what the difference was between them. He had endeavoured to explain what the words in the Bill meant, but what he desired to know was what the Opposition wished to have done in the application of the Amendment in a concrete case, and what should appear in the column. He certainly could not undertake to find means to supply the materials after the Government proposal had been rejected.
LORD COURTNEY OF PENWITHdid not propose to reply to the appeal of Lord Balfour by entering into an abstract inquiry which would be foreign to the Amendment now before the Committee. He rose to endeavour to ascertain from Lord Balfour what was really meant by the Amendment. They were now in the position that the valuation must be upon the annual value of a plot of land. Lord Balfour, in departing from the doctrine of taking as the actual value the rent which might be derived from the land according to its actual use, wished to import some rental which might be derived from a use to which it could presently be devoted. He desired to know what the noble Lord exactly meant by his suggestion to extend the rental in that way. Take an ordinary illustration of what happened in Scottish experience. If a person offered to take a piece of

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land to feu it—to use it for building—would a valuer take the feu rents as a measure of value? Was it enough that a person should have offered to feu, or did the noble Lord bring in the additional circumstance that, in order to get the feu rents adopted for valuation, they must also have the readiness of the landlord to let the land on feu? He thought the noble Lord could not intend the latter, because, if he did, he would be utterly powerless to avoid the evil, which he admitted occasionally occurred, of a landlord refusing to let land which might be let for building. He must, therefore, mean that the valuation to he inserted in the new column must be on the feu rents if there was any person ready to take the land on feu, and that was a circumstance which the valuer would have to ascertain. That, of course, would be considerably in excess of the actual rent of agricultural land, and it seemed to him that the noble Lord would then come round to the proposition originally made by the Government, because the feu rent would be, speaking roughly, the ordinary interest on the capital value of the land. But he hoped, before proceeding to a division, to hear from Lord Balfour what it was exactly that he meant by his Amendment. To adopt the Earl of Camperdown's Amendment would, it seemed to him, be to remain in the present position. They would, it was true, have a third column, but they would be making no advance and might as well drop the Bill. It was a fair accusation to make against noble Lords opposite that if they wore ready to support the Amendment of the noble Earl below the Gangway they were prepared to eviscerate the Bill altogether. Lord Balfour's Amendment., which was the one immediately before the Committee, might, he thought, be accepted by the Government, because, though capital value was got rid off, the Amendment brought back, in a hypothetical form, what was really the interest on the capital value, which was the proper subject of taxation.
*LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGHsaid that to refer to feu rents was to introduce an unnecessary complication, because the feu rent included not only the value of the land as it was for agricultural purposes, but the interest on the outlay for getting it ready for build-
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ing. In no circumstances could it possibly be intended to rate on that. That would not have been proposed if capital value had been accepted, nor was it proposed in his Amendment. His idea was that they ought to include in the yearly value a certain amount of value for any land which could be let with a covenant for immediate building. What had made noble Lords reluctant to go as far as he proposed were the extravagant promises and claims made in Scotland by those who professed to speak for the Government. The Lord-Advocate had promised the people of Edinburgh that they should have £30,000 a year out of the unfeued land in the city of Edinburgh, some 3,200 acres That was, of course, absurd, but it had been seriously put forward by the Lord-Advocate as one of the objects of this Bill. To rate all these acres in that way would mean that they would rate some owners on money which would not come into their pockets fur 150 years; and by the time the last of those acres came to be feued, the owner, at the rate of £10 an acre—the rate necessary to bring in the £30,000 a year—would have paid, with compound interest, £12,765 before he received a penny. He agreed that the acres which could be feued within the next year or two should pay some contribution to the rates. But the grievance was that there were places inside towns which might be let tomorrow for building, and were being held up, in Glasgow, for instance, at cost to the citizens of Glasgow for policing, lighting, and watching, and so forth. It was a conservative measure in the best sense of the word to remove a grievance when they found it. His way of getting rid of the grievance might not be altogether free from difficulty but he thought the words which Lord Heneage proposed to insert, instead of the word "presently"—namely, "at the time," were sufficiently concise and plain to be free from very great danger. He frankly admitted that it was impossible to get rid of hypothesis altogether. What he complained of in the proposal of the Government was that the whole capital value was left to be ascertained by the assessor. For Poor Law purposes the old idea of rating was to rate upon the means and substance of every inhabitant—that was, stock in trade, and a number of other things; but that was found unworkable

