Sitting of 20 May 1908

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

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
Argentine North-Eastern Railway Bill [Lords].—As amended, considered; to be read the third time.
Wolverhampton Corporation Bill.—As amended, considered; An Amendment made; Bill to be read the third time.
Metropolitan Commons Provisional Order Bill.—Read a second time, and committed.
London United Tramways Bill.—Reported with Amendments; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
That they have agreed to: Rochdale Corporation Bill, with Amendments.
Amendments to: Norwich Union Fire Insurance Society Bill [Lords], without Amendment.
Statute Law Revision Bill [Lords].—That they have come to the following

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Resolution, viz., "That it is expedient that the Statute Law Revision Bill be referred to the same Joint Committee to which the Post Office Consolidation Bill and the Companies (Consolidation) Bill are to be referred."

PETITIONS.
  BUILDING LANDS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petition from Arbroath, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  CHILDREN BILL.
  Petition from Kilburnie, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  COAL MINES (EIGHT HOURS) (No. 2) BILL.
  Petition from Penrhinceiber, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  EDUCATION (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petitions for alteration: From Argyle; Perth; and Hamilton; to lie upon the Table.
  ELEMENTARY EDUCATION (ENGLAND AND WALES) BILL.
  Petition in favour: From Alverstoke; Bassaleg; and Towcester; to lie upon the Table.

  LICENSING BILL.
  Petitions against: From Bishop Auckland; Dorchester; Edinburgh and Frome; to lie upon the Table.
  Petition from Gosport and Alverstoke, for alteration; to lie upon the Table.
  Petitions in favour: From Aberaman; Abercynon; Aberfeldy; Aberystwyth; Bassaleg; Battersea; Bicester; Birmingham; Blackheath; Bradford; Buckley; Burton (Westmorland); Caerleon; Caerphilly; Caithness; Canisbay; Chorley; Conway Castle; Dowlais (two); Drumblade; Eastwood; Elsecar; Failsworth (three); Farnworth; Finchley; Gelli Pentre; Giffnock; Glasgow; Greenock; Hengoed; Hirwain (two); Hopton; Ilford; Kendal Kinneff; Leith; Lenmore; Longsight; Lowestoft Division; Luddenden Foot; Merthyr Tydfil; Muirton; Newcastle Emlyn; Northampton; North Shields;
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  Norton Bridge; Ossett (two); Paulerspury (two); Ryde; Sheerness (two); Southowram; Stockport; Tottington; Towcester; Trewalis; Wallsend (four) Wellington; Weymouth; and Wick; to lie upon the Table.

  LICENSING BILL AND ELEMENTARY EDUCATION (ENGLAND AND WALES) BILL.
  Petition from Dorchester (Dorset), in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  LIGHTS ON VEHICLES (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petition from Arbroath, in favour; to lie upon the Table.

  LIQUOR TRAFFIC (LOCAL OPTION) (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petitions against: From Edinburgh; Hamilton; Kincardineshire; and Mid Argyll; to lie upon the Table.
  Petitions in favour: From Alloa; Ayr; Burra; Cambuslang; Castletown; Comrie; Cupar; Dennistoun; Edinburgh (five); Errogie; Fairnington; Fortrose; Glasgow (seven); Grantown on Spey; Greenock; Halls; Invergordon; Johnshaven; Kingussie; Leith (two); Lesmahagow; Nethy Bridge; Newton Mearns (three); Perth (two); Pollokshaws (two); Rothesay; Roxburgh; Sandbank; Stonehaven; Tarbert; and Thurso; to lie upon the Table.

  MAJI, SUBRAMANIA KATTO POMMIN NAIAK.
  Petition of Subramania Katto Pommin Naiak Maji, for redress of grievances; to lie upon the Table.
  OPEN SPACES (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petition from Arbroath, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  POLICE SUPERANNUATION (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petition from Arbroath, against; to lie upon the Table.
  PORT OF LONDON BILL.
  Petition of the Wandsworth and Putney Gas Light and Coke Company, against, praying to be heard by counsel; referred to the Select Committee on the Bill.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  NATIONAL DEBT.
  Copy presented, of Return showing: (1) the Aggregate Gross Liabilities of the State as represented by the Nominal Funded Debt, Estimated Capital Liability in respect of Terminable Annuities, Unfunded Debt, and other Liabilities in respect of Debt, the Estimated Assets, and the Exchequer Balances at the close of each financial year from 1835–6 to 1907–8, both inclusive; and (2) the Gross and Net Expenditure charged annually during that period against the Public Revenue on account of the National Debt, and other Payments connected with Capital Liabilities [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  TRADE REPORTS (ANNUAL SERIES).
  Copy presented, of Diplomatic and Consular Reports, Annual Series, No. 3999 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  PAPER LAID UPON THE TABLE, BY THE "CLERK OF THE HOUSE.
  Temporary Laws.—Register of Temporary Laws for the Third Session, Twenty-eight Parliament, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, pursuant to the Report of the Select Committee on Expiring Laws in session 1866; to be printed. [No. 149.]
  RIFLE ASSOCIATIONS (COLONIES) (GRANTS).
  Address for "Return of the amounts of the Grants made during each of the last five years by Colonial Governments to Rifle Associations for the encouragement of Rifle shooting, and for the maintenance and expenses of Colonial representative Rifle teams."—(Mr. Courthope.)
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CIRCULATED WITH THE VOTES.

  Treasury Remembrancer, Ireland.
  MR. HAZLETON: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury if he will state when the office of Treasury Remembrancer, Ireland, was created;
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  under what Act of Parliament or by what other authority it was created; and what are the chief powers and duties of the Remembrancer.
  (Answered by Mr. Hobhouse.) The office of Treasury Remembrancer was constitued by Treasury Minute dated 4th January, 1871. His principal duties are of a consultative character, as he advises the Treasury on such questions of Irish administration as are from time to time brought under the consideration of the Board. He is also head of the Dublin Pay Office.

  Sick Leave of Mr. D. J. Long, of S.W. District Post Office.
  MR. DEVLIN: To ask the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that the late Mr. D. J. Long, sorter at the South-Western District Post Office, London, was brought before the postmaster, Mr. Carew, on a discipline charge, on or about 21st February last, and was excused on the ground of ill-health; that, before Mr. Long saw Dr. Brabant on 28th February, he informed his colleagues that he was in a state of collapse, and, in anticipation of his obtaining sick leave, another officer had been told off to perform his duty, and that, notwithstanding this, Dr. Brabant told him that sick leave would do him no good; will he explain why Dr. Brabant did not examine Mr. Long on 28th February, or why, having failed to examine him, he refused to accept a private doctor's certificate with regard to his condition, or why he sent him back to duty on 28th February; whether Mr. Long was under any disability owing to technical irregularities in the matter of visits of private doctors; and whether Dr. Brabant had received any papers with reference to Mr. Long which prejudiced him against that officer.
  (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) Mr. Long was brought before the Postmaster at South-Western District on a charge of insubordination; but that officer, being of opinion that ill-health was at the root of Mr. Long's conduct, sent him to the official medical officer on 21st February. There is no evidence that Mr. Long informed his colleagues, before

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  his second visit to the doctor on 28th February, that he was in a state of collapse; and the provision of an officer to perform his duty in case sick leave should be recommended was only the usual measure of precaution taken in such cases. Sick leave was not granted by Dr. Brabant, because there was nothing in Mr. Long's symptoms to indicate that it was essential; and on both occasions Mr. Long himself expressed anxiety to return to work. Dr. Brabant made such examination of Mr. Long as he thought desirable, having regard to his symptoms and appearance; and I see no reason to question the correctness of his treatment of the case. I am advised that no more extended examination would have revealed the approaching hæmoptysis, which could not have been for seen. It is not the case that Dr. Brabant refused to accept a private certificate furnished by Mr. Long. Such a certificate was received on 2nd March, and was returned by Mr. Long's superior officer for amendment in accordance with the rules. Dr. Brabant had nothing to do with its return. I am satisfied that Dr. Brabant was not in any way prejudiced against Mr. Long; and I must express my regret that a public insinuation against a member of the medical profession should be thus made.

  Disposal of Funds of defunct Branch of Foresters Benefit Society.
  MR. CLYNES: To ask the Postmaster-General concerning the Post Office account (No. 9040): in the name of the Dr. Croke branch (Radcliffe, Lancashire) of the Irish National Foresters Benefit Society, whether he is aware that the branch has for some time been dissolved; and, as one of the trustees of the account referred to declines to sign a withdrawal note for the purpose, whether he will authorise the transfer of the money to the Bury branch of the society, as desired by the other persons who have any claim on the money.
  (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton). I understand that the Dr. Croke branch of the Irish National Foresters Benefit Society was recorded by the Registrar of Friendly Societies as having ceased to exist some time ago; and if, as I
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  gather from the hon. Member's Question there is a dispute as to the disposal of the money deposited in the Post Office Savings Bank in the name of the society, it is open to any of the parties interested to refer the matter to the Registrar of Friendly Societies. Payment would be made in accordance with the award of the Registrar.

  Postal Deliveries at Hillhead and Kelvinside Districts of Glasgow.
  MR. R. BALFOUR: To ask the Postmaster-General if he can now arrange to have the Hill-head and Kelvinside districts of Glasgow placed on an equal footing with the city proper, with respect to having the Continental, English, and North of Scotland correspondence arriving in Glasgow after 6.15 p.m. o'clock, included in the 7.30 p.m. delivery; and, if so, when such arrangements may be expected to be carried into effect.
  (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) I am glad to be able to tell my hon. friend that this matter has now been satisfactorily settled, and that arrangements will be made without delay for affording the improvement of service to which he refers.

  Congested Districts Board's Expenditure.
  MR. BARRIE: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he will state the total amount spent in each of the counties of Ireland included in the operations of the Congested Districts Board since its formation until 31st March last.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The following statement shows approximately the gross expenditure, including purchase price of estates and loans, in each of the congested district counties up to 31st March, 1907. The figures up to 31st March last are not yet available:—

  £

  Donegal

  338,343

  Leitrim

  17,017

  Sligo

  148,969

  Mayo

  1,544,522

  Roscommon

  563,483

  Galway

  593,590

  Kerry

  262,270

  Cork

  68,116

  Purchase of the Estate of F. Naughten, near Boherbee.
  MR. FLYNN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland in reference to the estate of F. Naughten, near Boherbee, Millstreet Union, County Cork, Record No. 3,473, whether the Estates Commissioners can explain the delay in the completion of the purchase of this property; are the Commissioners aware that the necessary papers were lodged in January, 1906; why has not the estate been yet inspected; and whether in view of the inconvenience to the trustees and the tenants, the Commissioners will take steps to expedite the transaction.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) It is the fact that the papers in the case of this estate were lodged with the Estates Commissioners in January, 1906. The Commissioners deal with sales in the order in which agreements are lodged, and the estate in question has not yet reached its turn to be dealt with. The case cannot, in fairness to other purchasers, be taken up out of turn.

  Irish Evicted Tenants—Case of Mr. John O'Driscoll.
  MR. FLYNN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Estates Commissioners have taken any further steps in regard to the reinstatement of Mr. John O'Driscoll on the Hegarty estate, Coolclogher, Banteer, County Cork; are the Commissioners yet made aware of the fact that this holding is unoccupied and with other lands adjoining used as a grazing ranch; and whether, under the circumstances, the Commissioners will put in force their powers under the Evicted Tenants Act with a view to the restoration of the evicted tenant.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Estates Commissioners have directed notifications to be published of their intention to put in force the compulsory powers of the Evicted Tenants Act in this case.

  Rathmines and Rathgar District Council Audit—Production of Vouchers.
  MR. JOHN O'CONNOR: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware
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  that it has been admitted by the clerk of the Rathmines and Rathgar Urban District Council that certain vouchers were not in the offices of the council, and so were not open to the inspection of Messrs. O'Ratigan, Sullivan, and O'Driscoll, as required by Article 27 of the Public Bodies Order, 1904, during the seven days preceding the audit which commenced in Rathmines Town Hall on 25th October, 1907, the said vouchers relating to the accounts of the Rathmines and Rathgar Urban District Council for the year ended 31st March, 1907; and will he say whose business it is to see that Article 27 is carried out.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) I refer to my Answer to the hon. Member's previous Question on this subject (14th April). The Answer to the first part of the Question is in the affirmative. The vouchers in question were not necessary for the purposes of the audit, as the payments to which they referred had already been passed by the taxing officer of the House of Commons. It is the duty of the clerk of the council to carry out the provisions of Article 27 of the Public Bodies Order. This article may be en-enforced by mandamus on the application of any person interested.

  Restoration of Evicted Tenants on the Oldrock Grazing Farm.
  MR. O'DOWD: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the non-residential grazing farm of Oldrock, on the estate of Major O'Boyle, situate in the electoral division of Cloonoughill, Tubercurry Union, County Sligo, has been purchased by the present occupier, Mr. Robinson, under either the Land Purchase Acts of 1896 or 1903; and, if not, whether, seeing that thirty families wore evicted from this farm within the last thirty years, the Estates Commissioners will be empowered to enter into negotiations with the owner of the estate, with the object of acquiring this land for the purpose of enlarging the small holdings surrounding it and providing farms for surviving members of the families of former evicted tenants.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Estates Commissioners are unable to identify

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  any proceedings under the Land Purchase Acts for the sale of the farm mentioned in the Question. No applications have been received from evicted tenants for reinstatement on Major O'Boyle's estate. The Commissioners already possess powers for the acquisition by voluntary agreement of land which may be suitable for their purposes.

  Jurisdiction of Senior Inspectors of Irish National Schools.
  MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether, when senior inspectors of national schools were first appointed in 1900, they were given any jurisdiction over the district inspectors of their circuits; and, if so, will he produce a copy of the regulation on the matter; if no jurisdiction of the kind referred to was conferred in 1900 will he give the exact date on which, prior to January, 1707, such jurisdiction was first conferred, as also the full regulation bearing on the matter.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Commissioners of National Education inform me that prior to 1900 there were six head inspectors who had general control over the district inspectors. In 1900 these head inspectors, together with sixteen district inspectors, were appointed to be senior inspectors, and the twenty-two senior inspectors were given general control of the work of the district inspectors and other inspectors of inferior rank. The conferring of this control was notified by circulars of March, 1900, and April, 1901, the following extracts from which give the essential matter:—The senior inspector will be primarily responsible for the work of the circuit. The senior inspector, in addition to having special charge of an entire section of a circuit for a year, will have general control of the inspection of the circuit.
  MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he is aware of the discontent amongst inspectors of national schools owing to the way in which they are treated by some of the higher officials in the office; is he aware that the Commissioners notwithstanding say they
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  know nothing about any such discontent; is he aware that inspectors are strictly forbidden from bringing their grievances directly before the notice of any individual member of the Board; and whether he will, under these circumstances, say why the Commissioner, state they know nothing about the discontent, in view of the precautions taken to prevent any inkling thereof coming to their knowledge.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) I have referred this Question to the Commissioners of National Education, who state that inspectors have full liberty to bring alleged grievances, or other matters in which they are personally concerned, under the notice of the Board through the proper channels. Inspectors, however, are properly forbidden to attempt to influence the judgment of individual Commissioners by making private representations to them about such matters.

  Deputy Returning Officers and Interference at County Council Elections.
  MR. CONOR O'KELLY: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether it is permissible for deputy returning officers under the Local Government Act, 1898, to take an active part in county council contests in favour of particular car. dictates in the districts in which they act as deputy returning officers; and, if not, will he intimate to the Local Government Board that they should advise the deputy returning officer for the Claremorris rural district to abstain from further interference in the election at present taking place in the Claremorris county electoral division.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The enactment dealing with the misconduct on the part of election officers is Article 11 of the Third Schedule to the Election Order of 16th February, 1899, which article is adapted from Section 11 of the Ballot Act of 1872. The Local Government Board have no powers in the matter. Any question which may arise as to the misconduct of an election officer is one for decision by a Court of Law.

  Cost of Living in London and Dublin.
  MR. FIELD: To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he can give a comparison of the cost of living between London and Dublin; and if he can give similar figures as to the cost of house rents of the working classes.
  (Answered by Mr. Churchill.) The hon. Member will find the information he seeks in the Report on the Cost of Living of the Working Classes [Cd. 3864 of 1908]. For his convenience I am arranging to send him a copy with the pertinent passages marked.

  Patents Worked Outside the United Kingdom.
  MR. REES: To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether, under the Patents and Designs Act of 1907, British inventors will be liable to have their patents revoked, on the ground that the patented articles or processes are being manufactured or carried on exclusively or mainly outside the United Kingdom, in cases in which British manufacturers have declined to accept reasonable offers made by the patentee of licences to manufacture or work the patent inside the United Kingdom.
  (Answered by Mr. Churchill.) The patents in question will be liable to be revoked unless the patentee gives satisfactory reasons why the patented article is not manufactured or the patented process is not carried on to an adequate extent in the United Kingdom. It will be for the Comptroller in the first instance, subject to an appeal to the Court, to determine, after hearing the evidence on both sides in each particular case, whether the reasons given for non-working are satisfactory or not. It is, of course, impossible for me to say that the mere fact that one or more British manufacturers to whom the patentee may have made overtures, with the object of inducing them to work his patent, have not seen their way to accept such overtures can safely be relied upon by a patentee as a defence to an application for the revocation of his patent under the Act or to an action for infringement.

  Increased Pay of Customs Outport Watchers.
  MR. FIELD: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury when it is intended to grant an increase of pay to outport watchers in the Customs Department; and if he is aware that the labourers employed by the Dublin Corporation have a much higher rate of wages than the watchers employed at Dublin.
  (Answered by Mr. Hothouse.) I have nothing to add to the reply given by my predecessor to this Question.

  Pay of Ordnance Survey Labourers.
  MR. FIELD: To ask the hon. Member for South Somerset, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, if the labourers employed in the Ordnance Survey, who are a special class of men, can be granted a minimum wage of 24s. a week; and if he will take into consideration the great expense these men entail in the cost of living, having to move frequently from place to place.
  (Answered by Sir Edward Strachey.) Perhaps my hon. friend will refer to the Answer I gave to a similar Question put by him on 16th March. Taking into account the advantages attaching to the employment of the men in question, such as comparative permanency, no loss of time by wet weather, free medical attendance, sick pay, and holidays, the Board do not think that there is any sufficient reason for the alteration of the present scale of pay.

  Bolinbroke Hospital and the Weir Bequest.
  SIR HENRY KIMBER: To ask the hon. Member for the Elland Division, as representing the Charity Commissioners, if he will state under what power, whether statutory or otherwise, the Charity Commissioners sanctioned the handing over by the trustees of the Weir bequest the sum of £5,000 out of the trust funds to the governors of the Bolingbroke Hospital before a scheme had been published, and without giving the parishioners of the parish of Streatham an opportunity of knowing of or protesting against such diversion of the trust money; whether the Charity Commissioners will lay upon the Table a Report of the public inquiry

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  held last November at Balham into the administration of the trust, and their decision thereon; whether he is aware that Mr. H. G. Hills, one of the Weir trustees, who had been offered by the Bolingbroke Hospital on 16th October last a life governorship of such hospital on the following day wrote and declined the same; whether, on the day before the Wandsworth Borough Council met to elect three representatives to the committee of management of the trust in place of the retiring members, the trustees of the said fund co-opted two of such retiring representatives to be life trustees; whether such co-optation was in direct contravention of the terms of the said will; and, if so, whether any steps have been, or will be, taken to remove such illegally appointed trustees, or to prevent them from acting in the administration of the trust.
  (Answered by Mr. Trevelyan.) The circumstances in which the Charity Commissioners sanctioned the payment of £5,000 to the governors of the Bolingbroke Hospital were explained in the Answer given by me to a Question by the hon. Member on 23rd March last. The Report made to the Commissioners in the result of the inquiry held last November is confidential. The decision of the Commissioners upon it will be shown in the scheme which is in preparation for publication. The Commissioners have been informed by Mr. H. G. Hills that he declined to accept nomination as a life governor of the Bolingbroke Hospital. The co-optation referred to by the hon. Member was of two persons to be members of the committee of management. It was invalid. The committee is not constituted, and the only trustees of the charity are those appointed by the will.

  Repayment of National Debt.
  MR. HAROLD COX: To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer if he can state what was the total sum charged against the revenue of the year for the repayment of Debt in the year 1907–1908 corresponding to the figures for previous years in Column 1, Appendix IV. of the National Debt Return [Cd. 3476]; and what it is estimated
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  will be the corresponding sum in 1908– 1909.
  (Answered by Mr. Lloyd-George.) The corresponding figures are—

  £.

  1907–8

  13,224,910

  1908–9 (estimated)

  11,920,000

  Customs and Excise Amalgamation.
  CAPTAIN CLIVE: To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, under the amalgamation of the Customs and Excise services foreshadowed in his Budget speech, there will be one examination for appointments to the two services, or different ones as before; and whether slight defect of vision, which is at present tolerated in the Excise but constitutes a bar to the Customs service, will debar from both services.
  (Answered by Mr. Lloyd-George.) Until further progress has been made it would be impossible to answer Questions relative to the detailed arrangements which may be involved in the scheme.
  MR. J. DEVLIN: To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he can state at what date the new scheme for the amalgamation of the Excise and Customs Departments will become operative; whether it will involve any change in the qualifications with regard to height or otherwise of students for appointment in the Excise; and, if so, what will be the nature of the change.
  (Answered by Mr. Lloyd-George.) Until further progress has been made it would be impossible to answer Questions relative to the detailed arrangements which may be involved by the scheme.

  St. Patrick's Day—Army Ordnance Department.
  MR. FIELD: To ask the Secretary of State for War if arrangements could be made to allow the employees of the Army Ordnance Department in Dublin a holiday on 17th March in common with all Government employees in Dublin.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) St. Patrick's Day is allowed to the Army Ordnance Department employees in

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  Ireland as a public holiday on the same conditions as for Admiralty employees, namely, without pay and without the right of making up lost time.

  QUESTIONS IN THE HOUSE.

    Admiralty Cement Tenders.
    MR. COURTHOPE: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty what was the minimum quantity of cement required in the invitations issued to cement manufacturers to tender for the Admiralty cement contracts.
    THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. MCKENNA,): The quantity of cement indicated in the invitations to tender was approximately 10,400 tons, this being the anticipated requirements for one year for all naval establishments at home and abroad in the Director of Works Department; but the actual amount ordered will depend on the actual needs during the course of the year, and will not necessarily amount to 10,400 tons.
    MR. COURTHOPE: Was the amount required so large that it was necessary to leave out some of the firms usually invited to tender?
    MR. MCKENNA: Yes, Sir; certain of the firms were left out for that reason.
    MR. COURTHOPE: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty which firms of cement manufacturers were invited to tender for the Admiralty contracts; and what is the estimated annual output (in tons) of each.
    MR. MCKENNA: It is undesirable to disclose the names of competing firms, and I must beg the hon. Member not to press for them.
    MR. COURTHOPE: I will not press for the names.
    MR. COURTHOPE: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty what firms of cement manufacturers who have usually been invited to tender for Admiralty contracts were this year omitted;
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    and what is the estimated annual output (in tons) of each.
    I beg also to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether any firm or firms of cement manufacturers who have usually supplied cement to the Admiralty, but have this year not been invited to tender, have complained of the omission and requested that they may be allowed to tender; whether such requests have been granted or refused; if the latter, upon what grounds; and what is the estimated annual output (in tons) of each of such firms.
    MR. MCKENNA: There was only one firm of cement manufacturers which we considered capable of meeting our requirements and which we have invited on previous occasions, but have omitted this year. If the hon. Member has the authority of the firm in question for asking for a disclosure of its name, I am prepared to give it as well as the grounds upon which it has been excluded on the present occasion.
    MR. COURTHOPE: I have not the authority of any firm to ask the information, but I should like to have it.
    MR. MCKENNA: Without their authority I do not think it advisable to name the firm or to give the reasons why they were not invited to tender on the present occasion.

    Naval Volunteers Lands Bill.
    MR. LAMONT (Buteshire): I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty when he expects to proceed with the Naval Volunteers Lands Bill, of which notice was given on 29th January.
    MR. MCKENNA: I propose to introduce this Bill and proceed with it as soon as the exigencies of Parliamentary time permit.

    Woolwich Arsenal Storehouse Clerks.
    MR. CLYNES: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether, prior to 21st February, 1902, the present staff of storehouse clerks at Woolwich Arsenal and dockyard were designated as, and performed the duties of, assistant foremen; whether

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    the duties these men now perform are practically the same as they were before the name of the staff was altered, being mainly clerical and of a responsible nature; and whether the storehouse clerks would have participated in a scheme for the granting of pensions which was under consideration on the date mentioned had they been allowed to retain their former title.
    THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE WAR OFFICE (Mr. ACLAND,): These storehouse clerks were designated assistant foremen and performed duties similar to those they now perform. The designation was changed because the name storehouse clerk conveys more accurately the nature of the duties, which consist largely of simple clerical work, not of a responsible character, and also of manual labour when required. The foreman's pension scheme did not extend to assistant foremen, and therefore these men would not have participated in it had they retained their former title.

    Volunteer Long-Service Medal.
    MR. H. H. MARKS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether a Volunteer not yet qualified for the long-service medal, and who has enlisted in the Territorial Army, will be entitled to count his service in the Territorial Army in addition to his service in the Volunteer force in applying hereafter for the medal.
    MR. ACLAND: The various questions involved in the mode of reckoning service towards a long service medal have not all been finally settled, and I am not, therefore, in a position at the present moment to make any definite statement, but I can tell the hon. Member that the service which a member of the Territorial Forces has previously rendered in the Volunteers will certainly be taken into account in reckoning his eligibility for the long-service medal.

    The Mohmand Rising.
    MR. LUPTON: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for India if the British troops now invading the country of the Mohmands are destroying the villages and burning
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    the crops and stores of corn of the villagers.
    THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Mr. BUCHANAN,): We have no detailed information beyond what appears in the telegrams, but I understand that destruction of the towers of the villages, and in some cases the burning of stores of corn, have been among the punitive measures inflicted on the tribesmen, who, as the hon. Member is aware, made unprovoked raids into British territory and committed murder and pillage upon British subjects.
    MR. LUPTON: May I ask the hon. Member if it is a fact that in the recent operations against the Zakka Khel we did not burn the villages and that these people are now our friends?
    MR. BUCHANAN: I cannot answer that Question without notice.
    MR. LUPTON: Is it the fact that in the late Afghanistan War we did burn the crops and orchards and exasperated them so that they drove us out of the country?
    [No Answer was returned.]

    Taxation in British East Africa.
    SIR GILBERT PARKER: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies what were the taxes per head of the white and of the coloured population of British East Africa respectively for the year 1907; and what is the amount paid by members of the white community in rents, licences, registration fees, and fees for land sales and cattle sales, and what is the amount similarly paid by the coloured community.
    THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Mr. RUNCIMAN, Dews-bury; for Colonel SEELY): My hon. friend has asked me to reply in his absence. The Secretary of State will ask the Governor of the East Africa Protectorate for an estimate of the amounts contributed under the several heads by the white and coloured community.
    SIR GILBERT PARKER: Cannot an answer be given now as to the amount paid per head?
    MR. RUNCIMAN: I have no doubt the Colonial Office will supply whatever information it can.

    Chinese in the Transvaal Mines.
    MR. TIMOTHY DAVIES: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will give the number of Chinese coolies employed in the Transvaal mines on 1st July, 1907, 1st January, 1908, and 1st May, 1908.
    MR. RUNCIMAN (for Colonel SEELY): The figures received are for the last and not the first days of each month. They show for 30th June, 1907, 51,517; for 30th December, 1907, 37,118; for 30th April, 1908, 24,059.

    Alcohol.
    MR. LUPTON: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer what are the percentages of absolute alcohol in the beers brewed in England and Wales; what is the average percentage of absolute alcohol in the beers brewed in England and Wales; and what are the percentages of absolute alcohol in spirits, such as brandy, gin, rum, and whisky, in the diluted mixtures as generally retailed in England and Wales.
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE, Carnarvon): The Board of Inland Revenue have not the information necessary to answer either part of my hon. friend's Question.

    Brewers and Income-tax.
    SIR HENRY KIMBER: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether it is proposed to exempt from the payment of income-tax such profits of brewers and publicans and hotel and other companies as are applied as sinking funds to pay off their capital or the mortgages or debentures charged on their property.
    MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: No, Sir. A company or firm is chargeable to income-tax upon its full profits estimated according to the Rules of the Income-Tax Acts,
    278
    without reference to the purposes to which such profits may be applied.

    France and the Death Duties.
    MR. BOWLES: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he can state the total number of estates particulars of which have been furnished to the French Government under the provisions of the death duties agreement of 15th November, 1907, in respect of the quarter ended 31st March last.
    MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: Fifty-four, Sir.

    Fraudulent Traders and the Police Gazette.
    MR. VINCENT KENNEDY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the police have made any inquiries in reference to their published list of trading firms, against which frequent complaints have been made; and, if so, will he say what the result of such inquiries have been; how many firms are set out in the Police Gazette as suspicious; are any of these Irish; and, in view of the constant frauds perpetrated on the public, will he publish the trading names of the firms involved so as to limit their operations.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. GLADSTONE,): In every instance the police make inquiries before including firms or associations in the list of doubtful traders which appears in the Police Gazette. It would not be advisable to state the result of such inquiries, or to publish either the names of, or any particulars concerning, trading firms or associations so included.
    MR. VINCENT KENNEDY: Can I have a copy of the Gazette? Would not the publication of the information asked for lead to the prevention of crime?
    MR. GLADSTONE: I am afraid I can add nothing to what I have said. The matter is being carefully considered.

    London Police Helmets.
    MR. B. S. STRAUS: I beg to ask the Secretary

    279
    of State for the Home Department whether he would favourably consider the desirability of allowing the Metropolitan Police to wear a straw helmet, or a helmet of some light material, in hot weather instead of the heavy head-covering that is compulsory at present.
    MR. GLADSTONE: The question of supplying the - Metropolitan Police with a special head covering for use during very hot weather has been' the subject of consideration on many occasions, but it has not been found possible to provide a suitable substitute for the helmet at present in use. I am informed that without the identification plate, etc., a Metropolitan Police helmet weighs 8½ ounces, and that an ordinary top-hat weighs 6½ ounces. The present helmet cannot, therefore, be regarded as unduly heavy, in view of the necessity of its affording protection to the head against blows.

    Hops and Hop Substitutes.
    SIR GILBERT PARKER: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade what was the estimated value of the hops and of hop substitutes, respectively, used in the brewing industry in 1906, and the average in both cases for the years 1902–6.
    THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. CHURCHILL,): No information is available with regard to the value of either the hops or hop substitutes used for brewing in the United Kingdom in recent years.
    SIR GILBERT PARKER: May we not hope that the right hon. Gentleman will so reorganise his Department as to be able to collect useful information of this kind in order to supply it to the House?
    MR. LUPTONasked whether it was the fact that the amount of hops used was such that a 40s. duty would mean £1,300,000 a year extra to be paid by the brewers?
    [No Answer was returned.]

    Royal Commission on the Poor Law— Report.
    MR. R. DUNCAN: I beg to ask the President
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    of the Local Government Board whether there is any prospect of the Report of the Royal Commissioners on the Poor Laws and Relief of Distress being presented before the rising of the House in August; and, if not, whether it is intended that any interim Report of evidence submitted to the Commissioners will be presented and made available, and when the completed Report is expected to be presented and available to Members.
    THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. JOHN BURNS,): The Royal Commission have just finished hearing evidence and are now considering their Report. They are not without hope that they may be able to present it in the autumn, but it is impossible to give a precise date by which it will be issued. The reply to the latter part of the Question is in the negative. The Commissioners at the outset of their proceedings, and on subsequent occasions, decided that it would not be advisable to publish the Evidence before the Report.

    Leeds Vaccination Prosecution.
    MR. LUPTON: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board if he is aware that Ernest Leonard, of 27, East Park Parade, Leeds, was taken to Armley Gaol, on Thursday, 14th May, 1908, for the non-payment of fine and expenses inflicted for the non-vaccination of his child; that Leonard had consented to the vaccination of his children if the lymph with which it was to be done would be guaranteed free from small-pox and other disease, and that this guarantee was refused; and if he will guarantee that in future all vaccinating lymph supplied by the Local Government Board shall be derived from a source free from small-pox.
    MR. JOHN BURNS: My attention has not been called to the case mentioned in the Question. As I have frequently stated, the lymph supplied from the Government lymph establishment is in all cases derived direct from the calf. I cannot always say what may have been its original source, but the lymph used

    281
    at the establishment is usually obtained by vaccinating calves with vaccine lymph obtained from children, and in no case is lymph used there unless it has been passed through a series of calves.
    MR. LUPTON: Did not the evidence recently given before a Royal Commission show that the lymph now used by the Local Government Board was originally derived from small-pox and might therefore be calculated in certain cases to to produce small-pox?
    MR. JOHN BURNS: I should prefer notice of that Question.

    Barnsley Vaccination Case.
    MR. LUPTON: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he is aware that Mr. Percy Sant, of 56, Bridge Street, Barnsley, has received a notice from the vaccination officer to have his child vaccinated notwithstanding the fact that he made a declaration under the Vaccination Act, 1907, before a justice of the peace on 27th February, 1908 (his child having been born on 23rd January, 1908); and whether he will inquire into the matter with a view to preventing any further action on the part of the vaccination officer.
    MR. JOHN BURNS: I have no information at present as to this case, but I am making inquiry with regard to it.

    Llandaff New School.
    MR. COURTHOPE: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Education how many school places in the proposed new school at Llandaff are considered to be necessary to meet a deficiency of accommodation.
    MR. RUNCIMAN: The population in this district is continually increasing and it is, therefore, difficult to estimate the number of places which may, on a numerical basis, be required in the next year or two. The actual shortage in school places at present is about forty.
    MR. COURTHOPE: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Education
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    what is the amount of the building grant which it is proposed to pay in respect of the new council school at Llandaff.
    MR. RUNCIMAN: Not more than £1,000.

    Purley National School Mistress.
    MR. MACKARNESS: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Education whether, in view of the recent dismissal by the school managers of the mistress of the national school of Purley, without any charge against either her character or her capacity, and in view of the fact that the education committee of the Berkshire County Council disclaim having any right to interfere, he will take steps to provide by future legislation that a school teacher shall have an appeal to a higher authority against dismissal by the school managers.
    MR. RUNCIMAN: I do not understand that in the case referred to the local education authority disclaimed having any right to interfere, but that they considered it advisable, in the circumstances, not to exercise the right which they undoubtedly possess. While, as I have previously stated, I regret the decision at which they arrived, I am of opinion that the right of appeal to the local education authority which the existing law affords is, as a rule, a sufficient safeguard against capricious action on the part of school managers.
    MR. MACKARNESS: Then, Sir, is it the fact that under the existing law a school teacher has an appeal from the school managers to the county council?
    MR. RUNCIMAN: Yes, Sir, that is the position as we understand it.

    Promotions in His Majesty's Customs.
    MR. SUMMERBELL: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury if he can state the number of promotions per annum from the assistant class to that of examining officer in His Majesty's Customs during the past seven years, the length of service of the assistants before promotion, and the number of assistants at present on their maximum salary.
    THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. HOBHOUSE, Bris-

    Year

    Number of Promotions of Assistants to Examining Officers, 2nd Class.

    Average Length of Service on Promotion.

    As Assistant.

    As Outdoor Officer.

    Total.

    Years.

    Months.

    Years.

    Months.

    Years.

    Months.

    1901

    120

    5

    5

    3

    1

    8

    6

    1902

    46

    5

    1

    3

    6

    8

    7

    1903

    49

    5

    6

    3

    9

    9

    3

    1904

    43

    5

    11

    3

    5

    9

    4

    1905

    73

    6

    5

    —

    6

    5

    1906

    54

    5

    8

    —

    5

    8

    1907

    34

    6

    1

    —

    6

    1

    Number of Assistants who are at their Maximum … 2.

    His Majesty's Customs—Clerical Branch.
    MR. SUMMERBELL: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury if he can state the number of grades there are in the clerical branch of His Majesty's Customs Department; and how many of the different titles or grades carry similar salaries.
    MR. HOBHOUSE: I beg to refer the hon. Member to pp. 4, 5, 6 and 8 of the published Estimates, from which it will be seen that the male clerical establishment comprises—

    Classes.

    In the Secretary's Office

    5

    In the Accountant-General's Office

    5

    In the Statistical Office

    6

    In the Port establishments

    9

    Several of these classes are common to two or more branches. But there are two classes in the Secretary's Office having the same scale of salary as different classes in the Statistical Office; and one class in the Accountant-General's Office having the same scale as a different class in the Statistical Office.
    tol, E.): The following statement gives the information requested—

    Carnarvon Crown Lands.
    MR. ELLIS DAVIES (Carnarvonshire,): I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury what is the extent of the Crown land in the county of Carnarvon; whether such land is subject to any, and, if so, what, rights of common; and whether, on the sale of Crown land in the county, the Crown can pass the fee freed from any rights of common.
    MR. HOBHOUSE: The total extent of the Crown land in the county of Carnarvon (excluding foreshore) is about 8,661 acres. Of that area about 8,258 acres are subject to rights of common of pasture and the remaining 403 acres are the freehold property of the Crown not subject to rights of common. No sale by the Crown of land can have the effect of freeing the land from any rights of common to which it was legally subject at the time of the sale. The areas I have mentioned are exclusive of lands in which the Crown has mineral rights only.

    County Court Accounts in Post Office Savings Bank.
    MR. JOHN O'CONNOR: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury

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    if the accounts of the County Court Department will enable him to state how much money was standing in the Post Office Savings Bank to the credit of the Registrars of County Courts on 31st March last, or on the latest date to which the accounts are made up.
    MR. HOBHOUSE: On 31st December last, the latest date to which the accounts are at present complete, the amount standing in the Post Office Savings Bank to the credit of the Registrars of County Courts was £469,595.

    Land Registry Office.
    MR. ROWLANDS: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he can say when the account of the receipts and payments of the Land Registry Office for the year ending 31st March will be issued, seeing that under the Act of 1867 they are required to be laid before Parliament one month after that date.
    MR. HOBHOUSE: In order to prepare the Return which is annually presented it is necessary to obtain accounts from several Departments of the expenditure incurred by those Departments on behalf of the Land Registry. Expenditure incurred so late as 31st March cannot always be verified and appropriated to the proper head of service in time to be presented by 30th April; but every effort will be made to complete the Return as soon as possible.

    Death Duties.
    MR. FELL: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury if the Agreement respecting Death Duties with France is intended to apply to those persons who may happen to die in France when wintering there or residing there for short periods.
    MR. HOBHOUSE: No, Sir. The reference is not to persons dying in France, but to the deaths of persons owning property in either country.
    MR. FELL: Does that apply to English subjects wintering in France and dying there owning at the time more than £100?
    MR. HOBHOUSE: I must have notice of that Question.
    MR. FELL: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury if the Agreement respecting Death Duties with France was suggested by the French Government or was proposed by the Secretary of State; and whether any Papers referring to the negotiations will be laid upon the Table of the House.
    MR. HOBHOUSE: The Agreement was suggested by the French Government. The Agreement itself has been published and it is not proposed to lay any Papers on the subject.
    MR. FELL: Is there any precedent for such an Agreement as this being published?
    MR. HOBHOUSE: I cannot say offhand.
    MR. FELL: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury if the words all persons domiciled in France, contained in Article I. of the Agreement between the United Kingdom and France respecting Death Duties, are intended to refer to the deaths of French subjects in England.
    MR. HOBHOUSE: The reference is to persons domiciled in France whether they are French subjects or not.
    MR. FELL: I hope the hon. Gentleman can tell me to whom this does really apply. Do the English Government supply particulars when Frenchmen die in London?
    MR. HOBHOUSE: It is a very technical question. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will put it down.
    MR. FELL: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury what are the frauds in connection with succession duties referred to in the Agreement respecting Death Duties recently signed with the French Government.
    MR. HOBHOUSE: The reference is not to specific instances of fraud, but to the prevention of possible fraud.
    MR. FELL: Shall we have an opportunity of discussing this matter and thus elucidating it?
    MR. HOBHOUSE: I have no power to answer that Question.
    MR. FELL: On what Vote can it be raised?
    MR. HOBHOUSE: I should imagine on the Foreign Office Vote, but I am not certain.
    MR. FELL: Well, a fortnight ago I put down a Question on it to the Foreign Secretary, and was referred to the Treasury.

