Sitting of 28 May 1908

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

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
Skegness Urban District Council Bill [Lords].—Read the third time, and passed, with Amendments.
Marriages Provisional Order Bill.—"To confirm a Provisional Order made by one of His Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State under The Provisional Order (Marriages) Act, 1905," presented by Mr. Herbert Samuel; read the first time; to be referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 251.]
Electric Lighting Provisional Orders (No. 2) Bill.—Reported, without Amendment [Provisional Orders confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.
Bill to be read the third time to-morrow.
Land Drainage Provisional Order Bill.—Reported, without Amendment [Provisional Order confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.
Bill to be read the third time to-morrow.
Metropolitan Commons Provisional Order Bill.—Reported, without Amendment [Provisional Order confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.
Bill to be read the third time to-morrow.
London County Council (Money) Bill; Great Western Railway Bill [Lords]; Swansea Valley Gas Bill [Lords].—Reported, with Amendments; Reports to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

PRIVATE BILLS (GROUP G.).
Mr. ARTHUR STANLEYreported from the Committee on Group G. of Private Bills; That, for the convenience of parties, the Committee had adjourned
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till Tuesday next, at Eleven of the clock.
Report to lie upon the Table.

PETITIONS.
  CHILDREN BILL.
  Petition from Brighton, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  COAL MINES (EIGHT HOURS) (No. 2) BILL.
  Petitions in favour: From Billinge; Edge Green; Golborne; Haydock; Park Lane; and West Bromwich; to lie upon the Table.
  EDUCATION (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petition from Shettleston, for alteration; to lie upon the Table.

  LICENSING BILL.
  Petitions against: From North Hunts; and New Alresford; to lie upon the Table.
  Eight Petitions from Blaenavon, for alteration; to lie upon the Table.
  Petitions in favour: From Aberfeldy; Ashton in Makerfield; Bedminster; Birmingham (three); Bridgend; Brighouse; Chadwell Heath; Dalkeith; Derby (twenty-six); Earlestown; Forres; Glanvilles Wootton (two); Glasgow; Harringay; Haydock; Kingswood; Kirkintilloch (two); Loanhead; Nantyglo; Shaftesbury; Sheffield; Stockton and Thornsby; Stratford; Westminster; and Weston-super-Mare; to lie upon the Table.

  LIQUOR TRAFFIC (LOCAL OPTION) (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petition from Lanark, against; to lie upon the Table.
  Petitions in favour: From Glasgow (two); Grand Division of Scotland of the Order of the Sons of Temperance Friendly Society; Kilmarnock (two); and Morningside; to lie upon the Table.

  PUBLIC HEALTH OFFICERS BILL.
  Petition from Westminster, against; to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  HISTORICAL MANUSCRIPTS (ROYAL COMMISSION).
  Copy presented, of Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Marquess of Ormonde, K.P., preserved at Kilkenny Castle. New Series. Volume 5 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  PATENTS, DESIGNS, AND TRADE MARKS.
  Copy presented, of Twenty-fifth Report of the Comptroller-General of Patents, Designs, and Trade Marks, with Appendices, for the year 1907 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 156.]
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CIRCULATED WITH THE VOTES.

  School of Military Engineering, Chatham—Case of J. W. Davidson.
  MR. E. H. LAMB: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that John William Davidson, who served for over fifty years as a civilian clerk in the School of Military Engineering, Chatham, and who is now in his sixty-eighth year, has been discharged without any pension, although he has no means of his own with which to support himself, on the grounds that his fifty years service was merely a temporary engagement, and that he had no Civil Service certificate; and, if so, whether Mr. Davidson, having entered the service of Honourable East India Company in 1855, is entitled to superannuation under The Government of India Act, 1858; is he aware that he had served twelve years before any intimation was given him that his appointment was temporary; and further, that the War Office have acknowledged that his failure to receive a certificate was due to an inadvertence on their own part; and, if so, what steps will now be taken to remedy the injustice that he appears to have suffered.
  (Answered by Mr. Hobhouse.) Mr. Davidson was discharged with a gratuity of £188 13s., but without a pension, because the Treasury after repeated consideration was satisfied that he was not
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  entitled to one. The Treasury is not in possession of any evidence showing that Mr. Davidson has any claim under the Government of India Act, 1858, but any inquiry on that point should be addressed to the India Office. I do not know whether he had served twelve years before any intimation was conveyed to him that his appointment was temporary, but no explicit assurance was at any time given to him that he would be entitled to a pension, and any erroneous impression which he may have been led to form on the point was corrected as long ago as 1868. I cannot admit that the omission to obtain for Mr. Davidson a Civil Service certificate or other formal evidence of a title to pension was due to inadvertence on the part of the War Department, seeing that, so recently as 1895, an increase of salary was applied for and granted to him on the express ground that he was not entitled to pension.

  Yeomanry and Volunteer Officers.
  COLONEL IVOR PHILIPPS: To ask the Secretary of State for War if he will state how it is proposed to deal with officers of the old Yeomanry and Volunteers who, though willing to join the new Territorial Force, are in excess of the strength of the squadrons or companies administered by their own County Association, though not in excess of regiment or battalion strength.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) It is not proposed to refuse any such offer from officers of the Yeomanry and Volunteers who are willing to join their new unit of the Territorial Force subject to the total establishment of the regiment or battalion not being exceeded. The actual posting of such officers for duty with squadrons or companies must be a matter for the local military authorities to decide, on the recommendation of the commanding officer and according to local conditions.

  Bexhill Postal Wage Scale.
  MR. COURTHOPE: To ask the Postmaster-General whether the staff at Bexhill have been informed by the postmaster of Hastings that they are in Class 5, with a maximum of 40s.

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  per week; whether he will state the figures of the cost of living and the units of work upon which this classification was based; and whether he will state the reason of the disparity of a maximum salary of 40s. at Bexhill and a maximum of 52s. at Hastings.
  (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) Bexhill-on-Sea has been placed provisionally in Class 5 for the purpose of the scales of pay of the indoor force. Its final position in the new classification is now being considered.

  Franco-Canadian Treaties.
  EARL WINTERTON: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will lay upon the Table of the House copies of the letters patent appointing plenipotentiaries for the negotiation of the Franco-Canadian Treaties of 1893 and 1907 respectively.
  (Answered by Secretary Sir Edward Grey.) The plenipotentiaries for the conclusion of the Commercial Convention between France and Canada of 19th September, 1907, were Sir Francis Bertie, His Majesty's Ambassador at Paris, the Hon. W. S. Fielding, and the Hon. L. P. Brodeur. They were not appointed by letters patent, but were furnished with full powers under the Royal Sign Manual similar, mutatis mutandis, to those furnished to the late Marquess of Dufferin and Ava and to Sir Charles Tupper in 1893. It is not usual to lay instruments of this kind before Parliament, but I will put copies in the Library if desired.

  Charleville Evicted Tenants.
  MR. LUNDON: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he can say whether the Estates Commissioners have sent inspectors to interview Mr. Robert Sanders, of Charleville, County Cork, with a view to the restoration to their evicted farms of Messrs. M'Grath and Barry on the Cooper estate, Knocklong, County Limerick, and of Messrs. Harty, Burke, and Ryan, on the Erasmus Smyth estate, Newpallas, County Limerick, and, if so, with what results; and has Mr. Sanders himself, in his capacity of agent on both
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  estates, taken any steps to bring about a happier state of affairs.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Estates Commissioners' inspector has had interviews with the agent of this estate and the representative of the town tenants, with the object of bringing about an arrangement for the purchase by these tenants of their plots. The Commissioners have only now received the inspector's report on the matter, and will consider it as soon as possible. In the meantime details cannot be given.

  Colonel Gasgoine's Kilfinane Estate.
  MR. LUNDON: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland can he say whether the Estates Commissioners have lately sent an inspector, a Mr. Howard, to Kilfinane, County Limerick, to negotiate a sale and purchase as between Colonel Gascoigne and his town tenants; has Mr. Howard interviewed the agent, Mr. Cecil Vandeleur, and the representatives of the tenants, and, if so, with what results; and are arrangements concluded between Colonel Gascoigne and the rural tenants on the property.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Estates Commissioners have decided that the evicted tenants named in the Question are suitable to work land, and their cases have been referred to an inspector with the object of providing them with their former or other holdings if possible. The inspector has not yet reported the result.

  British Imports.
  SIR EDWIN CORNWALL: To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he can give details of the kinds and descriptions of the wholly manufactured articles which were imported into this country in a state ready for consumption in the years 1906 and 1907.
  (Answered by Mr. Churchill.) The following statement gives the information asked for by my hon. friend—
  List showing as far as possible the Descriptions of Goods imported into the United Kingdom in 1906 and 1907