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from a variety of reasons. The idea of rating on capital value was going back to means and substance, because it was not an annual revenue, but on the property of the individual. Let the House consider what a dangerous proposition that was. By a series of exempting Acts, after legal decisions, they had exempted moans and substance in the case of people who did not own land; but here they were deliberately proposing to go back upon this principle as a test for rating purposes. It was on this ground that he saw great danger in giving the slightest support to the idea of capital value. He did not think the attitude was quite a fair one of saying, "You have cut out capital value, and therefore we will do nothing at all." He thought it was possible by a definition, perhaps a better one than his own, to secure the object desired by an extension of the term "yearly value." Surely it was worth trying. He admitted the existence of a grievance and had made an honest attempt to meet it; but he most cordially agreed with what the noble Marquess had said, that to give any support whatever, in present circumstances, to the idea of capital value would be a greater mistake than to stand the grievance which at present existed. If the words which Lord Camperdown proposed to omit were deleted, their Lordships would be stultifying their action in giving the Bill a Second Reading. He hoped that if Lord Camperdown's Amendment was accepted some Amendment would be inserted in the shape of an extension of the definition of yearly value which would make it worth while to proceed with the Bill.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWNexpressed his agreement with the Amendment down to the word "ground," as it had been moved by Lord Balfour, and could not admit that in approving of the insertion of those words their Lordships hail done nothing. On the contrary, there would appear in this column the site value; and, as they understood from the Government, one of the main objects of the Bill was to distinguish between the site and the improvements upon it. The provision "so much as is fairly attributable to the ground," at all events gave noble Lords opposite a basis on which they could found a Rating Bill.
On Question, Amendment, down to the word "ground," agreed to.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGHsaid that to put the matter in order it would now be necessary for him to move the insertion of the remaining words, and he would do so in a form which would got rid of the ambiguity of the word "presently," viz., "if devoted to any purpose to which such land can at the time of the valuation be devoted."
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWNmoved to omit the words now proposed by Lord Balfour. The objection which he took to the words was that they introduced the question of hypothesis. As to the case stated by the Lord Chancellor, the question was—Could the owner of the piece of land get £1,000 for it? The Bill did not say that the owner must be capable of getting £1,000 for the land. All it provided was that the assessor was to enter what he considered the capital value of the land, and the assessor was left without any guide of any sort or kind. Lord Balfour had told the Committee that his object was to deal with persons who held up land. He quite agreed. He was perfectly ready to deal with such persons; but, in the first place, it had not been shown that such people really existed. But granted that they did, what was the proper way of dealing with them? It was to be remembered that this was not a Rating Bill, but a Valuation Bill. The way he would deal with the matter would be this. When the Rating Bill was introduced he would say that persons who could be proved to be holding back land should be rated on the value which could be proved to be the value of the land—that was to say, on very much the same terms as their neighbours. To anything direct he had comparatively no objection, but he strongly objected to power being given in this indirect fashion to an assessor to put any prospective value he chose on land. It was not merely a question of vacant land. Take the case of the 3,200 acres of unbuilt-upon land in Edinburgh. How could they trust the assessor to say what was the relative value oft the different zones? It had been stated that there were only some ten or twenty acres which could he built upon every year, but that did not bind the assessor. It was within his power to divide the whole of the 3,200 acres into zones, and to put so much value on one, so much on another,