    Mr. O'Dowd, M.P., and Cattle Driving.
    CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he is aware that in the course of a speech recently delivered by the hon. Member for Sligo (South) to the Nationalists of South Sligo, North Roscommon, and North Leitrim, he stated that he himself advocated a temporary cessation of hostilities till they could see what the Government's amending Land Bill was like, that, after all, when the Chief Secretary said he would introduce a measure of so far-reaching a character as the promised Bill the least they should do would be to suspend hostilities till the Bill was produced, but, if it was found unsatisfactory, then by all means let them get the hazel, and not for a moment hesitate to drive the cattle, that his advice was not to be too particular as to what methods they employed, there was a wealth of good in the hazel, and they could not do better than have it in readiness; and whether he intends to take any, and, if so, what action.
    MR. J. MACVEAGHasked whether, in the event of legal proceedings being taken as a result of this Question against the Member for South Sligo, the Chief Secretary would see that regard was had to the Statute passed in the reign of Queen Anne which laid it down that a portion of the fine inflicted must go to the common informer.
    MR. BIRRELL: I have no doubt the statutory law will be observed. The
    288
    hon. and gallant Member has sent to me a newspaper report of a speech stated to have been delivered by the hon. Member for South Sligo at Riverstown on 3rd May. That report represents the hon. Member to have used language to the effect stated in the Question. The hon. Member is stated to have given advice as to what should be done in a certain contingency which may or may not arise some time hence. However objectionable such advice may have been—supposing that it was given—it does not seem that in the circumstances any proceedings against the hon. Member could be sustained.
    MR. CHARLES CRAIG: Has the right hon. Gentleman taken any steps to ascertain from the police or other persons whether or not the speech was correctly reported?
    MR. BIRRELL: I cannot say at the moment whether the police were there taking a shorthand note, and, of course, we cannot depend on memory.
    CAPTAIN CRAIG: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in certain parts of Ireland a great deal of importance is attached to what falls from people in public positions, and will he take steps to prevent the use of language obviously intended to incite to cattle-driving?
    MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member had better put his Question down.

    Irish Local Government Board Secretary.
    MR. HAZLETON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland who is the Secretary of the Local Government Board for Ireland, and the date of his appointment, what appointment he previously held, and at what salary; whether his salary has recently been increased by £100, contrary to regulations; and, if so, for what reason.
    MR. BIRRELL: The Secretary to the Local Government Board is Mr. A. R. Barlas, who was appointed to that position on 8th September, 1905, and who up to that time had been assistant secretary at a salary of £750 a year. Mr. Barlas was advanced to the maximum

    289
    salary on 1st November, 1906, in consideration of the largely increased duties and responsibility thrown upon him by the Labourers Act of that year. There are no regulations prohibiting such advance.

    Irish Local Government Board Inspectors.
    MR. HAZLETON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland for what season it is proposed to appoint this year five new temporary inspectors under the Local Government Board for Ireland; by whom will they be appointed; what qualification will be necessary; and what will be salaries and duties of the office.
    MR. BIRRELL: It is not proposed to appoint any new temporary inspectors under the Local Government Board. The provision of £2,500 in the Estimates is necessary in order to provide for the continued employment of the temporary inspectors who have been engaged at the rate of two guineas a day upon inquiries under the Labourers Acts. The appointments were made by the Local Government Board. No qualifications are prescribed, but care is taken to select experienced and suitable persons.

    Irish Local Government Board—Vice-President's Private Secretary.
    MR. HAZLETON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he will state who is the private secretary to the Vice-President of the Local Government Board for Ireland, and when was he appointed.
    MR. BIRRELL: The private secretary to the Vice-President is Mr. S. Watt, one of the members of the clerical staff. He was appointed private secretary on 1st February, 1907.

    Irish Local Government Board Commissioners.
    MR. HAZLETON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland why it has been arranged that a substitute will have to be provided and paid on 220 out of the 300 or 305 working days of the year ending 31st March, 1909, to do the work of Commissioner of the Local Government Board for Ireland.
    MR. BIRRELL: The Estimates for the current year contain the usual provision for a locum tenens during the possible absence of one of the Commissioners on temporary Commissions or vacation, or in consequence of ill health or any other sudden or unforeseen emergency. The making of this provision does not necessarily imply that a substitute will have to be employed for the number of days provided for.

    Doneraile Untenanted Lands.
    MR. FLYNN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Estates Commissioners have been made aware that on the estate of Lady Castle-town, Doneraile, County Cork, there are now approximately over 500 acres of untenanted land, all in grass; and whether, with a view to the acquisition of suitable holdings for the evicted tenants of the surrounding districts and of allotments for industrious labourers of the locality, the Commissioners will take action under the Land Purchase Acts at an early date.
    MR. BIRRELL: The Estates Commissioners have recently been informed by the hon. Member that certain lands on the estate of Lady Castletown are available for the purposes mentioned in the Question. The Commissioners are accordingly making inquiries in the matter with a view to acquiring the lands if possible.

    Tannagh Farm Cattle-Drive.
    CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state the number of cattle-drives that have taken place off Tannagh Farm, near Rivers-town, County Sligo; the number of arrests made; and if any sentences have been passed on the perpetrators of the outrages; and, if not, why not.
    MR. BIRRELL: The police are aware of but one cattle-drive from the farm in question. This took place on the night of 4th May. The police have been unable to trace the offenders and consequently no arrests have been made.
    CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland how many cattle-drives have taken place between 25th April and 10th May in the East Riding of County Galway, the number of persons arrested, the number of convictions, and the cost of conveying the persons arrested, together with the police, to the various court-houses.
    MR. BIRRELL: During the period mentioned there were thirty-five cattle-drives in the East Riding of Galway, and 266 persons were arrested, of whom 241 were bound to keep the peace. The cost of conveying the persons arrested together with the police to the various court-houses was £123.
    In reply to a further Question Mr. BIRRELL said the cost of conveyance before committal was borne by the county rates.
    MR. CHARLES CRAIGasked if the fact that 240 out of 260 persons had been bound over to keep the peace had resulted in reducing the number of cattle-drives?
    MR. BIRRELL: Time alone will show that.

    Condition of Galway.
    CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether Mr. Horne, R.M., who was recently sent to County Galway to study the condition of the district, has yet submitted his Report; and whether he recommended that the Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) Act should be put in force; and, if so, will the Irish Executive act on his recommendation.
    MR. BIRRELL: I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to my Answer to his Question on this subject on 4th March, to which I have nothing to add.

    Irish School Lesson Books.
    CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will publish as a Parliamentary Paper all the correspondence which, has reached the National Board of Education in Ireland on the subject of Brown and Nolan's Sixth or
    292
    Advanced Reader, as well as the Memorandum from the Chief Inspector, a protest from the Elementary Education Committee of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, Memoranda from individual Commissioners, a letter from the editorial secretary of the Imperial Protestant Federation, copies of minutes of the Board on the subject, and any other memoranda or protests; and whether any steps are to be taken to withdraw the reader.
    MR. BIRRELL: The Commissioners of National Education inform me that they do not consider that any useful purpose would be served by the publication of the correspondence and other documents referred to in the Question. Brown and Nolan's Advanced Reader for the sixth standard is not one of the books which have been sanctioned by the Commissioners for use in National Schools, and in all cases in which it has come to the knowledge of the Commissioners that the book was in use they have called on the managers to have such use discontinued.
    CAPTAIN CRAIG: May we take it that every precaution will be taken to prevent its being used in the future?
    MR. BIRRELL: I have no doubt the Commissioners will do their duty.

    Montalt Estate, Tipperary.
    MR. CHARLES CRAIG: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that on the 6th instant about sixty persons illegally entered on the Montalt estate, Tipperary, lately purchased by the Estates Commissioners, and ordered the Commissioners' engineer, who was dividing up the property into small holdings, to cease work, and theatened that no further operations would be permitted until a guarantee was given by the Estates Commissioners that certain persons chosen by the United Irish League should be supplied with land, and that the Rev. Mr. Duboe, the Protestant clergyman, should not be given the late agent's house, though the same adjoins his church and is eminently suitable for a rectory; will he say whether the Commissioners' engineer stopped work at the

    293
    command of these persons; how many police were present; and what course do the Estates Commissioners intend to pursue in the matter.
    MR. BIRRELL: I am informed that the facts are not as stated in the Question. On 5th May about twenty-five labourers assembled on the road adjoining the Montalt estate which has been purchased by the Estates Commissioners and upon which the Commissioners' surveyor was marking boundaries. Two of the number entered upon the land and asked the surveyor to cease work until the labourers claims were satisfied. The surveyor replied that he could not do so, but he offered to forward to his Commissioners any representation the labourers desired to make. The two men thereupon retired; they used no threat, and made no mention of the United Irish League, or of the Rev. Mr. Duboe, or of the agent's house. The surveyor completed his work without interference. A district inspector and fourteen policemen were present. It is the intention of the Commissioners to sell the late agent's house to the Rev. Mr. Duboe.

    Kynochs' Factory, Arklow.
    MR. MULDOON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the fatal accident which occurred on 11th May at the Kynoch Factory, Arklow; whether he will ascertain if the occurrence arose from preventable causes; and, if so, will remedial measures be taken.
    MR. GLADSTONE: My right hon. friend has asked me to answer this Question. The accident referred to was notified to and investigated by the factory department. From the, report which I have received, it appears that the accident, which happened while the man was putting a belt on a shaft in motion, was preventable. The shaft was fenced as required by the Factory Act, but the men in charge of the machines appear to have been allowed by the management to go inside the fencing while the machinery was in motion. The firm has now given an undertaking that in future no one will be allowed inside the fencing while the shift is in motion.

    Average Attendance at Elementary Schools in Ireland.
    MR. MURNAGHAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state the average number of children in daily attendance at the elementary schools in Ireland for the year 1907; can he give respectively the number at national, model, and Christian Brothers schools; and can he state the cost per head to the public under the different headings.
    MR. BIRRELL: In 1907 the average daily attendance at all national schools including model schools, was 485,979, and at model schools alone, 6,803. The expenditure per head from State sources on the schools and teaching staffs was: At all national schools, including model schools, £2 13s. 9d., and at model schools alone, £5 11s. 11d. The Commissioners of National Education have no information as to the attendance at, or cost of, Christian Brothers schools or any other than national schools.
    MR. MURNAGHAN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the children attending these schools are the children of very poor parents; that as far back as the year 1893 the Liberal Government admitted the claims of these voluntary schools to State-aid; that an assurance was given that a settlement would be arrived at before the end of that year, and is it not time now that effect was given to that assurance?
    MR. BIRRELL: I have no recollection of or responsibility for the statement, which I believe was made and I would give effect to it if I could, but I am afraid I cannot.

    Congested Districts Board Work.
    MR. BARRIE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he will state the total amount spent in each of the counties of Ireland included in the operations of the Congested Districts Board since its formation until 31st March last.
    MR. BIRRELL: Particulars of the expenditure of the Congested Districts

    295
    Board up to 31st March last will not be available for some time, but I will furnish with to-night's Votes a statement giving the Board's expenditure by counties up to 31st March, 1907.
    MR. KILBRIDE: How much money from the Congested Districts Board went to buy Scotch potatoes, so called, that were grown in Ireland?
    [No Answer was returned.]

    School Inspector Murphy.
    MR. JOHN O'CONNOR: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he will state in how many cases of dismissals, depressions, fines, and reprimands of national school teachers has Senior Inspector Murphy, of the National Education Board, lately of Armagh and at present of Limerick and Clare, been directly identified in the said districts and elsewhere; is the number of such unusual; and, if so, will an inquiry be instituted into the conduct, methods, and procedure of the said inspector.
    MR. BIRRELL: The Commissioners of National Education inform me that they could not give the information asked for without a detailed investigation of the work of the senior inspector in question since his appointment several years ago, but in any event the Commissioners consider that it would be against the interests of the public service and detrimental to the efficiency of their inspection staff to furnish any such information.
    MR. JOHN O'CONNOR: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether the number is unusual, and if it is would that not be a good ground for ordering an investigation?
    MR. BIRRELL: I have no control over the Commissioners of National Education, but I can quite understand that such a body would be reluctant to expose any particular inspector in this way unless there was reason to believe he did not discharge his duties properly.

    De Montalt Estate, Dundrum.
    MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the
    296
    Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he has received particulars of a disturbance upon the estate of the late Earl de Montalt, at Dundrum, Tipperary, on Thursday, when an inspector of the Estates Commissioners attended to divide the land; whether the police had to intervene; what was the cause of the disturbance; and what assurances were given by the representative of the Estates Commissioners to those who objected to the division.
    MR. BIRRELL: I am informed that no disturbance took place on the occasion in question. On 14th May the Estates Commissioners' inspector was giving possession to tenant purchasers when a considerable number of men entered upon the land, and their spokesman asked the inspector why the claims of the labourers had been ignored. The inspector replied that the Commissioners had already intimated to the rural district council that they were prepared to provide land for labourers' cottages if the council should so desire. The party then dispersed peaceably, and the inspector proceeded with his work without interference. No assurances were given by the inspector.

    Mr. Keaveny, J. P.
    MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Lord Chancellor has taken any action with reference to the language used by Mr. J. Keaveny, J.P., at a public meeting on Sunday, 19th April, at Tulsk, County Roscommon.
    MR. BIRRELL: The Lord Chancellor informs me that he has been in communication with Mr. Keaveny upon this subject, and that gentleman denies having used the language attributed to him in the newspaper reports. In the circumstances the Lord Chancellor has no materials upon which he can take any further action in the matter.

    Irish Universities Bill.
    MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Standing Committee of the Irish Catholic Bishops have signified their approval of the Irish Universities Bill.
    MR. BIRRELL: I have neither obtained nor sought any information as to the Standing Committee of the Catholic Bishops. As several of that body have expressed their willingness to serve on the proposed temporary governing bodies of the new University of Dublin and its colleges, I assume that they are not opposing the scheme.

    Ballygrehan Cattle Drive.
    MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he has particulars of a cattle-drive at Ballygrehan grazing lands, County Leitrim, on Friday night; how many cattle were driven off the lands; were the police present; and were any persons arrested.
    MR. BIRRELL: On the night of 9th May, sixty-five head of cattle were driven off the Ballygrehan grazing farm, County Sligo. The police were not present. No arrests were made.

    Irish Royal College of Surgeons.
    MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he has considered the claims of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland to receive treatment equivalent to that which is to be given under the new University scheme to the Catholic University School of Medicine in Cecilia Street, Dublin; and whether he proposes to take any action in the matter.
    MR. BIRRELL: The claims which have been advanced by the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland are under consideration.

    Cattle Driving in Ireland.
    CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that a cattle-drive took place on 14th April last, at 12.55 a.m., off the farm of Mr. R. St. George Robinson, of Seamount, County Sligo; can he state how far from Old Rock the cattle were when found by the police, what arrests have been made, and what sentences passed on the perpetrators of the outrage; and further, on 12th May, whether several, and, if so, how many, drives took place off
    298
    grazing farms in the Gort district, how many arrests, and what sentences; and further, on Sunday morning, 10th May, whether several, and, if so, how many, drives took place off Captain R. Fowler's farms at Rathmolyo, Trim, South Meath, how many arrests, and what sentences; and whether in any of these cases the cattle driven were found to have suffered injury, and if claims for compensation have been lodged.
    MR. BIRRELL: Mr. Robinson's cattle were driven off his farm on the date mentioned and were found by the police ten miles away. No arrests have been made. On 12th May a cattle-drive took place at Annagh Farm, near Gort. The majority of the persons concerned were dispersed by the police, but a small section succeeded in driving off some ewes and lambs. Twenty-six persons were arrested, of whom twenty-five have been bound to keep the peace. On 10th May cattle-drives took place from three farms near Trim, belonging to Captain Fowler. No arrests have been made in these cases. Claims for compensation have been lodged in all of the cases. The question whether the cattle sustained injury will be for the decision of the Courts.
    MR. CHARLES CRAIG: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the cattle drivers in Galway are no longer satisfied with driving the owners' cattle off the land, but now drive their own cattle on to it?
    MR. BIRRELL: I have heard that that objectionable practice prevails.
    MR. CHARLES CRAIG: Have not the efforts of the right hon. Gentleman to stop cattle-driving absolutely failed?
    MR. KILBRIDE: Will the hon. Gentleman consider the advisability of distributing in these cattle-driving districts copies of the speeches made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover in 1903?
    [No Answer was returned.]

    Mr. T. W. Russell, M. P., on Cattle-Drives.
    CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant

    299
    of Ireland whether, in view of the number of cases which have recently come to light of cattle suffering injury through being driven many miles off farms in the darkness of night, he will issue a memorandum counteracting the statement made, on behalf of the Government, by the Vice-President of the Board of Agriculture, that cattle-driving did no harm either to man or beast.
    MR. BIRRELL: I am not aware that my hon. friend the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture has made on behalf of the Government any statement with reference to cattle-driving. It is, however, the fact that in the great majority of cases which have come under the notice of the police there has been little actua1 cruelty to the cattle. In some cases the animals have been exhausted from over-driving, and in a few cases lameness has been observed. The Question appears to suggest that my hon. friend has made some statement in palliation of cattle-driving. I have not had an opportunity of communicating with him upon the subject since the Question was put down.
    CAPTAIN CRAIG: Is it not the fact that the President of the Board of Agriculture actually made this statement and has not denied having done so? In view of the increasing number of cases in which the cruelty to animals driven at night have been admitted by the right hon. Gentleman will he issue from the Irish office a Memorandum pointing out the cruelty?
    MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member must give notice of the Question.

    Crookenden and Casey Estate County Cavan.
    MR. VINCENT KENNEDY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he will state whether the Estates Commissioners have yet made the formal proposal to purchase the Crookendon and Casey Estate, County Cavan, and whether the same has been accepted; and, if not, will he say what is exactly the present position of this estate.
    MR. BIRRELL: A formal proposal for the purchase by the Estates Commissioners of the estate in question is in
    300
    course of preparation, and the Commissioners hope to issue it at an early date.

    Arrests of Women in the Night.
    MR. JOHN ROCHE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether, in the, district of Mount Bellow, County Galway, sixteen women were arrested by the police at the hour of 3 a.m., in April last, and driven to Ballinasloe, twenty miles distant, upon a cold, bitter morning; and if so, was it necessary to arrest them at that hour; could they have been charged in the morning at Mount Bellew; and what amount did it cost to convey those women to Ballinasloe.
    MR. BIRRELL: On 27th March, between 3 and 5 a.m., three men and fifteen women were arrested in the Mount Bellow district upon a charge of unlawful assembly. The police authorities considered it to be in the interests of the peace of the district that the arrests should be made early in the morning. The defendents were conveyed before the resident magistrate at Ballinasloe, nineteen miles distant, and were by him ordered to give sureties to keep the peace, which they did. It was in accordance with the usual practice that the defendants were taken before the resident magistrate and not before local justices. The cost of conveying them to Ballinasloe was £29.
    In reply to a further Question by Mr. Roche,
    MR. BIRRELLsaid he regretted the arrests were made at so early an hour in the morning, but it was not always possible to prejudge the hour of arrest.
    MR. JOHN O'CONNOR: Why not send people like this a letter asking them to come in?
    MR. BIRRELL: I should be quite willing to adopt the course.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Will the right hon. Gentleman take steps to put down this driving of men and women?
    [No Answer was returned.]

    Irish Evicted Tenants.
    MR. JOHN ROCHE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland how many evicted tenants upon the Clanricarde estate have applied up to date for reinstatement; how many have been reinstated; and how many provided with new holdings.
    MR. BIRRELL: The Estates Commissioners have received 163 applications for reinstatements from evicted tenants on the Clanricarde estate. So far as the Commissioners are aware none of the applicants have been reinstated in their former holdings. Ten of them have been provided with new holdings on estates purchased by the Commissioners.

    Ulster Catholics and University Education.
    MR. C. J. O'DONNELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland what action the Government proposes to take in order to give the Catholics of Ulster equality of opportunity, seeing that the Belfast University and the college at Derry are practically closed to them; and whether he still proposes to deprive the Ulster Catholics of the resource of obtaining University degrees by private tuition or private study.
    MR. BIRRELL: I should be very sorry to think that the measure now before the House might have the effect of debarring any body of Irishmen from University education. If, however, the new Universities are to be Universities in fact as well as in name, it will be necessary to hold fast by the provision that only those students shall be admitted to degrees who have been taught in the Universities or affiliated colleges.
    MR. C. J. O'DONNELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he will state the reason for appointing only one Catholic out of thirty-five members of the governing body of the proposed University of Belfast, seeing that the Catholic population of Ulster is equal to the total number of Protestants of all denominations; and whether he is aware that all the organs of Protestant
    302
    opinion in Ulster disclaim responsibility for this exclusion of Catholic Ulstermen from an University said to be unsectarian.
    MR. BIRRELL: The selection of a fully representative and otherwise satisfactory governing body is a matter of much difficulty. I should be glad if it could be arranged that some additional representative Catholic Ulstermen could be added to the governing body of the Belfast University.

    Irish University System.
    MR. SHEEHAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he has received any representations to the effect that private students from provincial schools and colleges should be admitted to the various examinations and degrees under the contemplated Irish University, as well as to participate in the honours, prizes, exhibitions, scholarships, etc., of such University; and will he state whether effect will be given to these needs in his University scheme.
    MR. BIRRELL: I have received certain representations which go to show that there are still some people in Ireland who are satisfied with the Royal University system, that is to say, the system of a mere examining body as distinguished from a teaching University. I am convinced, however, that the view in question is not generally held in Ireland.

    Irish Paupers—Removal Regulations.
    MR. MURNAGHAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been, called to the protests made by boards of guardians in Ireland against the inequality that exists in respect to the removal of paupers in different parts of the United Kingdom; is he aware that English Poor Law authorities are empowered to send back to Ireland persons of Irish birth who are past work and no longer able to support themselves, while Irish authorities have no such power in regard to those of English birth found destitute in Ireland; is he also aware that the law enables Poor Law authorities in Scotland to

    303
    return to Ireland people of Irish birth grown too enfeebled to be serviceable, even though most of their lives were spent in Scotland, unless it can be shown that the person to be deported has resided for five consecutive years in one particular Poor Law area; and will he take the matter into consideration with a view to a removal of the grievance.
    MR. BIRRELL: The law and practice as to the removal of paupers is correctly stated in the Question. The Vice-Regal Commission on the Irish Poor Laws have recommended that the English and Scottish Removal Acts should be repealed so far as they relate to Ireland, and this recommendation will doubtless be considered by the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws of the United Kingdom which is at present sitting. The question will also receive the careful consideration of the Irish Government in connection with the proposed Bill for amending the Irish Poor Laws which I hope to introduce next year.

    Armagh Laundry Prosecutions.
    MR. J. DEVLIN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to the case heard at Armagh Petty Sessions on 14th instant, in which a local laundry firm was convicted of having habitually worked six female employees from ten o'clock on Sunday nights to seven o'clock on Monday mornings, and then, with short intervals for meals, continued to work these females until seven o'clock on Monday nights; whether he is aware that the resident magistrate said he thought it was a deliberate case, and inflicted a fine of only 3s. in each case; and whether he will direct a more rigid and thorough inspection of such firms in future with a view to the prevention of similar breaches of the Factory and Workshops Acts.
    MR. GLADSTONE: I have received a Report on this case from the Factory Inspector. The offence charged was the serious one of employing women from 10.30 on Sunday evening, 29th March, to seven o'clock on the following Monday evening. It is the case that a
    304
    penalty of 3s. only was imposed in respect of each of the twelve cases taken, but this was the decision of the majority of the Court and not of the resident magistrate who, according to the newspaper reports, stated that he would have imposed a heavier fine because he considered it a deliberate case. The action of the inspector has been successful in securing the detection and punishment of these breaches of the law, and I see no occasion for giving any special instructions to him on the subject. It is not in my power to give instructions to the magistrates, but I cannot help saying that it becomes almost impossible to secure the enforcement of the. Factory Act if a serious offence, committed deliberately and after full warning, is so inadequately punished.

    Royal Hibernian Academy,
    MR. BOLAND: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he has had an opportunity to consider the representations made on behalf of the Royal Hibernian Academy, and the Reports of the Committee appointed to inquire into the best means of enabling the academy to fulfil its functions; and whether, seeing that the academy has already put before the Treasury the businesslike and concrete scheme to which his predecessor in office, speaking in this House, in March, 1907, promised sympathetic consideration, he can say whether any, and, if so, what decision has been arrived at.
    MR. HOBHOUSE: I have made myself acquainted with the Reports of the Committee and with the later proposals of the Royal Hibernian Academy, which do not seem to me thoroughly satisfactory. I fear that I cannot undertake to provide out of public funds the whole cost of a new site and building on the scale suggested by the Academy.
    MR. BOLAND: Will the Irish Members have an opportunity of considering the proposals of the Treasury?
    MR. HOBHOUSE: I have no objection to that at all.

    Natal Act of Indemnity.
    MR. HERBERT: I beg to ask the Prime

    305
    Minister whether, having regard to the fact that there is no precedent for an Act of Indemnity in the circumstances prevailing in Natal and to the importance of the constitutional questions involved, he will afford Parliament an opportunity of discussing the matter before any Act of Indemnity passed by the Legislature of Natal is assented to.
    SIR GILBERT PARKERasked whether, in view of the appeal of the late Under-Secretary for the Colonies that Questions should not be asked which would produce irritation ["Oh, Oh"] in the minds of those Colonies enjoying responsible self-government, the right hon. Gentleman would use his influence with the followers of the Government not to ask Questions such as this, which were likely to be resented.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILLasked whether, having regard to the correspondence published between the Imperial Government and the Government of Natal, in which strong condemnation of the conduct of the Government of Natal was expressed by the Imperial Government, the House would have an opportunity of supporting the Government.
    THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. As QUITH,): I will confine myself to answering the Question on the Paper. My hon. friend is aware that the passing of an Act of Indemnity may be the most effective way of putting an end to the continuance of martial law. No Bill of the kind can, I understand, be introduced into the Natal Legislature before June, and I will see that on an early Supply day, the Colonial Vote is put down, and an opportunity given for discussion.
    MR. FLYNN: Will the Report of the Commission on Natal Affairs be carefully considered by the Colonial Office?
    MR. ASQUITH: It has been considered.

    Board of Agriculture Vote.
    MR. LANE-FOX: I beg to ask the Prime
    306
    Minister when the Vote for the Board of Agriculture will be taken.
    MR. ASQUITH: The Vote will be taken on 10th June.
    MR. LANE-FOX: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that that is immediately after the holidays, and it will be most inconvenient for the agricultural Members to be back? The same course was adopted last year. There is a strong agricultural element who wish to discuss several matters.
    MR. ASQUITH: What?
    MR. LANE-FOX: The Swine Fever Regulation, for instance.
    MR. ASQUITH: I see no reason for altering the date. It is inconvenient for everybody, but not more so for the agricultural Members than others.
    MR. AKERS-DOUGLAS: The agricultural Members should not suffer the same inconvenience two years running.

NEW BILLS.

  NATIONAL FLAG;
  CAPTAIN CRAIGasked leave to bring in a Bill to provide for the due display of the national flag on certain occasions in Great Britain and Ireland, more particularly on Empire Day. He said that in consequence of replies which had been given to a number of Questions put to various Members of the Cabinet during the past few days, he had taken the only step he could think of in order to impress upon the Government the importance of flying the flag on Empire Day. Hon. Members below the gangway took very good care to fly a certain flag in Dublin on a certain day and they might extend the courtesy and gratify the desire of probably the largest section of the loyal people of the Empire to see the flag flying on public buildings in London. The Prime Minister had said yesterday at Question time that he saw no reason to depart from the precedent of those who were in

  307
  office before him. But no one would deny that during the past few years there had been a growing desire throughout the country to celebrate Empire Day. In the Senate House in Canada a few days ago, when the question was raised about the flying of the flag in Canada, the reply of the Prime Minister, if he had been correctly reported, was very apt. He said that if the Government here had no desire to fly the flag, they in Canada at any rate would fly it all the oftener. This short Bill would make it obligatory on Ministers of the Crown to fly the British flag over their offices on Empire Day and would also give permission to fly the flag over the national schools in Ireland where the majority of the parents, the pupils, and the managers, acquiesced in so doing. He would remind the House of the words used by the Prime Minister on the Motion for the adjournment the previous night. He said—
  "If the noble Lord would from time to time give him such information as was at his disposal as to the growth of a general desire for this particular form of manifestation on the part of the children of the Empire it would receive his most respectful consideration."
  They thanked the Prime Minister for the courteous way in which he met the request addressed to the Front Bench. The right hon. Gentleman said that he was following the precedent of those who went before him, but there could be no question that Empire Day was more generally celebrated now than in the days of his predecessors. A very interesting function was taking place even that day at Croydon where the school children were unfurling a flag presented by the Agent-General for New South Wales. After all, the taxpayers of the country paid for the erection of the War Office, the Admiralty, and the other great buildings in which right hon. Gentlemen opposite exercised their offices, and the great bulk of those taxpayers would undoubtedly rather see the flag flying over those buildings on these occasions than see the bare flag-staff. The flying
  of the flag would also be a great gratification to the many Colonial visitors who came to this country. It would show them that we, at home, were anxious to assist the Empire movement in other parts of the world. Then again this particular part of the Empire was often visited by foreigners, and it was desirable that we should impress upon them that this little bit of country was not all we had to show them—that outside the United Kingdom we had an Empire. We ought to emphasise that fact on every possible occasion. The Bill had the cordial approval of the loyal section in Ireland where it was proposed to give permission to hoist the national flag over the national schools.
  A NATIONALIST MEMBER: Fly them over the breweries.
  CAPTAIN CRAIGsaid the Bill would inflict no hardship on hon. Members below the gangway, because it was especially stipulated that where the majority of parents did not desire to fly the flag they need not do so. He would only say in conclusion it would be a graceful act on the part of the Prime Minister and his colleagues to grant the request of the people of this country. It took a long time to obtain the privilege of flying the national flag over the Houses of Parliament, and a certain number of hon. Members did not think it a waste of time to keep on, as long as they had the privilege of sitting in that House, asking that the flag should also fly over the chief Government offices in London.
  Motion made, and Question put, "That leave be given to bring in a Bill to pro vide for the due display of the National Flag on certain occasions in Great Britain and Ireland, more particularly on Empire Day."—(Captain Craig.)
  The House divided:—Ayes, 88; Noes, 156. (Division List No. 99.)

  AYES.

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

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

  Beckett, Hon. Gervase

  Anstruther-Gray, Major

  Banbury, Sir Frederick George

  Brodie, H. C.

  Ashley, W. W.

  Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight)

  Burnyeat, W. J. D.

  Ashton, Thomas Gair

  Baring, Capt. Hn. G. (Winchester

  Campbell, Rt. Hon. J. H. M

  Balcarres, Lord

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

  Carlile, E. Hildred

  Baldwin, Stanley

  Beck, A. Cecil

  Castlereagh, Viscount

  Cave, George

  Holland, Sir William Henry

  Randles, Sir John Scurrah

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

  Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield

  Rees, J. D.

  Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry

  Kennaway, Rt. Hn. Sir John H.

  Ridsdale, E. A.

  Cleland, J. W.

  Kerry, Earl of

  Ronaldshay, Earl of

  Clive, Percy Archer

  Kimber, Sir Henry

  Ropner, Colonel Sir Robert

  Collings, Rt. Hn. J. (Birmingh'm

  Lamont, Norman

  Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford)

  Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow)

  Lane-Fox, G. R.

  Sheffield, Sir Berkeley George D.

  Courthope, G. Loyd

  Law, Andrew Bonar (Dulwich)

  Silcock, Thomas Ball

  Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S.)

  Lee, Arthur H. (Hants, Fareham

  Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie

  Craig, Captain James (Down, E.)

  Long, Col. Charles W. (Evesham

  Smith, F. E. (Liverpool, Walton)

  Craik, Sir Henry

  Lonsdale, John Brownlee

  Stanley, Hn. A. Lyulph (Chesh.)

  Crossley, William J.

  Lyell, Charles Henry

  Stone, Sir Benjamin

  Dixon-Hartland, Sir Fred Dixon

  Lynch, H. B.

  Tennant, Sir Edward (Salisbury

  Doughty, Sir George

  Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred

  Thomson, W. Mitchell-(Lanark)

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

  Magnus, Sir Philip

  Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

  Du Cros, Arthur Philip

  Marks, H. H. (Kent)

  Watt, Henry A.

  Edwards, Clement (Denbigh)

  Morpeth, Viscount

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

  Faber, Capt. W. V. (Hants, W.

  Morrison-Bell, Captain

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

  Fardell, Sir T. George

  O'Donnell, C. J. (Walworth)

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

  Fell, Arthur

  Parker, Sir Gilbert (Gravesend)

  Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George

  Freeman-Thomas, Freeman

  Parkes, Ebenezer

  Gordon, J.

  Paulton, James Mellor

  TELLERS FOB THE AYES—Mr. Forster and Viscount Valentia.

  Greenwood, Hamar (York)

  Pirie, Duncan V.

  Hardy, George A. (Suffolk)

  Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

  Hill, Sir Clement

  Radford, G. H.

  NOES.

  Abraham, William (Cork, N. E.)

  Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford

  Maddison, Frederick

  Atherley-Jones, L.

  Gooch, George Peabody (Bath)

  Mallet, Charles E.

  Baker, Sir John (Portsmouth)

  Grant, Corrie

  Manfield, Harry (Northants)

  Barlow, Sir John E. (Somerset)

  Gulland, John W.

  Meagher, Michael

  Barry, E. (Cork, S.)

  Hall, Frederick

  Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N)

  Belloc, Hilaire Joseph Peter R.

  Halpin, J.

  Mooney, J. J.

  Bennett, E. N.

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

  Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen)

  Boland, John

  Haslam, James (Derbyshire)

  Morse, L. L.

  Bowerman, C. W.

  Hayden, John Patrick

  Muldoon, John

  Bryce, J. Annan

  Hazel, Dr. A. E.

  Murnaghan, George

  Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas

  Hazleton, Richard

  Murray, Capt. Hn A. C. (Kincard)

  Byles, William Pollard

  Healy, Timothy Michael

  Nicholls, George

  Cameron, Robert

  Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

  Nolan, Joseph

  Carr-Gomm, H. W.

  Higham, John Sharp

  Nugent, Sir Walter Richard

  Channing, Sir Francis Allston

  Hobart, Sir Robert

  Nuttall, Harry

  Clancy, John Joseph

  Hodge, John

  O'Brien, William (Cork)

  Clough, William

  Hogan, Michael

  O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

  Clynes, J. R.

  Holt, Richard Durning

  O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

  Cobbold, Felix Thornley

  Hope, W. Bateman (Somerset, N

  O'Donnell, T. (Kerry, W.)

  Collins, Stephen (Lambeth)

  Hudson, Walter

  O'Dowd, John

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

  Idris, T. H. D.

  O'Grady, J.

  Cotton, Sir H. J. S.

  Illingworth, Percy H.

  O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N.

  Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth)

  Johnson, W. (Nuneaton)

  O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

  Crean, Eugene

  Jones, Leif (Appleby)

  Parker, James (Halifax)

  Cullinan, J.

  Jowett, F. W.

  Partington, Oswald

  Davies, Ellis William (Eifion)

  Joyce, Michael

  Phillips, John (Longford, S.)

  Delany, William

  Kekewich, Sir George

  Pickersgill, Edward Hare

  Devlin, Joseph

  Kennedy, Vincent Paul

  Pollard, Dr.

  Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles

  Kettle, Thomas Michael

  Power, Patrick Joseph

  Dillon, John

  Kilbride, Denis

  Pri stley, W. E. B. (Bradford, E.)

  Donelan, Captain A.

  Kincaid-Smith, Captain

  Reddy, M.

  Duckworth, James

  Laidlaw, Robert

  Redmond, John E. (Waterford)

  Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness

  Lamb, Edmund G. (Leominster

  Redmond, William (Clare)

  Duncan, J. H. (York, Otley)

  Lardner, James Carrige Rushe

  Richards, Thomas (W. Monm'th

  Edwards, Enoch (Hanley)

  Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, W.)

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

  Esmonde, Sir Thomas

  Levy, Sir Maurice

  Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside)

  Esslemont, George Birnie

  Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester)

  Roche, Augustine (Cork)

  Fenwick, Charles

  Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk B'gh

  Roche, John (Galway, East)

  Ferens, T. R.

  MacNeill, John Gordon Swift

  Roe, Sir Thomas

  Ffrench, Peter

  Mac Veagh, Jeremiah (Down, S).

  Rowlands, J.

  Flavin, Michael Joseph

  Mac Veigh, Charles (Donegal, E).

  Seddon, J.

  Flynn, James Christopher

  M'Crae, George

  Sheehan, Daniel Daniel

  Fullerton, Hugh

  M'Hugh, Patrick A.

  Sheehy, David

  Glover, Thomas

  M'Laren, Sir C. B. (Leicester)

  Shipman, Dr. John G.

  310

  311

  Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.)

  Wadsworth, J.

  Williams, J. (Glamorgan)

  Snowden, P.

  Walsh, Stephen

  Williamson, A.

  Stanley, Albert (Staffs, N. W.)

  Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent)

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

  Stewart, Halley (Greenock)

  Ward, W. Dudley (Southampt'n

  Wilson, John (Durham, Mid)

  Straus, B. S. (Mile End)

  Wardle, George J.

  Summerbell, T.

  Waring, Walter

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr. George Roberts and Mr. Patrick O'Brien.

  Taylor, John W. (Durham)

  Waterlow, D. S.

  Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

  Weir, James Galloway

  Thomas, David Alfred (Merthyr

  White, Sir George (Norfolk)

  Toulmin, George

  White, J. D. (Dumbartonshire)

  LOCAL REGISTRATION OF TITLE (IRELAND) AMENDMENT BILL.
  "To amend The Local Registration of Title (Ireland) Act, 1891," presented by Mr. Muldoon; supported by Mr. Long, Mr. Fetherstonhaugh, and Mr. John Redmond; to be read a second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 232.]
  LOCAL TAXATION, NATIONAL DEBT, AND ASSESSORS [PAYMENTS].
  Committee to consider of authorising the payment of an annual sum, out of the Consolidated Fund, to the Local Taxation Account, and of increased allowances to Assessors of Taxes, out of moneys to be provided by Parliament, and of authorising the application of the surplus of income over expenditure for the year ending the 31st day of March, 1908, (King's Recommendation signified), Tomorrow.—(Mr. Hobhouse.)

  POISONS AND PHARMACY BILL [LORDS],
  Report in respect of the Poisons and Pharmacy Bill [Lords] (pending in the Lords), with Minutes of Evidence, brought up, and read.
  Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 150.]