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  which were introduced in a condition completely manufactured and ready for consumption. (The list is the same as that adopted for the purpose of the Return, No. 190, of session 1907)—
  Description of Article.
  Apparel: waterproofed by any process; not waterproofed: of wool or of wool mixed with other materials; of other materials. Arms, ammunition, and military and naval stores: ammunition: shot and shell; propellants: cordite and other smokeless propellants; gunpowder; high explosives: dynamite and other high explosives; small arms ammunition; fuses, tubes, primers, etc.; percussion caps; metal cartridge cases other than small arms ammunition—filled; empty; rockets and other combustibles for warlike purposes, explosives, and ammunition of natures not named above. Arms: cannon: guns, howitzers, mortars, and parts thereof; automatic machine and quick-firing guns and parts thereof; gun-mountings and carriages and parts thereof. Small arms: rifles, carbines, muskets, and fowling-pieces; revolvers and pistols; swords, cutlasses, bayonets, and arms of other sorts not firearms. Torpedoes and submarine mine appliances. Military, naval, and ordnance stores, and appliances not enumerated above. Art, works of, other than pictures. Baskets and basketware. Bead trimmings. Blacking and polishes (containing no spirit or sweetening matter). Books, printed. Brooms and brushes. Buttons and studs (not of metal). Candles. Caoutchouc manufacture: boots and shoes; other sorts. Carriages, waggonettes, cart, etc.: cycles, other than motor cycles; motor cars; motor cycles; other descriptions. Chinaware or porcelain and earthenware: porcelain, china, and parian earthenware (including semi-porcelain, majolica, and glazed hearth and wall tiles, jet Rockingham, and glazed terra-cotta ware); red pottery, stoneware, brown and yellow ware. Other sorts (including electrical ware door fittings, and chemical ware). Clocks. Cordage, cables, ropes, and twine of hemp, coir, or like material. Cork, manufactured. Cotton manufactures: hosiery of all sorts; lace, and other articles thereof; unenumerated. Curios. Cutlery. Drugs, quinine, and quinine
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  salts. Electrical goods and apparatus (other than machinery and telegraph and telephone wires): electric wires and cables, insulated: rubber insulated (other than telegraph and telephone cables); insulations other than rubber (not being telegraph and telephone cables). Telegraph and telephone cables; telegraph and telephone apparatus; electrical goods and apparatus unenumerated. Embroidery and needlework: made by hand; made by machinery. Fancy goods (known as Paris goods). Flowers (artificial). Glass, bottles. Glass, manufactured, other sorts. Hair, manufactures of (other than mohair). Hardware: hollow-ware, enamelled; hollow-ware, not enamelled; other than hollow-ware. Hats and bonnets, trimmed or untrimmed: felt; straw; other sorts. Implements and tools and parts thereof. Jewellery. Jute, manufactures of, other than cordage, cables, ropes, and twine, but including piece goods, sacks, and bags. Lace and articles thereof, unemunerated. Lamps and lantern (except electric). Leather manufactures: boots and shoes; gloves; unenumerated (except belting for machinery). Linen manufactures, including manufactures of linen mixed with cotton, linen predominating. Machinery and mill-work, or parts thereof: steam engines; locomotives; agricultural; other descriptions, not being steam engines or electrical machinery: agricultural; sewing machines; mining; textile; other descriptions; electrical, of all kinds. Matches, safety. Matches, other sorts. Mats and Matting. Metals, manufactures of: brass, bronze, and metal, bronzed or lacquered, manufactures of: copper manufactures, unenumerated. Rails: new perfect rails for railway use, both steam and electric, and conductor rails for electric traction; tram rails with grooved heads for tramways worked by horse or by mechanical power. Tubes, pipes, and fittings, wrought; pipes and fittings, cast; iron and steel manufactures, unenumerated; zinc, manufactures of; metal unenumerated, wrought or manufactured. Musical instruments: organs and harmoniums; pianos; all other musical instruments. Oil cloth for floor coverings; for furniture coverings; for all other purposes. Oil-seed cake, containing non-dutiable ingredients: cotton-seed

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  cake; linseed cake; rape-seed cake; other sorts. Paper: printed paper hangings; other printed or coated papers. Perfumery and articles used in the manufacture thereof (except perfumed spirits). Pictures and drawings by hand; Pipes of all sorts, for smoking tobacco. Plate of gold. Plate of silver, gilt or ungilt. Prints, engravings, photographs, maps, and charts. Scientific instruments and apparatus (other than electrical). Ships and boats (new). Silk manufactures: wholly of silk: lace and articles thereof; ribbons, silk or satin; ribbons, velvet, plain, or figured. Mixed with other materials, silk predominating: lace and articles thereof; ribbons. Other kinds of manufactures, mixed or not with other materials, silk predominating. Skins and furs, manufactures of (including skin rugs). Soap: powder; household; toilet; other sorts (including cotton-seed oil soap. Stationery (other than paper). Straw envelopes for bottles. Toys and games. Watches. Wood, manufactures of, furniture and cabinet ware. Woollen and worsted manufactures (of wool or of wool mixed with other materials, wool predominating): hosiery; carpets; rugs; mohair braids and laces; unenumerated; goods, unenumerated, manufactured.

  Unemployed Trade Unionists.
  MR. PIKE PEASE: To ask the President of the Board of Trade what was the percentage of members of trades unions, other than coal miners, returned as out of work in each of the months of 1908 and in the corresponding months of 1907.
  (Answered by Mr. Churchill.) I may remind the hon. Member that the figures for this year have been affected by disputes in the shipbuilding and engineering trades. Percentage of members of trade Unions other than those engaged in coal mining reported to the Board of Trade as unemployed at the end of January, February, March, and April, 1908 and 1907:—

  1908.

  1907.

  Per cent.

  Per cent.

  January

  7·6

  5·2

  February

  7·8

  4·8

  March

  8·4

  4·4

  April

  9·2

  4·0

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  The figures for 1908 have been considerably increased by the indirect effect of the disputes in the engineering and shipbuilding trades.

  Submarine B 4.
  MR. BELLAIRS: To ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether Submarine B 4 was in collision in August, 1906, was beached, and then dry-docked for extensive repairs.
  (Answered by Mr. McKenna.) There is no trace of this collision in Admiralty records.

  Naval Casualties.
  MR. BELLAIRS: To ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether the destroyers "Earnest" and "Lively" were in collision in 1906 during night exercises; and, if so, what was the nature of the damage.
  (Answered by Mr. McKenna.) This collision was not reported at the time to the Admiralty, but on inquiry it was found to be of a very minor nature and occurred during the manœuvres, and did not prevent either vessel from continuing on their duties. The "Lively's" log mentions the fact, and that it proceeded immediately afterwards at 10 knots.

  H.M.S. "Dreadnought."
  MR. GRETTON: To ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether any boiler tubes burst on board H..M.S. "Dreadnought" during 1906; and whether any men were injured.
  (Answered by Mr. McKenna.) The reply is in the negative.

  Submarine B 3.
  MR. GRETTON: To ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether Submarine B 3 was in collision at the end of 1906 with a coal hulk; whether the Admiralty carried out any repairs or paid any damages to the owners of the coal hulk; and why was this collision omitted from the Return ordering all collisions to be included.
  (Answered by Mr. McKenna.) There is no trace at the Admiralty of any papers on the subject of such a collision.

  H.M.S. "Terrible."
  MR. GRETTON: To ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether, in addition to the omission of the breaking of the "Terrible's" propeller shaft from the Return of casualties to ships on the Navy List, the "Terrible" at a later date in 1906 sank a caisson while being hauled across the basin at Portsmouth into No. 13 dock.
  (Answered by Mr. McKenna.) This accident was considered to be not one for inclusion in the casualty return.

  Damage to Cables off the Kerry Coast.
  MR. BOLAND: To ask the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture (Ireland) whether his attention has been called to the published statement of the diplomatic representations made by the United States Government on the subject of the breaking of the submarine cables off the coast of Kerry by trawlers; whether he is aware that these trawlers carry on operations within the prohibited limits, and, in addition to the damage done to the cables, have inflicted serious loss on the local fishermen; and whether, with a view to safeguarding the interests of the fishermen and of the cable companies, nine of whose cables are laid in a space of one and-a-half miles in Ballinskelligs Bay, he will endeavour to secure protection from the operations of these trawlers in this district.
  (Answered by Mr. T. W. Russell.) The alleged damage to submarine cables by steam trawlers has been brought under the notice of the Department, The protection of cables is not the direct work of the Department, who have, however, taken all steps that are reasonably possible to secure the due observance of their fishery bye-laws.

  Cattle Disease in Foreign Countries.
  MR. COOPER: To ask the hon. Member for South Somerset, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, whether the Board of Agriculture at present give immediate official information of outbreaks of contagious cattle disease in foreign countries, and in what
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  form; and, if not, whether the Board of Agriculture will consider the advisability of approaching the Governments of foreign countries with the object of establishing some system of international notification of these diseases.
  (Answered by Sir Edward Strachey). We receive either by letter or telegram reports of outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease or cattle-plague from Consular officers in countries from which the importation of animals into Great Britain is not prohibited. Monthly Returns of disease are also sent us by consular officers, and we receive official Returns of disease from countries which issue them.

  "Rex v. Dyson."
  SIR BERKELEY SHEFFIELD: To ask Mr. Attorney-General if his attention has been called to the remarks made by the Lord Chief Justice in the case of the King v. Dyson, pointing out a serious difficulty which has arisen in connection with the Court of Criminal Appeal; and whether he proposes to amend the Act.
  (Answered by Sir William Robson). I have seen a report of the remarks in question. The difficulty pointed out by the Lord Chief Justice, due to the fact that the Court had no power to order a new trial, was foreseen and debated during the passage of the Criminal Appeal Act, and it was then decided that on the whole it was undesirable to let a prisoner be subjected to more than one trial. The working of the Act is being carefully watched, but I cannot say that any amendment on this point is likely to be proposed.

  Cost of Appeals for Petty Sessions.
  MR. G. GOOCH: To ask Mr. Attorney-General whether he will endeavour to secure a change in the law by which costs incurred in an appeal to Quarter Sessions from a conviction by a magistrate, involving imprisonment up to one month, shall be paid in whole or in part from public funds in cases where the conviction is quashed and the innocence of the appellant is established.

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  (Answered by Sir William Robson). The suggestion made in this Question is one that involves a considerable charge on the public revenue, as to which I could not venture to pledge the Government, but the point will be considered.

  Scottish Inquests.
  MR. BARNES: To ask the Lord-Advocate whether he is aware that inquiries under The Fatal Accidents and Sudden Deaths Inquiries (Scotland) Act, 1906, are held in a perfunctory manner; whether his attention has been drawn to the verdict of the jury in an inquiry held on 15th April last into the death of Robert Anderson, carter, which verdict did not set forth the cause of the accident nor whether anybody was guilty of negligence, and did not state whether any precautions were necessary to prevent another accident of a like nature; whether he will take any, and what, action with regard to this particular inquiry; and whether he will take steps towards having the property qualification to serve on these juries removed, or otherwise enable workmen possessing knowledge and experience of the subject-matter of an inquiry to serve on the jury.
  (Answered by Mr. Thomas Shaw). The Reports as to the working of this Act do not support the suggestion that the inquiries under it are carried out perfunctorily, but on the contrary a large number of important suggestions have been made by juries, the value of which has been widely recognised. My hon. friend may be assured that I am keeping the administration of the Act under special observation. I have considered the proceedings in the particular inquiry referred to in the Question. These appear to have been carefully conducted, full evidence being laid before the jury. There seems to have been no proof of negligence on the part of anyone, and there is therefore no finding of fault in the verdict; nor is there any suggestion by the jury of precautionary measures which might be taken in order to obviate accidents in similar circumstances. I doubt whether an extension in the direction desired by my hon. friend of the obligation to serve on juries would be welcomed; but I may point out to him
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  the provisions in Section 2 of the Act of 1906, entitling the jury to hear any person duly authorised by any trade union of which the accused was a member, which, I think, may to some extent meet the point he has in view in the latter part of the Question.