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and so on; and he might go on beyond any rent which was at present obtainable and place a fictitious value upon each zone. Then, again, in the case of agricultural land not built upon, how were they going to settle whether or not that land was ripe for building? The assessor might be of opinion that the land could he built upon. But suppose that no one had ever made an offer for the land. That would not in any way bind the assessor, and the owner would be put to all the expense and trouble of proving that the land was not fit for building, although no one proposed to build upon it. Then there was a much more awkward case still which would come before the assessor under the words which he proposed to delete—namely, the case of under-built land. He would give an instance. Suppose there were three houses together, two of them six storeys high and one three storeys. It was perfectly competent to the assessor to say to the owner of the three-storey house, "You are not putting your land to the most profitable use to which it could be put;" and although the owner might not have the money or the desire to increase the size of the house, yet there was an inducement in these words to the assessor to increase the valuation of that house. Then there was another case—that of undeveloped land which had minerals beneath it. The assessor might say, as the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack had said: "Oh, the land would sell for £1,000, and therefore it is perfectly fair to rate it upon £40 a year." But that land, in order to become worth £40 a year, required to be developed. It was not really correct to say that local authorities suffered loss by having the time at which they received the increased value postponed. Land only received an increased value when it was developed, and only when it was developed would it be right to increase the rating burden of the landlord. He felt that the injustice, if there was any injustice, of continuing the present system, or something very like it, was far less than the undoubted injustice of imposing upon a man a charge in respect of income which he could not possibly receive at the present time.
Amendment moved to the Amendment—
"After the word 'ground,' to leave out the words 'if devoted to any purpose to which such land can at the time of the valuation be devoted.'"—(The Earl at Camperdown).
*VISCOUNT ST. ALDWYNsaid he entirely sympathised with noble Lords who objected to the prospective nature of the new assessment proposed in the Bill. But he also felt with Lord Balfour that there was a grievance in the present system of rating. A case might happen in which it could be shown that a piece of land used for agricultural purposes, or even as waste, could be immediately utilised for building, and yet it was assessed only on its agricultural or waste value instead of on its immediate building value. That surely was a grievance to the community at large. He could not believe it was impossible so to amend the present law of assessment as to meet such grievances without bringing in the question of prospective values; and he hoped Lord Balfour would not press his Amendment to a division, so that further consideration might be given to the matter.
THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid the way to meet the grievance was the way proposed by the Bill. That was by means of assessment on the capital value of the land, not on its prospective value, but on the capital value of what it was worth to-day in the market; but that way had been discarded. The Committee had tried to apply the theory of annual value as the basis of the valuation column; but to define it, as he had said, had baffled him. He did not say that it would baffle their Lordships, and he would be most ready to acknowledge any successful efforts to make the matter clear. It was a very clear thing to say what the capital value was, and then put a percentage upon it, but the problem under the Bill as it stood was a very difficult one, and he did not think the Committee at the present moment would be able to make much progress with it. But if some means of obtaining the result at which the Government

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aimed could be pointed out, no one would be more pleased than himself.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGHsaid he was as anxious as noble Lords opposite were to see this matter settled in some way, and he would be willing to withdraw his Amendment provided a serious effort were made by those better qualified than he to frame an Amendment to get at what he wanted.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWNsaid he was under the impression that the Amendment before the Committee was his Amendment.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES: Lord Balfour's Amendment has been agreed to down to the word "ground," and the Amendment now before the Committee is to omit the words "if devoted to any purpose to which such land can at the time of the valuation be devoted."
*THE EARL OF CREWE: My Lords, I merely have to say that, so far as this particular matter is concerned, our responsibility on this side of the House is a very limited one indeed. Both the noble Marquess and the noble Viscount opposite made a point that this Amendment was not acceptable either to many noble Lords on that side of the House or to us, but, if I may be allowed to say so, that was merely a verbal point. The substance of the Amendment is, no doubt, not acceptable to noble Lords opposite, but it is more acceptable to us than the contrary. The only reason that it can be said not to be acceptable to us is the difference between capital value and annual value. But, of the two, if the noble Lord likes to go to a division, we on this side of the House should support him. I think I ought
to repeat what my noble friend behind me said by way of caution, that if noble Lords opposite, in the exercise of their discretion, decide to take the Amendment of Lord Camperdown in preference to that of my noble friend, it is not reasonable that they should look to us for assistance in further amendment of the Bill. The entire character of the Bill, as we introduced it, will have been altered, and believing as we do that the basis of annual value is not one upon which we can find any means of working, it is hardly to be supposed that we can suggest Amendments in that direction. We adhere to the belief that if the noble Earl's Amendment is accepted practically nothing of the Bill is left. The noble Marquess said, "Oh! but you have site values; you have your division between site value and building value." But how is it possible to deal with that if the simple annual rental of land at its present use is taken? What is to be the site value of an unoccupied plot of land, of which we have heard so much, let at 30s. a year for rough grazing? It reduces the whole theory of site values to an absolute nullity, and therefore I think we are right in saying that the entire inside of the Bill will have been removed if the noble Earl's Amendment is accepted. My only desire is to make it quite clear to noble Lords opposite that that is our view of the case, and, if they adopt that course, they cannot expect us to take any further part in suggesting Amendments to what we consider a complete and fundamental change in the Bill.
On Question, whether the words proposed to be left out shall stand part of the Amendment,
Their Lordships divided:—Contents, 42; Not-Contents, 87.