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

ELEMENTARY EDUCATION (ENGLAND AND WALES) BILL.
Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Amendment to Question [18th May], "That the Bill be now read a second time."
Which Amendment was—
"To leave out the word 'now,' and at the end of the Question to add the words 'upon this day six months.'"—(Lord Balcarres.)
Question again proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question.'"
MR. BELLOC, resuming his speech which was interrupted at eleven o'clock last night, said that the Bill, like the Act of 1902, was intended to bring about a unified system of elementary education. The only question was how were they to deal with one or more sections of the community for whom a unified system was impossible? If the exceptions were very large or very numerous he could understand the difficulty of dealing with them. If an exceptional body of men were lukewarm in their demands he could understand that the Government might have some difficulty in recognising their claim to be placed outside the common law. He thought he had said enough about the strength of the Catholic claim. There might be other claims as strong, there might be other bodies as determined, but he confessed he did not know of them and he hoped he would be able before he sat down to show that it might be possible to reconcile even their claim with the present plan of the Government. If they wanted to measure the strength of the claim they had only to look upon the large number of working-men and women who, out of their small weekly wage, sacrificed considerable sums for the maintenance of their schools. Their claim ought certainly to make an impression on politicians because they were the only body whose vote had been affected by the proposals of the Government. If hon. Members would go into the decrease in the Liberal vote at the recent bye-elections in Great Britain—for instance, at Wolverhampton and North-West Manchester—they would see

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that that decrease was almost identical with the strength of the Catholic vote. The loss of Liberal seats had been ascribed to many causes and he granted that many votes given against the Government were largely the result of the Licensing Bill, but at least one-half of the decrease of the Liberal poll at Wolverhampton and North-West Manchester, if not the whole of it, could be accounted for by the loss of the Catholic vote. Under these circumstances he was the more surprised to hear the Member for North-West Manchester speak of the Catholic vote in the terms he did yesterday—he was certainly jeopardising his seat. What were the methods by which an exceptional claim of this kind could be met? In the first place the method which appealed to the more democratic Members of the House was what was known as the secular solution. As a Catholic that solution did not appeal to him; at the same time he recognised that it was a logical and a just solution and in many Catholic communities it suited the Catholic temper and had been a success. They had something like the secular solution in Ireland to-day. The reason why it did not suit the temper of the Catholics of this country was that, no matter how much they attempted to make the system purely secular, it would certainly remain and must remain in tone and atmosphere a Protestant, and an English Protestant, system. They might forbid the teacher to use certain phrases or to allude to certain facts, they might forbid this or that in the curriculum, but they could never prevent the teaching having a Protestant atmosphere. The hon. Member for Peterborough had told them the discomfort he felt in being asked to believe the two stories about Elisha. Nowhere save in Protestant England would such a difficulty have arisen, because such a story would never have been taught in any school. When the hon. Member was arguing in favour of secular education anybody belonging to the Catholic Church listening to him would have said he was a Protestant. The allocation of the rates for this purpose had been advocated powerfully and logically, and it had at its back the example of one of the great Colonies, but the system would not work because the
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division upon the subject was so difficult in this country. There were little towns in Sussex where the principal ratepayer would perhaps be a Catholic, and he could show instances where the principal ratepayers would control all the funds so allocated. He did not think that that was a practical solution in this country. It was not practical to have a dual system, because not only did this country possess a great number of Protesstant sects, but there had existed a rivalry between them ever since the days of the historic past. There was still too much difference between the various theological opinions of our people to adopt the dual system of Germany, Switzerland, or Canada. The right of entry was probably the solution which would recommend itself in the long run to the Protestants; but for the Catholic community of this country he saw nothing practicable but something on the lines adopted in this Bill. The phrase "contracting-out" had been given more than one meaning. If it meant an attempt to get rid of the Catholic minority of course the Catholics could not accept it. If it meant the entire exclusion of Catholics from the national system it was evident the Catholic minority could not accept it. He did not think there was any danger of either of those things happening, and the only question was the amount of money which would save the Catholic schools. He did not think the 47s. grant would save them. In a constituency like his own where there were 3,000 or 4,000 Catholic children they could not meet a difference of £13,000 out of the pockets of the parents of those children. In London the thing was manifestly ridiculous, because 47s. would not nearly meet the claim of any denomination. They were told that the Government had not made their declaration sufficiently clearly to enable them to make up their minds. They knew that a settlement was on the point of being arrived at and that the country was heartily sick of the whole matter. Merely slipping back into the old conditions was impossible. A settlement was demanded because everybody wanted the thing out of the way. The country wanted a settlement and could only get it on the general lines laid down in this Bill.

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Therefore he intended to vote for the Second Reading. If in Committee it appeared that the minimum amount allowed to those who chose to put themselves on Imperial taxation and not on the rates involved sacrifice but was still enough for them to survive he should accept that proposal. That could only be arrived at by consulting the clergy and managers of the various districts, and unless such an amount was given he did not think anyone could conscientiously vote for the Third Reading and he certainly would not do so. He was confident that between the two stages of the Bill which remained that demand would be fully satisfied and therefore he should vote for the Second Reading.
COLONEL R. WILLIAMSsaid that during the last two days the question of compromise which at first was but faintly mentioned had been growing in importance all the way through. The speech of the First Lord of the Admiralty was an attempt at compromise, and that effort very much crystallised in the speeches of the right hon. Member for Dover and the President of the Board of Education. The remarks to which they had just listened showed still more that compromise was a thing very much to the front. The hon. Member for Salford had given reasons why he meant to vote for this Bill, and he said he had hope of a compromise. He himself intended to vote against the Bill also in the hope that a compromise might be arrived at. He would like to ask the Government whether it was worth while taking the vote at all, because if it was taken on the Government policy it would be a strictly party vote and would not mean anything in the country. If it was taken on the Bill itself with the desire to find out anything about compromise it was certain that contracting-out must go, because hardly anybody had said a good word for it, and if it were pressed it would mean the defeat of the Government, which he imagined was a thing the Government were not anxious to court. The more contracting-out was looked at the more impossible it seemed to be, because it was an absolute reversal
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of the concordat of 1870. It was also a. denial of the aspirations of the party on the opposite side at the last General Election when it was claimed that there should be only one national system of education. Contracting-out was either a real offer meant to settle the question once for all, or else it was, he would not call it a sham, but a way of getting rid of the denominational schools by degrees, in which case it was not an offer which ought to be made. He thought the proposal for contracting-out had been rather helped forward by what had been said by the last speaker in regard to the 47s. grant. They wanted to know what the Government considered ought to be the cost per child in the schools. Was it to be the same as it was under the London School Board or the 61s. or 62s. per child under other local authorities? What was the proportion they were going to ask the contracting-out schools to pay for giving their own denominational education? When the Government had settled that they ought to make up to the contracting-out schools the amount requisite to bring them up to the level of the other schools. If the Government were not prepared to do that it seemed to him that to fix the 47s. limit and leave contracting-out schools to be starved where the local expenditure was extravagant and to go on where the local expenditure was not so large had no principle in it at all. There was a suggestion in the speech of the hon. Member for the Faversham Division to which he would like to refer. The hon. Member laid down as essential popular control, no tests for teachers, no public money for denominational teaching, and adequate provision for denominational teaching at the expense of the particular denomination. He did not himself propose anything of the sort. It was not for Members of the Opposition to make proposals. The Government were asking a round table conference on this question, and, after all, the Government were there for the purpose of bringing before the House measures for discussion. The responsibility was with the Government, and with nobody else and no round-table conference could ever gather together that authority which would enable them

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to bring in a Bill which would pass through the House without discussion. Therefore, he hoped the Government would take every possible step in their power to inform themselves of the opinions of every section in the House and out of it. The responsibility must be left with the Government itself as to the lines to be taken. Therefore, he did not think that a round-table conference as a legislative or quasi-legislative body was really of any use. But this line of compromise having been suggested from the other side of the House, he wanted from that side to give it a word of welcome. It seemed to him that the hon. Member for Faversham went on to foreshadow a national system of publicly controlled schools with compulsory undenominational teaching on all days, with on two days of the week the right of denominations to come in and give their own teaching at their own expense. That proposal met everyone of the points of importance in the controversy. It met the question of popular control. He had always thought that the one mandate the Government got at the last general election on this question was that there should be thorough popular control. He was confirmed in that opinion because the House of Lords passed the first clause of the 1906 Bill which embodied that principle. The system of one set of schools entirely under the local authority would satisfy the claim for popular control, and it would also meet the claim that there should be no tests for teachers. What was a test? It seemed to him that there was a good deal of misunderstanding over the word test. Originally the test was that any applicant for office must prove publicly that he was a member of the Church of England. That test was very rightly abolished. That was a test for teachers which, of course, ought never to be applied. No man should be asked by a local authority to what particular denomination he belonged, but, if it was desired, as he believed a majority of the House desired, that there should be compulsory Bible teaching given in all the schools, the local authority, although they might not ask a teacher to what denomination he belonged, had a right to ask whether he was prepared to teach every part of the curriculum. The local
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authority had as much right to ask an applicant for a teachership if he was willing to give Cowper-Temple teaching as to ask him if he was willing to teach history. If Bible teaching was part of the regular curriculum, there would be no test to ascertain whether the teacher was a Churchman, a Nonconformist, a Quaker, or anything else, but there would be the right to ask whether he was willing to undertake this particular teaching There were many schools where men would not be needed for this particular teaching, and the teacher would be at liberty to give the teaching if he liked, but there was no real freedom of conscience for the men and women in one of the most honorable and hardest professions to say if they did not desire to be cut out from what they regarded as the chief part of their work, that the local authority should come down and say, "You shall not give it." It seemed to him that that was not liberty, but tyranny, and if they were to preserve teachers from the tyranny of tests they had to preserve the right of conscience to teachers to give denominational teaching if they liked If the opinions of the parents in the localities were sought, he would like to suggest that the syllabus should not be prepared merely by the county council, but that some Committee should be set up in connection with every local author ity—a committee appointed authoritatively by the various religious bodies—which might meet to settle the syllabus to be taught in the schools. In his own county there was a committee of the kind he had indicated, and almost every denomination was represented on it. It would be helpful to a great many parents to feel that the common Christianity which was taught was not only imposed by a secular authority, but was also recommended by the heads of the various Churches. In that case they would feel that their interests had been attended to by the head of their own denomination. He was not going to labour the point as to secular teaching. He was quite certain that the people of England as a whole did not desire anything of the sort. The last point mentioned by the hon. Member for Faversham was that there should be adequate provision for denominational teaching at the expense of the denomination.

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It had been said by an hon. Member opposite that the right of entry to schools might lead to a great deal of confusion. That would be so if every religious denomination and sect in the country desired to go into the schools to teach. But it should be remembered that all the Nonconformists and Free Churchmen did not want denominational teaching in the schools. Therefore, none of them would desire to go into the schools at the denominational hour. If they were going to have religious freedom on five days of the week for those who did not want denominational teaching in the schools, they were bound in honesty to give opportunities in school hours for those who did want it. If there was really to be any religious toleration at all, they were bound to provide these opportunities. That was the sort of compromise to which he would give his assent. The object of the Government and of hon. Members in all parts of the House ought to be not merely to settle a long-standing controversy, but to adopt the best means they could for getting children taught the common Christianity in which they all believed. That was worth having, and that compromise appealed to him because it demanded sacrifices from both sides. It demanded from Nonconformists that they should agree to Churchmen entering all the council schools to give denominational teaching during some part of the week, and it demanded from Churchmen very great sacrifices, because they were asked to allow the schools which they has built, and which they had cherished long before others took an interest in education at all, to be used for a form of religious teaching which did not satisfy them. These things involved sacrifice, but they all knew that the greater the sacrifice anybody made for a cause the greater the good results which flowed from their exertions. The question was in the hands of hon. Members on the other side of the House. It could never be solved by a Conservative Minister with a Conservative majority. It was only a Liberal Minister who was powerful, with the backing of Nonconformists, who could solve this question. What proposals were the Government going to make? Were they going to maintain the right of the majority to trample on the consciences of those who disagreed with them, or were they going
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to rise to the height of their responsibility and give the country a national system of education founded on Christianity, and so put an end to a strife, the continuance of which would be a disgrace, and an end to the fear of secularism which would be a disaster.
MR. T. P. O'CONNORsaid he was sure that everybody who had heard the speech of the hon. and gallant Member for West Dorset welcomed its tone. He had followed the discussion of the last two-and-a-half days, and he did not think that it had advanced the House much towards the settlement of the education question on the lines which the hon. and gallant Gentleman had set forth. But if he might express an opinion on a matter which was outside his sphere, it seemed to him that there was ground for a reasonable compromise, and he was glad to see the suggestions of the hon. and gallant Gentleman received so favourably on the other side of the House. From his point of view, however, the hon. and gallant Gentleman had left out of his calculation one important community—the Catholic. The settlement suggested was essentially one between the different communities of the Protestant religion. That was a settlement for which they on the Irish Benches had always done their best, so far as it was decent or permissible, and in favour of which they had said as much as they could. In fact, they had never stood in the way of an educational settlement. But it was with reference to the Catholic case that he asked the permission of the House to speak. He would also count the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition among the peacemakers, although he waited with some curiosity to learn the particular method by which the right hon. Gentleman would vindicate that view, for he observed that when the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education declared, in answer to the hon. Member for North-West Manchester, that this was not a question on which any party could dictate terms from the Treasury Bench, that sentiment was taken up and applauded by the right hon. Gentleman. He hoped that when the Leader of the Opposition came to state his view of the case, they would

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be able to arrive at a settlement in which one party did not dictate to the other. This Bill was, from his point of view, far less generous or fair to the Catholic case than the Bill of 1906. He did not want to cry over spilt milk or over a lost Bill; but he held now, as he held at the time, that the Bill of 1906 proceeded on a most admirable, most practical, and the wisest line, in dealing with the question. He had not the smallest doubt that the Government in proposing contracting out as a means of dealing with the question, were inspired by the best motives. He was sure that they thought it was a scheme which would, to the largest extent, meet the Catholic case; and, on the other hand, that it was the best scheme to meet their own difficulties that their supporters would allow them to propose. He thought that contracting out was the worst method of dealing with the subject, but for his own part he would accept contracting out if there was no other method. He, however, would oppose it as long as he could, as unjust to the Catholic case, to the Catholic citizens, to the Catholic taxpayers and ratepayers, and, above all, to the young generation of Catholics, whose educational efficiency would thereby be jeopardised. As to the figure of the grant proposed by the Government, he personally believed that were it as generous as it was scandalously inadequate, the fact would always remain that no grant given by the Government to the Catholic schools would be equal to the grant plus the rates given to the council schools. If the Government were to add 13s. and make the grant 60s. as against 40s. as at present, still it would be less than the grant given to the council schools, plus what was given by the ratepayers. His position was that the Catholic as a ratepayer had a right to an equal share with the Protestant ratepayer in the education rate. What was contracting out? It was a getting rid of all popular control. He was in favour, under proper conditions, of popular control of all schools—Catholic and Protestant schools alike. But what said the President of the Board of Education? He said, "If you demand popular control, you must accept all the condi-
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tions of popular control, including the government of your schools, in every particular, and the payment of the teachers. What right have you," said the right hon. Gentleman, "to insist that. a school should be on the national system and yet escape the national conditions?" [MINISTERIAL cries of "Hear, hear."] He thought he had put the case fairly, as he gathered from the applause. That appeared to him to be rather an agonising question to ask. It. was most ably answered by the President of the Board of Trade in what might be described as significant. and pathetic terms. For the first time in the whole history of this controversy a Minister of the Crown, not in answer to a question, not in answer to the hon. Member for Walton Division, not as a matter of higgling and wriggling and bargaining and extortioning on the rack, but in a published address to his constituents had established the Catholic case. He said that whereas different communities of Protestants were, of course, in disagreement on many most important and vital questions, yet in essentials they were in agreement; but that between the Catholics and the Jews—their case was the same—and every Protestant community whatever, there yawned a deep and impassible gulf and irreconcilable difference. That was the Catholic case. It was perfectly distinguished by the fact that the Catholics were in a minority, and everybody acknowledged, and especially the Nonconformists, that the religious liberties of the minority required more safeguarding and vigilance than those of the majority. There was another point—the economic point. It was too much forgotten that this question of the elementary schools was largely a case of social class and money. To the sons of the wealthy classes in this country the elementary school was a matter of comparative indifference. The great public schools were open to the sons of the rich, and when they had passed through those, the great Universities; in this country and on the Continent were open to them. Some hon. Members who had spoken in the debate had had the advantage of a University training not only in this country but on the Continent. But the elementary school

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was essentially the school of the poor and of the lower middle classes, and therefore he maintained that the question of the elementary school was largely a question of social class and pecuniary resources. Who were the Catholics of this country? The hon. Member for Louth rather astonished him when he said that he regarded the Catholic community in England as wealthy. The hon. Member must have been thinking of the Million Fund with which his name was so honourably associated, and was confusing the prosperous Wesleyan middle classes with the Catholics as represented in this country. It was quite true that the Catholics of England by race were wealthy or belonged to the well-to-do classes. He supposed that that was the reason they were so anti-Irish; but everybody knew that 90 per cent. of the Catholics of this country were Irish. And what were the social position and pecuniary resources of the Irish Catholics of this country? Everybody knew that nine out of ten of them belonged to the working classes—the hardest worked class with the smallest wage. They came to this country with untutored minds, with unskilled hands. Driven from their homes by hunger and plague they came to England and Scotland, not because they preferred this country to their own, but because they had not the means to take them to America or Australia. In the whole of the Irish tragedy there was nothing more tragic or pathetic than the spectacle of the Irish poor in the slums and the lanes of England and Scotland. If they wanted to find the Irish Catholics in England or Scotland they had to look for them in the atmosphere of the chemical works, before the retorts of the gasworks, or shivering in the winter outside the portals of the great docks in Liverpool. What did education mean to this class? It meant that it ought to be cheaper for them than for any other community, and more efficient. It was true that they had as a basis of education those intellectual gifts which, in spite of their disasters, still belonged to the Irish race; but these needed to be sharpened by modern educational methods. When he opposed contracting-out he did so not on theological grounds, but because he
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thought it was doing gross injustice to the poorest of the poor. What did contracting-out mean? It meant fewer teachers, worse teaching, worse food, fewer books, worse equipment, larger classes. But he was not going to quote his own words in regard to contracting-out. He thought the Secretary to the Admiralty was beginning to look a little self-conscious, and well he might. He had with him an extract from a speech the hon. Gentleman made on the proposal of his hon. friend opposite—the Member for Preston—
"The mover of the Amendment (the hon. Member for Preston) appeared to have forgotten that if his proposal were accepted, contracted-out and voluntary schools would have to live on the present grant. He would give figures to show how absurd the proposal was in the interest of the Catholic schools."
The figures taken were those of Manchester. At Manchester the hon. Gentleman said the cost per child was £4 4s., and the Government grant £1 19s. 7½d. Was it conceivable, exclaimed the hon. Gentleman, that the Roman Catholics of Manchester could raise voluntarily the sum of £2 4s. 4½d. per child? He could not be so neat as the hon. Gentleman, because his powers were not so great and his case was not so bad, because it was only £1 17s. that had to be found. But was the case of the Government this—that under this Bill the Roman Catholics had to raise £1 17s. 0d. only as against £1 19s. 7½d? It would be absolutely impossible, said the hon. Gentleman, for the schools interested to maintain themselves properly under the Government grant. The thing was preposterous, and the only effect would be to strangle the schools. But if that was true of the proposal put forward by the hon. Member for Preston, it was not the less true of the proposals put forward by the Government. It had been said that the Roman Catholics wished to keep their schools outside the national system. On the contrary, they wanted them to be part of the national system. Under the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary they were part of the national system of education of this country, and the Nationalist Members supported, at the risk of some misunderstanding, the right hon. Gentleman on the division upon it. It would be much to be re-

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gretted if this Bill passed in its present form. He would like to see the Government with courage enough to go back to the proposals of Clause 4 of the Bill of 1906, under which the Catholic schools were included in the national system of the country and subject to public control. The Catholic schools were to a large extent under public control at this moment. They were under control at Liverpool, and what happened? He welcomed the statement of the hon. Member for Louth, which possessed great importance as coming from an hon. Gentleman holding his position, that no body of sane Protestants would send a Protestant teacher to teach the Roman Catholic religion to Roman Catholic children. But what he failed to understand was the objection to that simple proposition's taking the form of an Act of Parliament. Once the principle of appointing Catholic teachers to the Catholic schools was admitted, then by logic and reason the principle of Catholic doctrine being taught to Catholic children must be accepted also. He had observed in the debate some unexpected supporters of that proposition. Everyone knew what point of view one might expect from a Welsh Nonconformist Liberal Member. One would expect such a gentleman to err on the side of extreme Nonconformity, but one hon. Gentleman had said that as long as Nonconformists insisted on Cowper-Temple teaching in the schools they could not resist the right of Roman Catholics and Anglicans to have their children taught their doctrines by State-paid teachers in State schools. The Prime Minister, speaking on the 1906 Bill, pointed out that Cowper-Temple teaching, however broad and tolerant, must be unacceptable to Catholics because it was Protestant, and therefore, however fundamental or primordial it might be it still remained to the Catholic a form of Protestant instruction by a Protestant teacher. Therefore, if the right hon. Gentleman now asked that the demand that the Roman Catholic schools should form part of the national system must be accompanied by the acceptance by them of Cowper-Temple teaching as part of the teaching in the school, then the right hon. Gentleman was taking away with one hand what he gave with the other, and such a thing could not be accepted. Last night
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the President of the Board of Education said—
"We believe in providing as far as we can in this Protestant country for a settlement on a Protestant basis, making an exception of and a provision for non-Protestant parents."
But the very description of the settlement debarred the Catholics from accepting it. He had heard many descriptions of the religious education policy of the Government, but none which, had given him such delight as that-given in the speech of the First Lord of the Admiralty. The right hon. Gentleman referred to the Syllabus of the London County Council, in which special reference was made to what should be taught in the way of religious instruction in the Jewish schools. Nobody had a greater admiration for the Jewish people and their loyalty to their creed and race than himself. He thought there was a strong analogy between the Catholic and the Jewish case, and he contended that the oldest and the greatest Christian faith was entitled to the same toleration—he did not ask for more—as the Jewish creed. What was given. to the Jews? In this education question were the most astonishing contradictions between theory and practice, between the shibboleths and catch cries of the platforms and the administration of education. This syllabus laid down the religious teaching to be given to Christian children in Christian schools. It was found to be, so far as the Jews were concerned, sectarian. The wise and tolerant men of the County Council education authority tried to see what they could do to make it non-sectarian, and the result was that 'although, in connection with the syllabus for religious instruction of Jewish children, no special recommendation was adopted, the syllabus for the Jews was taken entirely from the Old. Testament. That meant that the school board system, nominally unsectarian, had in the East of London, schools attended by Jewish children and taught by Jewish teachers. ["Not in every case."] Christian teachers were admitted where it was a question of instruction in matters of learning and knowledge unconnected with the religious belief of the children. In some of the Catholic schools of Ireland there were Protestant

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teachers, as in University College, and very rightly so. It would be an intolerable thing that a man should be debarred from entering into the most sectarian school where it was purely a question of learning and knowledge, But these schools in the East End of London were in every sense of the word Jewish schools. Let the House consider the position. The Jewish school was a board school. It got a grant and rate aid. But that was not all. It got the money to build the house in which its children were taught the Jewish faith, while the Catholics all around were compelled out of their own pockets to pay for their buildings.
MR. LUPTON: Is there any specific Jewish doctrine in the syllabus?
MR. T. P. O'CONNOR: No, the doctrine was not Jewish, but that illustrated what he had just said, the extraordinary contradiction between the theoretic position and its reality, because the defence suggested by his hon. friend, whose boldness in stating a proposition was well known, was one which might have suggested itself he would not say from the casuistry of the board—namely, that in the Jewish school they taught Jewish doctrine, but it could not be described as teaching of a sectarian character, and therefore it was undenominational. He put it to any sane man in the House, who was able to look at this question broadly and fairly, whether they could not give the same liberty, under public control, to the Catholic school that they had so long given to the Jewish schools in the East End of London. He had heard with great interest the speech of the hon. Member for North - West Manchester, which had in it a little of the temper generally found in the speeches of men whose heads were in a somewhat dizzy state of exaltation after a great electoral fight. The hon. Gentleman had said that he did not want more for the Anglicans than he would give to the Catholics, and that what he demanded for the Anglican schools he was willing to give to the Catholic schools. The noble Lord the Member for Marylebone in his very able speech had
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said that what he wanted was equality and justice, and he was not sure whether the noble Lord did not add the word "liberty." Might he say that he saw a clear distinction in many respects between the Anglican and the Catholic demands? He accepted the proposition of the hon. Member for North-West Manchester, if he would allow him to put in some conditions. He would ask for nothing in the Bill which he was not ready to support in the case of the Anglican school where the conditions were similar. If the Anglican school was built to gather within its walls a homogeneous body of Anglican children, and practically Anglican children alone, then that case was exactly the case of the Catholic schools. But if, on the other hand, the conditions were such that the Anglican school was the only school in which the children of all denominations had to be instructed by a teacher of one denomination, then he would not fight for the Anglican school under those conditions, and he would not fight for the Catholic school under those conditions. Under the Bill of 1906, the Catholic concession was practically limited to the urban districts. That was roughly, if not mathematically, accurate, and for his present purpose sufficient. They accepted the proposition that if a Catholic school were in a single-school district, and it was the only school to which the children of other denominations could go, they had no right to demand solely Catholic management and teaching for the children of other denominations. Therefore, his answer to the hon. Member for North-West Manchester was that in order to establish similarity of claim for the Anglican school he must establish similarity of condition. So far as the single-school district was concerned, the Catholic position had always been plain, and he did not think that fact had always been sufficiently recognised by hon. Gentlemen on the opposite side of the House. Prom the very first moment when this controversy arose every single-man who had spoken from the Nationalist Benches had declared that in the single school rural districts of this country the Nonconformists had a great grievance, and they would give them their support in demanding a remedy. What was the

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position? He did not want to interfere in the business of others, but if in the rural districts of Ireland they had only one Protestant school to which Catholic children were obliged by law to resort, and if that school was Protestant in its atmosphere and teaching, and one for proselytising Catholics, he was afraid that they would proceed to very much more active measures for getting rid of that school than passive resistance. After having fought for centuries against any attempt to proselytise the Catholic people, they would be unworthy of their history, traditions, and convictions if they tried to put on others the yoke from which they themselves had managed to escape. Therefore, he thought that the hon. Gentlemen above the gangway who had made an attempt to defend and preserve the single-school area in its present shape were doing an injustice to their own cause—that of the Anglican church—and the greater cause of religious equality. He could quote, if he had time, some striking figures produced by his hon. friend the Member for Louth, in which he showed that 300 Nonconformist children and seventy or eighty Anglican children in one single school district were wholly in the hands of the Anglican Church. To return to his objection to the principle of contracting-out. What did it mean? He regretted one passage in the otherwise very able and tolerant speech of the President of the Board of Education, and -that was the passage in which he put on one side the concessions that were given to, and. on the other hand, the concessions which he thought ought to be made by, Irish Catholics. The right hon. Gentleman admitted that there was a large margin between the 40s. grant and the total cost per child in the Catholic as well as in the Church schools, and he said—
"There is meant to be a difference. You cannot be outside the State system and have the advantage of being outside the State system without suffering some of the disadvantages."
The advantage of being deprived of more spacious schools, of better paid masters, of the most splendid equipment! He would come down from that lofty plane and consider the realities which underlay the right hon. Gentleman's statement. There was a very interesting debate in another place last night, in the course of
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which complaint was made with regard to the treatment of a Church school. Here was the statement made by Lord Tweedmouth—
"It appeared that in 1901 the Board's attention was called to the absence of a playground for this school. In 1903 the Board was informed that the state of the premises was unsatisfactory. There was no cloak-room, lavatory, or water supply, and the roof was leaking."
That was the advantage that the Catholic schools had got in the past. He remembered well the poignant pain with which he used to have to go to Mr. Acland, and beg him to allow the Catholic schools in Liverpool to escape some of the demands of his Department for which they could not afford to raise the money. They had spent thousands of pounds in erecting buildings which were built for Christians and Jews at the expense of the community. His reply, in which he could never get an answer satisfactory to his conscience, was that he had asked for a lavatory or a cloak-room which was necessary for the first decencies of life. Under the system of contracting-out, they would stint not only the minds but the bodies of the children in the Catholic schools, and it was a cruel form of reparation for the wicked and foolish laws that drive these Irish men and women from their own hillsides to the slums and alleys, to make their poverty more degrading and harder to bear by putting them under a disability which was confined to them alone.
SIR GEORGE WHITEsaid the hon. Member for the Scotland division of Liverpool would carry with him to a large extent the sympathy of the House in the presentation he had made of the Catholic position. That was the crux of the whole question before them. At the same time he desired to present to him the difficulties they were met with if the Catholic demands were beyond those which in justice to their own consciences they felt they were able to meet. He was sometimes in a difficulty in gathering why the demands made by Catholics in this country were so much greater than in many other countries. At the same time he admitted that their case had a distinct line of demarcation against that of the Anglican. He sympathised with the poverty of the

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Catholic population and the difficulties it caused, and was prepared to go a very long way in meeting the necessities of the case; but to ask them to consent to what was practically concurrent endowment of all religions when on principle they were opposed to the endowment of any religion was asking them to go beyond what they had a right to expect. He had sometimes felt that some such solution as this ought to meet the case of the Catholic body. The hon. Member had said they were prepared to put themselves under local control. Did he include in that the appointment of the teacher by the local authority, and in other particulars were they prepared to submit to the same control in management as the other denominations submitted to?
MR. T. P. O'CONNOR: I am quite willing to have public control under the conditions accepted by the Chief Secretary in the last form of his Education Bill of 1906.
SIR GEORGE WHITEsaid that unfortunately they were not discussing that Bill, and, therefore, for the purposes of his argument he rather wanted to carry his hon. friend a little farther. But he freely admitted the great disadvantages of contracting-out. As an educationist it was impossible that he could advocate it. When he had to consider it he had to consider it as one mode of dealing with a very difficult situation, and to choose out of the various modes of dealing with it that which was the least objectionable. In regard to a national system of education under which, according to this Bill there should be secured Cowper-Temple teaching in all schools, it would be a very simple matter in urban districts to recognise the existence of Catholic schools, to suspend the regulation which provided for Cowper-Temple teaching in Catholic schools, and then take from the list of teachers on the roll those known to be Catholics and send them to Catholic schools. By that means the Catholic atmosphere would be maintained during the hours of secular teaching, and there would be no difficulty in making provision for teaching their special doctrines at such time that it would be included in the present school hours. Under
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some such system as that, the Catholic schools would get all the advantages of being in the national system. They would have fully qualified teachers, the buildings would be maintained by the local authority, they would save the burden upon their conscience of having anything to do with Cowper-Temple teaching in school hours, and they would also avoid laying a burden upon consciences which really could not, under any circumstances, submit to having rates levied upon them for the teaching of doctrines which they believed to be absolutely inimical to the best interests of society. He was sure his hon. friend would give those for whom he spoke credit for every desire to meet the case which he had put before them. They had in the past been foremost in fighting for that religious equality which Catholics-failed to get for many generations, and he would be very sorry, not only in regard to Catholics, but in regard to any body of citizens and ratepayers, to adopt universal Cowper-Temple teaching if any considerable body regarded it as dogmatic or sectarian. As soon as that position was demonstrated he was driven into the secular position. It was not demonstrated to him at present, so far as the general body of his fellow-citizens was concerned but it was so far as his Catholic fellow-citizens were concerned-There was a distinct line of demarcation between the Protestant on the one hand, and the Catholic and the Jew on the other. If those who belonged to the Anglican Church spoke as strongly against simple Cowper-Temple teaching as those who belonged to the Catholic faith, all he could say was that they were in their wrong position. The Protestant Church was based, as he understood it, on the faith of the Bible, and the great majority of the population desired that the children of the most neglected part of the population should have some knowledge of the Bible, and that it should not be barred from the schools. If any body of his fellow Protestants said that that was an injury to their conscience, he was bound to listen to what they said, and to admit that his position was untenable. But at the same time he was equally bound to say that it was to him a strange position that a Protestant Church, supposed

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to be based upon the Bible, regarded simple Bible teaching as something that they could not tolerate in their schools. Lord Hugh Cecil, whose voice they sadly missed in these education discussions, because of the high tone he always gave to them, said that Bible teaching was all right as far as it went, but it did not go far enough, because it did not attach the child to a Church. That was the very reason why they were able to support it. They thought that if it did attach a child to a church it would cease to be a proper thing for the State to teach at all, because they did not believe that the State ought to occupy anything but an absolutely neutral position One or two features which had arisen out of this discussion were a little strange. They had heard, over and over again, statements made minimising the value of local control and witnessed attempts to whittle away the significance of tests for teachers. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxford said there had always been public control, and that the Act of 1902 increased it. He had never been able to see how that Act gave public control, when in vastly more than half the schools of the country the public authority had not the appointment of the teachers whose salaries they paid. Then the hon. Member for one of the Divisions of Birmingham, in regard to tests, said that if an individual employed a private teacher he had a right to inquire what were his religious opinions, and so had the community. A variety of sentiments of that kind showed that attempts were being made, after all, to depreciate the position which the Government had had to recognise. They had not yet got full public control of the education of the country, nor had they got rid of tests for teachers, or of paying out of the rates for the teaching of directly denominational religion. Therefore, it was desirable that they should understand that these were the questions with which the Government had to deal in the Bill now before the House. From what had been said he felt bound to ask who disturbed the concordat of 1870. One hon. Member that afternoon had referred to the unfortunate disturbance of the concordat, as though it had been disturbed for the first time by this Bill.
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As a matter of fact this Bill was mainly occasioned by the disturbance of the concordat under the Act of 1902, which made a direct departure from the Act of 1870 by putting upon the rates and taxes the whole of the expense of the schools. A great deal had been said about the voluntary schools, but surely "voluntary" was a totally erroneous name to apply to a school which was wholly maintained out of the rates. The Bill before them attempted to meet these difficulties and relieved those who had been bound ever since 1902 to make a vigorous protest against denominational teaching being put on the rates. Their position, he was afraid, was not exactly understood. The right hon. Member for Oxford said that the Nonconformists refused the Amendment for giving facilities for Nonconformist teaching in single school areas. Of course they did, and they would refuse all opportunities for giving their own teaching in State schools. That was the very principle they were fighting against, and they would not be willing to accept an Amendment which put them in the form of accepting a concurrent endowment on the same level as the denominations who desired to have this specific teaching. He was bound to vote for the Second Reading of this Bill because it contained, apart from the contracting-out clause, the essence of a good educational settlement, and he suggested that if contracting-out was not acceptable to those for whom it was inserted in the Bill they should proceed with the measure without contracting-out. Contracting-out had not been put in to please hi m or his friends or the hon. Members sitting right and left of him; it had been simply offered as the best means in the judgment of the Government of meeting the difficulty of the denominations concerned. There had been quoted on more than one occasion during this debate extracts from the manifesto of the National Union of Teachers. It was quite true that that Union had spoken and written very strongly against the contracting-out clauses, but hon. Members opposite did not read to the House the paragraphs which spoke very highly of the educational merits of the Bill apart from contracting-out. Therefore, when they considered that they had one type of School under this Bill, that they had all

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the schools under local control, a State school provided within the reach of every child, no tests for teachers, that Cowper-Temple teaching could be given if the local authority desired it, that in transferred schools the trustees could secure that Cowper-Temple teaching was guaranteed, and that there was a considerable reduction of local rates in the bargain—in those elements they had the substance of a good educational measure, and he should not, if he were a Member of the Government, thrust upon unwilling recipients anything connected with the contracting-out clauses. All the difficulties arose from the attempt made to provide for denominational teaching. They had tried to do this in what he considered was an unsatisfactory way, although it was not so unsatisfactory as was alleged, because many safeguards might be introduced which would make contracting-out less harmful. On the first evening this Bill was introduced he said to an interviewer that one of the things which must be secured was that the teachers' salaries should be equal to the salaries paid in the neighbourhood in which the special school was situated, and that the efficiency of the schools should be guaranteed. He was not there to defend contracting-out per se. There were so many educational defects in it that it would have to be dealt with in some way far different from what the Bill provided, and therefore he would like to see the Bill proceeded with without contracting-out at all. How were they to meet the position when contracting-out was withdrawn, and the opposition still remained as strong and possibly stronger without those clauses? The Bishop of St. Asaph's Bill had been mentioned, but that measure was not backed by any large number of the friends of the bishop who introduced it; it was just as bad as contracting-out, and it upset a system which had been going on practically for forty years under which there had been no clerical influence brought to bear either in the board or in the county council schools. It was no light thing to upset a principle which had been working so admirably all those years. Moreover that Bill was no use alone and did not offer any conditions which the Catholics
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could accept, and therefore they must have the principle of contracting-out accompanying this right of entry. They had had put before them in an able speech by the hon. Member for the Faversham Division some propositions from a body of gentlemen styling themselves Liberal Churchmen. Those propositions had been received by his hon. and gallant friend opposite with great cordiality, and he was bound to say that they went a long way on the lines of the Bill. They asked for "adequate provision" for denominational teaching. Of course, that was the whole crux of the proposition, and it brought them back to the same difficulty. What was deemed to be adequate provision for denominational teaching? If it meant the universal right of entry then they came back to contracting-out. He would not on this occasion trespass too much on the time of the House, but having sat through several long educational discussions in this House he thought he might fairly congratulate hon. Members upon the improved temper and tone which had been displayed throughout the discussion. That alone indicated a general disposition to reach something like a basis of agreement. Speaking, as he was clearly entitled to do, for a large body of Members of the House he wished to state that if the main principles of public control, no tests for teachers, and no payment for denominational teaching out of the rates were acknowledged as the fundamental principles of this Bill and not allowed to be tampered with, there should be no difficulty in meeting what might be a fair arrangement under suitable conditions for the needs of those who belonged to the Anglican persuasion. He hoped also that the case which had been so temperately put by the hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool might also be met if the suggested conference took place. He was not in the secrets of the Treasury Bench, and he did not know whether there was any real backing to the conference, or what progress that movement had made. At any rate he thought that the discussion in the House favoured some step in that direction, and no one would hail it with greater delight than he should himself.
SIR JOHN KENNAWAYsaid he looked with a considerable amount of surprise at the introduction of this question by the Government at a time when so many things were demanding the attention of the House By so doing they had incurred a great responsibility which could only be justified by success. He echoed the words which had just fallen from the hon. Member opposite when he expressed a desire that things might tend towards a satisfactory solution. The speeches made by the hon. Member for Dorset and the hon. Gentleman representing the Catholics of Liverpool had largely contributed to the hope of some settlement being arrived at. He confessed that the debate began very hopelessly. The speech made at the commencement of the debate by the First Lord of the Admiralty was ac-companied by practically no concessions, and they could not forget the cruel and vindictive policy inaugurated by the present Government in regard to the denominational training colleges, a policy which had not yet been withdrawn or even suspended. The action of the Government upon this question reminded him of the saying: "When I speak to them of peace they prepare for battle." That was a good policy for the Admiralty to pursue, but it was not at all suited to a discussion upon the education question. The speech of the President of the Board of Education rather disappointed them. He went back to the old Bill of two years ago and denounced the action of the House of Lords in regard to it. So far as he remembered, the Government made no concession at all with regard to that Bill while it was passing through the House of Commons—no concession at least in regard to those parts which were discussed, because a very great part of the Bill was never discussed there at all. In the House of Lords the measure cams before a body of experts—men who were fully acquainted with all the intricacies of the education question, and no doubt they did deal with it rather drastically. If there had been a spirit of compromise at that time, he believed a settlement might have been arrived at, but an evil spirit prevailed, and all concessions upon the Bill were refused. The spirit
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of the time then was very different from what it was now. The Lords were at that time under a ban, they were doomed, a new Cromwell had arisen who was about to sweep them away, or absolutely deprive them of all power. He thought things had rather altered now. If the Government had forgotten the lessons of Manchester and Mid Devon, the country had not. He spoke as one who was extremely anxious for a settlement of the education question. A large body of laymen in the Church of England were anxious for a settlement; they were weary of the present controversy He spoke for a large body of Churchmen who were most anxious to remove the grievances felt by others, but they asked that those grievances should not be relieved by the creation of the grievances to which they would be subjected if this Bill passed. Churchmen asked for no special privileges, but they asked that the sacrifices which they had made in providing school buildings throughout the country, and that the obligations resting upon them with regard to the trusts by which they were bound, should not go for nothing. They were prepared to give up a good deal for the sake of peace, and for the sake of securing that, not only in the non-provided schools, but also in the public schools, the children should get proper religious education. The question ought to be settled, because the controversy was doing harm to the cause of education, and he thought if it were protracted indefinitely the result might be the adoption of a secular system, which would be a disgrace to our common Christianity. There was a common Christianity which had been to some extent recognised in the Bill now before the House. The Christianity embodied in the Apostles' Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments was the foundation of the Church teaching, but it was not enough for everybody. There ought to be a means by which that teaching could be supplemented for the children of those parents who desired it.
MR. HAROLD COXcongratulated the Government on their somewhat tardy conversion to sound principle. Two fears ago he moved an Amendment in favour of contracting out, but the Members of the Government

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spoke and voted against it. Another curious thing was that hon. and right hon. Gentleman opposite who were going to vote against this Bill voted in favour of his Amendment. This Bill was essentially based on the principle of contracting-cut. The Government had tried other methods, and having found that these failed, they came down to the wise principle, foolishly called contracting out. The Leader of the Opposition two years ago spoke very cautiously; he did not profess to be an enthusiastic supporter of the principle of contracting-out, but he said that a peaceful settlement was to be found in the direction of accepting the Amendment rather than of rejecting it. He himself still believed that a settlement was to be found in the principle of contracting-out, but it must be accompanied by sufficient money to enable the voluntary schools to sustain themselves. Otherwise contracting-out was merely a device for starving the voluntary schools. He did not think that the Government meant merely to starve the voluntary schools; they now wished to save these schools though two years ago they were anxious to destroy them. The First Lord of the Admiralty recognised the enormous advantage to the country of the voluntary schools, and the cruelty which would be involved in destroying them. Assuming that it was necessary to save them, the only effective way of dealing with these schools was, while permitting them to come away from local control, to give them rate-aid as well as State-aid. He wished to call attention to the offer put forward from the Treasury Bench that the Government were willing to accept any compromise provided it did not clash with their two fundamental principles—no tests for teachers, and public control. He ventured to say that there was not a single man on the Treasury Bench who could explain what was meant by those two phrases. They were popular phrases which had passed into Parliamentary jargon and had no definite meaning. As to public control, that was already exercised in one very strict form by the Board of Education. Apparently, however, something more than this was meant, some form of local and popular control. But would the Government be prepared in a village where
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practically the whole population consisted of Church people to set up a Church school? If not, what was the use of talking about popular control? As to no tests for teachers, the Nonconformist party themselves did not believe in it. If a man who applied for a position in a board school said he was an atheist, would he be likely to be accepted? Of course not. The hon. Member for the Louth Division of Lincolnshire had said that it was inconceivable that a council would appoint a Protestant teacher to a Catholic school. Did not that involve a test? Councils at present deliberately put tests in force. He had a friend who was for many years a member of a school board, on which there was an arrangement between the two sections of the Nonconformist majority—Wesleyans and Baptists—that every head teacher ship should go alternately to a Baptist and a Wesleyan. The whole difficulty of this question arose in connection with the appointment of teachers and the matter of finance. The Act of 1902 was framed largely, almost exclusively, from the financial point of view.. The Leader of the Opposition wanted to deal with what was known to be an intolerable strain. How did the strain arise? It arose because the voluntary schools had only Parliamentary aid and no rate-aid. The consequence was that the voluntary schools were unable to keep up in efficiency with the council schools. A way of dealing with this difficulty was suggested by the Liverpool School Board in 1900, namely, that the local authority should be empowered to make a grant to the voluntary schools. Unfortunately this suggestion was ignored, and instead the local authority was made responsible in 1902 for the maintenance of the voluntary schools. This created an appearance of injustice, for it was said that while the local authorities paid the teachers the managers of the voluntary schools appointed them. It was forgotten that the owners of voluntary schools relieved the rates by providing buildings, but in order to get rid of the appearance of injustice he proposed that the voluntary schools should receive a definite grant from the rates as well as from the Exchequer, and that the managers should be responsible for the remaining expenditure.