  Indirect Taxation—Proportion derived from Alcohol and Tobacco.
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the amount of indirect taxation which it is estimated will be collected per head of the population in the year 1908–9; and what portion of this is due to taxation on alcohol and on tobacco, respectively.
  (Answered by Mr. Lloyd-George). The indirect taxes in 1908–9 are estimated to amount to £1 6s. 11d. per head of the population. The amounts estimated to be due to taxation on alcohol and on tobacco respectively are 16s. 1d. and 6s. 3d. per head.

  Cloch Point War Office Lands.
  MR. DUNDAS WHITE: To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer with reference to the land at Cloch Point which was selected for defence purposes in 1899 and purchased for £13,050 in 1905 and re-sold for £10,000 in 1907, whether that land formed part of any estate on which Estate Duty was paid between 1899 and 1905, and, if so, what was taken as the principal or capital value of that land for Estate Duty purposes under Section 7 (5) of The Finance Act, 1894.
  (Answered by Mr. Lloyd-George). I regret that I am unable to answer my hon. friend's Question. The records of the Estate Duty Office do not enable me to say whether Estate Duty has been paid on a particular piece of property during a given period.

  Estate Duty on Licensed Houses.
  MR. BOULTON: To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer if there is any special basis provided by statute for valuing licensed houses for the purpose of Estate Duty; and, if not, does the valuation of licensed houses for this purpose come under the

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  general rule applicable to all property, and which is laid down by subsection (5) of Section 7 of the Finance Act, 1894, namely, the principal value of any property shall be estimated to be the price which in the opinion of the Commissioners such property would fetch if sold in the open market at the time of the decease.
  (Answered by Mr. Lloyd-George). The Answer to the first part of my hon. friend's Question is in the negative, and to the second in the affirmative.

  Shannon Bridge Barracks.
  MR. HAYDEN: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether he can state when the military barracks near Shannon Bridge, in county Roscommon, were last occupied by military, the rent of those buildings and ground attached, and the annual cost of up-keep; whether those buildings are used for any purposes by the Government; and, if not, whether he will take steps to avoid the expenditure which is involved in retention and preservation.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) I have nothing to add to the reply which I gave to an almost identical Question put by the hon. Member on 27th February.

  Clonmeen Evicted Tenant.
  MR. FLYNN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Estates Commissioners have caused any further inquiries to be made respecting the case of T. E. Barrett, who was evicted sixteen years ago from his holding on the Grehan estate, Clonmeen, Banteer, county Cork, for the non-payment of a rack rent; are the Commissioners aware that this holding is untenanted and in the landlord's own possession; and whether, under the circumstances, they will proceed to exercise their power under the Act of 1907, with a view to the reinstatement of this tenant.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Estates Commissioners propose to exercise their compulsory powers under the Act of 1907 in this case, and a notification to that effect will shortly be issued.

  Irish Universities Bill—Position of Existing Professors.
  MR. HARWOOD: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland what arrangements will be made as to pensions for those professors of any college who may feel compelled to withdraw in consequence of the altered character of that college resulting from the Irish Universities Bill.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) Existing professors will be appointed to equivalent posts in the reconstituted colleges, and will have the same tenure of office secured to them as that under which they now hold. There can be no substantial reason why any professors should feel compelled to withdraw. If anyone should decline office he will, in accordance with precedent, have no right to compensation for the loss of his office. No such right was given when the Aberdeen colleges were united in 1858, or when the Queen's University, Ireland, was abolished in 1879.

  Inspectors of Irish National Education.
  MR. J. MACVEAGH: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state how many of the six inspectors of national education in the Belfast districts have a sufficient knowledge of the Irish language to qualify them to examine in this subject.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Commissioners of National Education inform me that the answer is two.

  Belfast National Schools.
  MR. J. MACVEAGH: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state in how many cases did Mr. J. Keith, inspector of national schools, Belfast district, lower the prestige of schools by giving reports during his first year in that district inferior to those given by his predecessor; and in how many such cases had the two preceding reports given by his predecessor or predecessors been such that if Mr. Keith had given a similar Report the teachers would have been entitled to promotion.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Commissioners of National Education consider

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  that it would be against the interests of the public service, and detrimental to the efficiency of their inspection staff, to make any statement with regard to questions of this character.

  M'Kay Estate, Lough Fern, Donegal.
  MR. C. MACVEIGH: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, in view of the fact that deficiency of staff is no cause of delay in completing land purchase, why it is that no inspector has yet been sent to the M'Kay estate at Lough Fern, county Donegal, although agreements were signed by these tenants on 1st May, 1904; whether he is aware that this delay, in addition to other losses, prevents the tenants from leasing valuable sporting rights; and whether he will take steps to see this sale carried through without further delay.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The purchase agreements in this case were lodged on 9th October, 1905. The Estates Commissioners will not be able to deal with the case for some time yet, having regard to the many cases still undisposed of in which agreements were lodged at an earlier date.

  Castletownroche Evicted Tenant.
  MR. WILLIAM ABRAHAM: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the attention of the Estates Commissioners has been directed to the case of Ralph Ladd, an evicted tenant on the estate of Major Eustace, Castletownroche, County Cork; and what is the cause of delay in bringing about his reinstatement, seeing that the farm in question is in the possession of the landlord, who has accepted the price offered by the Commissioners, and that terms of purchase have been agreed upon by the other tenants on the estate.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The former holding of Ralph Ladd forms part of the estate of Major Eustace, which has been offered for sale to the Estates Commissioners. The estate has been inspected, but the Commissioners are unable to make a formal offer for it or to take possession until the statutory re-
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  quirements as to title have been, complied with by the vendor. The Commissioners endeavoured to arrange that Ladd should be given possession of the holding by the owner until the Commissioners should take over possession of the estate, but Ladd was not in a position to give the security required by the owner for the payment of the necessary interest pending the completion of the sale.

  Blake Estate, Galway.
  MR. JOHN O'DONNELL: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that dissatisfaction exists on the Blake estate, Ballindereen, County Galway, over the way in which an inspector named McGill acted in connection with the striping of the farms; that he gave a piece of land about 30 acres to a man named William Forde; that when the boundaries were pointed out to Forde he observed that there was no water on the farm, but that within a few yards there was a sufficient supply; that the tenant asked for a right of way to this water supply and offered any necessary portion of the land allotted to him in lieu thereof; that the inspector refused to entertain his application and cancelled the arrangement previously made; that the holding as parcelled out by McGill would be. useless as there was no water on it; that since then Forde has been left without an additional perch of land, although his holding is poor in quality and uneconomic, so much so that he was given the holding already described; and whether, seeing that this man was victimised by an official because he pointed out the necessity for a water supply, he will have full inquiry made into the matter and a holding of land given to Forde as quickly as possible.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Estates Commissioners inform me that the only dissatisfaction of which they are aware in connection with the division of the Blake estate is that which exists on the part of William Forde. In July last this man agreed to surrender his holding of 12¾ acres, consisting of six separate parcels, and he was to receive in lieu thereof a new holding of 39

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  acres, which he specially asked for. In January last he was asked to sign an agreement for the new holding, but declined to do so, and stated that he would remain as he was. The Commissioners thereupon allotted the new holding to Forde's cousin, and they cannot now reopen the matter. The Commissioners understand that Forde was dissatisfied with the plot offered to him because there was not attached to it a right of way to a watering place in the landlord's demesne.

  County Inspector Rogers, Royal Irish Constabulary.
  MR. JOHN O'DONNELL: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether County Inspector Rogers, Royal Irish Constabulary, who acted violently against many people at Watergrasshill, county Cork, is listed for promotion; whether he is aware that this inspector has family connections at Dublin Castle; and whether in future he will see that, in order to put an end to the dissatisfaction which exists amongst Catholic officers in that force, all vacancies will be filled by public competitive examination under the control of the Civil Service Commissioners.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) If a vacancy should occur in one of the higher posts of the Royal Irish Constabulary, the claims and qualifications of County Inspector Rogers, as well as those of other county inspectors, will be fully considered. The Inspector-General informs me that there are no grounds for the statement that Mr. Rogers acted violently at Watergrasshill, and he is not aware that this officer has any family connections at Dublin Castle. Promotion to the rank of assistant inspector-general by means of Civil Service examinations would be quite impracticable.

  Belfast Police Force.
  MR. JOHN O'DONNELL: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the Inspector-General, Royal Irish Constabulary, the three assistant inspector-generals, and the town inspector of Belfast are Protestants; that six out of thirty-seven county inspectors
  1248
  and fifty-nine out of 180 district inspectors are Catholics; that only 2,000 of the rank and. file of that force are Protestants and over 8,000 Catholics; that the proportion of Protestants occupying high positions, in comparison to the, number of men of that religious persuasion at present serving, shows that impartiality in the selection has not been strictly observed; and whether he will look into the matter closely and order a public inquiry into all the methods adopted in connection with the question of promotion in that body.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The facts are substantially as stated in the earlier parts of the Question, though the figures are not quite correct. I am satisfied that religion is in no way an element in the promotion of officers of the Royal Irish Constabulary, and I see no reason for holding any inquiry into the matter.

  Promotion of Inspectors in the Irish Constabulary.
  MR. JOHN O'DONNELL: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that one of the county inspectors passed over in the recent appointment of commandant at the Royal Irish Constabulary depot is a musketry instructor with the Hythe certificate; that County Inspector Foley is the officer who was instrumental in discovering the methods of Sergeant Sheridan in the manufacture of outrages in county Clare; that neither County Inspector Foley nor District Inspector Irwin, who assisted him in bringing to light such nefarious work, were ever in any way rewarded for their meritorious services in connection with this case; and whether his connection with this case was the reason for passing over this county inspector for the commandantship and giving it to a man who was connected with the shooting of persons in county Mayo.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) Mr. Ball, who was recently selected to fill the post of commandant and assistant inspector general at the depot was junior on the list of county inspectors to Mr. Foley. The latter officer holds a certificate of musketry from the Hythe

  1249
  School. It is the fact that County Inspector Foley reported his suspicions regarding Sergeant Sheridan, but the main investigation of the case was undertaken by other officers. All the officers concerned simply performed the duties assigned to them, and the case was not one to call for any special reward. There is not the slightest foundation for the suggestion that Mr. Foley was passed over because of his connection with the case of Sergeant Sheridan. As I have already informed the hon. Member, Mr. Ball was appointed to the post because he was considered to be the officer best fitted for it.