CONTENTS.

Loreburn, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Onslow, E.

Armitstead, L.

Tweedmouth, L. (L. President.)

Russell, E.

Balfour, L. [Teller.]

Sandwich, E.

Castletown, L.

Colebrooke, L.

Ripon, M. (L. Privy Seal.)

Althorp, V. (L. Chamberlain.)

Courtney of Penwith, L.

Esher, V.

[Teller.]

Beauchamp, E. (L. Steward.)

Milner, V.

Denman, L.

Carrington, E.

Morley of Blackburn, V.

Eversley, L.

Crewe, E.

Fitzmaurice, L.

Fortescue, E.

Airedale, L.

Glantawe, L.

Liverpool, E.

Allendale, L.

Granard, L. (E. Granard.)

Hamilton of Dalzell, L.

James, L.

Ritchie of Dundee, L.

Harris, L.

Joicey, L.

Sandhurst, L.

Haversham, L.

Monk Bretton, L.

Shute, L. (V. Barrington.)

Hemphill, L.

O'Hagan, L.

Swaythling, L.

Herschell, L.

Pirrie, L.

Tenterden, L.

NOT-CONTENTS.

Devonshire, D.

Westmeath, E.

Ellenborough, L.

Wellington, D.

Wicklow, E.

Hay, L. (E. Kinnoul.)

Heneage, L.

Abercorn, M. (D. Abercorn.)

Churchill, V. [Teller.]

Hindlip, L.

Bath, M.

Cross, V.

Kilmarnock, L. (E. Erroll.)

Bristol, M.

Falkland, V.

Lamington, L.

Lansdowne, M.

Halifax, V.

Lawrence, L.

Salisbury, M.

Hill, V.

Llangattock, L.

Hood, V.

Ludlow, L.

Bathurst, E.

Iveagh, V.

Montagu of Beaulieu, L.

Camperdown, E.

Portman, V.

Newton, L.

Carnwath, E.

North, L.

Cromer, E.

Abinger, L.

Oranmore and Browne, L.

Denbigh, E.

Aldenham, L.

Ormathwaite, L.

Doncaster, E. (D. Buccleuch and Queensberry.

Allerton, L.

Ormonde, L. (M. Ormonde.)

Alverstone, L.

Ponsonby, L. (E. Bessborough.)

Halsbury, E.

Ampthill, L.

Harrington, E.

Ashbourne, L.

Ramsay, L. (E. Dalhousie.)

Innes, E. (D. Roxburghe.)

Barrymore, L.

Ravensworth, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Saltoun, L.

Lichfield, E.

Blythswood, L.

Sanderson, L.

Lovelace, E.

Brodrick, L. (V. Midleton.)

Sandys, L.

Malmesbury, E.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Seaton, L.

Mansfield, E.

Calthorpe, L.

Sinclair, L.

Manvers, E.

Carew, L.

Somerhill, L. (M. Clanricarde.)

Mar and Kellie, E.

Clanwilliam, L. (E. Clanwilliam.)

Morley, E.

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

Mount Edgcumbe, E.

Clifford of Chudleigh, L.

Plymouth, E.

Clinton, L.

Waleran, L.

Powis, E.

Colchester, L.

Wenlock, L.

Verulam, E.

De Mauley, L.

Wolverton, L.

Waldegrave, E. [Teller.]

Dunboyne, L.