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He thought that there should be some definite principle on which the rate aid should be given. It appeared to him that the soundest principle was that the existence of a voluntary school saved the ratepayers something, and, therefore, the managers of the school had a right to some contribution from the ratepayers proportioned to the saving. From the figures worked out at Liverpool it appeared that the Catholic schools in that city were now receiving from the rates 13s. 4d. per child. On the other hand every child in a council school cost the ratepayers £1 16s. 6d., taking into account the cost of the buildings. It was therefore clearly unjust that voluntary schools should receive no rate aid, and he suggested that they should receive a definite grant per child equal to half the cost per child in a council school. The ratepayers would still gain by the existence of voluntary schools, and the managers of those schools would gain their liberty. Instead of being subject to the local control, they would be able to manage their schools in their own way, subject always to the supervision of the Board of Education. He did not propose to go back on the 1902 Act, which provided that the local authority should appoint two managers to each voluntary school. And here, he did not think that sufficient praise had been given to the Leader of the Opposition for the work he did in extending public control by that Act. Previously to that time they had one-man management; that was destroyed by the Act of 1902, which created a body of responsible managers, and it would be a bad thing to go back on that. What was the basis of the Nonconformist position as regarded rate aid being granted to voluntary schools? He confessed he could not understand the mental attitude of people who said: "We do not mind our taxes being spent upon voluntary schools, but we resist our rates being so spent." Nor could he understand the attitude of the people who said: "We do not want your particular kind of dogma taught; but we want a kind of religion taught which appears to us to have no dogma in it; and, therefore, we demand that the rates shall be spent for that kind of teaching and no other." Where
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was the equity in that? Suppose there were three men sitting down together to dinner, and one said he liked his food with one kind of flavour, and the second said it would be all right with another kind of flavour, and the third with no kind of flavour at all. Would it be right that the third man alone should give orders to the cook, and that the other two should pay the bill? Next, he wanted to deal with a phrase much used just now. It was that the voluntary schools did not want to come out of the "national system" or to abandon "co-ordination." It seemed to him that these phrases "national system" and "co-ordination" were worth just about as much as "tests for teachers" and "popular control." They were merely phrases and nothing else. "Co-ordination" really meant officialism; and the so-called "national system" was hampered at every turn by bureaucratic interference. The head master of a school told him the other day that he wanted some little repairs done to the furniture in his school, and he wrote about it to the local authority who sent down an inspector. The head master was not in when the inspector called, and more correspondence followed. And so it went on for a week. Finally, the head master, to save further bother, paid for the repairs out of his own pocket. That was what was meant by local control, and that was what was going on through the whole of the so-called national system. If the House wanted to know what was the advantage of so-called local control, he would point to what the London County Council had recently done. They found that they wanted more teachers, but instead of doing the obvious thing and offering larger salaries, they proceeded to invent a new scheme of giving scholarships to their pupils, and the result was that they got hold of children who were unfitted to be trained as teachers. They had never lived in an educational atmosphere, and never had any chance of obtaining a wider culture. Their whole lives were bounded by the education code. They became pupil teachers hampered by the code, then became under teachers, again subject to the accursed code, and finally they achieved

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the position of head teacher, school inspector, or even they might become President of the Board of Education himself—though he did not know that that would matter much. With all respect to the present holder of the office, the President of the Board of Education was merely a harmless insect on the bureaucratic wheel. The great machine over which he presided went on, regardless of his existence, grinding out £14,000,000 of the taxpayers' money, most of which was wasted. It was because he believed this so called national system was utterly disastrous to real education that he welcomed this Bill of the Government, because it provided a means of escape. At present, no doubt, they could make this system work very well, because they were constantly bringing in men from the outside. By establishing a universal national system they destroyed that power of sympathetic management which existed wherever the voluntary school system obtained. People did not realise that the success of Germany was due not so much to the State, as to the enormous amount of volunteer effort. He was told that in the municipality in Berlin there were no fewer than 26,000 voluntary workers engaged in municipal work. It was that voluntary work which had made Germany so successful, and that was what they would destroy if they established in this country the so-called national system. Finally, he wished to make an appeal to his Nonconformist friends. The President of the Board of Education, in the brilliant speech he had delivered, said that what the Nonconformists had been clamouring for was equality. But it seemed to him that they were demanding a little more than equality. They were demanding that the system with which they alone were content should be subsidised by the ratepayers. They were demanding something more than equality; they were demanding preference. He ventured to ask them whether they thought that that change alone could take place. He knew that in the past they had suffered, but what had they done in return? They had always been foremost in the battle for liberty, but now they were claiming not only equality,
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but preference; and he believed that with this great change in their battle cry, the banner of freedom would pass to the other side.
MR. ELLIS GRIFFITHsaid that in his concluding paragraph the hon. Member for Preston had recommended suffering to everybody except himself in order that by that suffering he might hold up the banner of liberty. He thought that the argument of his hon. friend in favour of voluntaryism came to this, that, because voluntaryism was a good thing there ought to be no national system of education at all, but educational anarchy in every village. The hon. Member was always in the minority in this House, and always right. The course of the debate that afternoon, in his opinion, had been very well justified, because there had been a spirit and toleration displayed which augured well for a settlement. As he understood it, the real principle of the Bill was that there should be a normal type of school in every village. The contracting-out provision was no part of the principle of the measure. That was a concession to the other side, and it was meant to be a concession. If, however, the Opposition came to the conclusion that contracting-out did not suit their purpose, and that they could not accept it, then there was no reason why the Government should extend the principle of compromise in that direction. He maintained also that the responsibility for peace rested a great deal on the shoulders of the Leader of the Opposition ["Oh, oh,"]—to this extent, at any rate, that the House well knew, as far as the Bill of 1906 was concerned, that there might have been peace then had it not been for the fact that there was an evil spirit at work among hon. Members opposite which prevented the hopes of a settlement being arrived at then. On what terms was peace possible? They were all agreed that the best possible system of education should be established for the children of the people, and that there should be no tampering with the religious views of the people. As a Nonconformist he was prepared to go a long way in order to secure this peace; and the question was, what was each side prepared

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to give up in order to attain a compromise? There were but two solutions of the difficulty. Personally he did not rule out either of the solutions, and he was prepared to give up his own views in order to secure a settlement. One solution was Cowper-Templeism, with inside or outside facilities. Then there was the right of the parent. If there was anything in the suggestion of local option that would make for peace, then he was prepared for that solution. Let the parents decide what should be the normal type of religious teaching, and let special provision be made for those who stood outside. He believed that on these lines all reasonable men could arrive at a settlement, for assuredly it was no one's interest to prolong a controversy over education while in the meantime the children suffered.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The speech of the hon. and learned Member is undoubtedly the shortest speech that has been delivered in the debate, and I am aware that the hon. Member, out of courtesy to myself and the Prime Minister, has reduced his observations so as to come within the compass of less than five minutes. But the hon. and learned Gentleman contrived to say more than the three members of the Government who have already spoken on this subject. The hon. Member has shown a genuine and practical desire for conciliation, which I must honestly say I thought was totally absent from the speech of the present head of the Board of Education, and only very sporadically and intermittently apparent in the curious speech with which the debate opened of the late Minister of Education. The hon. and learned Member has really expressed his desire in the most practical form to come to some arrangement on this subject. He has given up on behalf, at all events, of himself and the other Nonconformists for whom he speaks, views about the elementary education of this country which we know they have, by long tradition and conviction, held as being very dear. I believe in the absolute sincerity of his statement, therefore, when the hon. and learned Member tells us that he is in favour of a settlement,
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and of peace, though that statement has not been made long enough to allow me and others to give it any practical consideration. But if every one approached the question in the spirit of the hon. and learned Member there would be much greater hopes that this debate would produce a state of happier harmony between the two sides of the House than I have felt at liberty to entertain either of the debates of 1906, of 1907, or up to the present moment in 1908. We were all led to expect when this debate began, by the tone of the Press, by communications made in the Press, by lobby rumours, by all the other sources of information open to us, that the Government would introduce a Bill—which in itself, for itself, and on its own merits has not, as far as I am aware, a friend in the House—as a kind of introduction to some sort of suggestion which would lead to a very different measure being ultimately brought forth. I never thought it a very practical project, because I cannot imagine a Bill however it was framed, which seems to me less capable of being turned into that conciliatory measure which late in the day, but none the less fortunately, has made its appearance in some of the speeches on the other side of the House. On the canvas presented by this Bill what conciliatory picture can be painted? What attempt to paint such a picture was made either by the gentleman who constructed the Bill or by the gentleman whose unhappy business it now is to defend and to carry it through the subsequent stages? As far as the author of the Bill is concerned, all he could tell us, either in defence of the Bill or in suggesting some arrangement to be made in view of the Bill, was that, after all, his measure was so undistinguishable from another measure brought in in another place by a right rev. Prelate that their own mothers would not know them apart. And yet the Minister for Education, who has got to defend the subsequent stages of the Bill, spent no small portion of his very unconciliatory speech yesterday in showing that the very plan suggested by the Bishop of St. Asaph, and repeated now, or approached now, by the hon. and learned Member, was wholly impracticable. The present Minister for Education told us that the idea of facilities

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was wholly impossible in practical execution, and he denounced it on behalf of himself and his colleagues.
MR. RUNCIMAN: No, I did not.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I ask the right hon. Gentleman to look at his own speech. I may be mistaken about a particular phrase here and there, but the right hon. Gentleman devoted an important portion of his speech to explaining-how impossible it was to harmonise the varieties of religious beliefs and to bring the facilities for teaching them within the compass of our system of elementary education. How the late Minister for Education can look with complacent satisfaction on a resemblance between his Bill and the Bill of the Bishop of St. Asaph—a resemblance which has never appeared to any one but himself—how his successor can explain the essential part of the Bishop's Bill, which was right of entry all round, as an impracticable plan, and how these two Ministers can agree in the Cabinet or sit on the same bench is as great a puzzle as to know how the work of the Admiralty can go on with the present Secretary of the Board and the present First Lord of the Admiralty sitting together to discuss battleships and cruisers when one has described a large fraction of the Bill of the other as something essentially disgusting. I hope they are agreed at all events on naval affairs. What is the net result of the speech made by the late Minister for Education and of the speech made by the present Minister for Education? The net result as far as we are concerned is that we have to regard the Government as coming forward with their old proposals unmodified and unchanged; and we are forced into the undisguised position of critics of a Bill which the Government declare it is their intention to pass. I do not call that conciliation. In my opinion it is almost an outrage to ask the House to assemble and to spend nearly a whole legislative week in discussing a measure that has not any element of compromise, that has not a single provision which, as far as I can see, can be converted into an element of compromise, and which is absolutely inconsistent with efficient education and with the elementary principles of justice.
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I am not going to repeat the arguments which have been stated with marvellous unanimity and force in every quarter of the House as to contracting-out. There is only one opinion as to contracting-out, and if contracting-out is to be part of our national system, the hon. Member for Preston has no doubt devised a scheme by which contracting-out would be less subversive of educational efficiency in every scheme of contracting-out, while being inconsistent with the doctrine of popular control. With the exception of the hon. Member for Preston I do not know where it has friends. One hon. Gentleman on the back benches opposite in a very able speech said that there were not six men in the House in favour of contracting-out. And what have the Government done in the present debate to defend it? All they have done is to come down armed with division lists and speeches made on the 1906 Bill, on the authority of which they have taunted my hon. friends behind me with having been in favour of it at that date and therefore with being very inconsistent in opposing the present proposals of the Government. Do the Ministers who use that argument forget that when Amendments are moved to a Bill and Members have to decide whether to support or reject them, all they have to consider is not whether the Amendment would form a proper basis of legislation if they were carrying it on and if they were proposing it, but whether the Amendment is an improvement of the Bill. I am certainly not prepared to deny that, if an intolerant majority forced universal Cowper-Temple teaching on the country, contracting-out, with all its faults, would be an Amendment which all of us on this side might, however reluctantly, prefer to the original proposal. If I am asked whether I prefer to be hanged or drowned, and I said that I would rather be drowned, it does not mean that I wish to be drowned as a matter of fact. If the Bill is that I am to be hanged, I move an Amendment to substitute drowning for hanging. I repudiate all responsibility on account of votes given on Amendments to the Government Bill of 1906 as binding any Gentlemen on this side to a preference for a scheme in which contracting-out forms a large and important part. I

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do not argue it, and I do not think it worth re-arguing because, in fact, nobody defends it. But it has this obvious disadvantage from the Government point of view—that it is totally inconsistent with any rational interpretation of their own principles of no tests for teachers and popular control. Every school which is contracted-out is, ex hypothesi, removed from all popular control in the sense in which that word is used by gentlemen on the other side, and in every one of them there are tests for teachers. How any hon. Gentleman who believes in those two principles can really support it when he feels that, in addition to all that can be said against it from the point of view of educationists, it is not consistent with those principles which he has been discussing on the platform and elsewhere, really surprises me beyond measure. I leave contracting-out, which has no friends, and come to that part of the Bill which I gather has friends on the other side which deliberately and sans phrase despoils and robs the trustees and owners of the Church schools of the country and transfers their property without compensation to the local authorities. We are told, and have been told, by speaker after speaker that this is necessary because there is a grievance in the single-school areas, and we are told in addition, that the grievance is due to the Act of 1902, and, in the third place, that it would be removed by these provisions. The last two of these propositions are absolutely unfounded. I have never denied that on paper, in many parts of the country, and in reality, in some parts of the country, there is a grievance in the single-school area; one of a series of grievances left by the anomalous constitution of our educational system, some of which press on Nonconformists, others on Churchmen and Roman Catholics. I do not deny that, and I think if I had been desirous of denying it, it has been quoted and re-quoted so often by hon. Gentlemen opposite that I should not be allowed to forget it; but there were other grievances that equally demanded and equally deserved redress. I would suggest that hon. Members should look back to the speeches with which they are apparently so familiar and give a more correct version of them. But granted
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there are these grievances, it is grossly unjust and historically inaccurate to say that they have any relation whatever to the Act of 1902. These difficulties, anomalies, and grievances are not an inheritance from the Unionist educational measure of 1902, but from the Liberal measure of 1870. Was the single-school area invented in 1902, or the Church school in the single-school area? No, the Act of 1902 in its object and essence was to put the secular education of the country on a sound and broad footing. It did put it on a sound and broad footing. Nobody denies it. Nobody has ever suggested any alteration in its fundamental propositions, and nobody who did suggest it would enjoy the smallest chance of obtaining a hearing from any responsible Government whatever. That was a task surely large enough for any Government to undertake within the limits of one measure. It carried with it the necessity that if we were to keep the variety of schools left by the Act of 1870 we should find funds for what were then called the voluntary schools of the country, and that carried with it the maintenance—not the creation—of a system of single-school areas. In so far as the Act of 1902 touched the question of single-school areas at all it did it to remedy grievances a generation older than the Act which the Government inherited from their Liberal predecessors. I do not blame those Liberal predecessors. The difficulties of dealing with this question were enormous, and I do not blame Mr. Gladstone or Mr. Forster for anomalies which they perforce, as practical politicians, had to accept and admit in the Act of 1870. The fact remains that in 1902 something was done to enable Nonconformists to obtain their education as teachers within the walls of the voluntary schools; one-man management was destroyed; the whole of the responsibility of secular education in all its departments was transferred to the great local authorities which that Bill created; training schools were established at the public expense at which Nonconformist teachers could be trained; and that Bill, so far from throwing a new burden on Nonconformist consciences, did a great deal, though not everything, to remove the difficulties

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which successive Liberal Administrations had left untouched, and which had been borne without serious discontent for more than a generation before the Act of 1902. I think it is not justice to the authors of that Act, now that the immediate storm it created has to a certain extent settled down, to accuse them of having been intolerant in the schemes they devised or of having created grievances which they found in existence, and which they did something to remove. Of course, it is true that some of the original anomalies of the Act of 1870 remained unchanged and unmodified. Among them is undoubtedly the anomaly that there is a very large number of parishes where a majority of the children educated in Church schools do not belong to the Church to which the teachers of that school do belong and to which the majority of the managers belong. I do not deny it. Of what character is that grievance? It is a parents' grievance where it exists at all; the grievance of a parent who says, "I am a Nonconformist. I should like separate teaching for my child and I cannot get it in the only school my child can attend." Do you do anything in this Bill to diminish parents' grievances in single-school areas? You do relieve them, of course, by the forcible appropriation of property that is not your own, and in some of these parishes you relieve the conscience of Nonconformist parents. Is the Nonconformist parent the only parent who deserves consideration? What is this Bill going to do where the vast majority of parents are not Nonconformists but Churchmen who desire Church teaching for their children? Are you not going to create a new single-school area grievance by this Bill? How could anybody have the courage to come forward and say, "We have existing in this country parishes in which children cannot get the religious education their parents desire," and yet the only effort to remedy that grievance creates not a different grievance, but the same grievance, with the additional bitterness and insult that it is accompanied by the forcible appropriation of buildings erected at great cost and at great sacrifices. I cannot understand how any gentleman
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who really thinks that there is an existing single-school area grievance can look without shame on the suggestion made to remedy it by this Bill. The blindest of us must see that while it may be right, where a majority of the children are Nonconformists, or where there is a large minority of Nonconformists, to see that they have a chance of getting the teaching they like, every argument which can be urged in favour of that policy can be urged in favour of maintaining the status quo in those parishes in which a different condition of things exists. I am sure there is no answer to that argument. I have heard from both sides of the House, not, indeed, an answer, but a suggestion of a view which, I think, should be emphatically repudiated by every fair-minded man. It was put forward tentatively and in very moderate language by the Member for the Scotland. Division of Liverpool, who spoke of Protestants from an external point of view, and it has been put forward by hon. Gentlemen opposite from the Protestant point of view. They appear to hold that, while it is right enough for a Jew or a Roman Catholic to say that he likes this or that kind of teaching for his child, every man who calls himself a Protestant is bound, by the fact that he calls himself a Protestant, to accept the teaching of the London County Council. That really is absurd. We may regret—many of those who take a strong denominational view perhaps regret—that it has not been found possible for the Protestant sects to find some common basis of agreement with regard to the teaching of their children. But nobody is to judge of the propriety of the teaching but the parents themselves. They may be wrong in saying they want Church teaching for their children. It may show an incapacity to appreciate that common element in Christianity, a special knowledge of which is vouchsafed to the distinguished local authority to which I have just referred. But it is not for us to determine whether they are right or wrong. That is the really essential point, and the hon. Member for the Scotland Division was, perhaps, justified in his statement of the character of the differences which separate Protestants one from another, but he was

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mistaken when he supposed that those differences could be smoothed over necessarily by any action of any local authority, however well advised. I am speaking entirely for myself; but I am altogether in favour of doing everything that can be done—and I think more can be done than has been done—to find some common teaching which all Protestants might accept. Perhaps in that respect I do not agree with all my friends, but that is my view. But it is not a corollary to that that I set myself up as a judge as to whether the teaching which this or that parent desires is the teaching he ought to desire. All I have to ask is whether it is the teaching he does desire and if he does desire it, then, as far as practicable, though that phrase excited a strange amount of merriment yesterday, I desire to see it given. But do not let this parenthesis divert our minds from the main proposition, on which at this moment I am insisting—namely, that it is a gross outrage, not only upon justice, but also upon common sense, for the Government to bring forward a Bill to remedy the single-school area grievance, that grievance consisting only in the fact that parents cannot get the teaching they want for their children, without making the smallest effort to keep the existing system in force in those parishes where, as a matter of fact, it suits the parents. That will remain one of the strangest legislative performances which I have ever heard this or any other Government attempt to carry through. A speech like the one which was delivered by the hon. and learned Member for Anglesey makes one reflect—as I dare say we have all reflected at times—why it is so difficult to come to any agreement upon this subject. I think it is difficult mainly for three reasons. It is difficult because hon. Gentlemen opposite will not recognise that a, national system of education, whatever uniformity it may possess in secular matters, cannot possibly possess uniformity in religious matters. It possesses uniformity in secular matters because in the secular matters taught in school there is little or no fundamental divergence of opinion. No parents in this country want to have their children taught that two and two is five. All are agreed as to the principles of arithmetic; they are not all agreed
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as to matters more important and fundamental than arithmetic—matters of religion—and it is lunacy to try to have a uniform system to deal with conditions which are essentially and fundamentally diverse. Therefore, I say, you never will settle this question unless you recognise that, whatever uniformity you may introduce in secular matters, however national you may be in the three R's, you must allow for diversity of opinion in religious matters and your system must, in these matters, be elastic. That is the first error which I think I see in the attitude of the hon. Gentlemen opposite. The other two have reference to principles which they are always talking about, but which they seldom explain and never justify. I mean the principle of popular control and the principle of no tests for teachers. The hon. Member for Preston, I think, exposed with considerable force some of the difficulties which arise in the current theories of public control. But in truth it has never been justified. No man has ever been able to point out where the distinction lies between rates and taxes. No one has ever pretended to do it, and it really is asking intelligent men to subscribe to a proposition too absurd when we are informed that it is proper that nine-tenths—I think it is more, nineteen-twentieths, I dare say—of the cost of the education of a child may be paid out of the taxes without any other control than that which is given over all to the Board of Education, and that to ask for the same amount to be paid out of the rates carries with it, as a necessity of Liberal principles, that the teacher shall be appointed, without tests, without any investigation as to his religious qualifications, by the county council, and that, when he is so appointed, in that school nothing may be taught except some form of Cowper-Temple teaching. That is not popular control, and even in the Bill of the Government itself, while they are protesting that popular control is the one principle from which they will never depart, they introduce a limitation of popular control which, however kindly meant, is really absolutely inconsistent with their own principles. They propose to rob the Church of its schools in country districts, they propose to introduce.

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Cowper-Temple teaching in those schools, but they do not propose to leave it to the local authority to decide what the Cowper-Temple teaching is to be. Where is popular control? I heartily support the view of the Government that the form of Cowper-Temple teaching which they propose to make obligatory is far better than the Cowper-Temple teaching which exists in many schools, but that does not disguise the fact that that teaching is introduced violently, forcibly, and in spite of what the local authority may wish it to be, and, therefore, is inconsistent with what they call local control. But, after all, the greatest absurdity of all in this strange dogma is the one to which reference has often been made in this House before, and which was very powerfully expressed, I think, by my hon. friend the Member for North-West Manchester in his most able speech yesterday, when he pointed out that you cannot call that popular control which says that you may give Cowper-Temple teaching, but may not give other teaching. That is not popular control. The late Member for North-West Manchester is now Member for a Scottish constituency. In Scotland we have popular control. In Scotland the locality, rightly or wrongly, may decide what the religion is to be that is taught in the schools; they have no limitation to Cowper-Templeism. How can any Nonconformist in this House get up, and with a serious countenance put his hand on his heart and tell us that it is an indestructible and inalienable principle of Liberalism that there should be popular control in all matters of education, including religion, while by statute you prevent the local authority from giving the religion which, perhaps, that locality most desires. And may I ask whether a similar criticism may not be passed with equal effect upon the other immutable Liberal dogma of no tests for teachers? I do not think the Prime Minister was in the House when a curious and interesting episode occurred yesterday. After the leader of the Irish Party had explained with great force the objections on the part of the Catholics, up jumps the Member for the Louth Division and expresses deep regret that the representatives of the Roman Catholics in
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this House will not come into a system of national education. I do not know whether a wink can be rhetorically or oratorically expressed, but, if that expressive gesture can be put into words, then the hon. Member for Louth undoubtedly winked at the learned Member for Waterford and did explain to him that, whatever you put in your Bill, however you may exclude the considerations of a man's religion from the qualifications which were to enable you to appoint him as a teacher, nevertheless, as a matter of practical fact, it would be found that, under local government as practised in this country, every teacher in a Roman Catholic would by some strange but happy accident be found to be a Roman Catholic, just as by an equally happy accident the head teachers of the schools referred to by the hon. Member for Preston always by some arrangement were either Baptists or Wesleyans or, as the late school board for London and the present county council by some happy accident and contrivance are always, without applying any tests, enabled to find Jewish teachers for Jewish schools. Does it not occur to the Government that, if that is to be the actual working of our institutions, it would be well to make some theoretical concessions? What is the use of coming down to the House and saying there are two immutable principles when you are changing the immutable principles in every Bill you bring in and by your practice in the country? We are all agreed that it is preposterous to say to a teacher: "Are you willing to sign the Thirty-Nine Articles?" but is it preposterous to find out whether a teacher can teach that which you propose to pay him -for teaching? On that we really ought to have some quite explicit declaration from the Government. These immutable Liberal dogmas are much more mysterious than any dogmas of theology. They are impossible to define; they are not easy to explain; they are wholly unworkable in practice; and I do think that the Prime Minister has a chance which I hope he will take advantage of just to give us a Cowper-Templerised version of Liberal dogmas. Let us have the plain and simple teaching uncorrupted by the quarrels of the sects, and let us

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get exactly what he means by tests for teachers. We might agree with him—I should agree with him that there are certain questions which it is preposterous to put to teachers. If he means, as some of his friends mean, that it is unfair to the teachers and unfair to education to find out whether a teacher is qualified to give the religious teaching which you proposed that he should give—to find out, for example, whether he is qualified to teach under the London County Council syllabus in the transferred or appropriated Church schools—if he thinks that that is absurd, how does he justify either the attitude of the Member for Louth or the practice with regard to Jewish schools or the promises and suggestions which have been made from one part of the House and the other? No, Sir. It is these two unfortunate, unexplained, inexplicable, and impracticable dogmas which have stood in the way of any real arrangement. I do not believe that in substance there is any difference between the two sides of the House and the reason is that all through England you will find Nonconformists—when they not are political Nonconformists—I can assure hon. Members I mean nothing offensive by that; what I mean is that you will find Nonconformists, when they have not mixed themselves up in the public controversy on this question, working in the most perfect harmony with the parson of the parish and even with the squire. If that can be done in the country, why cannot it be done in this House? I think it can be done. I am bound to say that my hopes of its being done have been greatly diminished by two things. In the first place, by the Government's regarding this Bill as a basis on. which a compromise can be erected, and, in the second place, by the speeches in defence of the Bill made by the three Ministers who have had something to do either with its construction or its defence. They have iterated and reiterated doctrines which seem to me to be wholly inconsistent with any Amendment of the Act of 1902 in the only direction in which I believe Amendment is possible—the direction, I mean, of giving further power to the parents. They have reiterated their indefensible dogmas, and, unless they are really prepared to concede that, if we abandon
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the historic foundation originally laid in 1870 and built upon again in 1902—if they really mean to abandon that foundation, which maybe right, the only direction in which they can abandon it with any hope of safety or finality is in the direction of giving ever more and more power in religious matter to the opinions of those parents whose children they have compelled to go to their national schools.
THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. ASQUITH,): In a dialectical sense, tempting as are the points which the right hon. Gentleman has made for criticism and for rejoinder, I shall endeavour not to reply to him in a controversial spirit. The right hon. Gentleman told us a moment ago that, when you get outside this House into the country, at any rate out of the atmosphere of party politics, you find Nonconformists who are most eager and anxious to come to a settlement of this matter. That is perfectly true. But you find Churchmen also animated by the same spirit and aiming at the same goal, and, as the right hon. Gentleman has well said, in local educational matters both prepared to act together. We have now in the elementary schools of this country three children in the provided as compared with two in the non-provided schools. In other words, out of every five children who are being educated in this country now you may assume that the parents in a majority of three out of five are content with the Cowper-Temple teaching, which is the only kind of religious teaching allowed in the provided schools. I do not mention that except in passing, because I am satisfied I am speaking now for those within the House and not outside when I say that if we sat here in a Palace of Truth, in which we were compelled to disclose our own secret convictions, there are not a score of men among those whom I am addressing who do not feel as I feel that this controversy has now reached a stage at which, in the best interests both of the nation and, I will add, of the churches, it is our bounden duty, to seek to discover and to define not those points of difference which are obvious and familiar, but the points,

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if such there be, of possible agreement. In this aspect I confess I thought the early stages of this debate were somewhat disappointing. My right hon. friend the First Lord of the Admiralty made, as I thought and as I think most of us thought, a most conciliatory speech. [OPPOSITION cries of "Oh, oh!"] I think that is the judgment of a majority of the House. What was the result? For the remainder of the evening he was assailed by a succession of taunts which derided him as a Minister groping about in the dark for a policy. Then last night my right hon. friend the President of the Board of Education, in an extremely able, moderate, and reasoned speech, attempted, and I think succeeded in his attempt, to explain and defend the provisions of this Bill. What reward had he? Why the comment that was made upon his speech was this,: "Now we see this Bill from top to bottom, not only in its principles, but in all its details, is to be put forward and is put forward as the last word which the Government has to speak on the subject." That is not very encouraging to those who, like myself and like all my colleagues, are most anxious if we can to arrive at a settlement of the matter. I want, therefore, in the few moments I am going to trespass on the attention of the House, to state as fairly and as sympathetically as I can what appear to me to be the real and substantial contentions of the various parties to this controversy. First and foremost there is the Nonconformist grievance—a grievance which the right hon. Gentleman just now quite frankly admitted—I mean the grievance in the single school parishes. It is quite true that the grievance was not the creation of the Act of 1902. It was not, but it was very much aggravated by it, because the Act of 1902 for the first time quartered these schools upon the rates. The right hon. Gentlemen, I think, has never realised to what an extent the condition of things created by that Act not only exasperated the feelings but intensified the reluctance of the Nonconformist inhabitants of our villages to continue to acquiesce in the state of things which has grown up. I need not describe the state of things which exists now in thousands of parishes in England and
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Wales, in which, while the whole cost of the school is defrayed out of the rates and taxes, the teacher is appointed by a non-representative authority, the Nonconformist pupil has no chance in the world of attaining to the head teacher-ship of the school, and the Nonconformist child has the alternative presented to him either of having no religious instruction at all or of having dogmatic and sectarian instruction. Whether people are reasonable or unreasonable that is the state of things, and I do not wonder that it produces a sense of injustice and exacerbation. It is a state of things which we are pledged to remedy. Is it defended on the other side of the House? I have not heard one single word said in its favour. The noble Lord the Member for Marylebone descanted with much eloquence on what is called the inalienable right of the parent, not to choose his child's religion—that is a right we all recognise—but to have the teaching of his child's religion paid for by the State. If there were such a thing—we do not admit that it does exist, but if it did exist it would have a certain air of logical reason—if there was such a thing as this inalienable right of the parent, how is it met in these single-school parishes? It is denied every day of the week. The noble Lord agrees with me. Then there is no difference between us on this point. So far we have advanced a considerable step in the settlement of the controversy. If this is a grievance, an admitted grievance, which must be remedied, where is the remedy to be found? Mind you, this is an actual and not a possible or contingent grievance, which is weighing on the daily lives of our people. How is it to be met?
There we come to the two principles which the right hon. Gentleman has made such a mock of just now, namely, the principle of rate aid, which implies full local control, and the principle that in schools supported by rate aid—and that is really the security against tests—the teacher shall be appointed not by a body of managers responsible to nobody but themselves, but by the local authority representing the parents and ratepayers of the district. The right hon. Gentleman finds it difficult even now

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to understand why rate aid carries with it as a necessary logical effect, the corollary of local control. But he recognised that that was the principle in 1902. What was the effect of the Act of 1902? To give to the non-provided schools, the so-called voluntary schools, for the first time rate aid. The right hon. Gentleman saw he could not do that without placing them as regards all secular instruction under the control of the local authority, and as regards their religious instruction in defiance of trusts in the hands of a board of managers, two of whom were to be representative. That is what we mean when we say rate aid involves as a corollary popular local control. You may talk about the impalpable boundary line between rates and taxes, but it is common sense, recognised by the practice of our local life and acknowledged by the right hon. Gentleman himself in his own legislation, that if you resort to a fund raised by rates by the people of the locality for local purposes they are entitled through their elected representatives to have a voice in the control of the money. It is a principle which goes to the root, not only of the system of education, but of the whole of our system of administration. Let me point out the singular misconception which the right hon. Gentleman appeared to have in this part of his speech. He said, "You who talk so loudly about local control are in this Bill in one most important respect destroying it, because you are establishing a statutory form of Cowper-Templeism which is henceforth to be compulsory on the local authority." The Bill does nothing of the kind. It says, in the case of the non-provided schools which are compulsorily transferred to the local authority, the trustees or managers may, if they please, stipulate as a condition of transfer that Cowper-Templeism levelled up to the standard of the London County Council shall be part of the ordinary religious education of the school. That does not fetter the power or the discretion of the local authority to give what form of Cowper-Temple religion it pleases in any school subject to it. No one who is cognisant with the practice of administration will dispute that there is a good deal of force in the statement
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of the right hon. Gentleman that in actually choosing a teacher you do not forbear altogether to ask questions—if you did, you would have a great deal of information volunteered from other sources as to the teacher's opinions—that your mind is not in a state of complete and blank ignorance as to what the teacher's opinions are. I agree. But the great security—the security which is needed for the protection of the children and for the keeping open of the avenue to promotion in the teaching profession in these single-school parishes—is that the teacher should be appointed by the local authority. That is your security, that denominational tests shall not exclude them from appointments. That is the essence of this Bill. It deals in that way with the Nonconformist grievance. We have not had one word of criticism either from the point of view of equity or common-sense on that part of our proposals.
Let me come now to the Anglican. Here I am still speaking in the main with regard to non-provided schools, particularly in rural places, a subject on which the right hon. Gentleman dilated at great but not at all excessive length. What is the position? We are dealing here not with an actual grievance, but with a grievance which the right hon. Gentleman says we shall bring into existence by this Bill—namely, the grievance that could arise or might arise if these two principles of popular control and the appointment of teachers without tests were carried out with untempered logical severity. Here, again, I think, the right hon. Gentleman did very much less than justice to our Bill. I have always recognised and said, and so have most of my colleagues, that we are the last people to belittle the enormous services which the Church of England, both by contributions of money and by the devoted labours of its ministers and. teachers, has rendered to the cause of national education. It would be a perverse misreading of history not to be thankful for what the Church has done in that respect. I am anxious fully to realise and appreciate the right hon. Gentleman's point when he says the members of the Anglican community have naturally a special interest in the

363
schools which to a large extent they have raised out of their own money, and in which they have always been accustomed to have the tenets of their own Church set forth to the children. It is true that the right hon. Gentleman does not sufficiently recognise that the equivalent voluntary contribution which in 1870 was made a condition of State assistance has long since dwindled to a mere fraction, and in many cases has disappeared. That is a fact which everyone acquainted with the history of the question knows for himself. It is true also that under this Bill we take these schools, we carry out for the trustees their purely educational trusts, we keep the schools in repair, and we hand them over on Saturday and Sunday for purely denominational purposes. All that being true, it is surely a strong exaggeration, not to say perversion of language, for the right hon. Gentleman to describe what we are doing as confiscation.
At the same time I wish to say most distinctly that, having regard to their past, the motives which inspired their foundation and for many years secured their existence, and which have throughout their history coloured and denominated their management, it would not be just, it would not be tolerable that in transferring these schools to the local authority we should not give full and even generous facilities for the continuance of special religious teaching. The right hon. Gentleman entirely ignored as though they were valueless or non-existent the provisions of the Bill for giving religious facilities. The words of the schedule provide that trustees may insist as a stipulation of transfer on an undertaking to put the schoolhouse at the disposal of the trustees for the purpose of being used by them or under their authority for giving any religious instruction consistent with the trusts affecting the schoolhouse immediately before or after any meeting of the school. We mean that as a reality. I say quite clearly, on behalf of the Government, we are ready and anxious to listen to any suggestions or criticisms that may be made for the modification of the terms and conditions under which these facilities are given which are not inconsistent with the fundamental principles of our Bill.
364
I think we should be acting wrongly, certainly not acting on the principle which must animate us if we are to arrive at a compromise, unless we made it perfectly clear that in that respect we had an elastic and an open mind.
I come to the next class of grievances, and that is the grievances of Roman Catholics. They stand in a different category altogether. [OPPOSITION cries of "Why?"] I will tell you why. We have to acknowledge that the Roman Catholics have a special claim upon the sympathy and consideration of this House for the services which they have rendered to education in the past. They are the poorest community in this country, and while our people have contributed pounds they have had to be content to contribute pennies, and yet they have raised these schools, managed them, and conducted them in accordance with the views and traditions of their own Church by an amount of self-denying labour and sacrifice to which it is impossible to give too high praise. I say they stand in a different category. Let me say what I mean. In the first place, to Roman Catholics Cowper-Temple teaching is not merely inadequate and incomplete, as it is considered to be by a number of Members opposite above the gangway, but it is a perversion and corruption, a thing that endangers the minds and the souls of the children. I do not believe there is an Anglican of the most extreme kind sitting above the gangway who would put forth such a proposition with regard to Cowper-Templeism. That is the Roman Catholic view, and you may like it or not. Further, there is this most important differentiation between Roman Catholic and Anglican schools; the former require that not merely what is technically called religious instruction, but some branches-at any rate, if not the whole, of the secular instruction shall be given by Catholic teachers in accordance with the rules prescribed by the Catholic Church. The result is that you cannot have the kind of school which satisfies the conscience and meets the requirements of the Roman Catholic portion of the community unless you have in regard to the mode and character of the teaching, in regard to discipline and punishment, and in a dozen other ways, a

365
school which has a special and distinctive character of its own. If that is so, and I think I have stated what is a matter of common knowledge, we have done our best to devise a remedy for the Catholic grievance, and I confess I do not see how you are to dovetail schools of which these are the dominant characteristics into a national rate-aided system. The two things are inconsistent. That is the justification—I agree it requires justification—for offering contracting out for Catholic schools. I do not like contracting out. I do not know anybody in the House who does. It is resorted to because there is no other way of escape. Any school which can. come into the national system on the wide and liberal terms we are offering, and which we are perfectly prepared to reconsider if it is shown that they are either narrow or illiberal, will receive support not only from the taxes but the rates. The Catholic schools retain that peculiar flavour and character which Catholics regard as essential. In their case, whatever may be said of others, some form of contracting out appeared to be a very appropriate remedy. I listened with very much care to the speech of the hon. Member for Waterford and also to the speech of the hon. Member for East Mayo, and the conclusion I draw from these speeches is that although they are reluctant to accept the machinery of contracting out, yet their objection is not so much an objection of principle, but to what I may call terms and conditions. They do not think that the provisions made by this Bill will be adequate to maintain the educational efficiency of their schools; but there again this is clearly a matter for consideration and negotiation, and the Government are quite ready to take it into account. What I am trying to show is that when we make profession of a desire for conciliation there is something more than profession, and that our ears are open to any suggestion, coming from any quarter, which will enable us to translate that profession into concrete legislation.
There is one thing I venture to say to the House with all the emphasis I can command. It is that there is one over-riding and transcendent
366
condition we must always keep in view, and that is the maintenance by the central authority of the irreducible and always rising standard of educational efficiency. That standard applies whether the school is rate-aided or not, whether contracted out or not. That we cannot sacrifice to any religious difference or scruple. Now, what does the Bill do? In the first place, it meets the Nonconformist grievance, as everyone admits. In the second place, it attempts to mitigate, whether successfully or not, but it honestly attempts to mitigate any grievance that may hereafter arise from the compulsory transfer of non-provided schools to the local authorities in the rural districts. And, in the same way, as regards Catholic schools, it aims at providing, whether it succeeds or not, an adequate educational equipment for them and all other contracted out schools. I do not know that I have anything more to add except this. This is a most serious question which I ask the House seriously to consider. Subject to these conditions which I have outlined, is not an agreement possible? The Churches, I believe, are drawing together. They are more and more anxious, and reasonably and rightly anxious, not to go on throwing away the substance for the shadow. Educationists—those who are really interested and primarily interested in the development of our educational system—are eager for the same result, namely, that we should devote our undivided energies to the better instruction of the people. Under these conditions—near as we seem to be to an approximation in regard to many matters which two years, and even one year ago, appeared to be separated by an unbridgeable chasm—grave indeed, I submit to the House, will be the responsibility of anyone—I do not care in what quarter he sits—who from merely political reasons, the winning of an election, the manipulation of a majority, the reluctance to abandon a serviceable and captivating cry—grave will be the responsibility of any one who for reasons such as these, stands between what we believe to be the wishes of the people and the best interests of the children of this country.
The House divided:—Ayes, 370; Noes, 205. (Division List No. 100.);

AYES.