  Sir Compton Domville's Aughamore Estate.
  MR. JOHN O'DONNELL: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the estate of Sir Compton Domville, situate in the parish of Aughamore, Claremorris Union, was offered to the Congested Districts Board so far back as November of last year, but that no monetary offer has been made by that body for it, although it is eminently suitable for the enlargement of holdings, having within its confines about 500 acres of grazing lands; whether he is aware that there is a feeling of unrest in the locality owing to the want of information on the subject; and whether any effort will be made by the Board to acquire that estate with a view to the enlargement of the holdings of the ninety tenants, nearly all of whom are in a very much congested condition; and, if not, whether he will ask the Estates Commissioners to take the necessary steps towards purchasing the estates and thereby preventing any further unrest.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The estate in question was brought under the notice of the Congested Districts Board, but they were obliged to defer consideration of the question of purchasing it owing to want of funds for improvement purposes. The estate has not been offered for sale to the Estates Commissioners, but if it should be offered they would make inquiries with regard to it. Otherwise they could take no action in the matter.

  Pasteurisation of Milk in Ireland.
  MR. J. DEVLIN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he could state how many of the Irish local authorities had accepted the offer of Mr. Nathan Strauss to supply plant for the Pasteurisation of milk; and whether the Local Government Board is taking any action with regard to this offer.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Local Government Board are not aware that any local authority in Ireland has accepted the offer. Under the existing law a sanitary authority has no power to expend the rates in maintaining Pasteurising plant. It appears to have been one of the conditions upon which the offer was made that the plant should be so maintained.

  Cavan Land Sub-Commission.
  MR. VINCENT KENNEDY: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he will say when the last Sub-Commission sat at Cavan for Cavan Union land cases; have the decisions been given yet; how many fresh cases are now listed for the same division; and when will the next sitting be likely to be held.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The last sitting of a Sub-Commission at Cavan took place on 10th December, 1907. In twenty-two cases then heard, the decisions have not yet been given owing to the fact that the lay assistant commissioner has been employed on special duty under the Local Government Board. He will resume duty on 1st June, and the outstanding cases will then be disposed of Nineteen fresh applications have been received from the district, and these will be listed for hearing as soon as possible, regard being had to the claims of other districts.

  Calcutta Appeal Court.
  SIR H. COTTON: To ask the Under-Secretary of State for India whether he has now received any information regarding the actual facts in the appeal case before the High Court of Calcutta, in which it was alleged that a district Judge, differing in opinion from

  1251
  both of the assessors in a murder case, had passed a sentence of death, that the counsel who appeared for the condemned man was stopped by the High Court before he had finished his argument, that the Crown Prosecutor then said that he could not support the conviction as the sessions Judge had implicitly believed the defence story, and that therefore the prosecution was bound to fail, and that the High Court then dismissed the appeal and confirmed the sentence of death; and whether the death sentence was actually carried out.
  (Answered by Mr. Buchanan.) The papers forwarded by the Government of India show that both the assessors found the prisoner guilty of murder, and that there was no difference of opinion between them and the sessions Judge; that the prisoner's counsel addressed the High Court for upwards of an hour, and sat down of his own accord; and that the Crown Prosecutor made no statement in the sense alleged. The Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, on a consideration of all the circumstances, commuted the sentence to one of transportation for life.

  Glasgow Telephone Employees.
  MR. W. T. WILSON: To ask the Postmaster-General whether it is the intention of his Department to dispense with the services of ex-corporation telephone employees at Glasgow whose duties on the commercial side may become redundant as a result of the transfer of the corporation telephone system to the State, or if it is proposed to retain in some established capacity capable officers including night operators and contract officers and any employees whose position may be affected by any possible redundancy of duties; and whether, in view of the fact that a reasonable time has elapsed since the taking over of the Glasgow Corporation telephones, he can state when the establishment of ex-corporation telephone employees on the commercial side is likely to be completed.
  (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) The hon. Member may rest assured that the question, which is of a very intricate nature, is being carefully considered, and will be settled as soon as circumstances
  1252
  permit. In the meantime I am not able to furnish details of the proposed arrangement.

  Post Office Savings Bank Depositors.
  MR. BOWLES: To ask the Postmaster-General whether he can state the total number of depositors in the Post Office Savings Bank, and the total number of deposit books forwarded to the head office for inspection, during the last financial year for which this information is available.
  (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) On 31st December, 1906, the number of accounts remaining open in the Post Office Savings Bank was 10,332,784; and the total number of deposit books forwarded to the head office for inspection during the year 1906, was 7,632,903. The figures for 1907 are not yet proved.

  Irish Commissioners for taking Affidavits.
  MR. J. MACVEAGH: To ask Mr. Attorney-General for Ireland whether he can state what qualifications are necessary for persons seeking to be appointed Commissioners for taking affidavits for use in the High Court of Justice in Ireland; whether his attention has been called to the fact that in some cases Dublin agents of country solicitors take affidavits in business connected with their agencies, that solicitors who are commissioners take affidavits in business transacted in their offices, and that law clerks who act as commissioners take affidavits in cases pending in the offices of their employers; and whether he will cause instructions to be issued on these matters.
  (Answered by Mr. Cherry.) I have referred this Question to the Lord-Chancellor, who informs me that no qualification is prescribed by statute for the appointment of Commissioner for taking affidavits in Ireland, except in the case of the Dublin Commissioners, who must be solicitors, and who are required by the Lord-Chancellor to have been in practice for a period of at least three years prior to their appointment. The rules of the Supreme Court provide that no affidavit shall be sufficient if sworn before the solicitor for the party on whose behalf the affidavit is to be used, or before the partner, agent, correspondent, or

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  clerk of such solicitor. No case of a violation of this rule by a Commissioner has come under the notice of the Lord-Chancellor. It would be open to the party against whom such an affidavit might be used to object to its sufficiency or the breach of duty by the Commissioner could be brought under the notice of the Lord-Chancellor.

  Shorthand Writers' Fees in Criminal Appeals.
  MR. TALBOT: To ask Mr. Attorney-General whether arrangements have now been made, in accordance with the rules passed under the Criminal Appeal Act, for the employment of shorthand writers in the various Courts of Assize and Quarter Sessions; what remuneration is proposed to be given to them; what relief is to be provided in the event of Courts sitting late; and whether opportunities will be secured to the Judges and presiding chairmen of revising the reports of their summing up.
  (Answered by Sir William Robson.) Arrangements have been made in accordance with the rules passed under the Criminal Appeal Act for the employment of shorthand writers in the various Courts of Assize and Quarter Sessions. A scale of of remuneration has been settled by the Treasury. The question of what relief is to be provided in the event of the Courts sitting late may have to be considered in the light of experience. It does not seem altogether desirable to give opportunities to the Judges and presiding chairmen to revise the reports of their summing up.

  Fermanagh Horse Show.
  MR. SLOAN: To ask the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture (Ireland) if he is aware that at the last show of the Fermanagh Farming Society the classes for agricultural and hackney stallions were cancelled; if so, were the members of the committee consulted; is he is aware that the society is at present in serious financial difficulties; and whether, in view of this fact, he will cause the annual grant to be withheld until full inquiry is made into the matter.
  (Answered by Mr. I. W. Russell.) The last show of the Fermanagh Farming
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  Society was held on 31st July, 1907. Prizes were not offered for hackney stallions either at this show or at the show held by the society in 1906. Prizes were offered for agricultural stallions in 1906, but not in 1907. The schedule of prizes for the 1907 show was approved by the County Fermanagh Committee of Agriculture at the meeting held on 5th April, 1907, and was afterwards sanctioned by the Department. The audited balance sheet for 1907 shows that after an expenditure of £380 had been met a sum of £22 16s. 6d. only was due to the treasurer of the society, which cannot be regarded as indicating that the society is in serious financial difficulties. The shows held by this society have been well conducted, and have served the needs of farmers residing within a very large district. There appear to be no grounds for instituting inquiry into the affairs of the society, or for withholding the subsidy (£106) which has already been provisionally allocated in aid of the forthcoming show by the county committee, with the approval of the Department.

  Irish Paupers and Old-Age Pensions.
  MR. J. DEVLIN: To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether in the Old-age Pensions Bill provision will be made for the inclusion in its benefits of workhouse inmates in Ireland of over seventy years af age.
  (Answered by Mr. Lloyd-George.) Perhaps the hon. Member would be good enough to wait for the circulation of the Bill.

  QUESTIONS IN THE HOUSE.

    Rosyth—Morayshire Stone.
    MR. WILLIAMSON: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty if he has received communications regarding the suitability of stone from quarries in Morayshire for harbour work at Rosyth naval base; and whether this stone will be placed upon the approved list.
    THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. MCKENNA,): I have received a communication regarding the suitability of stone

    1255
    from quarries in Morayshire for harbour work at Rosyth. The practice of the Admiralty is to specify the quality of the stone they require, and firms tendering submit such samples as they think fit, to comply with the specification. There is therefore no list of quarries approved by the Admiralty, but offers of particular stone should be made to the contractors who are likely to tender.

    British and Foreign Naval Construction.
    MR. PARTINGTON: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty if he can give the amount of tonnage and its cost added, by new construction, to the British, United States of America, French, and German navies for the five years ending 31st March, 1908.
    MR. MCKENNA: This information is being prepared and will be published in the Return moved for by the hon. Member for Leicester, which is expected to be ready in about a fortnight.