Zouche of Haryngworth, L.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGHsaid his next Amendment was really a drafting one. He was confident that the words "sold free from all burdens public and private, except building," must have got in by mistake in the other House, for he could not conceive any one desiring to sell land free from all burdens. It could not be done.
Amendment moved—
"In page 3, lines 26 and 27, to leave out the words 'sold free from all burdens, public and private, except building,' and to insert the words sold subject to all public burdens and.' "—(Lord Balfour of Burleigh.)
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGHmoved to add to the clause a provision that the word "burgh" should mean and include only those burghs in Scotland
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which under the Valuation Acts were constituted a separate authority for valuation purposes, and contained at the last census a population of not less than 10,000 persons.
Amendment moved—
"In page 3, after line 36, to insert the words 'For the purposes of this Act the word burgh shall mean and include only those burghs in Scotland which under the Valuation Acts are constituted a separate authority for valuation purposes, and contained at the last census a population of not less than 10,000 persons.'"—(Lord Balfour of Burleigh.)
Clause 3, as amended, agreed to.
Remaining clause agreed to, and Bill reported, with Amendments, to the House.
Standing Committee negatived, and Bill to be printed as amended. (No. 66.)

COUNTY COURTS BILL [H.L.]
House in Committee (according to Order).
[The Earl of ONSLOW in the Chair.]
Clauses 1 to 3 agreed to.
LORD ASHBOURNEsaid the object of the new clause standing in his name was to add to the rule-making authority two solicitors to be appointed by the Lord Chancellor. The experience of solicitors was utilised in the making of the rules of the High Court, and the Law Society felt that it was only right that the solicitors' profession should be represented upon the authority entrusted with the framing of rules of County Courts. He hoped the Lord Chancellor would appreciate the reasonableness of the Amendment.
Amendment moved—
"After Clause 3, to insert the following new clause: 'The persons in whom the power of making rules under Section 164 of the principal Act is vested, shall (besides those named in the said section) include two persons who shall be practising solicitors, appointed by the Lord Chancellor, one being a member of the Council of the Law Society, and the other being a member of the Law Society and also of a provincial law society.' "—(Lord Ashbourne.)
THE LORD CHANCELLORhoped the Amendment would not be pressed. The Bill was in the form in which it had twice passed through their Lordships' House, having been introduced on the first occasion by Lord Halsbury and last year by himself. Would it not be better, therefore, to take it as an agreed Bill? Moreover, if they were to begin considering Amendments, the one proposed by the noble and learned Lord was of least importance. It should be remembered that solicitors were already represented upon the rule committee which had to consider the suggestions of the smaller rule committee.
LORD ASHBOURNErecognised the great importance of this being an agreed Bill, and after what the noble and learned Lord had said he would not press the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clauses 4 to 10 agreed to.
Clause 11:
LORD ASHBOURNEmoved an Amendment to provide that where a Deputy-Judge was appointed he should be appointed by the Lord Chancellor. The Bill introduced, he thought with advantage, a provision for the payment of deputies. That was a new departure, and he was glad that the Treasury had seen their way to agree to this. But he thought it advisable to require that the deputy should be appointed by the Lord Chancellor. The County Court Judge might be so ill that he could not himself exercise the power of appointment, and therefore there must be some other person with that power, and he thought it was appropriate that it should be in the hands of the Lord Chancellor.
Amendment moved—
"In page 3, line 38, after the word 'appointed' to insert the words by the Lord Chancellor.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
THE LORD CHANCELLORrecognised that there was a good deal of force in what his noble and learned friend had said, but hoped the Amendment would not be inserted. Perhaps the noble and learned Lord would allow him to consider the point between now and the next stage.
LORD ASHBOURNEsaid he would willingly comply with the Lord Chancellor's request, though he believed it to be in the public interest that the appointment of deputies should rest with the Lord Chancellor.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Standing Committee negatived.

REGISTRATION BILL [H.L.]

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the day for the Second Reading read.
  LORD ALVERSTONE: My Lords, this Bill raises no controversial question. The Long Vacation was altered last year by twelve days being taken off at the end.

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  It is necessary, therefore, to alter the time for notice of appeal from a Revising Barrister's decision. I have framed this Bill so as to give the same time as is given by the present law. The only effect of the Bill is to adapt the law to the change which has been made in the Long Vacation.
  Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a."—(Lord Alverstone.)
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: This Bill, or practically the substance of it, has been made necessary by the alteration last year in the Long Vacation. I do not think it contains any very great principle, and I hope your Lordships will accept it.
  On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Tuesday next.

SMALL HOLDINGS AND ALLOTMENTS (SCOTLAND) BILL
Read 3a (according to order). Amendments (Privilege) made; Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.
House adjourned at Seven o'clock till To-morrow, half-past Ten o'clock.