Abraham, William (Rhondda)

Clynes, J. R.

Hall, Frederick

Acland, Francis Dyke

Cobbold, Felix Thornley

Harcourt, Rt. Hn. L. (Rossendale

Adkins, W. Ryland D.

Collins, Stephen (Lambeth)

Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose

Agnew, George William

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

Hardy, Geroge A. (Suffolk)

Ainsworth, John Stirling

Compton-Rickett, Sir J.

Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Worc'r)

Alden, Percy

Cooper, G. J.

Harmsworth, R L. (Caithn' ss-sh

Allen, A. Acland (Christchurch)

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

Hart-Davies, T.

Allen, Charles P. (Stroud)

Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale)

Armitage, R.

Cory, Sir Clifford John

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

Armstrong, W. C. Heaton

Cotton, Sir H. J. S.

Haslam, James (Derbyshire)

Ashton, Thomas Gair

Cowan, W. H.

Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)

Asquith, Rt. Hn. Herbert Henry

Cox, Harold

Haworth, Arthur A.

Astbury, John Meir

Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth)

Hazel, Dr. E.

Atherley-Jones, L.

Cremer, Sir William Randal

Hedges, A. Paget

Baker, Sir John (Portsmouth)

Crooks, William

Helme, Norval Watson

Baker, Joseph A. (Finsbury, E.)

Crossley, William J.

Hemmerde, Edward George

Balfour, Robert (Lanark)

Dalmeny, Lord

Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight)

Dalziel, James Henry

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

Barlow, Sir John E. (Somerset)

Davies, El is William (Eifion)

Henry, Charles S.

Barnard, E. B.

Davies, M. Vaughan- (Cardigan)

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

Barran, Rowland Hirst

Davies, Timothy (Fulham)

Herbert, T. Arnold (Wycombe)

Barry, Redmond J. (Tyrone, N.)

Davies, W. Howell (Bristol, S.)

Higham, John Sharp

Beale, W. P.

Dewar, Arthur (Edinburgh, S.)

Hobart, Sir Robert

Beauchamp, E.

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

Hobhouse, Charles E. H.

Beaumont, Hon. Hubert

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

Hodge, John

Beck, A. Cecil

Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P.

Holden, E. Hopkinson

Ball, Richard

Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles

Holland, Sir William Henry

Bellairs, Carlyon

Dobson, Thomas W.

Holt, Richard Durning

Belloc, Hilaire Joseph Peter R.

Duckworth, James

Hooper, A. G.

Bonn, Sir J. Williams (Devonp'rt

Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness

Hope, W. Bateman (Somerset, N

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

Duncan, J. H. (York, Otley)

Horniman, Emslie John

Bennett, E. N.

Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne)

Horridge, Thomas Gardner

Berridge, T. H. D.

Dunne, Major E. Martin (Walsal)

Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

Bertram, Julius

Edwards, Clement (Denbigh)

Hudson, Walter

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

Edwards, Enoch (Hanley)

Hutton, Alfred Eddison

Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon)

Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor)

Hyde, Clarendon

Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine

Elibank, Master of

Idris, T. H. W.

Black, Arthur W.

Ellis, Rt. Hon. John Edward

Illingworth, Percy H.

Boulton, A. C. F.

Erskine, David C.

Isaacs, Rufus Daniel

Bowerman, C. W.

Essex, R. W.

Jackson, R. S.

Brace, William

Esslemont, George Birnie

Jacoby, Sir James Alfred

Bramsdon, T. A.

Evans, Sir Samuel T.

Jardine, Sir J.

Branch, James

Faber, G. H. (Boston)

Jenkins, J.

Brigg, John

Fenwick, Charles

Johnson, John (Gateshead)

Bright, J. A.

Ferens, T. R.

Johnson, W. (Nuneaton)

Brodie, H. C.

Ferguson, R. C. Munro

Jones, Leif (Appleby)

Brooke, Stopford

Fiennes, Hon. Eustace

Jones, William (Carnarvonshire

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

Findlay, Alexander

Kearley, Hudson E.

Brunner, Rt. Hn Sir J. T (Cheshire

Freeman-Thomas, Freeman

Kekewich, Sir George

Bryce, J. Annan

Fuller, John Michael F.

Kincaid-Smith, Captain

Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn

Fullerton, Hugh

King, Alfred John (Knutsford)

Buckmaster, Stanley O.

Furness, Sir Christopher

Laidlaw, Robert

Burns, Rt. Hon. John

Gibb, James (Harrow)

Lamb, Edmund G. (Leominster

Burnyeat, W. J. D.

Gladstone, Rt. Hn Herbert John

Lamb, Ernest H. (Rochester)

Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas

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

Lambert, George

Buxton, Rt. Hn. Sydney Charles

Glendinning, R. G.

Lamont, Norman

Byles, William Pollard

Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford

Langley, Batty

Cameron, Robert

Gooch, George Peabody (Bath)

Layland-Barratt, Francis

Carr-Gomm, H. W.

Grant, Corrie

Leese, Sir Joseph F. (Accrington

Causton, Rt. Hn. Richard Knight

Greenwood, G. (Peterborough)

Lehmann, R. C.

Cawley, Sir Frederick

Greenwood, Hamar (York)

Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich

Channing, Sir Francis Allston

Griffith, Ellis J.

Lever, W. H. (Cheshire, Wirral)

Cheetham, John Frederick

Grove, Archibald

Levy, Sir Maurice

Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R.

Guest, Hon. Ivor Churchill

Lewis, John Herbert

Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S.

Gulland, John W.

Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David

Cleland, J. W.

Gurdon Rt Hn Sir W. Brampton

Lough, Rt. Hon. Thomas

Clough, William

Haldane, Rt. Hon. Richard N.

Lupton, Arnold

Luttrell, Hugh Fownes

Pollard, Dr.

Taylor, John W. (Durham)

Lyell, Charles Henry

Price, C. E. (Edinb'<ob/> h, Central)

Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

Lynch, H. B.

Price, Robert John (Norfolk, E.

Tennant, Sir Edward (Salisbury

Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester)

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

Tennant, H. J. (Berwickshire)

Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk B'ghs

Pullar, Sir Robert

Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen, E.)

Mackarness, Frederic C.

Radford, G. H.

Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.)

Maclean, Donald

Rainy, A. Rolland

Thomasson, Franklin

Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

Raphael, Herbert H.

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

M'Callum, John M.

Rea, Russell (Gloucester)

Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton

M'Crae, George

Rea, Walter Russell (Scarboro')

Tillett, Louis John

M'Kenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald

Rees, J. D.

Tomkinson, James

M'Laren, Sir C. B. (Leicester)

Rendall, Athelstan

Torrance, Sir A. M.

M'Micking, Major G.

Richards, Thomas (W. Monm'th

Toulmin, George

Maddison, Frederick

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

Trevelyan, Charles Philips

Mallet, Charles E.

Richardson, A.

Verney, F. W.

Manfield, Harry (Northants)

Ridsdale, E. A.

Villiers, Ernest Amherst

Mansfield, H. Rendall (Lincoln)

Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

Vivian, Henry

Markham, Arthur Basil

Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)

Wadsworth, J.

Marks, G. Croydon (Launceston)

Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.)

Walker, H. De R. (Leicester)

Marnham, F. J.

Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside)

Walsh, Stephen

Mason, A. E. W. (Coventry)

Robinson, S.

Walters, John Tudor

Massie, J.

Robson, Sir William Snowdon

Walton, Joseph

Masterman, C. F. G.

Roe, Sir Thomas

Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent)

Micklem, Nathaniel

Rogers, F. E. Newman

Ward, W. Dudley (Southampt'n

Middlebrook, William

Rowlands, J.

Wardle, George J.

Molteno, Percy Alport

Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter

Waring, Walter

Mond, A.

Rutherford, V. H. (Brentford)

Warner, Thomas Courtenay T.

Money, L. G. Chiozza

Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)

Wason, Rt. Hn. E (Clackmannan

Montagu, E. S.

Scarisbrick, T. T. L.

Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

Montgomery, H. G.

Schwann, C. Duncan (Hyde)

Waterlow, D. S.

Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall)

Schwann, Sir C. E. (Manchester)

Watt, Henry A.

Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen)

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

Weir, James Galloway

Morrell, Philip

Sears, J. E.

White, Sir George (Norfolk)

Morse, L. L.

Seaverns, J. H.

White, J. D. (Dumbartonshire)

Morton, Alpheus Cleophas

Seddon, J.

White, Luke (York, E. R.)

Murray, Capt. Hn A C. (Kincard)

Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford)

Whitehead, Rowland

Murray, James (Aberdeen, E.)

Shipman, Dr. John G.

Whitley, John Henry (Halifax)

Myer, Horatio

Silcock, Thomas Ball

Wiles, Thomas

Napier, T. B.

Simon, John Allsebrook

Williams, J. (Glamorgan)

Newnes, F. (Notts, Bassetlaw)

Sinclair, Rt. Hon. John

Williams, Llewelyn (Carmarth'n

Nicholls, George

Sloan, Thomas Henry

Williams, Osmond (Merioneth)

Nicholson, Charles N. (Doncast'r

Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie

Williamson, A.

Norman, Sir Henry

Snowden, P.

Wills, Arthur Walters

Norton, Capt. Cecil William

Soares, Ernest J.

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

Nussey, Thomas Willans

Spicer, Sir Albert

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

Nuttall, Harry

Stanger, H. Y.

Wilson, John (Durham, Mid.)

Parker, James (Halifax)

Stanley, Albert (Staffs, N. W.)

Wilson, J. H. (Middlesbrough)

Partington, Oswald

Stanley, Hn. A. Lyulph (Chesh.)

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

Paulton, James Mellor

Steadman, W. C.

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

Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)

Stewart, Halley (Greenock)

Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

Pearson, Sir W. D. (Colchester)

Stewart-Smith, D. (Kendal)

Winfrey, R.

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

Strachey, Sir Edward

Wodehouse, Lord

Perks, Robert William

Straus, B. S. (Mile End)

Wood, T. M'Kinnon

Philipps, Col. Ivor (S'thampton

Strauss, E. A. (Abingdon)

Philipps, J. Wynford (Pembroke

Stuart, James (Sunderland)

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

Philipps, Owen C. (Pembroke)

Summerbell, T.

Pickersgill, Edward Hare

Sutherland, J. E.

Pirie, Duncan V.

Taylor, Austin (East Toxteth)

NOES.

Abraham, William (Cork, N. E.)

Banbury, Sir Frederick George

Bull, Sir William James

Ambrose, Robert

Banner, John S. Harmood-

Burdett-Coutts, W.

Anson, Sir William Reynell

Baring, Capt. Hn. G (Winchester

Burke, E. Haviland-

Anstruther-Gray, Major

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

Butcher, Samuel Henry

Arkwright, John Stanhope

Barry, E. (Cork, S.)

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

Arnold-Forster, Rt. Hn. Hugh O.

Beach, Hn. Michael Hugh Hicks

Carlile, E. Hildred

Ashley, W. W.

Beckett, Hon. Gervase

Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. W.

Aubrey-Fletcher, Rt. Hn. Sir H.

Bignold, Sir Arthur

Castlereagh, Viscount

Balcarres, Lord

Boland, John

Cave, George

Baldwin, Stanley

Bowles, G. Stewart

Cecil, Lord John P. Joicey-

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

Bridgeman, W. Clive

Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.)

370

371

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

Jowett, F. W.

O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry

Joyce, Michael

Parker, Sir Gilbert (Gravesend)

Clancy, John Joseph

Kavanagh, Walter M.

Parkes, Ebenezer

Clive, Percy Archer

Kennaway, Rt. Hn. Sir John H.

Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington

Coates, E. Feetham (Lewisham)

Kennedy, Vincent Paul

Percy, Earl

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

Kerry, Earl of

Phillips, John (Longford, S.)

Collings, Rt. Hn. J. Birmingh'm

Keswick, William

Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S.

Kettle, Thomas Michael

Power, Patrick Joseph

Craig, Capt. James (Down, E.)

Kilbride, Denis

Randles, Sir John Scurrah

Craik, Sir Henry

Kimber, Sir Henry

Rasch, Sir Frederic Carne

Crean, Eugene

King, Sir Henry Seymour (Hull)

Ratcliff, Major R. F.

Cross, Alexander

Lane-Fox, G. R.

Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel

Cullinan, J.

Lardner, James Carrige Rushe

Reddy, M.

Delany, William

Law, Andrew Bonar (Dulwich)

Redmond, John E. (Waterford)

Devlin, Joseph

Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, W.)

Redmond, William (Clare)

Dillon, John

Lee, Arthur H.(Hants, Fareham

Remnant, James Farquharson

Dixon-Hartland, Sir Fred Dixon

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

Renton, Leslie

Donelan, Captain A.

Long, Col. Charles W.(Evesham)

Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)

Doughty, Sir George

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

Roche, Augustine (Cork)

Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

Lonsdale, John Brownlee

Roche, John (Galway, East)

Du Cros, Arthur Philip

Lowe, Sir Francis William

Ronaldshay, Earl of

Duncan, Robert (Lanark, Govan

Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred

Ropner, Colonel Sir Robert

Esmonde, Sir Thomas

MacCaw, William J. MacGeagh

Rutherford, John (Lancashire)

Faber, George Denison (York)

MacNeill, John Gordon Swift

Salter, Arthur Clavell

Faber, Capt. W. V. (Hants, W.)

Macpherson, J. T.

Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel)

Fardell, Sir T. George

MacVeagh, Jeremiah (Down, S.)

Sandys, Lieut.-Col. Thos. Myles

Fell, Arthur

MacVeigh, Charles (Donegal, E.)

Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert

Fetherstonhaugh, Godfrey

M'Hugh, Patrick A.

Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.)

Ffrench, Peter

M'Kean, John

Sheehan, Daniel Daniel

Flavin, Michael Joseph

M'Killop, W.

Sheehy, David

Flynn, James Christopher

Magnus, Sir Philip

Sheffield, Sir Berkeley George D.

Forster, Henry William

Marks, H. H. (Kent)

Smith, Abol H. (Hertford, East)

Gardner, Ernest

Mason, James F. (Windsor)

Smith, F. E. (Liverpool, Walton)

Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West)

Meagher, Michael

Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.)

Gilhooly, James

Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.)

Stanier, Beville

Glover, Thomas

Meysey-Thompson, E. C.

Stanley, Hn. Arthur (Ormskirk

Gooch, Henry Cubitt (Peckham)

Middlemore, John Throgmorton

Starkey, John R.

Gordon, J.

Mooney, J. J.

Staveley-Hill, Henry (Staff'sh.)

Grayson, Albert Victor

Morpeth, Viscount

Stone, Sir Benjamin

Gretton, John

Morrison-Bell, Captain

Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

Guinness, Walter Edward

Muldoon, John

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

Haddock, George B.

Murnaghan, George

Thomas, David Alfred (Merthyr

Halpin, J.

Nicholson, Wm. G. (Petersfield)

Thornton, Percy M.

Hamilton, Marquess of

Nolan, Joseph

Walker, Col. W. H. (Lancashire)

Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashf'rd

Nugent, Sir Walter Richard

Walrond, Hon. Lionel

Harris, Frederick Leverton

O'Brien, Kendal (Tipperary Mid.

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

Harrison-Broadley, H. B.

O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

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

Hay, Hon. Claude George

O'Brien, William (Cork)

Willoughby de Eresby, Lord

Hayden, John Patrick

O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W.

Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E.)

Hazleton, Richard

O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

Winterton, Earl

Healy, Timothy Michael

O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm

Heaton, John Henniker

O'Doherty, Philip

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

Helmsley, Viscount

O'Donnell, C. J. (Walworth)

Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George

Hill, Sir Clement

O'Donnell, T. (Kerry, W.)

Younger, George

Hills, J. W.

O'Dowd, John

Hogan, Michael

O'Grady, J.

TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Sir Alexander Acland-Hood and Viscount Valentia.

Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield)

O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N

Houston, Robert Paterson

O'Malley, William

Hunt, Rowland

O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens

Question put.
Main Question put, and agreed to. Bill read a second time.
Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House for Monday next.—(Mr. Asquith.)

DURATION OF SPEECHES.
MR. REESrose to call attention to the length of
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speeches delivered in this House; and to move, "That no speech by a Member, other than a member of the Government, made in the House shall exceed one half-hour in duration, except with the leave of the House granted without a negative voice, and that no speech made in Committee of the Whole House shall, subject to the same qualification, exceed a quarter of an hour; that, at the close of the said

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period of one half-hour or a quarter of an hour respectively, Mr. Speaker or the Chairman, as the case may be, do take the pleasure of the House whether the Member be allowed to proceed; and that this Resolution be a Standing Order of the House."
SIR F. BANBURYrose to a point of order and submitted that the Resolution should be divided into two parts, that the first part should stop at the word "proceed" in the last line but one and that the second part "and that this Resolution be a Standing Order of the House" should be put as a separate question. The first part dealt with certain alterations which were proposed to be made and which if carried would have the effect of a sessional order. The second part dealt with an alteration of the Standing Orders of the House. He submitted that a single Resolution could not create a sessional order and at the same time alter the Standing Orders of the House.
MR. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. EMMOTT,): In reply to the point of order which the hon. Baronet has put to me, there is a power inherent in the Chair of putting a Resolution in two parts if it should be to the convenience of the House that that should be done, and if hon. Member's would feel embarrassed by this Resolution being put as a whole the Chair can put it in two parts. So far as I am concerned, I shall put it as a whole, but I will report what the hon. Baronet has said to me to the Speaker and he will then decide what shall be done. I have no doubt if the House should so desire he will divide the Resolution into two clauses.
MR. REESsaid that when the ballot favoured a young Member he had either to choose one of the stock subjects such as Macedonia, the Congo, or Tariff Reform, or to bring forward a matter of general interest I not belonging to this category. But the connection between such subjects and this Motion was, nevertheless, in his opinion, of an intimate character. It often happened that subjects were dealt with on sparsely attended private
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Members' nights, in which foreign nations and the world outside these islands was far more interested than in the domestic Motions the consideration of which filled the House. Debates on such matters as Macedonia, the Congo, or education in India were eagerly devoured over seas, and readers abroad had no means of estimating the actual importance to be attached to individual orations of a certain class, to the harm done by which he, himself, as a frequent traveller in foreign countries could testify, for even when there did not happen to be a banquet in honour of a Prime Minister on private Members' nights, not only was the House comparatively empty, but almost all the Members who attended were committed to the views of the mover of the Motion. Thus it happened that when Macedonia was treated even as if it were Monmouthshire, and the Congo as though our connection with, and responsibility for, that vast region, were as complete as if it were Camber-well, private Members who did not adopt this attitude, either abstained from attending, or if they came were probably unable to get a hearing. If the mover took half an hour and the seconder the same length of time, of which the House would probably not complain, there were always two or three gathered together who were, or deemed themselves to be, specialists. Then came the Front Benches and the debate was at an end. Similarly on Fridays when private Members took the legislative bit between their teeth, and bolted over the Parliamentary course, there was little chance of any Members being heard except such as adopted the views of the mover, or such as belonged to the Opposition, fortunate in the alternate call, and fortunate in one sense if not in another, in that their attenuated numbers gave their individual Members free opportunity of speech. And again, although it was well-known in England that the emptiness of the House on an Indian night, for instance, was due, not to absence of interest, but to the presence of confidence, complete and all embracing, in the Minister charged with the conduct of Indian affairs, the only organisation which actively reported the debates for the express benefit of the Indian native newspapers, made the most of hostile and critical speeches,

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which were subsequently disseminated all over India by a seditious Press. If the Motion he had the honour to move were administered in the letter and the spirit, there would be more numerous and shorter speeches, and the balance would to some extent be redressed. This was a matter of no small importance, and the mischief done by apparently insignificant organisations and newspapers, was unfortunately little appreciated in the United Kingdom. It was believed that the adoption of this Motion would to some extent mitigate this mischief, would be an advantage to the course of business in that House, and would promote the efficiency of its proceedings. It was, however, if he might speak for himself, far from being his intention to give further facilities for the making of more laws—for he never forgot the maxim of Tacitus, corruptissima republica plurimœ leges, and would only provide that more Members of the House might be able to participate in the debates upon such measures as must come before it, that the voices of the constituencies might be more freely expressed, that the necessity might be obviated for autumn sessions, and for late summer sittings, for over-working and clogging the wheels of public offices, and so impairing the efficiency of the administration, upon which, far more than upon legislation, depended the happiness of all those affected by the multifarious activities of Government. Moreover, he could not help thinking that the Government of the day, to whatever party it belonged, was to some extent influenced by the one-sided character of the long speech debates, in which dissentient voices had little chance of being heard, when vague, altruistic aspirations, clothed as to their externals in more or less legal form, were put forward as Bills, deserving at any rate, it was pleaded, of a Second Reading, amorphous masses which might be licked into shape upstairs, It might be urged, however, that it was highly undesirable that a Second Reading should be lightly accorded to half debated and undisgested proposals, which ever afterwards could boast of having been approved by Parliament. Nevertheless, Motions on Wednesdays and Bills on Fridays, whether or not on account of previous conference with Ministers or "Whips, he could not say, not infrequently
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met with the support of the Front Bench. In many cases this was of a somewhat platonic character, and there was every reason to believe that large numbers of private members who voted for such Motions and Bills, did so with no intention, and indeed no desire, of making them effectual, or of making them law. If the length of speeches were restricted, it might fairly be expected that other Members would come forward and express their dissent from what appeared under existing circumstances to be, what in fact it seldom or ever was, the almost unanimous feeling of the House. Indeed it was more than probable that on many occasions the majority in the House and the country did not concur in these apparently almost unanimous conclusions, which depended so largely for their success upon the paucity of Members in the House, the difficulty the non-contents upon the benches had in getting in a word athwart the prevailing current, and the discouragement and dissuasion with which such dissenting Members were met by others present, who were almost to a man sworn supporters of the private Motion, or the private Bill, for the moment under consideration. Indeed it required some little temerity even to bring forward a Motion other than such as met with the approval of the active groups above described, and there was no guarantee that without their help a House could be made, for they included a large proportion of the Members, who were most regular in their attendance, no matter what was the business before the House. Yet there were, outside these groups, amongst the Members, many, who though young Parliamentarians, might be by no means immature or inexperienced, whose speeches, if becomingly brief, might for special reasons possess a certain value on particular occasions. An instance occurred in the Motion brought forward in 1906 censuring Lord Milner for some untoward and unimportant occurrence for which he was technically responsible, and for which, following the traditions of his class, he accepted the fullest responsibility. Every Member who had served under, or with, the Governors of our Colonies and foreign possessions must have earnestly desired to appeal to the hon. Member for Salford to withdraw his motion, but in point of fact, the

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debate was confined, including tie mover and seconder, to six Members, of whom three sat on the Front Benches, and actually only one private Member spoke for five minutes, besides the mover and seconder, each of whom had not more than a quarter-of-an-hour. Upon the Foreign Office Estimates again in 1906, there were only eleven speeches, one of which, by a private Member, occupied about seventy-five minutes, while four others took each more than three-quarters of an hour. Yet this was the chief, if not the sole, occasion which offered to the House of discussing the many and great subjects with which the world wide activity of our Foreign Office was concerned. It had been laid down by his hon., eloquent, and independent friend, the Member for Preston, that the House of Commons was never so wrong as when it was unanimous, and this might well be the case when the House was, so to speak, packed, as it was on private Members' days, and would continue to be unless Members of different complexions found they could participate more freely in the debates. It was usual in the lobby to hear a conversation of this kind regarding an approaching private Motion. "Who is likely to speak besides the mover and seconder?" "Mr. Blank and Mr. Asterisk." "Well, they always want so long each, and then there is the Front Bench, and there is no chance of getting in. I shall go home." Yet the homing Member, had he been called, might have spoken with the voice of the House, or with the voice of the country, and not from the standpoint of a party, a group, or a philanthropic association. It was more particularly on private Member's days and nights that there was a necessity for some curb upon eloquence. Such, however, would probably be admitted to be required even on other occasions. As an example which would serve for the moment, might be taken the Second Reading debate on the Licensing Bill, a subject of the first importance, which might, indeed, be said to divide the country into two hostile camps. On this occasion thirty-five speeches were delivered, occupying twenty-four and a quarter hours, giving an average of over forty-two minutes to each speech, and of the speeches delivered, one occupied an hour and three-quarters,
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one an hour and a half, five one hour and a quarter, and six one hour. Five speakers took three-quarters of an hour, and ten half an hour, each, and but for the moderation of seven speakers who contented themselves with a quarter of an hour, the average would have been far higher, While upwards of fifty Members who were most anxious to be heard, never had an opportunity of getting in at all. Yet on such an occasion, indeed upon most occasions, it was desirable as far as possible that each individual Member should give expression to the views of his own constituency. How many subjects too, there were which might be brought forward with advantage if only a little of the time so freely granted to the captains general of the Chinoleptic contingent, and the promoters and supporters of other popular causes, were available for the rank and file of the private Members. How frequently a debate ended without the enjoyment of a speech such as the House was accustomed to welcome from the hon. Member for South-East Durham, who illustrated in his life and conversation the Horatian maxim: Ridentem dicere verum quid vetat? Who could tell whether upon the back Benches might not languish, unheard, and unappreciated, Members young in years and in Parliamentary experience, who in the fullness of time and with favouring circumstances might approach as nearly as might be, to the consummate art of the Prime Minister, who could in a comparatively short speech make the finances of a mighty Empire crystal clear to an ordinary intelligence? Opportunity for speech together with insistence upon compression would give budding statesmen a chance, which now was, in ordinary circumstances, lacking. He could not help thinking, too, what advantages might result from the introduction of more voices into the debates in order that certain established positions, usually taken for granted on certain occasions, should be assailed. It might, indeed, be contested that humanity was exclusively a British attribute, that it could only be preserved by continuous residence in Britain, that it was endangered by wider experience and extended travel, that it was altogether lost when the Briton became a British agent and administrator abroad, that a representative Government was the only form

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of rule worthy of adoption all over the world, that all things in all countries should be measured by British standards, and that Colonial and Indian administrators were ex officio oppressors of subject races. At the least the objectors to such comprehensive conclusions should be heard. It now happened not infrequently that Members who had passed their lives in the study of, and in actual acquaintance with, certain subjects were unable to speak when such came up for discussion. He himself had sat out a whole Indian debate with that result, which, he confessed, moved him to the one reprisal, which ill became the mover of this Motion, and to a speech which exceeded half-an-hour in duration. For this he repented in Parliamentary sackcloth and ashes, and he might at any rate plead that when an occasion offered for a glorious repentance he took it, and now sought to deprive others as well as himself of that opportunity to do ill deeds which conduced to make ill deeds done. Moreover, it was hardly to be expected that if some Members indulged in long speeches, others would not, in kind, retaliate. Again, if certain Members knew, or had a reasonable expectation, that they would be called, they could indulge in a little much needed preparation, which under existing circumstances would probably be labour lost. Without preparation, brevity was apt to become obscurity brevis esse laboro obscurus fio. With the adoption of this Motion there would be a chance after many centuries for the acceptance of the advice of the wise old Greek poet who said—
"How much the half is better than the whole,"
and it would be the aim and object of every orator to put his best into the half which he was able to present to the House. With the time-limit staring him in the face, an hon. Member would, moreover, escape from the painful position in which he too often laboured heavily over his penultimate peroration, and seemed, despite desperate efforts, unable to grasp the fleeting phantom of the last word. It might be argued that this Motion was not sufficiently drastic, but anything of a severer character would have no chance of acceptance. It was offered as a first step, and if accepted as a Standing Order, would come
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under periodical revision. The late Mr. Talbot, of Margam, who in his day, was the Father of the House, arrived at the conclusion, which he strongly held, that the time-limit for speeches should be half an hour. Had this Motion been drawn for ten minutes, or even twenty, and for half that period in Committee, it would have worn a more heroic aspect, but it would have had less chance of being carried. It was obviously necessary to exempt from the operation of the Motion Members of the Government, chiefly upon public grounds, also, and in a less degree, as a bribe in the hope that their support might be secured. It might, of course, be fairly argued that a similar length of time should be allowed to the Opposition, but it might also be taken for granted that the House in whose hands the working of the rule would be, would concede to an ex-Cabinet Minister all the time which, as a matter of right, would belong to a Member of the Government. On the other hand, the value of the rule might be impaired if an exception were made in favour of all junior members of past administrations, any one of whom might desire at any time to deliver one of those exhaustive and exhausting orations which it was the object of this Motion to check. The rule as drafted, would lay down half an hour as the limit for speeches under ordinary circumstances, and it was believed that this principle once established, half that time would soon come to be regarded as the proper length for a private Member's speech. It would be impossible to make an exception in favour of experts, whose great name was often usurped by travellers who had enjoyed a delirious three weeks "in partibus" in which they might well have absorbed the maximum of error and interested misrepresentation. Not indeed that there was no balm in Gilead, for if "the words of the wise are as goads and as nails fastened by masters of assemblies," the expert whose advocacy was fatal to the cause he espoused was of no less service in his day and generation, and his every word was a nail in the coffin of the cause he essayed to support. It would not, however, be desirable on this account to give him more law, and no Standing

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Committee or other tribunal had yet been set up, charged with the delicate duty of preparing a list of true and trustworthy experts. It was now nearly sixty years since Mr. Milner Gibson introduced a Resolution into the House of Commons, that the speeches of Members should be limited in duration to one hour, the introducers of original Motions and Ministers of the Crown being exempted from the rule. It was upwards of a decade since the hon. Baronet the Member for Chelmsford carried a Resolution that the duration of speeches in this House had increased, was increasing, and should be abated, and it was seven years since Sir Joseph Dimsdale, then Member for the City, moved that no Member should, except by leave, speak for more than twenty minutes, or twice on an Amendment in Supply, Ministers, ex-Ministers and Movers of Bills excepted. The success of the hon. Member for Chelmsford, his Motion not being moved as a Standing Order of the House, was unavailing, and the Motion of Sir Joseph Dimsdale was negatived on a division. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition had on a previous occasion expressed his readiness to support a Motion somewhat similar to the one now before the House, if it related only to private Members' nights, and he said that the time would come when the House must adopt a time-limit. He understood the last remark to be of general application, and surely that time had now arrived, and the time-limit might be applied not only to licences for public drinking, but to licences for Parliamentary speaking. Nor could it be regarded as other than a most propitious circumstance that the present Leader of the House, as often as he spoke, offered a model of concise and compressed eloquence. It was believed that in all our Colonies a time-limit existed, and also in certain foreign legislative bodies, though he regretted he had been unable to obtain such accurate information as would justify him in laying it before the House. In the House of Representatives of the United States, the rules of debate provided that no Member should, with certain specific exceptions, occupy more than one hour on any question in the
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House, or in Committee, that when general debate was closed by order of the House, a Member might be allowed five minutes in which to explain any Amendment he might offer, and any one other Member five minutes in which to oppose, and that on a Motion to suspend the rules, debate might extend to forty minutes, one half in support and one half in opposition to the proposition. In Italy deputies were at liberty to read their speeches, so long as the reading did not exceed a quarter of an hour. This rule, however, was hardly analogous to British practice, or to his Motion, for hon. Members did not here, as they did in the only other legislative assembly in which he had sat, read their speeches. The reason given, whether seriously or not, he did not know, for the practice which prevailed in the Legislative Council of India was, that if an eloquent Bengali once got on his legs, he would never be likely to sit down. Or possibly a feeling prevailed that when an hon. Member represented, as he did himself, for four years, a population almost as numerous as that of the United Kingdom, he was, with a burden like that of Atlas on his shoulders, at least entitled to a seat. In the London County Council no speech might exceed fifteen minutes, without the consent of the Council, while the mover that the consideration of a question be postponed, or that the debate be adjourned, might not speak for more than five minutes, the same rule as to time applying to Motions that the Council do adjourn. To sum up his case; under existing circumstances in the House of Commons the individual voice of a constituency could not as a rule be heard, unless it happened to be represented by a Minister. In the recent debate upon Lord Ashtown's case, Mr. Speaker stated to the House that he had no power to stop a Member who was speaking at such length as to give rise to considerable impatience in a certain quarter in the House. Under this Motion, such power would be given to the House itself. Some such rule was absolutely necessary, for in this country they could not, and indeed did not wish to, look forward to the day when the people would break into Parliament, cut off the head of a Member who would not stop speaking, and

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present it on a stick to Mr. Speaker, as happened with the French Convention in 1796. It was indeed once suggested long before the women's suffrage movement, and the evolution of Miss Maloney and her bell, that exuberance of Parliamentary verbosity should be checked by the Clerk Assistant ringing a bell in the House. Neither the chopper nor the bell, however, were likely to be brought into requisition. Yet the time had arrived for dealing, in that slaughterous sense, which the late Lord Salisbury said was inherent in the word, with Parliamentary verbosity. In the Egyptian "Book of the Dead," an Ancient declared that he had not inflicted long lectures upon his hearers, and the loyalist, Hugh Grove, who was executed in 1665, pleaded in his last moments that he was never guilty of much rhetoric, or ever loved long speeches. In their last moments they thought of the greatest crimes that could be laid to their door, and protested their innocence. In order that Members of Parliament might have the like comfort in their last hours, and to the end that they might be heard in moderation in their lives, he ventured, with sincere thanks to the House for the indulgence with which it had listened to him, to move the Motion which stood in his name.
SIR CARNE RASCHseconded the Resolution.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That no Speech by a Member, other than a member of the Government, made in the House shall exceed one half-hour in duration, except with the leave of the House granted without a negative voice, and that no speech made in Committee of the Whole House shall, subject to the same qualification, exceed a quarter of an hour; that, at the close of the said period of one half-hour or a quarter of an hour respectively, Mr. Speaker or the Chairman, as the case may be, do take the pleasure of the House whether the Member be allowed to proceed; and that this Resolution be a Standing Order of the House."—(Mr. Rees.)
MR. MALLETsaid that his hon. friend had introduced this Motion in a, speech which nobody had found too
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long. He took it that in urging the adoption of a time-limit for speeches they were all thinking of others rather than of themselves. He wished to support this proposal, not because he thought a thirty minutes time-limit in every case was an ideal thing, and not because he endorsed the proposal to allow to Ministers only a licence in speaking which might easily become a freehold in long-windedness, but because he thought some kind of time-limit was needed, and was anxious to test the feeling of the House on this point. He thought they were all agreed that there was too much repetition and waste of time in debate. This House had few rhetoricians and no bores, but many of them were tempted to speak longer than they should do, and to frame a rule which would check redundancy and repetition, whilst allowing the great speakers ample freedom, would be a real advantage to debate. His hon. friend had mentioned a Resolution proposed by Mr. Milner Gibson sixty years ago. In 1833 a Motion was proposed by Mr. Buckingham advocating twenty minutes speeches for Members on the ground that it would afford all Members an "equal opportunity" of joining in debate. What a mockery that sounded to those who knew the practice of the House. Some Members had had to wait eleven months, eighteen months, and even two years before they were called upon to make their maiden speech. Many of them anxious to speak had sat through a full-dress debate only to see their best points stolen and their arguments mangled by speakers luckier than themselves, and finally had returned home disconsolate, to vent their undelivered speeches in letters to the Press. Unless they adopted some kind of time-limit they could never hope to give an equal opportunity to the many able speakers in the House of Commons. Sometimes they were reminded that speeches were now a great deal shorter than they used to be. They all knew the story of the Begums speech of Sheridan which lasted for five hours and forty minutes. In the old days Burke, Pitt, and Fox, all maintained the tradition of long speeches. Mr. Pitt owed no small part of his