    Naval Casualties.
    MR. BELLAIRS: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he is aware that the Return of casualties to ships ordered by this House requires the Admiralty to include all cases of collision or grounding and casualties to engines; and whether he can state why the order was not complied with in the Return issued during the Recess last autumn.
    MR. MCKENNA: The Admiralty is aware that the Return required the inclusion of all cases of collision and grounding and casualties to engines, and that in fact all the information available at the Admiralty and considered to come within its scope was included therein, with the exception of an accident to the machinery of H.M.S. "Terrible," which was inadvertently omitted.
    MR. BELLAIRS: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty, whether, in order to comply with the Order of the House in reference to the Return of Casualties to Ships issued last autumn, which asks for all cases of collision or grounding and casualties to engines, he will cause to be circulated with the Votes
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    all casualties which were omitted from the Return in question.
    MR. MCKENNA: My hon. friend has already been informed in reply to another Question that there was only one case inadvertently omitted from the Return he refers to.
    MR. BELLAIRS: Does the right hon. gentleman state definitely that there was no case of collision or grounding of any kind omitted from the Return except the case to which he refers?
    MR. MCKENNA: No, Sir. I stated last week that no collision or grounding of a kind necessitating no repair was included.
    MR. BELLAIRS: May I ask you, Mr. Speaker, whether a Minister is entitled to defy an order of this House directing him to include in a Return all cases of collision or grounding?
    MR. SPEAKER: I understand that, with the exception of one case inadvertently omitted, all cases that came to the notice of the Admiralty were included.
    MR. BELLAIRSgave notice that, on the Vote for the salary of the First Lord of the Admiralty, he would draw attention to omissions from the Return.
    EARL WINTERTON: How was it the omission occurred in the one ease?
    MR. MCKENNA: It was the case of the "Terrible." The records and papers regarding that accident had been sent away from the Admiralty for the purpose of an inquiry, and it was while they were away that the Return was compiled. It was quite an inadvertent omission.
    MR. BOWLES: Are we to understand that when a Return has been ordered of all casualties occurring to H.M. ships, including collisions and groundings, the Admiralty are entitled to include only those which involved repairs?
    MR. McKENNA: "Groundings" and "collisions" are very vague words. Two ships may collide and nothing happen to either. In that case it is not reported to the Admiralty.
    MR. BELLAIRS: The right hon. Gentleman has spoken of cases where no repairs were needed. But there are some such cases in this return, including the "Terpsichore" to which no damage at all was done, although some paint was removed.
    MR. ASHLEY: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether a Norwegian vessel was run into by a destroyer in the manœuvres of 1906 and was towed into harbour in a sinking condition; and, if so, whether he can state why the collision was omitted from the official return for 1906, ordered by the House and issued in September 1907.
    MR. MCKENNA: There is no trace in Admiralty records of any collision of a destroyer with a Norwegian vessel during the manœuvres of 1906.
    MR. ASHLEY: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty, whether the destroyers "Cheerful" and "Garry" were in collision at the beginning of the manœuvres of 1906; and whether the "Cheerful" was able to take any further part in the manœuvres.
    MR. MCKENNA: There is no trace of any official report of this collision.
    MR. ASHLEY: Had not one of these vessels to be dry docked?
    MR. MCKENNA: Not in consequence of any collision.
    EARL WINTERTON: May I ask whether, after this collision, these two vessels were in a state of fighting efficiency?
    MR. MCKENNA: Certainly.
    MR. ASHLEY: Then why had one to be dry docked?

    The Mohmand Rising.
    MR. MACKARNESS: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for India whether his attention has been called to the fact that on the 24th instant Sir J. Willcocks attacked a force of Utman Khel on the Indian frontier with cavalry and artillery, and inflicted extremely severe loss upon
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    them, that this attack took place after an envoy from the tribesman had come to the British camp asking for terms, and that the British general refused to hold any intercourse with him; and will he say what instructions have been given to the general as to dealing with terms offered or asked for by the tribesmen. The hon. Member prefaced the asking of this question as it was printed on the Paper by appealing for the ruling of the Speaker as to the principle on which a Question ought to be altered in its phraseology by the Clerk at the Table. He said that he had handed in the Question in quite a different form from the above. What his original Question asked was whether the attention of the Under-Secretary had been called to a published statement to the effect that these things had happened and whether there was any truth in the statement. This had been struck out of the Question, and he was made to impute conduct as a fact to Sir James Willcocks which he had been specially anxious to avoid.
    MR. SPEAKERasked the hon. Member why, if he had any objection to the form of the Question, he did not make his objection on the previous day. The Question appeared on the Paper the previous day, and if the hon. Member had any objection to it he could have come to him and raised the point at that time.
    MR. MACKARNESS: I had understood that the practice was for the Clerk at the Table to send a card to the hon. Member whose Question he wished to alter and ask him to call. I received no such invitation.
    THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Mr. BUCHANAN,): The statement on which the Question appears to be founded is that an emissary who said he had come from the Nawab of Nawagai to discuss terms shortly before the engagement with the Utman Khel on the 24th was not received by General Willcocks. No mention of this episode is made in the official reports of the occurrences of that date. I would point out that the Utman Khel are a Mohmand tribe over whom the Nawab of Nawagai has no jurisdiction. It may,

    1259
    I think, be taken for granted that if an authorised emissary from the section concerned had come to negotiate for submission, General Willcocks would have suspended operations in accordance with his instructions, the purport of which I stated to the House on the 26th, and which he has hitherto carried out with success.
    MR. REES: Is there any justification for the underlying assumption in the Question to the effect that British Generals in India prefer to kill the tribesmen?
    MR. BUCHANAN: The underlying assumption is what my hon. friend wishes to disclaim.
    MR. MACKARNESS: May we assume that there is no truth in the statement published as to the conduct of the General?
    MR. BUCHANAN: As far as we are aware there is no foundation for the statement.
    MR. MACKARNESS: Mr. Speaker, that is precisely the contradiction which I wanted.

    Canadian Secretary of Imperial and Foreign Correspondence.
    EARL WINTERTON: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he has received any official information as to the creation by the Canadian Government of an office of Canadian Secretary of Imperial and Foreign Correspondence; and, if so, will he state what are the exact functions and status of this official.
    THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (COLONEL SEELY,): The Secretary of State has no information beyond what has appeared in the Press.
    EARL WINTERTON: Will the hon. Gentleman inquire if it is a fact that this official has been appointed?
    COLONEL SEELY: If such a step has been taken no doubt we shall be duly informed. If it has been it is nothing unusual, for a similar arrangement has
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    been made by the Australian Commonwealth.

    Native Labour in British East Africa.
    MR. ASHLEY: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies what decision has been arrived at with reference to the supply of Native Labour in British East Africa; and whether the vacancies in the Governor's Council have been filled; and, if so, by whom.
    COLONEL SEELY: The rules of 18th November, 1907, as to the terms on which the Government of the Protectorate will endeavour to supply labour will be maintained in substance though modifications of details will be considered. The vacancies in the Legislative Council to which the hon. Member refers have not yet been filled.

    East African Native Land Settlements.
    MR. CATHCART WASON: I beg to ask the Undersecretary of State for the Colonies if he is aware of the fact that, when in East Africa, the late Under-Secretary for the Colonies made a speech to the natives assuring them that sufficient land would be secured to them and their children's children for all time; and if such declaration expressed the views of His Majesty's Government.
    COLONEL SEELY: Yes, Sir; the Answer to both Questions is in the affirmative, except that my right hon. friend informs me that the expression which he used was not "children's children," but "children."

    East African Labour Regulations.
    MR. CATHCART WASON: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies if he could ascertain if the labour regulations, recently brought into force in East Africa, were submitted for the consideration of the late Under-Secretary for the Colonies; and if he expressed any views thereon.
    COLONEL SEELY: I understand that the late Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies expressed his approval of the objects, principles, and general character of the regulations in question, and that he regarded effective action in regard to

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    native labour as urgently necessary in the interests of the natives.
    MR. CATHCART WASON: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies if the labour regulations have been brought into force by the Governor to protect natives against harsh and unjust treatment; and if he can state on what points Lord Delamere and Mr. Bailey, the members of the Council suspended by the Governor, considered the regulations unfair.
    COLONEL SEELY: The chief object of the regulations is as stated by my hon. friend. Papers on this subject will shortly be laid, in which the views of all parties are set out in their own words.

    East African Legislative Council.
    MR. CATHCART WASON: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will consider whether it would be desirable after the recent occurrences at Nairobi to dissolve the Legislative Council of East Africa until such time as there are a greater number of actual white settlers in the country.
    COLONEL SEELY: The Secretary of State sees no reason to take the step which my hon. friend suggests: the members of the Council are not elected by the white settlers but are appointed by the Crown.

    Russia and Persia.
    MAJOR ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can state the amount of the indemnity claimed by the Russian Government through their General from the Governor of Tabriz for alleged damage done by Persians in Russian territory; and whether any portion of this indemnity will be exacted from British subjects or to the detriment of British interests at Tabriz or elsewhere.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir EDWARD GREY,): I have no information as to the amount of the indemnity claimed nor any reason to believe that British subjects or British interests will be affected by the claim in any way.

    Royal Visit to Russia.
    MR. W. THORNE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if the approaching Royal visit to the Czar of Russia has any official or diplomatic significance; if it is intended to manifest an alliance between the Governments of Russia and that of Great Britain; and if an official visit from the Czar is expected in return.
    SIR EDWARD GREY: The visit to Reval will be an official visit paid by the King to the Emperor of Russia, as has been paid previously to other Sovereigns or Heads of States. The relations between the two Governments are those manifested by the Convention, which has been laid before the House. No new Convention or Treaty is under discussion between the two Governments, nor is it intended to initiate any negotiations for one during the visit. I have no further information whatever with regard to the last part of the Question.
    MR. BYLES: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, is the forthcoming visit of His Majesty to the Czar of Russia to be of a private nature only, or will it have any attributes of an official or representative character implying national recognition of the Czar's Government.
    SIR EDWARD GREY: The visit will, I trust, contribute to good relations between the Governments and peoples of both countries, but I cannot give any better definition than is given in the reply to the previous Question.

    German Gunboat and Grimsby Trawler.
    SIR BERKELEY SHEFFIELD: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he can give any information as to a recent case where a Grimsby trawler was apprehended by a German gunboat; and whether the allegations against the skipper have been substantiated or not.
    SIR EDWARD GREY: The British Vice-Consul at Cuxhaven has reported the seizure of a Grimsby fishing-boat, the "Taurus," by a German torpedo-boat on a charge of fishing in German territorial waters. I am informed that the master and mate of this ship were subjected to a judicial examination before the local

    1263
    Court at Cuxhaven on the 16th instant, and as neither could sufficiently clear himself of the charges brought against him, the master was kept under arrest pending his transfer to Flensborg for trial by a higher Court. Both men have, however, now been released on bail. The fish and fishing-gear of the "Taurus" were confiscated by the German authorities, but the ship has now returned with the master and mate to Grimsby.
    LORD BALCARRES: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether, in fact, the trawler was or was not within German territorial waters?
    SIR EDWARD GREY: The men have been released on bail. I shall be kept informed of what the evidence given at the trial is, but until the trial it is impossible to say what evidence will be brought forward.
    MR. WILLIAMSON: Does Germany claim territorial waters beyond the three-mile limit?
    SIR EDWARD GREY: I have not heard that the German Government ever claim more than three miles, but certainly our principle is that we only recognise three miles of territorial waters.

    Consular Reports.
    MR. BRIGG: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will remind the Consuls and Vice-Consuls in Foreign countries to give the statistics which are quoted in their Reports in English equivalents.
    SIR EDWARD GREY: His Majesty's Consular Officers were reminded of the instructions in question as recently as the 8th ultimo.