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supreme hold on the House of Commons to his majestic lengthiness of speech, and there probably never was a man of character and genius so uncommon, who left behind him a greater mass of noble - sounding commonplace. But these great men were not examples to be followed now in the matter of long speeches. In the old days there was no necessity for a time-limit because hurry and condensation were unknown, and all talk was apt to be long-winded, because to be long-winded was to be polite. He submitted that we had left these leisurely methods of the past behind, and that to ask the House now to keep up the tradition of unlimited speeches was surely an unreasonable thing. We had got to the days of motor-cars and telephones, to the days when newspapers had no time to wait for news, and therefore manufactured it themselves, when our great novelists devoted themselves to the writing of short stories, when our greatest poet, Mr. Kipling, wrote sometimes in. curt, inspiring slang, when conversation was almost a collection of clippings, men of fashion not having the time to finish the words they had begun; and in such days it was an anomaly that the House should still cling to unrestricted speeches when it had turned its back on all the leisurely traditions of the past. He did not like the distinction which his hon. friend had made between Ministers and ordinary Members. There were obviously private Members of the House who ought to have as full an opportunity of speaking at length as any Minister. He would like to begin on a smaller scale than the hon. Member proposed, and to limit the length of speeches on private Members' Bills or Motions, and on the Committee stage, the Report stage, and the Third Reading of all Bills alike. In the case of the First and Second Readings of Government measures he would give every man his fling. It was a difficult matter, but if they could arrive at a well-conceived arrangement for limiting speeches, he believed the speeches would not only be diminished in length, but strengthened in quality too.
VISCOUNT CASTLEREAGHsaid he was inclined to agree with
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the mover of the Resolution on the intrinsic merits of the case. There was no one in the House who was not entirely opposed to long speeches, but he thought he was right in saying that the Resolution went much further than they desired. Speeches now were as a whole shorter than in times past, and consequently there was no need for the Resolution. He assured the House that in opposing the Resolution he had no desire to infringe its spirit. This Resolution had been brought before the House periodically.
MR. REES: It is not the same Resolution.
VISCOUNT CASTLEREAGHsaid that if it was not the same Resolution, it was in the same spirit as previous Resolutions. He ventured to think that there was not much interest in the question at the present moment. He sincerely hoped that the excellent speech of the mover would have the desired effect in preventing hon. Members from indulging in undue loquacity. His reason for opposing the Resolution was that he resented the restriction of discussion in any form. Hon. Members had every right to bring forward and discuss anything in which they were interested. It was for that reason that he took every opportunity of resenting the operation of the closure; and he sincerely hoped that on whatever side of the House he might sit he would always oppose anything in the nature of the closure. They knew that the closure was entirely contrary to the idea of Parliament and was as yet entirely unknown in the electorate. The general trend by the action of the closure was to establish in this House an all-powerful oligarchy in the shape of the Government, or what was worse, but not the less possible, an omnipotent autocrat in the shape of the Prime Minister. What was wanted was free discussion, and the good feeling which attended free discussion. If this Resolution was assented to it would be the foundation of a system far more drastic in its character than the present; and he could see a time coming when Members of the Government would be allowed to put forward their propositions while all other Members of the House would only be permitted

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to say "Aye," or "No." It had not been his privilege long to be a Member of the House, and he had some diffidence in putting forward his views; but he was convinced that the proposal of the hon. Gentleman was very dangerous, and the more dangerous from its insidious and attractive character. A majority of the House might be inclined to vote in favour of curtailing discussion when they had been tired by long and uninteresting speeches, or were seduced by other attractions in the House with which they might regale themselves when their fellow-members were too tedious to listen to. Again, if the freedom of discussion were refused to advanced and Labour Members they might see orators traversing the country from one end to the other, advocating a social upheaval. Instead of that, they saw these hon. Gentlemen quietly sitting in this House and they could not but look upon them as anything but harmless volcanoes. In this country we were free from what other countries suffered, viz., the terrible curse of anarchy, and that was because there was here the privilege of free speech. It could not be denied that that freedom of speech acted as a safety valve for placing in the light of public opinion those views which only became dangerous by reason of their suppression, and which, if harmful and consequently contrary to public opinion, evaporated in steam instead of sowing the seeds of anarchy and revolution. Moreover, to his mind, the Resolution was in no sense necessary. The whole trend was for speeches in the House to become shorter, and it could not be said that the speeches in the present House of Commons were to be condemned for undue length. Reference had been made de to Mr. Biggar, who had spoken for six hours, and there was a record of a voluble Member of the Jamaica Senate who spoke for twenty-four hours and threatened to speak for another twenty-four if the resolution he was opposing was not withdrawn. There was no danger of speeches of that kind now. It should be left to the judgment of the House to make the necessary curtailment of speeches they did not desire to hear. Very closely allied to the question of long speeches was that of obstruction. They all deplored obstruction, although
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every single Member of the House at some time or the other welcomed the effect of obstruction. He was certain that it was due to the action of the closure that obstruction existed, although it did not obtain to the same extent as before. He sincerely hoped that this Motion, even as an expression of opinion, would not pass.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. GLADSTONE,)said he agreed with the noble Lord that any restriction on fair and free discussion was undesirable, but he had been long enough in the House to regard with some equanimity the effect of what the noble Lord called restrictive measures. He could speak with some detachment on this subject, because he had always only spoken under compulsion, and he doubted if there was any Member in the House of Commons who had as good a record as he had. He did not think that the speeches he had made since he became a Member would work out as occupying more than an average of one hour per annum. Therefore, he could look upon this question without prejudice. He could respond to the appeal of his hon. friend the Member for Montgomery Boroughs, and treat his Resolution in no unfriendly spirit. He agreed that a change in the direction aimed at by the Resolution would probably be salutary, but as proposed it was certainly sudden. He was not quite sure that the House understood the position or the effect of the Resolution if carried. Supposing the Resolution was taken in two parts, and was carried down to the word "proceed," he understood on very high authority that in effect it would become, not a Standing Order, but a Sessional Order, and it would become operative to-morrow. In these circumstances it was very necessary to see where they were going. He would call the attention of the House to the fact that though there might be something like general agreement in favour of the Resolution its supporters were not altogether agreed as to its terms; and before they adopted a Resolution which might become operative to-morrow, they should consider what form it was to take and in what manner it could

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be carried out for the regulation of their debates. He agreed that it was most desirable, not only to save time by curtailing speeches which were unnecessarily long, but also to secure a more fair distribution of the available time of the House, especially to those Members who desired to speak, and were well entitled to speak, but whose qualities did not make them so persistent as others in endeavouring to catch the Speaker's eye. In that respect, a change was desirable. But he was not at all sure that the resolution, as it was drawn, would have the effect of shortening the duration of speeches, and giving fuller opportunities to others. His hon. friend had made a very interesting analysis of the debate on the Licensing Bill. Certainly some of the speeches might have been curtailed, but the average was certainly longer than the average speeches in other debates in this House. If they adopted for general purposes of debate a limit of half - an - hour it might be an inducement to Members to speak up to that limit. He would undertake to say that the average duration of a speech in Committee was nothing like a quarter of an hour. The effect of this resolution might be to cut down a speech that was necessary and encourage others to speak up to the limit, and thus lengthen the proceedings in Committee. But he must point out that the promoters of the Resolution were not at all in agreement upon its terms. For example, he would deal with the proposed exclusion of Members of the Government from the operation of this Resolution. Members of the Government were often the worst offenders. He did not blame them altogether, because, though it was not at all difficult to make a speech lasting a long time, it was difficult to compress a great deal of important matter into a short compass. Very often the length of the speeches of a Member of the Government was due to want of time for the preparation of them. But he could not see how it could be said that there should be no limitation whatever on any speech of a Member of the Government whilst every other Member of the House was to be limited to a quarter of an hour. He did not think that that was a proposal that would
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commend itself to the House. But that again was a matter for consideration. If the Amendment on the Paper had been moved he would have had to criticise that as he now had to criticise the Resolution of the hon. Member, because it was not possible to impose a fixed and arbitrary limit on Ministers' speeches. The Prime Minister was a master of language, who could compress to an extraordinary extent matter and argument into a small space, but even he delivered a speech on the Licensing Bill which lasted one and a half hours, and shortly afterwards a speech on the Budget which lasted two hours, and no hon. Member would suggest that either of those speeches could have been curtailed. These observations had reference to the Amendment on the Paper which would of course have to be carefully considered before this Resolution could become either a Sessional or a Standing Order of the House. Another point was, how was it proposed to establish a time-limit? In other countries he knew they had mechanical arrangements to show when the time-limit was reached, but how was Mr. Speaker to judge the exact time? Was he to observe the clock? He himself remembered in his own experience the clock stopping. All these might be treated as very small points, but it was the small points of procedure that had to be carefully considered and thought out. Before the House adopted a Motion of this, sort it was necessary to consider these matters so as to get in a concrete form what it was proposed to adopt. It therefore seemed to him that full consideration must be given to these questions. It was clear that hon. Members had no idea of what the exact effect of this Resolution would be if carried even without the last sentence. It would become a Sessional Order and would come into operation immediately. It was only when this matter was inquired into carefully that they discovered that they were on the eve of passing a new Sessional Order which, whether good or bad, was a very great change in the procedure. He therefore proposed that the hon. Member should be satisfied with the appointment of a Select Committee to

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consider this particular question. The Government could not accept the Resolution as it stood, and if the hon. Gentleman accepted his proposal no time would be lost, because essential and speedy consideration would be given by the Select Committee.
MR. STUART WORTLEYthought the right hon. Gentleman had given some very useful information to the House but that he had not taken the strongest line that might have been taken in opposing this Resolution by a man occupying his position. It was open to the right hon. Gentleman to remind the House of two things: first, that this was a matter of procedure, and that procedure was a matter which the Government ought to keep in their own hands; that there were even now several proposals of the Government with regard to procedure which had not been considered by the House, and that this particular Resolution was not included in them. That was the first part of the answer the right hon. Gentleman should have given, because such a revolutionary proposal as this ought not to be proposed except by a responsible body in the House. The second answer should have been that this House had been for some years working out an experimental system on lines totally different from those of the Motion; namely, to limit the length of the debates as a whole. When he was a Member of the majority in the House he sometimes took the view that the debates ought to proceed upon the line of trying to get the minority as well as the majority to adopt some sort of co-operation similar to that which was seen in the majorities of the House. It always appeared to him that when a time-limit for a debate was imposed a body of persons interested in securing the best use of the time allowed should be created, and the most important of the matters under discussion debated. If a time-limit in speeches was imposed they would fail entirely to secure that co-operation to which he referred. He thought that the House would be very ill-advised to accept this Motion at a stage when they had an uncompleted scheme of reform in the hands of the Government itself
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which would develop on totally different lines, and that the Government should not abandon their experiments in favour of this experiment of quite a different character. He did not wish to see the House brought to the level of a diocesan conference, and he hoped therefore they would not do more than limit the proposal in the first instance to discussion upon private Bills. He thought the distinction between members of the Government and unofficial Members of the House was hardly tenable or defensible, and still less the distinction between the proceedings in Committee and the whole House. He had to remind the mover of the Resolution that he had entirely forgotten that the Budget speech had to be delivered in Committee of the Whole House. If he failed to maintain his distinction between private Members and members of the Government, his Motion would strike at the Budget speech itself. He considered it was a difference which was extremely likely to be rejected if put to the test of the House. He thought, therefore, they ought not to adopt the Resolution except in the most tentative and experimental form, and he should vote against it, believing the House was better employed in making experiments on a totally different line.
MR. THEODORE TAYLORsaid he had been an enthusiastic supporter of the hon. Member for Essex, who in modern times had been the father of this movement. The noble Lord the Member for Maidstone had deprecated the stifling of discussion. He (Mr. Taylor) was in favour of the Resolution, but he did not want to stifle discussion. He thought there was a way of stifling discussion by letting a small number of men occupy a great amount of time. He was one of those. who believed in short speeches, and if he wanted to give any of his friends an idea of what the House of Commons was like he told them that it was like a series of long sermons, to which they could listen or not as they pleased. Fortunately, there were places where hon. Members could take refuge from speeches they did not want to hear. He knew it was impossible to please

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everybody and he often sympathised with the Speaker and the Deputy-Speaker who had to choose those who were to conduct the debate. It must be extremely difficult in the case of measures like the Education and Licensing Bills. There were a good many of them who liked to give as many ideas as they could in as few words as possible, but they were obliged to hear a number of other hon. Members who spread as few ideas over as many words as possible. He did not think there was any other body in the country—certainly not the great trade unions—who would stand this. He agreed that any time-limit would not necessarily be a cure for a fault they saw in others, but not always in themselves. No doubt they were all impatient at the length of other people's speeches, especially when they wanted to put in a few words themselves. He recognised that a time-limit was not necessarily a cure, but he thought it would be something towards a cure. He did not believe hon. Members would talk up to the time-limit. The noble Lord had said that obstruction was due to the closure; no, the closure was due to the fact that there was obstruction.
VISCOUNT CASTLEREAGH: I did not say obstruction was due to the closure. I said it was accentuated by the closure.
MR. THEODORE TAYLORsaid he did not agree with the noble Lord. There had been no more obstruction since the closure than there was before. Replying to the hon. Member for Plymouth, he wished they had more "dull" men in the House who would say what they wanted to say in a few words. It was phrase-cleverness and culture which often caused obstruction. There was too much artificial talk and persiflage in the House. Parliament should be a business assembly. The House would tolerate eloquence when it was the outcome of strong feeling, but it did not care two pins about set speeches. The Prime Minister had been mentioned. To his thinking the right hon. Gentleman's speeches were models of conciseness and lucidity. He wished every Member of the House of Commons said as much per minute or per five minutes in his speeches as the Prime Minister; there would then be no complaint of long speeches. What
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did they say about sermons? He had always said that he did not want to hear any sermons which were longer than half an hour They told the parsons that if they could not say all they wanted to say in twenty minutes they did not want to hear any more. Let them apply the same rule to themselves. Of course, no Motion of this kind would strike at a Budget speech, and he also thought the ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer should have a little more time than most Members. Although he agreed thoroughly with the purpose of the Resolution, he was sure the mover would be well advised to accept the offer of the Government to appoint a Committee to consider this question, and he hoped he would withdraw his Motion in favour of that offer.
MR. J. MACVEAGHsaid the noble Lord the Member for Maidstone had reminded the House of the achievement of Mr. Biggar, who once spoke for four hours, and the hon. Member for Plymouth had instanced the case of Mr. Burke, who once talked for five and a half hours, but he had no intention of emulating the example of his distinguished countrymen. He would like to point out, however, that obstruction was not produced by long speeches. Let them ask the hon. Member for the City of London, who was an expert in the art, whether long speeches were conducive to obstruction. Anybody who had studied the science of obstruction knew that it was to make short speeches frequently, and move as many Amendments as possible. He felt sure the hon. Member for the City of London, if he would make a confession, would agree with him. The Home Secretary had said that it was easy for anybody to make a long speech, but it was not always easy to make a short speech. He was inclined to agree with him. He recalled the apology of a clergyman for a long sermon, that he had not time to prepare a short one. As a matter of fact, that was the explanation which might be offered for a good many of the long speeches delivered in the House; at least they might charitably hope so. He could not support the Motion unless the hon. Member could see his way to add to it a most important proviso, something like this, "And further that no Member shall be allowed to make more than ten speeches in any one session." The hon.

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Member who moved the Resolution confessed to having once occupied the attention of the House for half an hour on the Indian Budget. He thought he was nearer an hour. He forgot, however, to tell the House that he made such long speeches that he had killed one if not two important Bills.
MR. REES: They were very short speeches.
MR. J. MACVEAGHsaid they were long enough to kill the Bills and that was a record which was not surpassed even by the Member for the City of London. The hon. Member had sinned not only by the length but also by the frequency of his speeches. He had made more speeches in the House during the past year than the hon. Member for the City of London. He had had the curiosity to look up the general index to Hansard for last year, and he found that the hon. Member who was so anxious for few and short speeches, during last session spread himself over no less than 178 subjects and took the House into his confidence with regard to his views upon all those topics. Only three of them had any reference to Montgomeryshire, but the hon. Member thought Imperially. He was only a parish politician, but an hon. Member with an Imperial mind like the mover of the Resolution was able to talk upon every subject under the sun. He admitted that long speeches were a bad thing, but he thought frequent speeches from some people were even worse. The hon. Member did not seem to appreciate the distinction between verbosity and loquacity. It was not given to everybody to be omniscient, but it was given to the hon. Member to think that he was. During the last session he had told the House what he thought about the extension of the Djibut railway in Abyssinia. He had never heard of the railway until he heard the hon. Member holding forth about it, and he doubted very much if the hon. Member had ever heard of it himself until he read something in the Daily Mail, or some other equally veracious organ, about it. The hon. Member had entertained the House with his views of the necessity for the erection of Christian schools for heathen children in Central Africa. He had told the House what he thought
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about the erosion of the Chinde River bank. He thought at first it was in Montgomery, and that it had some connection with the Royal Commission recently appointed on coast erosion. But no; it was out in Siam or some place like that. It was certainly not in this country. He had confided to the House his views about the rumoured discovery of a cure for sleeping sickness on the Congo. He never proposed any cure for sleeping sickness which showed itself during some speeches at Westminster. He had spoken on another occasion about the rewards paid for slaying leopards and tigers and the danger to Chiromo from lions, and about the Raipur-Vizianagram scheme and the Vizagapatam Railway. On four occasions he had held forth on the operations of the tsetse fly. Any hon. Member could escape from long speeches by going out to the library, the smoking room, or the bar, but he defied any man to escape from the speeches of the hon. Member. If he attempted to discharge his duties in that House efficiently he entered the Chamber at the imminent risk of finding the hon. Member in possession, and therefore, holding strongly as he did that obstruction arose not from the length of speeches but from the frequency of bad speeches, he should oppose this Motion unless the hon. Member could see his way to accept the Amendment which he suggested.
MR. STEADMANsaid he strongly supported the Motion. Parliament would never get through half the work it had promised the country unless some reform in this direction was made. He had occupied the time of the House on one or two occasions for an hour at least, but if there was a standing order similar to that of the county council he had no doubt he could condense his remarks within the prescribed time. He had not succeeded in catching the Speaker's eye on the Port of London Bill, though he had served his apprenticeship on the river and knew more about it and its docks than any Member who had spoken in the debate. He failed again to catch the Speaker's eye on the Budget night. On the other hand he noticed that some Members spoke on every subject that came before the House. No man should attempt to speak merely for the sake of speaking. If he knew from a practical point of view

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the subject under discussion he might enlighten the House. It did not matter how humble a position a man might occupy in the social scale, if the House thought he was an honest man it was always willing to give him a fair hearing. He did not throw the responsibility for long speeches on the Government. Private Members were more responsible than the Government. On a Friday, for example, a private Member moved the second reading of a Bill in a speech lasting an hour, and the seconder followed his example. When the closure was moved the Speaker refused it, and he did not wonder. The mover defeated his own object by the length of his speech. A working men's congress could show the House of Commons how to get through business. They curtailed a mover to ten minutes and a seconder to five, and if they did not get through business fast enough they curtailed even more than that. The London County Council could not get through their work without the fifteen minutes limit. They had about sixty committees and sub-committees mooting weekly. A member was allowed to occupy more time by permission of the Council, and he had never known permission refused. There was, however, a great difference between the County Council and the House of Commons—one was an administrative and the other a legislative body—and, to be fair to Cabinet Ministers, whether Liberal or Tory, there were matters which it was impossible for them to explain thoroughly under an hour or even two hours, and he should not be prepared to support a proposal to limit their speeches to an hour or less. The closure, he agreed, was undemocratic, but there were times when drastic measures had to be taken, otherwise the Party in power could not get a single measure through, and there were times when many of them wearied of the speechifying that was done for pure obstruction and welcomed the closure. This was not the only Assembly that had to adopt the closure to get its work through. He doubted whether the Licensing Bill would get through Committee before Christmas unless the Government adopted the principle of closure by compartments. The country was looking to the present Government to do some work. They had years of social legislation to pick up. They had not done much at present—not
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so much as he would like to see them do. Labour Members stood in a far different position from that of the average Member. They were bombarded outside by their own people. When they asked him why this, that, and the other was not done, he told them that if they came to the House they would see the reason for themselves. The way the time God Almighty had given them was wasted was downright wicked. He appealed to the mover of the Resolution to adopt the suggestion of the Home Secretary, who had made it perfectly clear to him that a drastic alteration such as this Resolution proposed could not be made in five minutes. The hon. Member had served his purpose by introducing the Motion, and had got further than anyone else had got by the offer the Home Secretary had made. He could have no fear if the matter went to a Committee. It would be thought out and in the end they would get a practical remedy for the wilful waste of time that now went on.
SIR A. ACLAND-HOOD (Somersetshire,)said that he, eight years ago, seconded a Motion for restriction of length of speeches moved by his hon. and gallant friend, but he had altered his opinion. The views of "Whips" in regard to speeches varied; there were times when a long speech Member was a good friend; there were times when he had known energetic efforts adopted to bring a speech to a rapid conclusion. If this Motion were carried, the duty of Whips would be easier, for it might be assumed that every Member would speak to his half-hour limit. ["No."] The condition of things had changed. Time was when they had a free House, but now the Government had established four tied houses in the Committee-rooms upstairs, where political refreshment was dispensed without the semblance of police supervision in the shape of an official reporter. All their proceedings were conducted in secret, and now that the Government had got these four tied houses he appealed to the Patronage Secretary to let them have this old established free House of Commons open to public discussion. Let them tie the houses upstairs, but at least they should give them the old established free public House downstairs. This was a very great amendment of their Rules of Procedure to be brought in by a

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private Member. Such an alteration of procedure as the Motion would effect should be made on the responsibility of the Government, not of a private Member. He could recollect occasions when speeches had been interrupted by Motion?, "That the hon. Member be no longer heard." Speakers Peel and Gully had ruled that such a Question could not be put. That was quite right. Thus they came to this, that a Question which two predecessors of the Speaker ruled they could not put, could be decided by one voice against 668. That was a total subversion of the practice, customs, and Rules of the House. He thought it would be very unfair to the Opposition, whether the official Opposition or hon. Members from Ireland or hon. Members who represented Labour, that a Minister should be allowed to make a speech of any length while they were precluded from speaking for more than half an hour on Second Reading, or a quarter of an hour in Committee. The House had always been exceedingly generous towards minorities, and was it fair that in addition to having all the power of numbers, all the weight of ability and knowledge which necessarily attached to those who sat on the Treasury Bench, and all their permanent staffs behind them, they should also have a great majority of the hours of speech in the House? How would such a rule work in connection with the discussion of a Home Rule Bill, or a great Army Bill? The Prime Minister of the day would get up with all his facts before him and make a most eloquent First Reading speech. The Leader of the Opposition who would follow would be limited to half an hour. Difficult as it was to make a carefully prepared speech in half an hour, it was quite impossible on the spur of the moment to condense into that time one's criticism of Government proposals which had just been heard for the first time. The leaders of the Irish Party and of the Labour Party would be put in the same difficulty. He did not think that either the House or the country would like this restriction. The country liked a debate to be fairly carried out on both sides of the House. As to the limit proposed for the Committee stage, he would give the House a concrete illustration of how it would work. On Monday next the House in Committee
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would discuss the Budget Resolution on the income-tax. The Prime Minister had given the ordinary pledge that on that Resolution they would be allowed to discuss the whole financial arrangements of the Government. The Chancellor of the Exchequer on that occasion would be able to speak for half an hour, an hour, or two hours if he liked. His right hon. friend the Member for the City of London, if the limit were in force, would only be able to speak for fifteen minutes. He would only speak for fourteen and a half minutes, and, paraphrasing language which was historic, he might say "I will sit down now, but you will hear me after a minute and a half." He himself would get up and say "I agree with my right hon. friend, and I intend to vote with him," and his right hon. friend would get up again and speak for fourteen and a half minutes. Then another hon. friend would get up and speak for a minute, and thereafter his right hon. friend the Member for the City of London would get up again to continue his speech. [An HON. MEMBER: Where does the Speaker come in?] He was pointing out the absolute futility of the proposal. Instead of economising time, speeches would become longer. The whole thing was so fantastic that it would not work, and he hoped the House would not adopt the proposal. If they were going to put the Government in first, and then close the Opposition's innings in half an hour, the country, he was sure, would not consider it fair. This proposal was a serious invasion of the liberties of the House; it would do nothing to economise time, and it would seriously handicap some of the younger Members.
MR. SWIFT MACNEILLexpressed regret that the right hon. Gentleman's position as Chief Opposition Whip entailed more or less enforced silence, because his speeches when they were made were very great contributions to debate. If the Motion went to a division, he would vote for it. He had a Motion on the Paper to the effect that private or unofficial Members should be in exactly the same category as Government Members. He remembered an occasion when Mr. Courtney, now Lord Courtney, got up and said he would be very pleased

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indeed if special privileges were given to Cabinet Ministers, and Mr. Gladstone, speaking with excitement, replied—
"I will never sit in a House of Commons in which the equality of Members is not acknowledged."
The right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary did not act up to the principle of his revered father. He did not agree with the details of the scheme proposed by the hon. Gentleman opposite, but he would vote for the Motion as an expression of his approval of the principle that speeches in this House should be curtailed. His hon., gallant, and extremely acute friend said that this Resolution was in the interest of private Members. It was not in the interests of private Members. He had been in this House during five Parliaments, and he maintained that if a Resolution of this kind had been carried into action it would have rid the House of Commons of its greatest nuisance—the astoundingly stupid and extremely dull Parliamentary bore. [Cries of "Name."] Confession was good for the soul. He remembered standing up when, as he thought, a very serious outrage was committed on account of inconsiderate action in regard to the privileges of other Members. In those days of three hours debates, when the idea was to inform public opinion, a Gentleman unduly monopolised the time of the House. He knew he was out of order, and committed a Parliamentary crime by asking Mr. Speaker whether there was any way of stopping that Gentleman, whereupon Mr. Speaker said that there was no way of stopping a man who had once begun. There was, however, one way of stopping a Member, and that was by the Parliamentary cry of "Divide "—when they did not want to divide at all, but only to get him to stop orating. There were rules against tedious and irrelevant repetition, and a very wise rule which forbade a man to read his speech, for clearly he might go on reading and reading and never come to a conclusion. Then there was "the sense of the House." No one cared to set himself against "the sense of the House"; he would not do it even it were only to gratify his own vanity, for violating "the sense of the House" defeated its object. If speeches were shortened other Members would have an opportunity of speaking, which they would not otherwise have at all. He
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was bound to say—and the speeches of the Leader of the Opposition bore out the idea—that the present principle was that the Government and official Members should be the speakers, and the private Members should be a kind of Greek chorus to cry out "Hear, hear." That principle was largely carried out now. Everyone who knew Parliamentary history was aware that every measure of reform that made for the comfort of the people, for human freedom, for broadening the franchise, for extending the benefits of education, had been proposed first by private Members. The effect of the Resolution would be that private Members might just as well be abolished and an automaton substituted which would say—at proper intervals—"Hear, hear." At present young Members were actually snubbed, except they were friends of the people in power. How often had young Menbers—especially on the Tory side—come into this House with the greatest Parliamentary ambitions, and hoping to be permitted to make a deep impression. But when he had only spoken a few sentences, up would come a friend and whisper: "We have been delighted to hear your speech, but Mr. Balfour cannot move the closure. Do, my young friend, sit down." His noble friend had taken the Resolution to pieces, and had shown all the objections that could be made to it. What he asked was, was every man who came into the House to have a fair chance of taking part in its deliberations—every man who wished to inform public opinion? He ought to be heard, whether they agreed with him or not. At the same time he believed that anyone who had a gospel to deliver to the House could deliver himself of it within thirty minutes. But now they had an official set of debaters on the one side of the House or the other, their supporters were supposed to sit quiet and listen to them and to be delighted with them. He spoke in reference to this Motion in a purely altruistic spirit. He had been always well received in the House; he had always had his say whether he was in or out of order; but the cardinal objection he had to the proposal of the hon. Member—though he would vote for it—was that it differentiated between the official and the private Members of Parliament. If carried out in its entirety it would give a preference to the right hon. Member for Bordesley over Mr. Cobden,

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and make a distinction between one Member and another. He did not like to think that they were very much superior to their predecessors—or inferior. He knew that he had already transcended the ten minutes rule, but he could not help saying that the idea of official members having a precedence over Irish Members was simply intolerable, because they would always be unofficial Members in that House. When they got a Parliament of their own they would be delighted to take office. He would say one word as to the preference given to the official as against the unofficial Members. He believed Mr. Parnell when in this House held, probably, a position greater than that of a Cabinet Minister, yet he remembered that when Mr. Parnell rose to deny that he was the writer of the letters the infamous fac similes of which appeared in The Times, a member of the Government of the day obtained precedence because he was an official Member and by talking at great length successfully prevented Mr. Parnell from putting his denial and his explanation plausibly before the House in time to get into the Press. That showed the great danger of differentiating between official and unofficial Members. It had not been the practice merely of the present generation to make long speeches. Long speeches were unknown until the time of Chatham. Long speeches, which he introduced, had gone on ever since. But his successors were not such geniuses as Chatham. The Members of the present Treasury Bench were men of respectable but not dazzling ability, and were only slightly more clever than private Members. If a rule of this kind was passed it would prevent selfishness and give due consideration to the rights of private Members, and give the young men their chances. As he believed the private Members had started all proposals which made for freedom and the well-being of the people of this country he would with great fervour support the Resolution.
MR. KETTLEsaid the Motion provided him with one of those rare opportunities upon which he could vote against some of his colleagues, and particularly the hon. and learned Gentlemen who had just sat down. He should vote against this proposal because he discovered in it the
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Liberal Imperialist alternative to Homo Rule. As at present constituted this Assembly was neither efficient or effective. If this Motion were carried, the effect would be to make this Assembly efficient and effective, and to that, as an Irishman, he objected. So far as Ireland was concerned this Parliament either did nothing or did harm, and he preferred that it should do the former. What was the Parliamentary history of the hon. Member who introduced this Motion? Last Session he spoke on 178 different subjects, and upon the Bill for the extension of the suffrage to women, argued, in support of its rejection, that their loquacity made them politically incapable. The hon. Gentleman then entertained the House with voluminous extracts from the Old Testament in favour of his contention, and but for the merciful rule which terminated debate on a Friday at five o'clock, the hon. Member in his endeavour to talk the Bill out would no doubt still be quoting Jeremiah. The real reason of the hon. Member's moving this Resolution was that he desired to speak on the Indian Budget, and to occupy the time that was taken up on that occasion by the Secretary of State for India. The true and inward explanation of that desire was that the hon. Gentleman had written a book upon India, a very interesting book—he himself had read the preface of it—and the hon. Gentleman desired in the debate on the Indian Budget to read the book piecemeal to the House. Was that a humane proposal; was it a proposal that would tend to the efficiency of this House? He had now mentioned his main objection, he had others, to this proposal. It was entirely hostile and unconstitutional. The genius of the British was much admired by those who thought they possessed it. Not possessing it himself, he could speak with detached admiration of it. But the genius of Great Britain was naturally long-winded, dilatory, and diverse. The Motion of the hon. Gentleman aimed at all that. He sincerely sympathised with the Home Secretary as the Minister in charge who had to listen to the debate. He would have thought, having regard to his record, the Secretary of State for War would have boon a far better judge of the matter. Speaking from the detached and impartial standpoint of a foreigner, he had said that his main objection to the Motion

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was that it was contrary and hostile to the genius of Great Britain. This Assembly did not exist for the purpose of making laws. If the people had wanted laws, they could have chosen a much more effective method of obtaining them. It existed in the first place in order to relieve the feelings of the electors, and in the second place—and it was a very subordinate one—in order to make laws. In certain other spheres they found the genius of the country opposed to the imposition of a time-limit. The Licensing Bill was objected to because it established a time-limit; they went to Egypt promising to leave in six months, and they had been there ever since; they went to South Africa expecting to take a picnic to Pretoria in a few months, and it took them three years; they passed a Land Act in 1903 which was very popular in Ireland in 1852 at the very latest. The sole effect of the Motion would be to make the House a more effective instrument for doing what he thought it ought not to do, and that was attempting the vain and impossible task of governing the country from which he came.
SIR F. BANBURYsaid he had listened to every speech, and with the single exception of the mover, though several Members had expressed their intention of voting for the Resolution, no one had supported it in a whole-hearted manner. The hon. Member for South Donegal seemed to have been under the impression that he was discussing the Second Reading of a Bill, and that he could reserve to himself the right of amending it in Committee. His argument was that he was so anxious that the principle that new Members should have the power of speech should be adopted that, though he disagreed with the Resolution in every particular, he was going to vote for it. He could hardly have realised that to-morrow all the evils that he had shown—preference given to right hon. Gentlemen on the Treasury Bench as against the leaders of his own Party and of the Labour Party—would result. He agreed with him thoroughly. The fatal principle that there should be
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a difference between Members of the House would ensue.
MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: The hon. Baronet said that this Resolution could not be made a general Order. I accordingly deferred to his information and supported the Resolution.
SIR F. BANBURYsaid the hon. Member had misunderstood his informant. If the Motion were carried it would become a Sessional Order; and, if it was put in one Motion and not two, it would become a Standing Order. He had looked at the debates upon this question before, and he found that it was the Member for the Scotland division of Liverpool who said that absolute and perfect equality between all Members had always been the guiding principle of the House from time immemorial. By this Resolution they would alter that, and put the Members of the Treasury Bench in a position totally different from that of any other Member. They were not even going to include the Members of the Front Opposition Bench. The Chief Whip had pointed out with very great force the evils which must result. The Secretary for War, for example, on the Vote for men might make a speech of two hours or more. The speech might be interesting and absolutely necessary, but the speech of his predecessor on the Front Opposition Bench would he limited to a quarter of an hour. Was it fair that questions of that sort should be dealt with in such a way? They had heard from hon. Gentlemen opposite that they wanted to restore freedom of discussion and to prevent Parliament becoming an instrument to register the decrees of the Government. Here they had an hon. gentleman who had been only two-and-a-half years in Parliament and who, without any real knowledge of its proceedings, brought forward a Motion which would give his leaders on the Treasury Bench an ad vantage which was denied to all other Members. The reason given for bringing forward the Motion was that the hon.

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Member did not think a sufficient number of Members spoke. He was supported by the hon. Member for Stepney who thought it would facilitate business, and went on to say that if the rule were adopted he would be able to speak oftener. On great debates or Second Readings, on which occasions he never attempted to rise and, therefore, he was not speaking in a personal way, if the rule was adopted there would be at the most another hour in each day at liberty, and consequently perhaps two more Members would speak. On the Second Reading of the Licensing Bill the best speeches were the long ones. The speeches of the hon. Baronet the Member for Spen Valley and the hon. Member for Hackney were very powerful contributions to the debate, and they exceeded an hour, but the vast majority of speeches did not. The hon. Member for Plymouth said that young Members had been eleven months in the House before they were called upon. It was a rule of the House that when a new Member got up to make his maiden speech he was always called upon.
MR. MALLET: May I interrupt? It has not been the invariable practice in this Parliament.
SIR F. BANBURYsaid it might happen that the Speaker might not know at the moment whether it was a new Member, but the moment his attention was called to the fact that a new Member had risen he held it was the custom of the Speaker and the Chairman of Committees to call on him at once.
MR. MALLET: I think the difficulty is due to the fact that in this Parliament you have sometimes had half-a-dozen new Members trying to make a maiden speech at the same time.
SIR F. BANBURYsaid that was rather an illustration of the reason why the Resolution had been brought in. It had been brought in because this was a
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new Parliament with a large number of new Members, and difficulties were inevitable. But it would be foolish to destroy rules and regulations which had been in existence for hundreds of years merely because in a new and very exceptional Parliament five or six Gentlemen particularly wished at the same time to speak. This alteration would not give them the privilege that they desired. One or two might get it and the other four or five would go away and be still more despondent and angry than they were now, when perhaps not so many of them desired to speak. The result of this would in no way facilitate business on big nights. The waste of time, as the hon. Member for Stepney called it, would go on just as much as it did now, because more Members would speak. The hon. Member said he would like the Resolution limited to private Bills and the restriction on Members of the Treasury Bench removed, and if these alteration were too drastic he would like it confine it to set speeches on certain nights, and on the Second Readings of Government measures full fling would be given to everybody. Then how could he support the Resolution if full fling was given to everybody? But there was a very much greater danger even than this. It was not everybody that went to the House regularly every day. The situation which the hon. Member disliked arose only upon set debates upon Government questions which were interesting to the country; but there were a great many other discussions on other topics when the House was by no means full, and when every Member who desired might speak. Very often there were not enough Members to speak.
And, it being Eleven of the Clock, the debate stood adjourned.

CORONERS (IRELAND) BILL.
Read a second time, and committed to a Standing Committee.
Adjourned at four minutes after Eleven o'clock.

Preamble
The Lord Crawshaw.—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
Standing Orders Committee.—Report from, That the Standing Orders not complied with in respect of the petition for a Bill by the Honourable Artillery Company ought to be dispensed with, and leave given to introduce the Bill.
That the Standing Orders not complied with in respect of the petition for a Bill by the Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Tramways Company ought to be dispensed with.
That the Standing Orders not complied with in respect of the petition for additional provision in the Sligo and Arigna Railway Bill ought not to be dispensed with.
That the Standing Orders not complied with in respect of the petition for a Bill by the Newry, Keady, and Tynan Railway Company ought not to be dispensed with.
Read, and agreed to.
Barry Railway Bill [H. L.].—Reported from the Select Committee, with amendments.
Hull and Barnsley Railway Bill; 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.].—Reported, with amendments.
Bristol Tramways Bill [H. L.]; Conway and Colwyn Bay Joint Water Board Bill; Upton Town Hall Bill [H. L.]; Rochester Bridge Bill [H. L.].—Reported, with amendments.
Knott End Railway Bill; Dartford Gas Bill; Great Eastern Railway
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(General Powers) Bill; Dundalk Urban District Council Bill.—Reported, without amendment.
Rhymney Railway Bill [H. L.].—Returned from the Commons agreed to, with amendments. The said amendments considered, and agreed to.
North Eastern Railway Bill.—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 13th and 14th May last discharged, and Bill committed for Wednesday next.
Tollemache Estate Bill [H. L.]; Leeds Corporation Bill; Cheshire Lines Committee Bill.—Read 2a, and committed.
Margate Corporation Bill.—Read 2a, and committed. The Committee to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
Ammanford Urban District Council Water Bill [H. L.]; Llanelly and Burry Port Water Board Bill [H. L.].—Report from the Committee of Selection, That the Lord Saye and Sale be proposed to the House as a Member of the Select Committee on the said Bills in the place of the Earl of Albemarle; read, and agreed to.
Motherwell Burgh Extension, etc., Bill.—Report from the Committee of Selection, that the Lord Haversham be proposed to the House as a Member of the Select Committee on the said Bill in the place of the Lord Kintore (E. Kintore); and that the Lord Haversham be Chairman of the said Committee; read, and agreed to.
Electric Lighting Provisional Orders (No. 3) Bill [H. L.].—Read 2a (according to order).

RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  TRADE REPORTS: ANNUAL SERIES.
  No. 3999. Siam (Monthons of Saiburi and Puket).
  INDIA (RAILWAYS).
  Report of the Committee on Indian Railway Finance and Administration.

  RAILWAY RETURNS.
  Return relating to the railways of the United Kingdom for the year 1907: Preliminary statement.
  Presented (by command), and ordered to lie on the Table.

  POISONS AND PHARMACY BILL [H.L.]
  Report from the Joint Committee (with proceedings of the Committee) made, and to be printed (No. 73).
  Bill reported with amendments; and committed to a Committee of the Whole House, and to be printed as amended. (No. 74.)