    International Naval Conference.
    MR. G. GOOCH: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the invitations to the Naval Conference to be held in London in the autumn have been issued; whether the subjects of discussion have been finally settled; whether it will be open to any Power to raise the question of the
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    capture of private property at sea in time of war; and whether the House will have an opportunity of discussing the programme of the Conference before it takes place.
    SIR EDWARD GREY: Invitations have been issued. The desire of His Majesty's Government is to discuss certain points on which it is essential for us that we should have an agreement with the chief naval Powers before ratifying the Prize Court Convention. The most important of these points are the rules of blockade and contraband. The capture of private property at sea is not included in this category. I cannot say what subjects other Powers may desire to raise, but it is desirable that the discussion should be concentrated on the points specially relevant to the Prizes Court Convention. It is not proposed to submit any programme to the House for discussion.

    S.S. "Zambesi"
    MR. BOWLES: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has now received any further information as to the forcible boarding of the s.s. "Zambesi," and the intimidation of her master, in the Surrey Commercial Dock on the 9th instant; and, if so, whether he will lay that information upon the Table or state its purport to the House
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. GLADSTONE,): In consequence of a communication I received from the "Zambesi's" owners reflecting on the accuracy of my statements in answer to the hon. Member on May 14th, I have had further inquiry made into all the circumstances of this incident, and have obtained detailed statements from reliable eye-witnesses, including the Deputy-Superintendent of the Surrey Commercial Docks and officers of the Dock Company's police, who were present alongside the ship while the incident was taking place. Though the police officers were standing quite close to the ship in uniform no appeal for help was made to them, and they saw nothing to call for their intervention. The result of the inquiry has therefore been fully to confirm my former statement. I do not propose to lay any Papers on the Table.
    MR. BOWLES: And, in view of the evidence he has obtained, does the right hon. Gentleman still maintain there was no intimidation or violence?
    MR. GLADSTONE: Certainly.
    MR. JOYCE: Is it not the fact that the owners and master of this vessel tried to get a crew of Chinamen in detriment to the British seamen?
    [No Answer was returned.]

    Ladders in Ships' Holds.
    MR. GEORGE ROBERTS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware that the dock regulations with regard to ladders down ships' holds for shipping and unshipping at fore and aft and thwart ships' hatch beams are being generally ignored; and whether, in view of the fact that the three years allowed for compliance with such regulations expired on 1st January of this year, and as there has been no uniform system of ladders applied yet, and in the majority of cases no attempt made to comply with the regulations, he will take steps to secure some kind of uniformity in the carrying out of such regulations.
    MR. GLADSTONE: The requirements of the dock regulations, Nos. 6 and 8, to which I understand the Question to refer, have been receiving the continuous attention of the staff for some time past. Early in last year a circular was issued by me to shipowners calling attention specially to these points, among others; and I am informed that, though irregularities are still found, it is not the case that regulations 6 and 8 are being generally ignored. There is no power under the regulations to require any particular system of ladders to be uniformly adopted; what the regulation prescribes is that safe means of access by ladders or steps from the deck to the hold shall be maintained. If the hon. Member will communicate to me any cases that have come to his notice in which the regulations are not being observed inquiry shall be made.

    Railways and Agricultural Produce.
    MR. CLYNES: I beg to ask the President of the Board of
    1266
    Trade whether he has seen a report of an action in the Wisbech County Court respecting a consignment of fruit which, when delivered, was deemed to be unfit for consumption; whether the evidence of a stationmaster that the railway practice was for each company to try to get the largest share possible respecting rates for home-grown produce regardless of any loss which the delay entailed might inflict upon farmers, fruit-growers, traders, and consumers is evidence which calls for any action by his Department; and whether he contemplates taking any early step to facilitate and cheapen the transit of home-grown food now burdened by heavy carriage rates and railway methods.
    THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. CHURCHILL,): I have not seen any report of the case referred to. As my hon. friend is probably aware, the Board of Trade are considering with representatives of various interests concerned a number of questions relating to railway facilities and methods of working.
    MR. CLYNES: Have the Department any record of the extent of the losses incurred by reason of the practices referred to in the Question?
    MR. CHURCHILL: I do not think we have.

    Brewers and the Sugar Tax.
    MR. RAPHAEL: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if he can state the amount of the saving which will be effected by the brewery companies by the proposed reduction of the tax on sugar.
    MR. CHURCHILL: I must refer my hon. friend to the reply given on the 13th instant to the hon. Member for Lincoln by my hon. friend the Secretary to the Treasury, of which I am sending him a copy.

    Clyde Pilotage.
    MR. JOYCE: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to the case of a pilot licensed by the Clyde Pilotage Board, who was tried on the 15th instant in the sheriff's court and heavily fined for wilful breach or neglect of duty,

    1267
    causing risk of collision between the s.s. "Maracas," of which the pilot was in charge, and H.M.S. "Harrier"; whether he is aware of the circumstances of that case, namely, that the Clyde Pilotage Board had, at the request of the Admiralty (conveyed through the Board of Trade), already fully investigated the case and exonerated the pilot from all blame, and that the captain and officers of the ss. "Maracas" were not available as witnesses owing to the lapse of time before proceedings were commenced against the pilot, and that the case was tried and determined by the sheriff alone and without nautical assistance, and was determined practically upon the evidence of the naval officers, to whose evidence only that of the pilot himself was opposed, such circumstances leading to a miscarriage of justice; and whether, under the circumstances, he will grant a special departmental inquiry into the facts of the case.
    MR. CHURCHILL: I have no information as to the proceedings before the Glasgow sheriff beyond a report of the case which appeared in the public Press. The Board of Trade have no power to review the decision of a Court of law, and I am therefore not prepared to order a special inquiry into the facts of the case.

    Import Duty on Hops.
    MR. MENZIES: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade what proportion of the 63,000,000 pounds avoirdupois of hops used in the production of beer during the last Inland Revenue year was imported; what amount of duty would have accrued to the Treasury if a 40s. duty had been in operation; what effect this duty would have had on the price of home-grown hops: and whether the combined effect of the duty and increased price would have tended to increase the price of beer.
    MR. CHURCHILL: I have no information as to the proportion of imported hops actually used by breweries in any one year, but I may say that the net imports of hops into the United Kingdom during the year ended September 30th, 1907 (after deducting re-exports) amounted to about 25,900,000 pounds. What amount would have been imported
    1268
    if an import duty had been in operation or what the effect of such a duty on prices would have been are hypothetical questions of opinion, and I see little advantage in attempting to deal with them in the compass of a Parliamentary Answer.

    Milk Imports.
    MR. BRIGG: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will furnish the quantity in gallons of new milk which is daily imported into England, and give the names of the ports at which it is received.
    MR. CHURCHILL: In January, 1908, the average quantity of fresh milk imported daily into England was 150 gallons; in February, 150 gallons, and in March, 48 gallons. There were no importations in April or May to date The whole of this milk was imported at Southampton.
    MR. BOWLES: In the view of the Board of Trade, at what age does milk cease to be fresh?
    MR. COURTHOPE: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what preservatives are used to keep the milk fresh?
    A NATIONALIST MEMBER: Hops.
    MR. CHURCHILL: Of course, the freshness of milk is a very important consideration, but these are questions of detail in regard to which I must ask for notice.
    SIR GILBERT PARKER: From what countries does this imported milk come?
    [No Answer was returned.]

    Unclaimed Balances in Joint Stock Banks.
    MR. J. MACVEAGH: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he has any, and, if so, what objections to asking the joint stock banks of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales to supply for the information of Parliament statistics as to the value of the unclaimed balances appropriated by the banks during the past hundred years; whether, having regard to the

    1269
    fact that the value of unclaimed Government stock and dividends has amounted to millions of pounds, there is any reason to doubt that the unclaimed balances in banks also amount to an enormous total; and whether he can state if the banks are in the habit of annexing after a period of six years these sums to which they have no moral claim.
    MR. CHURCHILL: I have no statutory power to call compulsorily for information from banks as to the accounts of their customers and any partial information obtained by voluntary inquiry might be misleading. My information is to the effect that banks are not in the habit of treating unclaimed balances as their property after the lapse of six years, but that they regard themselves as continuing debtors to the customers or their representatives.
    MR. J. MACVEAGH: Have not the Board of Trade jurisdiction over these joint stock banks, and, if that is so, what difficulty is there in asking them to supply information, not as to customers' accounts, but as to unclaimed balances?
    MR. CHURCHILL: I am informed the Board of Trade have no such power. I give that opinion on legal authority.
    MR. WATT: Is it within the power of the right hon. Gentleman to see that the banks make an effort to find the customers?
    [No Answer was returned.]
    MR. J. MACVEAGH: You will want the money for old-age pensions presently.

    Midland Railway Directors and Men's Right of Representation.
    MR. BELL: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware that the Midland Railway Company are dismissing several men who have been elected by their fellows either as deputations to represent their grievances to the directors or on conciliation boards, in accordance with the terms of settlement on 6th November, 1907; whether he is aware that a platelayer at Kentish Town, named W. Charter, a member of a deputation to represent that class, has been served with notice of dismissal from his employment, and for
    1270
    presiding at a meeting held on Sunday last to protest against this a passenger-guard, named W. Carter, has been suspended; and whether, in view of the terms of settlement of the agitation last year, he will take steps to prevent such conduct on the part of the officials of that company.
    MR. CHURCHILL: I am in communication with the Midland Railway Company in this matter and will inform my hon. friend of the result.

    Amalgamated Society of Engineers.
    MR. PIKE PEASE: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware that, according to the last monthly report of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, there were 102,723 members of that society in the United Kingdom at the end of April; whether the whole of this membership is comprised in the total under the head of engineering to whom the Board of Trade unemployment Returns relate; and whether he can state what other branches of the engineering trades are included in the Board of Trade total.
    MR. CHURCHILL: The figures given with regard to the membership of engineering trade unions making returns do not include such of the members of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers as are either superannuated or apprentice members or members of branches directly affected by disputes or so-called "trade protection members," not entitled to unemployed benefit. All other members of this society are included. Twenty-three other trade unions are also included in the statistics, mainly patternmakers, iron and brass founders, and machinists.

    Territorial Force—Wages to Employees of Local Authorities during Training.
    MR. MARNHAM: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether local authorities will be liable to be surcharged by the auditors of the Local Government Board if they grant a week's holiday to their weekly servants to enable them to attend the training of the Territorial Force, and pay their wages during such holiday.
    THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. JOHN BURNS,): No special power is given to local authorities to pay the wages under the circumstances referred to. Whether they can do so in any particular instance depends on whether the employee is entitled under his contract of service to receive wages during his absence on a holiday. Speaking generally, it is competent for local authorities so to arrange the terms of the contracts with their employees that this should be the case.

    Working Class Dwellings in Oldham.
    MR. CLYNES: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether his attention has been drawn to a report presented to the last meeting of the Oldham Trades and Labour Council showing that, largely on account of extensive mill building in recent years, there is a great scarcity of suitable dwelling-houses for the working classes in the Oldham district, and alleging that more than 10,000 persons live in a condition of overcrowding, and that many insanitary evils and a higher rate of infantile mortality have thereby resulted; and whether he can take action to press upon the local authorities of the district the necessity of immediately exercising municipal powers at present unused to ensure a better supply of suitable houses and the erection of other premises on more methodical and improved lines.
    MR. BURNS: I have seen a newspaper account of a meeting of the Oldham Trades and Labour Council, held within the last few days, at which the report mentioned was read. I do not gather whether the report has been sent to the Town Council of the borough, but if not this should be done at once. I will communicate with them on the subject to which it relates. I may add that if the Housing, Town Planning, etc., Bill now before Parliament becomes law, Part III. of the Housing of the Working Classes Act, 1890, which enables local authorities to provide houses, and which at present is only adoptive, will be put in force throughout the country, and a statutory complaint can be made to the Local Government Board if the local authorities fail to exercise their powers under that Part in cases where they
    1272
    ought to have been exercised, and the Board would then be empowered to take action.

    Pay of Postal Employees.
    MR. CLAUDE HAY: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General whether he will issue a statement showing how he has applied the recommendations of the Select Committee on Postal Servants to those classes of postal employees not included in the terms of reference to the Committee.
    THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. SYDNEY BUXTON,): I hope to be in a position to make an announcement on this subject shortly. The number of classes whose cases had to be considered was very great.
    MR. CLAUDE HAY: Will it be before the Estimates are taken?
    MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: I hope so.

    Postal Employees and the Territorial Camp.
    MR. HICKS BEACH: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that members of the Post Office staff who wish to carry out their period of field training in the Territorial Army have to find substitutes to carry out their official duties, and that in many cases this involves their paying the wages of substitutes of a higher grade than that to which they themselves belong; and whether, in view of the hardship thus imposed on the more patriotic members of the staff of the Post Office, he will take steps to remove this bar to enlistment in the Territorial Force.
    MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: I am in communication with the Treasury on the subject of the regulations which they have laid down in regard to granting leave to Civil Servants who are members of the Territorial Army to enable them to attend training in camp. I hope to receive the reply shortly.
    EARL WINTERTON: IS the right hon. Gentleman aware that considerable inconvenience is being caused Civil Servants who are in much doubt as to what will happen this year?
    MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: I am also in doubt, but I hope before long to receive an answer from the Treasury.
    MR. HICKS BEACH: Several men have already gone into camp and they are suffering the inconvenience.

    Royal Gardens, Kew.
    MR. CLAUDE HAY: I beg to ask the First Commissioner of Works whether gardeners employed in the Royal Gardens, Kew, enter the service at Kew as skilled workmen; whether they are paid less than unskilled workmen at Kew; whether the rate of sick pay has recently been reduced by one-half; what is the percentage of these gardeners who obtain appointments in the Colonies and in India; and whether His Majesty's Government have laid down the 23s. minimum rate for unskilled Government labourers in the London district.
    THE TREASURER OF THE HOUSEHOLD (Sir EDWARD STRACHEY,): The young gardeners at Kew to whom, as I understand, the hon. Member refers, must have had four years training in good gardens or nurseries before their selection. They are engaged for a definite and limited period of two years and they enjoy various privileges during their period of employment, and are allowed a subsistence allowance of 21s. a week, The labourers at Kew are paid from 23s. to 24s. a week. The rate of sick pay of all the workmen at Kew was revised last year in order to conform with the provisions of the Workmen's Compensation Act, 1906. About 22 per cent. of the young gardeners obtain appointments in the Colonies and India. Perhaps the hon. Member will address his concluding inquiry to my hon. friend the Secretary to the Treasury.
    MR. CLAUDE HAY: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the facts he has given are inaccurate?
    [No Answer was returned.]

    Boy Clerks in the Civil Service.
    MR. CLAUDE HAY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he will now announce the particulars of the new proposals of the Treasury, which have been under consideration for more than a year, respecting the
    1274
    employment of boy clerks in the Civil Service.
    THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. HOBHOUSE,): I have nothing to add to the reply given to the hon. Member on the 5th instant.
    MR. CLAUDE HAY: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that this subject has now been under the consideration of the Treasury for nearly two years?
    MR. HOBHOUSE: Yes, Sir.
    MR. CLAUDE HAY: Can he give some indication when a decision will be arrived at?
    MR. HOBHOUSE: No, Sir.

    Assistant Clerks.
    MR. CLAUDE HAY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether, in considering the claims of the assistant clerks (new class) to improved conditions of service, he will also take into consideration the position of the senior or old class of assistant clerks, many of whom have reached the maximum salary of the class, with the view of granting some improvement in their pay and prospects.
    MR. HOBHOUSE: I fear that it will not be possible to effect any improvement in the position of the assistant clerks of the old class.
    MR. CLAUDE HAY: Why not?
    MR. HOBHOUSE: It would require considerable explanation, but these clerks have had very considerable advantages since they have been brought into the Service.

    Unclaimed Bank Balances.
    MR. J. MACVEAGH: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether, having regard to the fact that the Government is the most important customer of the Bank of England, he will ask the Governors to supply him with figures showing the amounts received by the Bank of England from unclaimed balances during the past 100 years.
    MR. HOBHOUSE: The holders of Government Stocks are creditors of the

    1275
    nation, and the nation accordingly benefits if they forego their claims. In the case of bank deposits, the transactions affect only the depositors and the banks.
    MR. J. MACVEAGHasked whether the hon. gentleman would take no steps to ascertain what was the amount retained by the Bank which they had no right to retain.
    MR. HOBHOUSE: I have to be persuaded that they have no right.
    MR. J. MACVEAGHasked whether it was not a fact that, if the money belonged to anybody, it belonged to the State and not to the Bank, and, if that were so, why did the hon. gentleman refuse to ask the Bank what money they had obtained from these sources.
    MR. HOBHOUSE: I do not admit the position at all.
    MR. J. MACVEAGH: Surely if the hon. gentleman will send a polite letter to the Governors of the Bank of England they will at least send him a polite reply?
    MR. HOBHOUSE: It would probably be a polite refusal.
    MR. J. MACVEAGH: Surely the hon. Gentleman does not think—
    MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Gentleman has got the same answer three or four times.
    MR. J. MACVEAGHgave notice that, on the Vote for the hon. gentleman's salary, he would call attention to this matter.
    MR. J. MACVEAGH: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he can explain why unclaimed Government Stock and dividends thereon are deemed to be national property, whilst unclaimed balances in banks are deemed to be the property of the banks.
    MR. HOBHOUSE: No, Sir.

    Friendly Societies Act.
    MR. J. MACVEAGH: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that a Select Committee in 1889 reported that the Friendly Societies
    1276
    Act requires amendment, extension, and strengthening; whether he can state what legislation has since been passed in that direction; and whether he can say to how many of the thirty-three recommendations of that Select Committee effect has meanwhile been given.
    MR. HOBHOUSE: The Answer to the first part of the Question is in the affirmative. The following are the Acts passed since 1899 dealing with friendly societies:—52, 53 Vic. cap. 22; 56, 57 Vic. cap. 30; 58, 59 Vic. cap. 26; 59 and 60 Vic. cap. 25; 59 and 60 Vic. cap. 26. In 1891 a Bill was introduced to amend. the law relating to industrial assurance; it was ordered to be referred to the Standing Committee on Trade before which it was in part discussed. It was finally withdrawn in June.

    Moray Firth Fishery Investigation.
    MR. WILLIAMSON: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland if scientific investigations of the fisheries in the Moray Firth have been attempted; and whether the presence and operations of trawlers have interfered with the results of these investigations.
    THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (Mr. SINCLAIR,): Scientific investigations were conducted in the Moray Firth, but the investigations originally contemplated—involving a comparison between a protected area and the open sea—have been rendered ineffectual by the presence of numbers of foreign trawlers in the Firth.

    Foreign Trawlers in the Moray Firth
    MR. WILLIAMSON: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland whether negotiations have yet been commenced with foreign Powers with regard to restricting trawling by foreign vessels in the Moray Firth, in view of the scientific work in that area.
    MR. SINCLAIR: No, Sir. At present I am unable to add to my reply of Monday last on this subject.
    MR. WILLIAMSON: How long is this to go on?
    MR. SINCLAIR: No time is being lost in dealing with the matter.

    Deputations on Scottish Bills.
    MR. PIRIE: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland if he will grant the Return on the Paper relating to the expenses of deputations respecting Scottish Bills. †
    MR. SINCLAIR: If my hon. friend will repeat his Question after the Whitsun recess, I will in the meantime make inquiry into the practicability of obtaining such a Return.

    Scottish Chief Constables.
    MR. WATT: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland how many chief constables there are in Scotland who have risen from the ranks in that profession; what class of men are preferred for the positions of head constable to those trained to the business; and if he will say why they are so preferred.
    MR. SINCLAIR: I will make inquiries as to the first point raised by my hon. friend; with regard to the latter part of the question I may point out that the appointment of chief constable is in the hands of the county and town councils, and that these authorities are responsible for giving due weight to all considerations affecting the selection of suitable candidates.

    Dromagh Estate, Cork.
    MR. FLYNN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Estates Commissioners have made any further inquiries into the circumstances of the estate of Mr. Leader, D.L., Dromagh, county Cork; are they aware that there are about 2,000 acres of untenanted land, mainly in grass, available under the provisions of the Land Purchase Acts for the settlement of evicted tenants, the enlargement of uneconomic holdings, and suitable allotments for deserving labourers; and what steps the Commissioners propose to take in the matter.
    † Scottish Bills (Deputations Expenses).—Return of Expenses of Deputations to London from all bodies in Scotland administering public funds in connection with A. Public Bills; B. Private Bills; C. the management of their administrative work, during each of the last five years, specifying town councils, county councils, parish councils, school boards, water trusts, gas commissions, educational trusts, and dock and harbour boards, &c.
    THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. BIRRELL,): The estate in question has not yet been inspected, but the Estates Commissioners anticipate that their inspector will be able to visit the estate within the next two or three months, when he will be directed to inquire into the matters to which the hon. Member refers.
    MR. FLYNN: Can the right hon. Gentleman say if the Estates Commissioners have information to the effect that this landlord is willing to consider the advisability of selling these untenanted lands, but complains that the money for some he sold three years ago is not yet forthcoming?
    MR. BIRRELL: I know there is a great deal of delay in getting the money, and of course estates have to be dealt with in their order of priority.