PORT OF LONDON BILL.
Order of the Day read for the consideration of Commons' Message.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (The Earl of ONSLOW): My Lords, before your Lordships agree to the Message of the House of Commons and appoint a Committee of five Lords to join with a Committee of the House of Commons to consider this Bill, I should like to say a word or two on the position of this Joint Committee as it appears to me. A statement was made in the other House by the Minister in charge of the Bill that the Second Reading which the House had given to the Bill must be assumed to carry with it the determination on the part of the House that the interests in the Port of London should be purchased. That, of course, was quite within the competence of the other House, but when they ask your Lordships to join in a Joint Committee I think it is necessary that we should regularise our position in the matter. I am aware that in the year 1903 a similar Committee was proposed, and was presided over by my noble friend Lord Cross. Lord Cross, I think, agreed that after the declaration which had been made by the President of the Board of Trade, then Mr. Gerald Balfour, in terms almost identical with the declaration made this session in the House of
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Commons, it was not desirable that the Committee should enter into the question of the purchase of the interests in the Port of London. I do not know what may happen if your Lordships agree to this Joint Committee. I think it extremely likely that the Committee will decide in the same way—namely, that this is a matter into which they need not inquire, as obviously if they should inquire into it and decide that it is not desirable His Majesty's Government would not proceed with the Bill. But all I wish to do in asking your Lordships to join with the other House in this Committee is to say that the Members of this House must have a perfectly free hand, and be allowed to go into that Committee to inquire into every part of the Bill. This House cannot be bound by a decision or instruction of the other House; but, as I have already said, in all probability the Committee will come to a unanimous decision in the first instance as to whether or not they will consider the question of purchase. Therefore I can confidently recommend your Lordships to join with the Committee of the House of Commons to consider this Bill.
Moved, "That the Commons Message be considered."—(The Earl of Onslow.)
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: My Lords, I think the noble Earl the Lord Chairman has done quite right in calling your Lordships' attention to this matter, because it involves an important principle. One of the characteristics of this House which is most useful to the country is the well-known impartiality of its Private Bill Committees, and this Bill deals with private interests though in form it occupies the position of a public Bill. The noble Earl, I think, told us that the House of Commons, at the instance of the Government, have assented to the principle of the Bill.
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: The principle of purchase in the Bill.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: That is, they have agreed to the main principle in the Bill. In that case it is quite possible that the members who may be appointed on this Joint Committee by

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the other House may consider it their duty to vote against any inquiry into the principle of purchase. On the other hand, the five Members who will be appointed by your Lordships' House will, of course, be in a perfectly free position. This House has, I believe, always objected to giving even an instruction to a Committee. When we deal with a private Bill the reading of it a second time is a merely formal proceeding for the purpose of enabling the Committee subsequently to inquire into the points with regard to which opposition has arisen. I believe there are petitions against the Bill, and it is quite possible they may not have any locus standi to appear before the Committee. That evidently is a matter which the Committee will have to decide. In what position will our five representatives find themselves? The five representatives of the House of Commons may very likely consider themselves bound to vote against any inquiry into the principle of purchase. Our five representatives may wish to consider whether the petitioners against the principle of purchase have, or have not, a right to appear before them. The voting in that case, supposing the five Peers to take that view, would be a tie, and as the course of procedure in this House is always adopted on Joint Committees it will depend on the way in which the Question is put whether the opponents have, or have not, an opportunity of even urging their case before the Committee at all. Suppose, on the other hand, that this matter were dealt with first in one House and then in the other by ordinary Committees. In that case, of course, the five Peers would have a free and independent opportunity, without being hampered by five votes already committed. They would have an opportunity of deciding what should be done. It seems to me that in this way this Joint Committee, so far as your Lordships are concerned, will be more or less hampered in its proceedings. The noble Earl the Lord Chairman has said that he feels pretty confident they will arrive at one decision. I daresay he has more knowledge of this matter than I have, for I have no knowledge at all; but suppose that he is wrong. I think this House will then be in rather an awkward position. As,
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however, the noble Earl advises your Lordships that the matter should be referred to a Joint Committee, I do not wish to oppose his Motion; but, at the same time, I think this is a matter which requires, at all events, notice on the part of this House, if it does not require a caveat against similar proceedings in future.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (The Earl of CREWE): My Lords, I did not know that the noble Earl the Chairman of Committees was going to raise this point, or I would have endeavoured to refresh my memory on the whole subject. But, as the noble Earl opposite knows very well, and as the noble Earl the Chairman of Committees knows, if possible, better still, there is an absolute precedent for this proceeding in what was done by the late Government with reference to the purchase of the water companies' undertakings. At that time a Joint Committee was formed, of which I happened to be a member, and the very thing which the noble Earl dreads occurred in that Committee. A decision was taken which was not in accord with the desire of the Local Government Board, of which Mr. Long was at that time the head. We were then told that it was not within the competence of the Committee to deal in any way with the principle of the Bill. That was the instruction we got from Mr. Long, through Lord Balfour who was chairman of the Committee; and on the strength of that when the disputed point ultimately came to be voted upon, and there was a tie, Lord Balfour, as the noble Earl has indicated, put the question in the way which carried out his view. That may point—I am not sure it does not point—to a Joint Committee not being an ideal way of dealing with these matters at all; but as it was adopted in that case, and as the Bill became law, it seems to me hardly reasonable to raise any objection to a similar procedure on this occasion. As a matter of fact, I should hope, from what the noble Earl has said, that no difficulty is likely to arise on the question of purchase, because I understand that all the vendors have agreed to the proposed terms.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Moved, "That a Committee of Five Lords be appointed to join with a Committee of the House of Commons to consider the said Bill."—(The Earl of Onslow.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly.

PREFERENTIAL TRADE.
THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGHrose "to call attention to recent changes which have been made in the tariffs of the self-governing Colonies for promoting their economic development and the extension of their trade relations with the United Kingdom and foreign countries, and the desirability of increasing the productive power of the Mother Country and the Empire as a whole by the arrangement of reciprocal preferences; and to move for Papers."
The noble Duke said: My Lords, in previous debates on this subject which I have ventured to initiate in your Lordship's House, noble Lords have spoken with great moderation, and I desire on the present occasion, in again bringing the matter to your notice, to approach the question in that spirit. I think the present is not an inopportune moment for this country once again to review the position in which we stand towards our Colonies and colonial trade. It is a subject in which the people of the country take a deep interest; it is a subject upon which Colonial Ministers themselves have expressed their opinion; it is a subject upon which the colonists hold strong views; it is a subject, therefore, which can never be totally ignored by the Government of the day. Moreover, some time has elapsed since the Colonial Conference, and we are at greater liberty to discuss the views as then expressed of the Colonial Ministers and the policy of His Majesty's Government. Perhaps the most important consideration of all is that during the last year considerable alterations have been made in the tariffs of some of the self-governing Colonies—I refer to Canada, New Zealand and Australia—and, in particular, an important trade convention between Canada and France has, to some extent, marked a new departure in the financial and political policy of the Dominion.
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These considerations, taken together in an accumulated form, justify once more a review of the position in regard to the economic development and extension of our trade.
Let me consider quite briefly the question of preference. What is it that we seek to obtain from the results of preference? It is an increase of the volume of trade within the Empire, with its increase of profit and consequent greater capacity of production among the communities within the Empire. A simple illustration will bear out my point. The excess of imports over exports amounts to over £120,000,000 per annum. The needs of the Empire are not supplied by it to the extent of that figure. When we claim that preference has been beneficial we desire to point out that the volume of Empire trade has been increasing, and that commodities have been exchanged within it which, without the stimulating influence of preference, might have been furnished from countries outside. Let me draw attention to the result of the preference which Canada has given to us. The imports of Canada from Great Britain, which noble Lords will remember had fallen between 1890 and 1897 when there was no preference, have gradually increased under the stimulus of preference till to-day these imports are nearly double what they were in 1890. Your Lordships may remember what the present Chancellor of the Exchequer said at the Colonial Conference, when he expressed his view upon the result of the preference which Canada had given to us. He said—
"Let me here express for the Board of Trade, whose duty it is to watch carefully all that affects our trade in all parts of the world, our appreciation of the enormous advantages conferred upon the British manufacturer by the preference given to him in the Colonial market by recent tariff adjustments. The Canadian preferential tariff has produced a marked effect on our export trade to Canada. It is true that it seems to have benefited Canada even to a larger extent than it has profited us, for I observe from our trade returns that our purchases from the Canadian producer have increased and are still increasing by leaps and bounds. … I attribute the great improvement in the trade between Canada and this country very largely to the wise policy of reducing the duty on goods imported from the mother country, which Sir Wilfrid Laurier initiated in 1897. It has undoubtedly stimulated trade between the two countries."
THE EARL OF CREWE: Hear, hear.
THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH: I am very glad to hear the noble Earl the Leader of noble Lords opposite say "Hear, hear," because I remember that when the subject of Colonial preference was discussed a year or two ago noble Lords opposite were at great pains to show that the preference which Canada had granted to us was of very little value. Indeed, some noble Lords asserted that it was of no value at all; and it is a great satisfaction to find that events have proved that the views held on this side of the House were right and that those expressed by noble Lords on the other side of the House were wrong.
I have dealt at some length with the preference that Canada has given to this country, and for this reason, that of the vast trade between this country and Canada, representing some £12,000,000 or £13,000,000 per annum, 75 per cent. goes direct in wages into the pockets of the working classes of this country. It is, furthermore, estimated that the increased trade of this country, as the result of Canadian preference, would have been sufficient to employ all these years a community of the size of Brighton, or, I may say, equal in population to Dundee. I think it is admitted on both sides of the House that the preference which Canada has given to us has been of benefit, and if any noble Lord wishes to examine the matter at greater length he will find it set forth in the Report of Mr. Grigg, which was laid on the Table of your Lordships' House at the beginning of this year.
I desire to take your Lordships a step further and remind you of the position of New Zealand and the preference which she has granted to this country and to the sister Colonies. As noble Lords are aware, British Possessions possess three-quarters of the trade of New Zealand. In pointing out to your Lordships the advantages of the New Zealand tariff of 1903 I do not think I can do better than quote the financial results which Mr. Jeffery admits in his Report. On page 11 of that Report he gives a summary in which he shows that British trade has increased at a far greater rate
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than foreign frade with New Zealand; and the conclusions at which he arrives are as follows—
"The figures as a whole suggest that the effect of the preferential agreement has been to divert to the United Kingdom and British Possessions a portion of the trade formerly held by foreign countries in commodities affected by the preference, and in particular in the last year the United Kingdom and British Possessions were enabled to secure the whole of the increase in the imports of these commodities—about 22 per cent. of the total imports into New Zealand."
Again, on page 14, he says—
"In spite, however, of constant American rivalry and continued German efforts, British merchants and manufacturers dominate the New Zealand markets."
Therefore it will be seen that the New Zealand preference has been of very great benefit to Imperial trade. Formerly New Zealand gave a preference to this country by increasing the duties against the foreigner without lowering them against British goods, but in the revision of her tariffs last year she gave a slight reduction of the duties on goods coming from the United Kingdom; and I think we may consequently look forward to a further increase of trade between the Colony and the Mother Country.
Owing to the South African War, and incidents connected with the war, it has not yet been possible to form any just estimate of the results of the preference granted by South Africa; and so far as I am aware there are no Parliamentary Papers on which we can form any accurate estimate. In the case of Australia, it was only last year that the Colony in her new tariff arrangement gave this country a preference. Under the old order of things the foreign trade of Australia had grown in greater proportionate rate than the British trade, and it is to be hoped that that unfortunate state of things will improve as a result of the preference which we now possess. I need not dwell upon the effect of inter-Colonial trade itself, that is to say, the preference which one Colony has given to another. The result of that arrangement has been highly beneficial to Empire trade, and any noble Lord who has any doubt on that matter need only refer to the proceedings at the Colonial Conference where he will find that the then Undersecretary of State for the Colonies

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asserted that the results of inter-Colonial trade had been highly beneficial to the Empire.
I have ventured to remind you this afternoon of the benefit of the preference which Canada and New Zealand have given to us, and also of the fact that trade between the Colonies themselves has progressed under that system. May I, quite briefly, dwell on the Imperial problem which lies before us and its possible solution? It has been suggested that a Customs union might be devised. This is impracticable, because it involves a uniform tariff, an Imperial Exchequer, and the assimilation of the internal systems of taxation of the various parts of the Empire. There is another view which appeals to some—that each constituent State, while arranging its tariff to suit its own need, might admit the commodities of every other State of the Empire duty free. I think this is equally impracticable, because the Colonies would not have sufficient revenue to discharge the obligations and requirements of their respective Governments. There is a third solution. In my view the foundation stone of the ultimate aim of free trade within the Empire is to be found in a system of preference, by which each State should arrange its tariff from the point of view of its own internal necessities; and on the basis of this tariff should give such lower rates of duty, or exemption from duty, as may be practicable to other parts of the Empire with the direct object of stimulating internal Imperial trade. Is it possible for us in any way to participate in such a policy? I think it must be apparent that the revenue needed by this country for schemes of social reform, to which noble Lords opposite are committed, and the many other liabilities connected with the administration of government, to which I need not allude, can no longer be raised on the basis of an increase of direct taxation. The probability of duties having to be imposed for the purposes of revenue is, therefore, a probability to which many noble Lords are alive and to which few, indeed, demur. Moreover, as has often been pointed out by the noble Marquess the Leader of noble Lords on this side of the House, in negotiations for commercial treaties
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this country is seriously handicapped by having nothing to offer in return for what foreign countries may offer to us. I do not think that those views, put forward by the noble Marquess with that clearness and exactness of expression of which he is such a formidable exponent, have lost their weight or escaped the recollection of noble Lords in this House. The conclusion, therefore, to which we are forced is that, either for the sake of revenue or in order to strengthen our hands in foreign negotiations, duties will have to be imposed which will be subject to differentiation between the Colonies and foreign countries. From whatever point of view you approach this great problem, whatever economic view you may hold and desire to support, the possibility of granting our Colonies a trade preference must be ever present to the consideration of any British Cabinet, and judging from the opinion of the Colonial Ministers, the colonists themselves, and the vast volume of growing opinion in this country, it is a consideration which no British Government can afford to ignore. As is well known, the Unionist Party have no intention of ignoring it. We are prepared to wait our time. But facts are presented to our notice which make us believe that the present condition of affairs may be reversed, and the foreign trade of our Colonies developed to the detriment of Imperial trade during the tenure of office of noble Lords opposite, and that this might retard, and possibly prevent, future Imperial co-operation and Imperial trade reciprocity.
The present Government came into power pledged to support the principle of free imports, and to decline in any way to consider Imperial reciprocity. That policy found its full and true expression at the Colonial Conference last year, when His Majesty's Ministers declined even to consider any attempt to form economic arrangements within the Empire. The Canadian Ministers, therefore, having conclusive proof that further discussion was of no use, and no doubt with the platform oratory of the then Undersecretary of State for the Colonies still ringing in their ears, proceeded to Paris and entered into a trade Convention with France, How does this tariff between

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Canada and France affect Great Britain and her trade? In the first place, the intermediate tariff granted by Canada to France reduced the advantages we had over foreign countries in the trade in those articles of commerce in which we had a preference to the extent of the difference between the intermediate and the general tariff; and, in the second place, the basis of the intermediate tariff itself has been departed from. Canada has lowered her duties on certain commodities, making them almost equivalent to the preferential tariff which we now enjoy. The list of these commodities is given in Schedule C. of the Convention, and is set forth in the Parliamentary Paper which noble Lords opposite know very well indeed.
I would like to call the special attention of the Secretary of State for the Colonies to Article XI. of the Convention—the article dealing with favoured-nation treatment. As a result of that clanse, I understand that the advantages of the intermediate tariff and the additional advantages set forth in Schedule C. are extended to all countries entitled to favoured-nation treatment at the hands of the United Kingdom under treaties to which Canada is a party. What will be the effect of this treaty upon this country? I will give your Lordships one simple illustration. Among the countries entitled to most-favoured-nation treatment are Japan and Switzerland, formidable competitors with us in certain classes of commodities which we and they send to Canada. Take, for example, the silk trade. In 1906, Japan and Switzerland each sent over half a million dollars worth of silk to Canada; Great Britain sent one and a half million dollars worth; of lace and embroidery Switzerland sent in 1906 over half a million dollars worth to Canada; the share Great Britain sent was about one million dollars worth. I understand that to-day, as a result of Clause XL of the Convention between Canada and France, the advantages of the preference which we have enjoyed are no longer apparent, because the preference has been reduced to as low a figure as 2½ per cent. Our silk trade with Canada has been a growing trade, upon which we had prided ourselves that we were beating the foreigner
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"hand over fist." The bright prospects which we had in store have, however, now been removed. I venture to think that it will be small satisfaction to the manufacturers and artisans of Spitalfields, Macclesfield, and Nottingham to know that although they may lose their trade with Canada, all is really well because when they reach the age of seventy they will be remembered by a munificent Liberal Administration.
May I be allowed to take your Lordships one step further? In making this Convention with France the Canadian Government naturally expect to reap something in return, but in doing so they have given advantages to a number of countries without getting any in return. Our minds naturally turn to Germany. Under the additional advantages set forth in Schedule C, Germany will have an advantage over trade from Great Britain with Canada to an extent which I hardly like to contemplate. The effect upon our trade in this country and the effect upon Imperial trade is so obvious that I do not think I need labour the point further; and all this may happen in the near future when the taxpayer of this country may be asked to bear further burdens in order to maintain armaments against a foreign Power to whom you may shortly be going to offer the fruits of your Imperial trade and commerce. At the Colonial Conference Dr. Jameson uttered these warning words—
"When once you begin to make treaties outside the Empire there is no saying how far you may go. When you once get commercial sympathies, you generally find political sympathies follow."
And this observation brings me to yet one more consideration. Once it is clear that Canada can offer exceptional trade advantages there is no earthly reason why her example should not be followed by New Zealand, South Africa, and Australia. We may be in the position of seeing our other Colonies making trade Conventions with the European nations, and the result will be that their foreign trade will develop at the expense of Imperial trade, and the very foundation upon which Imperial reciprocity could have been built up will have been impaired, and the object of Imperial statecraft will be frustrated certainly for

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a generation, perhaps, indeed, for all time. It is with these considerations in my mind that I think His Majesty's Ministers deserve to have their actions carefully scrutinised and examined. Did His Majesty's Government make any representations to Canada pointing out the disadvantages that would ensue to Imperial trade if the Convention were made? Did they hold out a single finger to dissuade the Canadian Ministers from carrying out their intention? In the absence of information from His Majesty's Government, we are forced to the conclusion that it was a matter of very little concern to His Majesty's Government that Canada should enter into a trade Convention with France, thereby diverting Imperial trade towards a foreign channel.
At the time the Convention was drawn up and ratified in Paris the British representative there was Sir Francis Bertie. Did His Majesty's Ministers, through their representative, point out to Canada that the result of this Convention would be to give favoured-nation treatment to twenty foreign countries? If they did point it out, what was the reply of the Canadian Ministers? And if His Majesty's Ministers did not point it out, why did they not do so? In all this we are considerably in the dark, and I ask the noble Earl whether the House may not be furnished with fuller Parliamentary Papers. I am emboldened to do so because I understand that most important despatches have passed between Sir Edward Grey and the Canadian Minister, and that these despatches have been the subject of comment in the Canadian Parliament. They have been quoted there, and consequently I presume many of them have been already laid on the Table of the Dominion Parliament. I have not so much experience of this House as some noble Lords, but it does seem to me to be strange that in a grave matter of this kind, involving a departure from previous principle, the despatches were laid upon the Table of the Dominion Parliament before being laid upon the Table of the Imperial Parliament. I understand that these despatches have passed between Sir Edward Grey and the Minister for Marine and Fisheries. What was Lord Elgin doing? He was the Colonial Minister. He was at the Colonial
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Office to protect Colonial interests. I suppose he was concerned in divesting himself of the responsibility of governing the Orange River Colony. What was the noble Earl the Leader of the House doing? He was, no doubt, busy framing Education Bills and conducting the business of your Lordships' House. What was the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack doing? His opinion on international law is paramount. Did he tell the Cabinet that the result of this Convention would be to grant favoured-nation treatment to twenty other countries? Did he explain to the Cabinet the exact effect of this Convention? Indeed, we do not know whether the Cabinet itself discussed this question. Is it possible for Canada, if she wishes to do so, to increase the preference she has already given us, or is she bound by this treaty? We can only assume that this matter was never laid before the Cabinet. If it was laid before the Cabinet they displayed very little concern in it, and so far as they displayed little concern in it they were unmindful of those vast responsibilities committed to their charge.
One cannot help comparing the attitude of His Majesty's Ministers in this grave matter with the policy which the late Government would have pursued. I feel sure that if Mr. Chamberlain had been at the Colonial Office he would have declared that this policy of forcing Canada to make a foreign trade Convention was highly prejudicial to future Imperial trade interests. Why, the whole weight of the Cabinet and of a united party behind it would have been employed to prevent such an unfortunate condition of affairs. It would be presumptuous on my part—more than that, it would be ungenerous—if I were to say that noble Lords opposite were unmindful of the future prosperity of those lands over which they have control—certainly in the case of the noble Earl the present Colonial Minister, for he brings to bear on the administration of that high office all those qualities which we in this House have long learned to recognise and admire. But over and over again Canadian Ministers have expressed their desire to come into closer commercial union with this country, and over and over again those proposals have been dismissed and treated almost with

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contumely by His Majesty's Ministers. I unhesitatingly assert that Mr. Chamberlain was right when he told this country some years ago that it would be criminal altogether to neglect these proposals. I think that His Majesty's Government are to blame for their failure to recognise the remarkable movement now in progress in the many lands and among the many peoples committed to their charge, and their failure to recognise the line of policy which would deprive that movement of disintegrating force, the tendency of which I have this afternoon ventured to bring before the notice of your Lordships' House.
Moved, "That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty praying for Papers relating to the recent changes which have been made in the tariffs of the self-governing colonies for promoting their economic development and the extension of their trade relations with the United Kingdom and foreign countries."—(The Duke of Marlborough.)
EARL CROMER: My Lords, the noble Duke, in the interesting speech to which we have just listened, dwelt upon the advantages which will accrue to the Mother Country from the concessions recently made by the Colonies to this country. I have not got the figures with me, and if I had I should not propose to go into them at any length. Let me say at once that, so far as Canada is concerned, there can, I think, be no doubt that of late years there has been an increase of imports from this country of dutiable goods, greater in proportion than the increase of imports from the United States, our principal rival, and this may be, I think, fairly credited to a preferential system.
As regards New Zealand, according to the last tariff the duty on certain foreign articles has been raised, and a duty has been put upon some foreign articles that have been formerly free. The noble Duke, I understand, said that the duty on British goods in some instances had been reduced. I do not in the least challenge the correctness of his statement. I confess it is the first time I have heard of such a reduction. I was under the impression that there
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had been no reduction of duty on British goods. If any reduction has taken place, it has been extremely slight. In fact, the noble Duke said it was slight. We may cordially welcome the very friendly spirit in which these concessions were made. They may possibly affect favourably the trade of this country. That depends greatly on whether the goods heretofore imported into New Zealand from foreign countries are articles in the supply of which we can compete.
As regards Australia, I cannot think that the changes made in the Australian tariff are likely to do us much good. I believe I am correct in stating that in so far as woollens and mining machinery are concerned, 12 per cent. would about cover all the alleged disadvantages of the Australian manufacturer against his British competitor. Yet the proposed duty is, I understand, 20 per cent. on machinery and 40 per cent. on woollen goods, thus leaving a wide "margin of security" as it is termed. It is true that foreign goods will pay 5 per cent. more, but as by far the greater part of the Australian imports under these heads come from this country, it is clear that the preference accorded will not produce any considerable effect.
I should like, my Lords, with your permission, to diverge for a few minutes from the immediate subject under discussion in order to dwell upon what is going on in Australia with reference to the fiscal reform. The Australian Government is in process of making what. I believe, is called "a scientific tariff." As we are constantly urged to adopt a similar course of action in this country, it will not be altogether devoid of interest to draw the curtain and see the scientists at work in their laboratory. I hold in my hand the draft of the Australian tariff, as it now stands. It is a voluminous document, and covers sixty-seven pages. I do not, of course, propose to weary your Lordships by going into it at length, but I should like to dwell on a few points, as they are highly illustrative of the intricacies and complications which arise in the development of this new science.
I turn to one item—pencils and penholders. They are classed under no less than seven heads, all of which pay

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different rates of duty. "Pencils of wood, but not including pencils with metal or other clamps or attachments, also pen handles of wood, including—and here remark the extreme scientific accuracy—metal attachments for nibs," are to come in free. And yet not all pencils of wood are to come in free. "Fancy pencils" are to pay a duty of 35 per cent. And yet, again, not all fancy pencils, for "pencils of wood with metal, rubber or other attachments" are to pay 5 per cent. Moreover "pencil cases, pen and pencil sets and penholders" are to pay 30 per cent. After this entry occur the enigmatical letters, "n.e.i." I was at first somewhat puzzled to know what "n.e.i." meant. I thought that it might possibly be some cabalistic sign only comprehensible to those who are initiated into the inner mysteries of the protective system. But I find on inquiry that it means "not elsewhere included." The warning and provision was really very necessary, for on looking over the tariff I find that almost every conceivable article that a human being could want, from his cradle to his grave, is "elsewhere included."
But I have not yet done with the categories. All sets containing pens and pencils and penholders are not to be taxed at 30 per cent. If a schoolmaster wishes to bring in a box containing a set of pens and pencils, it is to come in free. That is a very proper provision no doubt intended to encourage education. But now observe a very subtle distinction. If the same schoolmaster brings in a box containing no pens but only pencils, it is to be charged 35 per cent. In other words, a schoolboy in Australia will be able to write with an untaxed pen, but he must pay very heavily if he wants to use a pencil. Moreover, I wish to point out that every box which is imported by the schoolmaster for use in his school will have to be examined to ascertain whether it contains only pencils or only pens, or both pencils and pens. That seems to me to be rather an elaborate process. There seems, in fact, to be a very deliberate intention on the part of the Commonwealth Parliament to encourage the use of penholders and discourage the use of pencils. For the next item lays down that "penholders
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other than those of wood, and not being partly or wholly made of gold or silver" are to come in free.
Now, my Lords, let me give another instance—apparel and attire. If it is made of silk or wool, or contains either silk or wool, it is to be charged 45 per cent. If it does not contain any silk or wool it is to be charged 40 per cent. If it is made partly or wholly of textiles, felts, furs, or feathers it is to be charged 30 per cent. Mindful, however, of the important warning, "n.e.i."—not elsewhere included—I looked over the tariff to see whether this was all. And I found that there is another bewildering entry which provides that only 25 per cent. is to be charged on—
"Piece goods other than of wool or silk suitable for human apparel or to be worn in connection with the human body, having on one or both sides a teased, treated, combed, fluffed, or raised nap or surface in imitation of or resembling flannel in feel or appearance."
That is to say, every man or woman landing in Australia will have to have their luggage examined to see whether any new wearing apparel which they may import is made wholly or partly of wool or silk or textiles, or fur, or felt, or feathers, or, if the material is not made up whether it is teased, treated, combed, fluffed, or has a nap at all resembling flannel. Nor is this all. Numerous exceptions are made. For instance, I observe one which shows that female influence is possibly at work in Australia, for corsets are only to be charged at 15 per cent. duty. Then, my Lords, there is a whole chapter dealing with false hair, which is divided into many categories, such as wigs, fringes, transformations and switches—whatever they may be—besides the important item of hair nets. These are not all to be charged at the same rates. Far from it. There are important differences. I think, my Lords, that I have now said enough to show what an extremely abstruse science this is.
Another incident of this system is that great pressure is brought to bear by various interests upon individual Members of Parliament. A whole bundle of circulars and letters of this descrip were recently communicated to me. I have selected a few specimens. Many of your Lordships may perhaps think that there is no great difference between

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salt sacks and salt bags. Any such supposition would be entirely erroneous. A gentleman who is interested in this trade writes—
"Dear Sir,—There has been considerable misconception on the part of Federal Members as to the difference between salt sacks and salt bags."
He then goes on to point out that "a salt bag is made from hessian or calico," whereas "a salt sack is made from jute." Salt bags may, indeed, very properly be charged at the duty of 15 per cent. To this the writer says—
"We do not object, as these bags can be made locally, but the case is very different with a salt bag. That can only be imported from Calcutta."
And then the writer, who is evidently a strong Protectionist, goes on to ask, in a tone of indignant remonstrance—
"Why should salt, gypsum, and manure sacks be singled out for this unreasonable impost?"
After this really noble burst of free trade enthusiasm, he goes on to explain his objections, and the objections are not far to seek. He says—
"My company imports 600 bales of these sacks annually, and the duty on these last year amounted to £570 with the rate at 10 per cent.; if it is raised to 15 per cent. it will come to £900 a year."
Here, my Lords, is another case which has reference to the trade in cycles. It is pointed out that it is most necessary to impose a fixed duty of at least £1 on a frame and forks built up, enamelled, and plated outside Australia. These frames and forks, it says, are to be bought in Birmingham at as low a price as 10s. up to 15s., and the present duty of 25 per cent.—I beg to draw your Lordships' attention to this point—is—
"Totally inadequate to protect the Australian builder, whose frames and forks cost from £1 15s. to £2 to produce. The position is more acute, inasmuch as the English and foreign manufacturers' machinery produces more than enough for the home market."
In other words, the English manufacturer is accused of dumping forks and frames in Australia. I give another case. It seems that under the general tariff glue is subject to a 30 per cent. ad valorem duty, whereas gelatine is taxed at the rate of 2d. per lb., which
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works out to more than 30 per cent. The writer from whom I quote says—
"It is absolutely impossible to differentiate by analysis or otherwise between glue and gelatine. It is also absolutely impossible to fix an arbitrary standard."
And then he goes on to say—
"I have invested a large amount of money in glue, and intend going in for the manufacture of gelatine, but unless a substantial duty is imposed on glue and gelatine I am exposed to the importation of gelatine imported under the heading of glue."
Let me give one further instance. Some glass manufacturers draw attention to the fact that the ad valorem duty of 25 per cent. is charged for "globes for light; chimneys for light; fish globes; confectionery glasses; cake glasses; bird seed boxes and cups; fly traps and telegraph glass-ware." They are of opinion that this duty of 25 per cent. must have been imposed without due consideration, for the rate on bottles is 35 per cent. The 25 per cent. charged on other sorts of glass, "though sufficient against British goods, is quite useless against German." They, therefore, earnestly demand that the 25 per cent. duty shall be raised to 35 per cent. I need not, my Lords, dwell on this point any more. All I can say is that I earnestly trust that this scientific, or pseudo-scientific treatment, as I should call it, will never be applied in this country. It may be scientific, but it appears to me to be admirably calculated to produce two effects. One is to encourage corruption amongst the minor officials of the Customs, and the other is to expose Members of Parliament to great temptation that they will sacrifice national to individual interests.
After this digression, for which I trust your Lordships will pardon me, I turn to the main issue raised by the noble Duke. The main issue appears to me to be whether, even taking the most favourable view of the concessions recently made by the Colonies to the Mother Country, they form a sufficient justification for a radical alteration in our fiscal system. I cannot think that they do so. The advantages which are claimed for a system under which preferential treatment should be accorded to the Colonies are two-fold. They are, in the first place, political, and, in the second

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place, commercial and economic. The political argument is, in my opinion, by far the more important of the two. However much we may differ as to the means, I conceive that all of us—free traders and tariff reformers alike—wish to attain the same object. We all wish to knit the Mother Country and the Colonies together by the closest bonds. Let me say at once that were I convinced that this object would be attained by the adoption of the policy now under discussion, I should approach the subject in a very different spirit. I should be far more inclined to consider earnestly whether some solution could not be found for the very serious economic difficulties which would still remain. But what valid evidence can be adduced that this object will be attained? So far as I can judge, none of much value. Such as there is, is purely hypothetical and speculative. The representatives of many of the Colonies have, indeed, urged the political argument with great skill and ability. That these gentlemen sincerely believe in the political advantages which would accrue from the system which they recommend cannot for one moment be doubted, but I must be permitted to say that the proofs which they adduce are far from convincing. Moreover, in spite of their unquestionable sincerity, they would be more than human if they were not to some extent unconsciously biased by the enormous and unquestionable benefits which the Colonies would derive if their products were accorded preferential treatment in the markets of the United Kingdom, whilst, at the same time, their own protective system underwent no substantial change, and this is really what they propose.
On the other hand, the views of those who are opposed to preferential treatment are not merely speculative. They are based on the actual experience of the past. The present generation appear to have forgotten that the preferential system was tried over a long series of years and was definitely abandoned in 1845. Anyone who wishes to know the results obtained under that system cannot do better than study the "Report of the Select Committee on Import Duties" presented to the other House
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in 1840. The economic results were deplorable. The timber merchants of the United Kingdom were precluded from buying good cheap timber from Northern Europe, and were forced to content themselves with inferior wood from Canada. The fraudulent wine merchant found it in his interest to adulterate good foreign wine with the cheap and inferior grape-juice of the Cape. Moreover, on all sides the duties were evaded. Wood from Northern Europe was shipped to Canada and then came to the United Kingdom as Colonial timber. The Brazilian coffee-grower sent his coffee to the Cape; it was then imported into the United Kingdom as Colonial coffee. In fact, as the Committee of 1840 reported, the system gave rise to endless complaints and causes of vexation.
What, however, were the political results obtained under this system? They were the reverse of satisfactory. It can surely not be a mere coincidence that the palmy days of the Little Englander were contemporaneous with the period of preferential treatment. Mr. Cobden, whose name now appears to act on many people in this country like a red flag to a bull, was not the only Little Englander of those days. Even so late as 1852 Lord Beaconsfield, who eventually became one of the main pillars of modern Imperialism, spoke of the Colonies as "millstones round our necks." The utterances of the statesmen of this period abound with passages of a similar nature. Neither can this be any matter for surprise. The interests of every class in this country, and especially of the commercial classes, suffered from their being obliged to buy Colonial produce not altogether suitable to their wants, and from their being unable to procure suitable food and raw material at lower rates in the markets of foreign countries. They naturally showed their resentment by chafing under the Colonial connection. The result was constant friction, and the birth of Little Englandism in an extreme form. I cannot help thinking that there would be a great risk that this is what would happen again. Indeed, in some respects the risk would be greater now than it was sixty years ago, owing to the larger electorate to which an appeal has to be made. We

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all know that the standard of veracity in the country sinks to its lowest point during periods of electoral excitement. We also know that under whatsoever fiscal system is adopted, the price of bread will fluctuate. I confess that I should look forward with some dread to a general election taking place when every platform in the country would ring with statements to the effect that the dear loaf was due to the sacrifices we were making in order to benefit our countrymen in the Antipodes. Such a contingency, and it would very probably occur, is not, I imagine, calculated to strengthen the bonds which unite the Mother Country and the Colonies.
It is often contended, in answer to these arguments, that the results which ensued prior to 1845 would not ensue now. To a certain limited extent this contention is valid, for no one, I conceive, proposes that so great a preference should be granted to Colonial produce as was granted sixty years ago. The difference is, however, only one of degree. There would certainly be a rise in the price of food and raw material unless the Colonies could send in supplies in sufficient quantities and at similar prices to those now obtained from foreign countries. Now the main contention of the Colonial representatives at the last Conference was that they would be able to furnish these supplies. Sir Joseph Ward, Sir William Lyne, and others, contended that there would be no rise of price, and fully recognised the validity of the British objection to the adoption of any system which would involve a rise. With all deference to these high authorities, I may say that they seem to me to take far too sanguine a view. There are, indeed, vast undeveloped tracts in Canada and Australia. Moreover, the population of those countries is growing. It is perhaps permissible to look forward to some remote time when possibly the British Empire will supply all its own wants. But I would ask any one who considers this subject calmly, what prospect is there that within any reasonable time these Colonies with their aggregate population of some 11,000,000, will be able to supply the £160,000,000 worth of food and raw material now
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supplied by foreign countries for the use and consumption of the 44,000,000 inhabitants of these Islands? A long time must elapse before they will be able to do so, and in the meanwhile every one in this country will have to pay more for whatever food and raw material he now gets free of duty from foreign countries. As Mr. Lloyd-George very pertinently remarked at the Conference, a poor man cannot wait for cheap bread.
My Lords, I feel the difficulty of discussing this subject fully without running the risk of using language which may seem to show a want of sympathy for the Colonies. I trust that no words will inadvertently escape my lips which will be capable of any such construction. But, after all, the subject in its commercial and economic aspects is a business matter, and must be discussed on businesslike principles. Mr. Deakin said at the Conference that any arrangement which can be made must be to the mutual advantage of both parties. The advantage to the Colonies in all the proposals which have so far been discussed is evident enough, but we have also to inquire what advantage would be derived by the inhabitants of these Islands. I must confess, that so far I altogether fail to see the advantage. Bear in mind that there is no question of free trade within the Empire. It may readily be admitted that the idea of the 400,000,000 subjects of the King of England exchanging freely their products and manufactures is not merely seductive, it is grand and statesmanlike, but it is admitted on all sides that there is not the smallest prospect of this system being adopted, and by none has the impossibility been admitted more fully than by that eminent statesman, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, who, as I gather from his public utterances, is a strong free trader in principle. Moreover, a few months ago, Mr. Deakin was asked in the Australian Commonwealth House of Representatives whether he was prepared to advocate and support a scheme of Imperial free trade. His reply was very explicit—
"I am not prepared to advocate a scheme of Imperial free trade, and cannot believe that such a policy would be advantageous to the industrial interests of Australia."

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More than this, not only is there no prospect whatever of adopting a policy of free trade within the Empire, but it is abundantly clear that the Colonies have not the least intention of abandoning their protective system, or of making any concessions in the nature of preference which would be of real benefit to British trade. I do not, of course, in any degree criticise them for adopting this attitude; they must be the judge of what is best in their own interests. Moreover, I am not concerned to show that the system of free trade can be adopted by all countries under all circumstances. All I maintain is that it is a system adapted to the peculiar conditions which prevail in this country.
When, in the course of the discussions of the Conference, Mr. Lloyd-George said that preference or no preference was the question recently placed before the Australian electorate, Mr. Deakin, at once challenged the statement. He said that the logical order was protection first and preferential trade afterwards. It is perfectly true that the Colonies have already given what appear to be certain advantages to British trade, and they would perhaps be willing to accord others. But on closer examination it is found that the advantages so far accorded are of little real value, and I cannot help thinking that the future will be like the past. Consider what occurred in the case of the British woollen industry. The concessions made to that industry under the Canadian tariff of 1900 were certainly advantageous to British trade. The result was that British woollens were able to compete successfully with the home-made manufactures. The Canadian woollen manufacturers, when once they became alive to this fact, at once protested, with the result that the duty on British woollens was raised.
Mr. Logan, a Liberal Member of Parliament, and a woollen manufacturer of Nova Scotia, expressed himself on this subject in the following very explicit terms:—
"'Made in Canada' should be the watchword of the people of Canada. Hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House are great Chamber-lainites. They are always shouting in favour of Mr. Chamberlain. Yet the very first principle enunciated by Mr. Chamberlain is that this country should lower its tariff on things which
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are peculiarly British. They know that if to-morrow Mr. Chamberlain were returned to power and he should ask the people of Canada to lower the duty on woollens which are manufactured in England, they would cry their hearts out before they would allow such a lowering to take place. If Mr. Chamberlain's policy means the destruction of Canadian industries for the benefit of British industries, I am opposed to that policy."
I confess, my Lords, that I admire these Canadian protectionists. There is no ambiguity in their language. They let us know exactly what they mean, and what they want. They remind me of Prior's well-known couplet—
"Euphemia serves to grace my measure.
But Chloe is my real flame."
Preferential treatment to Great Britain occasionally serves to grace the measure of the Colonists, but their real flame, to whom they adhere with unswerving fidelity, is protection—ultra protection—to native industries.
I invite those who think that an effective preference can be given in Canada to British manufactures to study the proceedings of the Tariff Commission which travelled about Canada to examine into this question about a year ago. Everywhere there was a demand for protection against the British manufacturer. At Three Rivers, on the north shore of the St. Lawrence, protests were made against the Glasgow manufacturers of cast iron water-pipes dumping their manufactures into Canada. In the neighbourhood of St. Hyacinthe, near Quebec, higher duties were demanded on felt and straw hats as a protection against the manufacturers of Stockport, Denton, and Luton. In New Brunswick, the owners of granite quarries, who, I believe, are mostly Scotsmen, asked for a curtailment of the British preference on tombstones, in order to be protected against their fellow-countrymen of Aberdeen, who, it appears, engage in a profitable, if somewhat lugubrious trade in tombstones; and so it was elsewhere.
Let me now quote a voice from the Antipodes. Sir William Lyne said—
"If I can make the tariff prohibitive, I shall be glad. Importers are parasites on the trade of the Commonwealth."
Moreover, public opinion, both in Canada, New Zealand and elsewhere, speaks with

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the same voice. The Toronto Globe recently said—
"We may as well admit that British manufacturers want a market, and that Canadian manufacturers will not let them have one in the Dominion."
And the Evening Post, a New Zealand paper, said—
"On our part there is no intention whatever of sacrificing any of our own industries in pursuit of the idea of Colonial Preference."
It would be possible to multiply statements of this description. In fact, so far as we now know, the case remains very much in the same condition as when, twelve years ago, Mr. Chamberlain used the following words—
"The proposal of the Colonies requires that we should abandon our system in favour of theirs, and this is, in effect, that while the Colonies should be left absolutely free to impose what protective duties they please, both on foreign countries and on British commerce, they should be required to make a small discrimination in favour of British trade, in return for which we are expected to change our whole system and impose duties on food and raw material. Well, I express again my own opinion when I say that there is not the slightest chance that in any reasonable time this country, or the Parliament of this country, should adopt so one-sided an agreement. The foreign trade of this country is so large, and the foreign trade of the Colonies is comparatively so small, that the smallest preference given to us upon that foreign trade by the Colonies would make so trifling a difference that I do not think the working-classes of this country would consent to make a revolutionary change for what they would think to be an infinitesimal gain."
If I am not detaining your Lordships too long, there is yet one further point to which I wish to allude. Nothing is more remarkable than the little attention which has been paid to India in the course of these discussions. Yet the subject is one of vital importance. Out of the £87,000,000 worth of manufactured goods which annually leave this country for British possessions, no less than £41,000,000 go to India. Now the Indian Government, in a despatch addressed to the Secretary of State during the time when my noble friend, Lord Curzon, was Viceroy, stated in very clear terms that India prospered under the present free trade system, and deprecated a change. Sir James Mackay, the representative of the Indian Government at the recent Conference, said—
"There is no sign that the prosperity of India is insecure, nor is any important trade
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or industry closely menaced by the restrictive tariffs of foreign countries. It is a fact of no small importance that the purchasing power of India in British markets and her ability to discharge her sterling obligations are wholly dependent on her trade with foreign countries."
These sterling obligations, which I may remind your Lordships are almost exclusively held in this country, amount to the interest on no less than £132,000,000 sterling.
Moreover, Sir James Mackay drew attention to another very important point. Your Lordships will remember the history of the cotton duties in India. They were abolished in 1882, and I may say that, as I was Financial Member of the Governor-General's Council at that time, I well remember, and I think the noble Marquess opposite, who was then Viceroy of India (the Marquess of Ripon) would bear me out in my statement, that in abolishing those duties, the Government was not only influenced by the advantages which would accrue to India from the adoption of a free trade system, but also by the very great desirability of putting a stop to an acrimonious discussion in which British and Indian interests clashed or appeared to clash. Subsequently, as your Lordships are no doubt aware, in view of the fall of the rupee and the high military expenditure which was incurred, the duties were re-imposed, but their protective character was nullified by the imposition of an excise duty on Indian manufactures equivalent to the customs duty on the imported articles. When once a preferential or protective system is adopted in this country I conceive it certain that an outcry will be raised in India that the excise duty should be abolished, and under the supposed circumstances I do not see how we can contend that a system which we have adopted ourselves may not also be adopted with advantage to India. Leaving aside the purely fiscal and economic arguments involved in the discussion of this question, I ask whether it is politically wise, more especially in the present state of India, to raise again a discussion of this nature? To me it would certainly appear to be in the highest degree imprudent.
My Lords, it is not difficult to anticipate the general nature of the answer which

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will be made by the Government to the proposals of the noble Duke. Neither should I have intervened in this debate had it not been that voices—perhaps somewhat beery voices—from Peckham and elsewhere have recently warned us that conceivably before long the question which we have been discussing will become, to a greater extent, within the arena of practical politics than is at present the case. Moreover—and here I will make a confession which may, perhaps, be received with some satisfaction by noble Lords behind me—I trust I may turn out to be a false prophet, but I hardly think that the Budget recently introduced into the other House is of a nature to postpone the advent of the time of which I speak. An eminent French philosopher once said that in order to succeed in life a man should act as if he were going to live for ever. The Prime Minister appears, I cannot but think, to be acting financially as if he thought that a Government in sympathy with free trade would last for ever, and this would appear to be rather a sanguine forecast.
In a debate which recently took place in another place on the subject of tariff reform, Mr. Balfour made a speech which, to a certain limited extent, I read with pleasure. He based the necessity of a fiscal change not on the protectionist arguments which are so frequently used, but on the necessity of increasing the revenue, a principle to which free traders do not object, although they look with some anxiety as to the manner in which the principle is applied. But he added that, in reforming the fiscal system, he hoped an opportunity would arise of making arrangements with the Colonies which would be a great source of strength to the Empire. I submit, with all deference to Mr. Balfour's high authority, that the accrual of any greater strength by the adoption of a preferential system is more than questionable. Apart from the very great economic objections to preferential treatment, I deprecate any attempt to commercialise patriotism, or to assess the loyalty of the Colonies in the schedule of a Tariff Act. We are now united by community of race, by community of language, by the traditions of the past, and by what is, perhaps, the
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mightiest tie of all—a common Sovereign. I say that these bonds of union suffice. Let us leave well alone. Mr. Chamberlain, in a speech which was quoted by the late Prime Minister at the first sitting of the Colonial Conference, warned us against forging any link with the Colonies which would be galling in its incidence. I cannot but think that preferential treatment would soon prove galling to one or other side, and very probably to both.
VISCOUNT RIDLEY: My Lords, the noble Earl on the Cross Benches (Lord Cromer) speaks on matters of Imperial import with an authority which is very great in the councils of this Empire, and if I venture, on certain points, to criticise the observations he has just addressed to your Lordships, I hope he will understand that I do so with the greatest respect for his authority. The noble Earl stated that he desired, in any observations he had to make with reference to the Colonial question, to say nothing that could be in any way disrespectful to the Colonies, but I am not quite sure that his excursion into the Australian tariff was altogether in consonance with the desire. I am not quite certain that his views upon the Australian tariff would be altogether agreed to by those in Australia who framed that tariff, but of this I am certain—that if the noble Earl would pay the same attention to the tariffs of the United States and of Germany he would find even more minute classification, which has been eminently successful in promoting the trade of those countries.
The noble Earl made no allusion to the fact that, under the Australian tariff, a very large proportion of the goods exported from this country to Australia are admitted free—something, I think, like one-third. Therefore, what does not apear in the Australian tariff is a matter of considerable importance. Not only is it worth while in this connection to examine the tariffs of scientific countries, but if he examined the tariff even of an unscientific country—the Customs tariff of the United Kingdom—the noble Earl would find there equal material for laughter and criticism. The noble Earl is so full of the difficulties

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and dangers of making a tariff that in the course of his speech he utterly failed to recognise the difficulties and dangers into which we are drifting at the present moment, and by calling attention to which the noble Duke has performed a public service.
Let me dwell for a moment on the previous history of this question. The noble Earl made a great point of the fact that preferences had existed and been abolished, but I think he forgot to mention that they were abolished under totally different conditions. The preferences were forced upon the Colonies by the Mother Country, not coming as part of a mutual bargain, as they do in this case; yet when they were abolished they were abolished in the teeth of violent protests from the Colonies from whom that preference was taken. Moreover, they were not abolished from any inherent objection to them, for Mr. Gladstone himself stated that the preferences were of considerable value. He said—
"In 1843 I pleaded strongly for the admission of all the Colonies to the privilege (of preference) granted to Canada."
They were abolished, as a matter of fact, in order to make our duties symmetrical, and for a long period they have remained abolished.
Your Lordships are familiar with the steps by which this question has again come before the country. There was the denunciation of the Belgian and German treaties. Then there was the repeated demand of the Colonies that preference should be given, the actual giving of preference by the Colonies themselves, and then the Colonial Conference of last year. It is important to observe that on that occasion the Government really stood upon two legs. The Government, first of all, said, through the mouth of one of their spokesmen, that they were most sympathetic with the Colonies and most anxious to meet them in every possible way, but that they had to consider the poor people of their own country and could not interfere with the tariff for fear of making their burden heavier. The Colonial Ministers then said; "We do not ask you to do anything that would increase the burden upon the poor people
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of whom you speak. Can you not give us a preference upon articles on which you already have a duty, such as sugar, tobacco, and wine?" The Government then took the line that they were unable to consider the policy of treating the Colonies separately from other countries.
What I feel it is important for this House to know is what the Government's policy is going to be as regards the development of trade with the Colonies. They have admitted at the Colonial Conference that the preferences were of value; they have admitted, through the mouth of many of their spokesmen, that they are proud of our Empire and anxious to promote its well-being; and they ended the Conference with various suggestions as regards an all-red route and other schemes for closer ties with the Colonies, of which we have heard nothing since. The policy of mere sympathy may be a very valuable one; the attitude of the Government may be perfectly correct; but are they aware of the result of their policy? And if they are aware of it, why do they not tell the country? The result is an entirely new departure in the treaty-making powers of the Empire and the taking away of important trade privileges from large sections of the people of this country. The noble Duke referred in his speech to various communications between the Foreign Office and the Canadian Minister for Marine and Fisheries. Two despatches on this subject were quoted by the Canadian Minister in the Dominion House of Commons on 3rd March this year. One was a despatch written by the noble Marquess, Lord Ripon, in June, 1895, which laid down the basis of negotiations between the Colonies and other countries. It stated that—
"The negotiations then being between Her Majesty and the Sovereign of the foreign State must be conducted by Her Majesty's representative at the Court of the foreign Power, who would keep Her Majesty's Government informed of the progress of the discussion and seek instructions from them as necessity arose."
The other despatch is from the British Government to the Canadian Minister, dated 4th July, 1907. It lays down a totally different principle, and asserts that—
"The selection of the negotiator is principally a matter of convenience, and in the

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present circumstances it will obviously be more practical that the negotiations should be left to Sir Wilfrid Laurier and to the Canadian Minister of Finance, or the Canadian Ministers, who will doubtless keep you informed of their progress."
In dealing with matters of treaty-making I should desire to treat them with the greatest circumspection, and not say anything which could embarrass the relations of His Majesty's Government with the Colonies or any foreign Power. I only desire to say that the wording of this despatch is indicative of a totally different policy. It indicates that certain large powers are being granted to Canadian Ministers, as regards their dealings with foreign countries, which have not hitherto been enjoyed by them. I do not say whether this is right or wrong, but it seems to me to mark a great revolution in the policy of the Empire, a revolution effected silently, without the knowledge of the bulk of the people of this country, and without any Papers being presented to the British Parliament on the subject.
I venture to hope that the noble Earl the Secretary of State for the Colonies may be able to give some statement as to the views of the Government upon it, and also lay whatever Papers it may be possible for him to present to Parliament. It is important more from what it may mean in the future than from what it means in this particular instance. If it is possible for the Governments of His Majesty's Dominions beyond the seas to make these commercial treaties with foreign nations, involving concessions which are in the end prejudicial to British trade, it is highly important that those negotiations should be conducted with the greatest care, and that the Ministers concerned should be kept fully informed as to the exact effect they will have on the industries concerned. For what has been the effect of this convention between Canada and France? The noble Duke has dealt fully with the matter. He has pointed out that the effect has been to reduce considerably the value of the British preference. The Minister for Customs in Canada, speaking in the Canadian House of Commons, said—
"My own judgment is that, taken in the gross, the effect of the French treaty will be to reduce the British preference from 33⅓ per cent. to 23⅓ per cent,"
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a reduction of.10 per cent.; and upon many manufactures the difference between the two tariffs is only 2½ per cent. in favour of Great Britain. The tariff on embroidery and lace under the preferential tariff is 25 per cent.; under the French treaty tariff it is 27 per cent. The tariff upon ribbons under the preferential tariff is 22½ per cent.; under the French treaty tariff it is 25 per cent. On silk manufactures it is 30 per cent. under the preferential tariff, as against 33 per cent. under the French treaty tariff. The trade in all these lines of goods, which is of considerable importance to this country, and in which we have serious competition, has practically been annihilated by this treaty made with France.
So far as it is possible to judge from the general tendency, the Colonies are anxious, and properly anxious, to develop trade with the Mother Country, but the Canadian treaty shows that if we are not prepared to meet them with concession for concession, they may be driven, in their desire to increase their trade, to concessions that will minimise and may eventually destroy the preference which they give to us, and the value of which is admitted to the full by His Majesty's Government. Not only is it the fact that by this treaty the value of the preference is largely reduced. There is much more. As the noble Duke has pointed out, immediately and at once, under the operations of the most-favoured-nation clause, twenty other countries are ipso facto admitted to every benefit which France enjoys by means of the treaty. Having regard to the complications that may arise from the most-favoured-nation treaties and the development of the policy of Colonial treaty making, we may, eventually, lose all the advantage of preference we have enjoyed. This, so far as I can judge, is simply because His Majesty's Government banged, barred, and bolted the door in the faces of the Colonial Premiers at the Colonial Conference. I think it is important that when His Majesty's Government take a deliberate step of that kind, they should present the country with the fullest information as to the results. We have great competition with Switzerland in hosiery and lace, with Austria in the export of ready-made clothing, and with Japan and other

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countries in the manufacture of silk, and in each of these industries the English manufacturer has come to depend on a valuable preference against his competitors in the markets of Canada. That preference has now been reduced practically to a minimum. Is it wonderful if one is disposed to feel that His Majesty's Ministers, when they sympathise with the Colonies in their aspirations, are only doing lip service to the idea, especially when we find that in no single instance do they attempt to carry out those commercial relations with the Colonies which they admit to be of advantage to this country?
All over the world nations are tumbling over each other in the endeavour to obtain a share in the preference we have up to this time derived in Canadian trade. Great forces are at work in the British Empire which will not be controlled. There is a growing feeling of nationality in the Colonies, a desire to be treated as nations in the councils of the world; on the other hand, with the necessity for large imports, there is a desire to have them from the Mother Country. Those two forces are at work within the British Empire, and His Majesty's Government allow matters to drift because they will not take the only action which will meet the position. It is difficult to speak upon this question without introducing party feeling into it, but I most sincerely desire not to do so. This is a matter of too great importance. His Majesty's Government may be right or they may be wrong in the line they are taking, but whatever the results of their refusal of preference to the Colonies may be, the constitutional result in the British Empire may be fraught with untold consequences. I venture to hope that the noble Earl will be able to give some information as to the views of His Majesty's Government of what has happened in the affairs to which the noble Duke has called attention.
VISCOUNT WOLVERHAMPTON: My Lords, I have been struck, in the course of this debate, with the two powerful speeches which have been made by the noble Duke who initiated this discussion and by the noble Viscount who has just supported his views. They confined
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their remarks to two of the great issues involved. First, the noble Duke dealt entirely with the question of Colonial preference; the noble Viscount dealt with a constitutional question outside that of preference altogether, and proceeded to censure the Government in the conduct of their diplomatic relations. It fell to my lot a few years ago to take part in the settlement of the financial relations between this country and India, and I think that one of the most important questions arising in considering inter-colonial relations and alteration of relations between this country and Colonial dominions beyond the seas is the effect upon the financial position of India.
Perhaps the House will allow me to recall what is the position of India in this matter, and state how cautiously both branches of the Legislature ought to proceed in dealing with this question. It is impossible to alter the policy of this country with reference to its Colonies and foreign relations and exclude India altogether from consideration. The noble Duke spoke of the large amount of trade that we do with India. India buys from the United Kingdom and Colonies 50¼ millions of the 68¾ millions which she imports. The exports from India are a much more important question. The entire exports of India amount to over £106,000,000, of which £39,000,000 go to this, country and its Colonies, the Colonial trade being very small. Any attempt at preferential, or discriminatory, or retaliatory duties must have an important bearing on Indian trade, and the greatest caution is necessary in the consideration of the matter.
The position of India is based on free trade. It is based upon free trade practically by the direction and control of the Parliament of this country. Lord Cromer alluded to the happy time when he was enabled to advise the Viceroy and the Viceroy's Council to dispense with the cotton duties and the other duties in 1882; but a great crisis afterwards arose in Indian finance, and ten years later the present system of Indian relationship with finance was definitely settled. The Indian tariff is a revenue tariff and not in any way a protective tariff. It is

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based on free trade. There is a general duty of 5 per cent., with the exception of coal and railway material. On cotton goods there is a duty of 3½ per cent., with a corresponding excise duty upon the manufactures of India. In the main, India depends upon its agriculture and the cheap production of food and of other commodities chiefly sold to foreign nations. India is a debtor country. Therefore its exports must always be larger than its imports. The overwhelming proportion of the Indian export trade is not with the United Kingdom. We sell to India about two-thirds of what it imports; and we take about one-fourth of what it exports. Therefore, any diminution of the trade of India with her foreign customers would lessen her power of buying English products and of meeting her obligations to her English creditors. The capital upon which India has constructed her railways and other great works has been in the main found by Englishmen. I think the noble Earl on the cross benches put the amount of English capital in India at £130,000,000.
LORD CROMER: One hundred and thirty-two millions, exclusive of the Rupee Loans.
VISCOUNT WOLVERHAMPTON: I think our claim upon India is even larger than that. As I have said, three-quarters of the export trade of India is not with us but with foreign nations; and therefore any action which would affect that foreign trade would be attended with risk to the financial relations between this country and India. I should like to call the attention of the House to the procedure which was initiated by Lord George Hamilton in dealing with this question. When the question of tariff reform was first raised by Mr. Chamberlain, Lord George Hamilton, then Secretary of State for India, sent a despatch to the Government of India asking for their views as to how the proposed preferential, discriminatory, or retaliatory duties would affect Indian trade and finance, and what was the opinion of the Council of the Government of India upon it. That called forth from Lord Curzon and his colleagues a despatch of singular
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ability, and one worthy of Lord Curzon's name and of his experience and preeminent administrative ability. I should like to read a word or two from that despatch. It says—
"In this connection we desire to emphasise with all the weight possible, the argument elaborated in the paragraph of the Financial Minister. The factor there stated is peculiar to India and differentiates her case from that of any other member of the Empire. India is a debtor country."
The Report then proceeded—
"Her net obligations are approximately 16 millions sterling per annum. The major part of this great charge is payable in a currency different from that in which her revenues are collected. The only means consistent with national solvency of discharging this obligation lies in the preservation of an equivalent excess of exports over imports—in other words, in maintaining a sufficiently favourable balance of trade. It is therefore a vital object with us to stimulate our exports by every means in our power, to seek new markets and develop old ones, and to remove all obstacles which stand in the way of growing external demand. If then, notwithstanding the safeguards which we possess, we should unhappily be drawn into tariff wars with powerful countries, it cannot be doubted that, whichever way the ultimate victory might incline, our export trade would for the time being be injuriously affected. Such a result would be fraught with the gravest consequences. By ten years of effort, sacrifice, and perseverance we have slowly built up a fair measure of public confidence in the stability of our finance. Exchange has been steadied, our credit is good and improving, our rupee securities are rising in relative value in the London market, and we have created the nucleus of a reserve of gold. But if by a change of fiscal policy the balance of trade in our favour should dwindle or disappear, the whole work of ten years would be sacrificed; and the setback to our trade, our revenues, and our credit would immensely outweigh any benefits that we might reasonably expect from the most unconditional surrender of our opponents in the war of tariffs. We cannot sufficiently impress this danger on your attention. Even if the chances of success were greater than we conceive them to be, we hold that the certain cost of the struggle and the severe penalties of defeat would be too heavy a price to pay."
In another part of the Report the Government of India declare—
"If the United Kingdom should eventually resolve to adopt a policy of preferential tariffs or of retaliation, it is conceivable that the device of attacking her through her chief dependency might receive further development at the hands of foreign countries. In that event, if India adheres to her former principle of refusing to differentiate between the imports of different countries, she may suffer by being

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made the battlefield of conflicting interests with which she has no direct concern."
That is the question which I desire to place before your Lordships—the supreme interest that India has, as a great debtor country, in the maintenance of free trade, and the fact that any impairing of her financial power would re-act upon a large section of the inhabitants of this country and also upon her commercial relationships elsewhere.
After all, this question of Colonial preference, if you reduce it to pounds, shillings, and pence, is a very small matter. What can it amount to so long as the Colonies are firmly determined not to admit British manufactures in competition with their own? I would also point out the great danger, in the present state of public opinion in India, of any approach to tampering with its financial position, which could be twisted, and possibly would be twisted, into an attack upon the British Government in reference to the Government of India. This question of the interests of India demands the most careful consideration of this country before we sanction in any way, directly or indirectly, any interference with our sound and safe fiscal policy.
VISCOUNT MILNER: My Lords, after the weighty and eloquent speeches on the grave matter which is the subject of this debate from the noble Earl who sits in front of me and the noble Viscount who has just addressed the House, my courage might well fail me in attempting the task of replying if it were not that this is a matter to which, for various reasons, I have been forced to give years of consideration. Every year that passes confirms me more strongly in views the very opposite of those in which I have been brought up, and the very opposite of the views which have been so eloquently put before the House by the noble Lords to whom I have referred. I am sure that this House, which has always tolerated the unaffected expression of strong convictions, will sympathise with me in the very serious task which now lies before me. It is difficult to select from the arguments which have been addressed to your Lordships against the doctrines advocated by the noble Duke
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those which most require reply. I cannot possibly attempt to deal with them all. But I will seek to direct your attention for a short time to one or two points which seem to me to be of the greatest importance.
First of all, may I say a word on the subject of India? I think we are all agreed that in the consideration of this question the effect of any changes in our commercial policy upon India must be regarded as of the very highest importance. I am glad that emphasis has been laid upon this branch of the subject to-night, because, if I may criticise my own side, I should like to say that in the arguments of the advocates of preference insufficient attention has hitherto been given to the Indian part of the case. But I for one am unable to follow the argument that we are debarred from adopting a policy which we believe would be of great commercial benefit to the other portions of the Empire because of its reflex action upon India. We have had quoted to us the despatch from the Viceroy's Council in India under Lord Curzon, giving not, indeed, a negative to the proposal of preferential trade within the Empire, but certainly expressing grave misgivings as to the effect which preferential trade might have upon India.
I did not come here prepared for this particular point, but my memory must entirely fail me if I am mistaken in thinking that the gentleman who was at that time the Financial Member of Council in India—Sir Edward Law—took a different view upon this matter, and, indeed, is an advocate of preferential trade in the interest of India herself. Whatever may be the opinions which he held at that time, there is no doubt that that gentleman, the financial adviser to the Government of India—and a man who has been financial adviser to the Government of India certainly counts for something in a question of this kind—is at this day a strong advocate of preferential trade in the interests of India, inasmuch as he has just written the preface to a book on this subject, which discusses the whole question with remarkable freshness and ability, and which is from first to last one of the strongest pamphlets published in

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favour of preferential trade within the Empire. I mean "India and the Empire" by Mr. Webb.
VISCOUNT WOLVERHAMPTON: Sir Edward Law-presented a separate Minute, and Lord Curzon in the course of his despatch said he could not do better than emphasise these remarks of Sir Edward Law.
VISCOUNT MILNER: I have not had an opportunity of referring to Sir Edward Law's Minute, but the fact remains that Sir Edward Law must now be accounted, in view of his latest declarations on the subject, an advocate of the policy which the noble Lord has just criticised. So far I have failed to understand what is the injury which it is feared the introduction of preferential trade within the Empire is going to do to India. It has been pointed out to us that the export trade of India is of vast importance to her. Obviously, and it is of vast importance to us. But so far as her export trade to this country is concerned, that certainly is not going to be injured by an arrangement which will give her an advantage in our market over her foreign competitors. Are her exports to foreign countries to be injured? Why should they be? Do foreign countries at present buy of India for love of India? On the contrary, they impose heavy duties—in many cases exceedingly heavy duties—with the object of keeping Indian manufactures out of their markets. They only buy freely from India the things which they cannot dispense with—the raw materials which are absolutely essential to them for their own industries. And they will continue to buy them—they must continue to buy them—whatever policy India adopts.
The present system and position, under which foreign countries do all they can to keep out Indian manufactures—and we are powerless to do anything to assist India—is a most extraordinary one. Take the exports of jute. Foreign countries derive great quantities of unmanufactured jute from India, and they will continue to buy as much as ever they can get, whatever system of tariff may be adopted in this country, the
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Colonies, and India, because they need it for their factories which compete with us. They encourage the importation of raw jute from India, but they put heavy and prohibitive taxes upon the import of the manufactured article. What is the result? Indian jute is taken to foreign countries to be made up into the manufactured article, and that manufactured article is then imported into Great Britain to compete with our own manufactures, and is competing with them to our detriment.
Is there hot something most unnatural in an arrangement and system, under which foreign countries while excluding the manufactures of India buy from India the raw material of those manufactures, manufacture it themselves, and then import it into England to compete with our own manufactures of the same kind. Thus the profit of converting the raw material grown in one part of the Empire into finished goods to be consumed in another part is taken away from the workers of the Empire by the foreigner
My contention is that there are obvious respects in which India will benefit from the system of preferential trade, within the Empire, and that the fear that she will be damaged depends entirely upon the assumption that foreign Governments will try to strike at us through India—to punish us for adopting a principle in our own tariff legislation which they all adopt themselves. But I do not believe in the least in this bugbear that foreign nations are going to turn round and punish us for doing what they all do. No doubt they are very glad of a system under which they tax our imports as much as they please, and we never retaliate. But on what conceivable principle, either of equity or respect for the public opinion of the world, or for their own interest, are they going to adopt this policy of punishing us? And if they do, how are they going to carry it out? They already tax our goods in every case ill which they do not think they would be injuring themselves by doing so. It seems to me that we are excessively timorous if we think that as a nation, as an Empire, we are not in a position to take a course which is freely

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taken by our own Colonies and by almost every foreign country. I deprecate the assumption that foreign countries are so unreasonable that they are going to depart from the policy they have always hitherto pursued of using their tariffs for their own interests, and that they are going to punish themselves and cut their own throats in order to penalise us for doing what they all do.
Passing from India to the more general question of the effect of, mutual advantages in respect of tariffs upon the trade of different' parts of the Empire, I must protest most strongly against the. assumption which has been made by the noble Viscount who has just addressed us that because the Colonies are protectionist, and likely to remain protectionist, therefore the advantages we should derive from preference in their markets are never likely to be very considerable. That seems to me to be the root fallacy of all those who take a strong line opposed to preferential tariffs. Let me say at once that in my view of preferential trade I am unaffected by the extent to which our Colonies may adopt protection. I am unaffected by the hope or fear that a preferential system may lead to the general adoption of free trade throughout the Empire. I am somewhat doubtful of the advantages of such a general system of free trade, but we need not discuss that now. My whole case rests upon this contention, that, however much the Colonies protect their own manufactures—and, perhaps, even in consequence of that protection of their own manufactures—they are bound to be great importers, great buyers, and the difficulty which meets us on all sides of getting sufficient markets for our own exports makes it a matter of immense importance to us that we should be the first to supply, as far as we can supply, that vast quantity of imported goods, which the Colonies, however much they protect, are going to require.
My contention is that, however much these great and growing countries may protect industries in which they are specially interested, they will still be great buyers from the outside world, and the question is whether or not we are to be the principal sellers. They all wish us to be. They are all anxious to buy from
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us. I admit that the Colonies are keen about protecting their own industries, and I rather sympathise with them; but let them protect as much as they please, they are still going to be great importers. Canada, under a free trade or at any rate a Jess protective system, had seventy or ninety, million dollars worth of imports, today she has from 200 to 300 million dollars. Under a protective system the imports of the Colonies are growing just as the imports of protected Germany are growing. The idea that, the adoption of protection by a country is bound to reduce its import trade is exploded by the facts all round us.
Highly protected countries are continually increasing their, foreign trade. Granted that the Colonies are all protectionist, they remain great markets, and our point is that in those markets we now have an advantage which we are in danger of losing. It consists in the possession of a preference which we calculate will give us the lion's share in the purchases of those countries which are already of such great importance and which have such immense futures. As long as the Colonies, buy from us rather than from the foreigner the vast mass of the articles which they require, our point is gained. The danger which we run now is that we may no longer get the lion's share of these enormous purchases of the Colonies; that if we do nothing on our side to encourage preferential trade throughout the Empire the great advantage which we now enjoy, and which will be so much greater as time goes on and the trade of the Colonies develops, will gradually disappear. That is the danger with which we are confronted, the danger of losing the present great advantage, and the much greater future advantage, of being the principal suppliers of the great markets of the Colonies. The Colonies have taken the lead in this matter of introducing the system of preferential trade. They have done so from two motives. In the first place, there is the motive, freely and eloquently admitted by the late President of the Board of Trade, the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, when he said they had acted in this matter "in a spirit of comradeship and even of affection." That is perfectly true. Their spirit

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of comradeship and affection may not go so far as the sacrifice of their own interests. Why should we wish it? It is sufficient for us that, while safeguarding their own interests, they are anxious to give us the advantage in their own markets as against the foreigner, not as against their own producers. They will protect themselves first, but they are anxious that such goods as in their own interests they require to buy shall as far as possible be bought from other parts of the Empire rather than from foreign countries. I have said they are influenced by considerations of kinship and affection. They are also influenced, no doubt, by the hope that in taking this line they will hold out sufficient inducements to the Mother Country to follow in the same course.
It is perfectly evident, it has been emphasised by Colonial statesman after Colonial statesman, that the preference which they at present give, which cannot be described as inconsiderable, is less than the preference which they would be prepared to give if they were to meet with any corresponding return on the part of the Mother Country. Therefore we must not estimate the value of the preference merely by the position as it is, but by the position as it might be. But do not let any of us under-estimate the importance of the preference as it is. It is a preference which in the case of Canada converted a ten years fall in British trade from £7,000,000 to £5,000,000 into a ten years rise from £5,000,000 to £13,000,000. Surely that is not a small matter. It is a preference which in four years has increased our imports into New Zealand by £3,000,000, by 40 per cent., while at the same time the corresponding imports from foreign countries have hardly increased at all.
These New Zealand figures are of the greatest possible moment. Here is this relatively immense increase of £3,000,000 in the importation of British goods into a comparatively small country within four or five years as compared with hardly any increase in the importation of foreign goods. What had been the case during previous years? During the previous eight or ten years, although the imports into New Zealand generally were increasing, the foreign imports increased
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over 100 per cent., while the increase of our imports was less than 50 per cent. Preference has had the effect of entirely altering the proportionate increase of foreign imports and British imports into the growing market of New Zealand. The noble Earl who sits in front of me said he was not aware that New Zealand had made any reduction in the duties on British goods. If so, it strengthens my argument. The more protectionist New Zealand is the more do the figures of New Zealand trade illustrate my main point, the importance of our having the lion's share in the purchases of the Colonies, even though they are protectionist. The New Zealand figures entirely dispose of the argument that preference in the market of a protectionist country is of no value.
What fills me with alarm is the indubitable fact that without reciprocity we cannot permanently enjoy these advantages. Let there be no question about this. You may say, If the Colonies give us this preference from motives of affection, why should they withdraw it because we do not respond? I am perfectly certain they do not wish to withdraw it, but they may be unable to help themselves. I have pointed out that the Colonies are great importers for the purpose of their own development; they are great buyers, and, like all other buyers, they have to look after markets in which they can sell in order to pay for the great quantity of goods which they require to buy. They are in a world in which, rightly or wrongly, if any nation wishes to have a position of vantage in the markets of others the only way in which it can get it is by a system of mutual concession. The market in which the Colonies are most desirous to have a position of vantage is the great British market. But if they cannot get a position of vantage there they must look for it elsewhere; and in looking for it elsewhere they are confronted by the fact that, in order to obtain a position of vantage in foreign markets, they are obliged to make concessions upon their tariffs which reduces the value of the preference which they have given to the Mother Country.
What has just happened between Canada and France has been most clearly

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explained by the noble duke. There is, however, one further point about it to which I cannot help calling attention. Canada did not start with the desire to give up as much of the British preference as she was ultimately forced to' give up. The offer with which Canada went to France was that Prance should take Canada's intermediate tariff, which would have given France a considerable advantage as compared with other foreign nations importing into Canada while still leaving a substantial preference to Great Britain. But in the course of the negotiations Canada was forced from that position, and she was driven to make a large number of special rates, which reduced almost to vanishing point the distance between the tariff given to France and the tariff enjoyed by Great Britain on many articles. There you have the process actually going on under your eyes—a Colony anxious to keep a prerogative position in her markets for the Mother Country and yet driven from that position by the necessity of bargaining to secure her own requirements as an exporter. There can be no doubt whatever of the desire of the Colonies, first and foremost, to have a position of vantage in the British market. If it is to be denied them they must try and get it somewhere, and in the process of fighting for it they will be obliged to throw over first one item and then another in their tariffs which are at present favourable to Great Britain. That process has already begun.
Canada has been driven from her original position and has been obliged not only to give France much more than she wished to give, having regard to her desire to maintain the benefit which she had accorded to this country, but also, by the operation of the most-favoured-nation clause, to extend the concessions made to France to a number of other countries. One or two more treaties like the treaty between France and Canada will have the effect of destroying our preferential advantages in the Canadian market altogether. It will be said, perhaps, on behalf of the Government, "We admit all this. Perhaps we do not go as far as you do. We do not estimate as highly as you do the value of Colonial preference. But we allow that it has a certain value. But
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what are we to do? How do you expect us to help in this matter?"
My Lords, before I answer that, let me point out once more all that is involved in this issue. The present Chancellor of the Exchequer has put in language of much greater eloquence than I can command the importance of developing the trade of the Empire by mutual concessions. He said—
"In Great Britain we have the greatest produce market in the world. We are the greatest purchasers of produce raised and manufactured outside our boundaries. A very large proportion of this produce can very well be raised in the Colonies, and any reasonable and workable plan that would tend to increase the proportion of that produce that is bought by us from the Colonies and by the Colonies from us, and from each other, must necessarily increase the resources of the Empire as a whole. A considerable part of the surplus population of the United Kingdom which now goes to foreign lands in search of a livelihood might then find it to its profit to pitch its tent somewhere under the flag, and the Empire would gain in riches, material, and men. We agree with our colonial comrades that all this is worth concerted effort, even if that effort at the outset costs us something. The federation of free commonwealths is worth making some sacrifice for. One never knows when its strength may be essential to the great cause of human freedom, and that is priceless."
"Concerted effort"—"worth making some sacrifice for, even if it cost us something!" I will not ask what sacrifice are we making, because my firm conviction is that no sacrifice is required. But effort is required. What effort of any sort or kind has been made to preserve those great objects which are described in the passage which I have read, and which we see slipping from our grasp?
I suppose we shall be told that the only effort worth making, the only effort which could be productive of any great result, would be a tax upon food imported from foreign countries, from which tax food coming from the Colonies would be wholly or partially exempt. Now, I might take the point that a great deal can be done without imposing any fresh tax at all. I might point out that there was no answer given to the request addressed by the Colonial statesmen at the Conference to our Government to give Colonial producers some advantage in respect of the articles which we at present tax. But I prefer to face the matter squarely and to say

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that from my point of view the imposition of a 2s. a quarter duty on corn and corresponding low duties on other articles of food imported from foreign countries would be an extraordinarily low price to pay for a position of permanent vantage for British merchants and British workmen in supplying the needs of the other portions of the Empire, with all the enormous industrial future which in store for them.
If it is contended that such a duty would fall heavily on any particular class of the population, it is perfectly easy to meet that difficulty by the readjustment of our own existing taxes. As a nation we should lose nothing whatever by the imposition of such a tax. We should have so much more revenue, which we could use either for any purposes for which we required it, or for making equivalent reductions in other taxes. But as a nation we should gain the immense advantage of the enhanced trade which would ensue.
So much for what I may call the material, the economic point, whether we can afford to introduce taxes in this country which would enable us to give a preference to the Colonies and so retain those advantages which are slipping from us. But there is another point dwelt on with great force by the noble Earl which I may call the political and moral point. It is said that if we adopt a system of preferential trade throughout the Empire it will lead to perpetual disputes and ill-feeling, and that it will tend to separate us rather than to bind us together. I believe it is the universal experience of mankind that the profitable exchange of goods between one country and another is one of the influences most tending to amity between those countries. All history bears it out. The system we advocate is a sytsem which has for its principal object the increase of a mutually profitable interchange of goods between this country and the other dominions of the Crown. Why should the influence which increase of trade has always exercised be reversed in this particular instance? Will not the very fact of our having an increased interest in the trade of the Colonies and their having an increased interest in ours of itself
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tend to closer relationships, rather than to the reverse?
But, it may be said, we shall fight about the terms. No, we shall not fight about the terms, if we grasp the true principle of preference which I have, however feebly, tried to explain. There might be serious quarrels arising over a universal free-trade system within the Empire, If the nascent industries of any portion of the Empire were to find themselves crushed by dumping from other parts which were industrially more advanced, I can quite understand that that would lead to ill-feeling and to a disposition to rebel against the general system. But as long as every part of the Empire is allowed to exercise the greatest freedom in the formation of its tariff, in its own interest, and for the development of its own trade, how can it possibly lead to ill-feeling that in that trade which is left open for importation it should be dealing rather with other portions of the Empire than with foreign countries? Does that leave room for any cause of quarrel whatsoever? I fail entirely to understand how it can be contended that it would do so.
There is no doubt a possibility that pressure may be put from time to time upon Colonial Governments to protect their traders even more than they do at present against English manufactures, it would be regrettable if that were to take place. But even if that pressure was yielded to, it would not necessarily destroy the system of preference; indeed, it would not necessarily even impair it, because they can do what Australia has done, and what I think has been very unreasonably criticised. If they want to protect their own goods more against English competition they can raise their duties. It would be very unfortunate, but as long as, whatever duties they impose, they still differentiate between us and the foreigner, we shall still retain the advantage on which I have so strongly insisted—the advantage of a preferential position in what must be great markets, whatever the degree of protection.
Do not let us forget one other point, which has not been referred to at all in this discussion, namely, that the interest which we have in this matter is

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not only the development of our own trade, it is also the development of the trade of the Colonies. If we are cosmopolitans it does not matter whether we deal more with foreign countries or with our own Colonies. But if the Empire is to be regarded in any sense as a body politic, then surely next to the development of our own trade in this country it is of importance to us to develop the trade of our Colonies, and it should be reckoned a matter of the greatest interest to us to deal with them rather than with foreign nations. I do not, of course, undervalue our foreign trade, nor need it be at all injuriously affected by increase of trade with the Colonies. But what I wish to point out is that an increase of our trade with the Colonies is of greater value than an equal increase of our trade with foreign countries. Trade benefits both parties, and if it is trade within the Empire, the Empire enjoys a double benefit—the benefit to us and the benefit to those with whom we trade, whereas in trade outside our borders there is only one benefit. I should deeply regret if in anything I have said I seemed to overlook the importance of this aspect of the matter—the great importance of a system of preferential trade within the Empire from the point of view of developing those great new countries under the British Crown, rather than developing countries whose wealth does not add, as their wealth does, to the strength of the Empire as a whole.
Moved, "That the debate be adjourned."—(Lord Avebury.)
On Question, debate adjourned till to-morrow, the debate to have precedence of other business.

STATUTE LAW REVISION BILL [H.L.]
Read 2a (according to order). Then it was moved to resolve, That it is desirable that the said Bill be referred to the Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament to which the Companies (Consolidation) Bill [H.L.] and the Post Office Consolidation Bill [H.L.] are to be referred (The Lord Chancellor); agreed to: Ordered that a Message be sent to the Commons to communicate this Resolution and desire their concurrence.
COUNTY COURTS BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a (according to order). Amendments (Privilege) made; Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

IMPORTATION OF PLUMAGE PROHIBITION BILL [H.L.]
The Lords following were named of the Select Committee, viz.—

D. Bedford.

L. O'Hagan.

D. Rutland.

L. Avebury.

M. Bristol.

The Committee to appoint their own chairman.
House adjourned at half-past Seven o'clock, till To-morrow half-past Ten o'clock.