    Cattle drives—Gregory Cowle Estate, Gort.
    CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that on Thursday the 14th May last a cattle-drive took place off three farms belonging to small tenants on the Gregory Cowle Estate, two miles from Gort, County Galway: how many arrests were made: and what sentences were passed on the perpetrators of the outrage.
    MR. BIRRELL: The facts are as stated in the Question. Twenty persons were arrested and bound to keep the peace.

    Rosmead Estate—Mullingar.
    CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that on Thursday the 14th May last a cattle-drive took place off a farm on the Rosmead estate, Delvin district, Mullingar, County Westmeath; how many arrests were made; and what sentences were passed on the perpetrators of the outrage.
    MR. BIRRELL: The police do not regard this case as one of cattle-driving. Thirteen head of cattle were found on the road adjoining the farm in question, but there were no broken gates or other

    1279
    indications of violence, and it was supposed that the cattle had got out through an unfinished fence.

    Mr. T. W. Russell on Cattle-driving.
    CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he has yet communicated with the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture (Ireland) regarding his public statement on behalf of the Government that cattle-driving after all did no harm either to man or beast; and, if so, in view of the increasing number of cases brought to light of cows being with calf being driven during the darkness of night as far as ten miles, he will now issue an official repudiation of that statement.
    MR. BIRRELL: My hon. friend informs me that the only speech which he has made on cattle-driving—that is, having any reference to it—was in October last at Manchester. The substance of what he said was that cattle-driving was illegal and intolerable, and that it must be put down. But he deprecated any panic about it, and said that, having lived through two periods of fierce agrarian strife when murder, outrage, and savage boycotting were quite common, he was thankful that this form of war had reached a stage which was comparatively harmless—in which neither man nor beast was injured. This latter statement was true at that date.

    Returns of Cattle drives.
    CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, whether, in view of the increase of cattle-drives in certain parts of Ireland, he will issue with the Votes once a week an official Return giving particulars of the time, place, and number of arrests, if any, punishment awarded, if any, distance away stock was recovered, injury, if any, amount of compensation claimed, steps taken by the police to prevent further recurrence, if any, and further details for the information of honourable Members.
    MR. BIRRELL: I am not aware of any precedent for furnishing with the Votes a weekly Return such as the hon. and gallant Member asks for, nor do I see that any good purpose would be
    1280
    served by doing so. Moreover, the weekly preparation of such a Return would impose a considerable amount of work upon the constabulary authorities, whose hands are fully occupied. I may observe that I have already, in answer to Questions, given the number of cattle-drives which have taken place in each month of the present year.

    Ballygrehan Cattle-drive.
    CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that on Friday night the 15th May last a cattle-drive took place off a farm at Ballygrehan, Manorhamilton, County Leitrim; how many head were driven and how far; how many arrests have been made; and what sentences have been passed on the perpetrators of the outrage.
    MR. BIRRELL: No place called Ballygrehan is known in County Leitrim, but if Ballygrehan, County Sligo, is meant, I refer to my Answer to the Question put by the hon. Member for Mid Armagh on 20th May.

    Arm Cashel, Castlerea Cattle-drive.
    CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that on Saturday, the 16th May last, a cattle-drive took place off a farm belonging to a Mr. John Flynn, of Castlerea, county Roscommon, at Arm Cashel, a mile from that town, and that the stock was recovered by the herd and police at Cloontrask, six miles distant; and will he say how many arrests have been made and what sentences passed on the perpetators of the outrage.
    MR. BIRRELL: On the night of 15th May, eleven head of cattle were driven off Mr. Flynn's farm. The cattle were found four miles away. No arrests have been made. The offenders are unknown.

    Leahy Estate, Aghatubrid.
    MR. BOLAND: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will now state the actual price agreed to be paid for the Leahy estate at Aghatubrid by the Estate Commissioners, and the conditions on which the purchase negotiations have been concluded.
    MR. BIRRELL: The owner of this estate has agreed to sell it to the Estates Commissioners for the sum of £4,734, upon the condition that the tenants pay one year's rent in cash to the owner in discharge of all arrears and costs due to him. The representatives of the tenants have agreed to these terms.

    Tyack-O'Dell Estate, King's County.
    MR. REDDY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, whether he is aware that both tenants and vendor of the Tyack-O'Dell estate at Clonony, King's County, are anxious that the agreement come to over a year ago should be carried out; and will he instruct the Estates Commissioners to have the sale completed with as little delay as possible.
    MR. BIRRELL: The Estates Commissioners inform me that they are unable to trace the lodgment of any purchase agreements in the case of this estate.

    Dairy Inspection in Ireland.
    MR. J. DEVLIN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will consider the advisability of recommending to local authorities in Ireland the appointment of members of the veterinary college as inspectors under the new Dairies and Cowsheds Order issued by the Local Government Board.
    MR. BIRRELL: The Local Government Board have already suggested to local authorities the desirability of appointing veterinary surgeons as inspectors for the purposes of the Dairies and Cowsheds Order.

    Belfast Health Commission Report.
    MR. J. DEVLIN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he has any power to compel the Belfast Corporation to print and publish a sufficient number of copies of the Belfast Health Commission Report to meet the public demand for the same; and, if so, whether he will exercise that power, in view of the complaints from all quarters as to the impossibility of obtaining copies of the Report; and whether, in the meantime, he will order
    1282
    that a copy of the Report be laid upon the Table of the House.
    MR. BIRRELL: Two hundred and fifty copies of the Report in question were printed at the expense of the Belfast Corporation, and of these the Local Government Board had 150, nearly all of which have been distributed amongst public bodies and interested persons. The Corporation have declined to incur the expense of printing additional copies, and I have no power to compel them to do so. As, however, the Report is of general interest from the point of view of the public health, I will lay it on the Table at an early date.

    Galway Cattle-drives.
    MR. CHARLES CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland how many cattle-drives have taken place in the East and West Ridings of Galway, respectively, since 1st April; and what has been the cost of car-hire for bringing arrested persons before the magistrates in the same districts.
    MR. BIRRELL: The number of cattle-drives which have taken place since 1st April in the East Riding of Galway is forty-nine, and in the West Riding twenty-five. On 20th May, in answer to the hon. and gallant Member for East Down, I gave particulars of the cost of conveying arrested persons before the magistrates between 25th April and 10th May. The hon. Member now asks for similar information for the period from 1st April to the present date. In order to obtain this information it would be necessary to call for returns from the local police, who are already fully occupied, and I am unwilling to impose this labour upon them unless the hon. Member has some substantial reason for requiring the information.

    Roxborough Cattle-drive.
    Ms. CHARLES CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that a crowd of persons lately drove the cattle belonging to Stephen Roland off his farm at Roxborough, one mile from Kilchreest, county Galway; whether the same crowd took possession of Roland's farm, which they stocked with their own cattle, and surrounded the farm with

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    sentries armed with sticks to prevent their cattle being driven off the farm by Roland; and what steps he proposes to take, and if any arrests have been made.
    MR. BIRRELL: The farm in question belongs to Colonel Courtenay, for whom Stephen Roland is manager. On 14th June, 1907, Colonel Courtenay's stock was driven off the farm. The animals were replaced, and subsequently sold by the owner. On 7th April last twenty-six trespassing cattle were driven on to the farm and were removed two days later under police protection. On 10th April trespassing stock again appeared on the farm, and on 20th May they were removed by Colonel Courtenay under police protection and impounded. The police have no knowledge of the posting of sentries armed with sticks to guard the trespassing cattle, and no complaint to that effect has been received. There was no occasion for making arrests. Full protection will be afforded to Colonel Courtenay in the exercise of his rights.

    Clonmel Evicted Tenants.
    MR. CHARLES CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether William Corrigan, who has lately been elected a member of the Clonmel District Council, has been selected by the Estates Commissioners as a fit and proper person to be restored to the holding from which he was evicted in 1896 for non-payment of eight years rent; and, if so, will he give the reasons which prompted the Estates Commissioners to recommend for reinstatement a person who had failed to pay his rent for eight years.
    MR. BIRRELL: The Estates Commissioners are of opinion that the evicted tenant in question is a suitable person to be restored to his former holding or provided with a new one. He is eligible for reinstatement under the Act, and the fact that he was in arrear with his rent at the date of eviction does not, in the Commissioners' opinion, afford any reason why they should not deal with the case.
    MR. CHARLES CRAIG: Can the right hon. Gentleman say if an evicted tenant who is eight years in arrear with his rent can be considered eligible for reinstatement?
    MR. BIRRELL: It is a matter entirely for the discretion of the Estates Commissioners.
    MR. FLYNN: IS not such a case evidence of harsh rack-renting?
    AN HON. MEMBER: How can there-be rack-renting when there is a Land Court?

    Loughrea Cattle-drive.
    MR. CHARLES CRAIG: I beg to ask, the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether in May,. 1907, the sheep and cattle belonging to Thomas Conway were driven from his farm situate two miles from Loughrea; whether the walls surrounding the farm were levelled to the ground; whether Conway has been boycotted since that date; whether, during the last month, his cattle and sheep have been again driven off the farm, and the cattle, sheep, and horses of a large number of persons in the parish of Killeenadeema driven on to the farm; and whether these cattle, sheep, and horses are now on the farm, and, if so, what steps does he intend to take to protect Conway in the exercise of his vocation as a grazier, and from, having his lands forcibly entered upon, by strangers for illegal purposes.
    MR. BIRRELL: On 29th April, 1907, Conway's sheep were driven from his grazing farm at Earl's Park and put on another farm belonging to him. The sheep were at once replaced. He was subsequently boycotted, and in June, 1907, he withdrew the stock. He has since made no efforts to assert his rights to the farm, and neighbouring farmers have put their stock to graze on it. Gaps have been made in the walls, but none have been actually levelled. Conway has not replaced his stock since June last, and there has been no second cattle-drive. If he should wish to assert his rights to the farm by impounding the trespassing cattle and replacing his own, he will receive the fullest possible protection from the police. Up to the present he has shown no inclination to do so.

    The Flooding of the Bann.
    MR. GORDON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland what

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    is the amount expended annually on the navigation works on the Lower Bann; what is the amount of annual receipts in respect of this navigation; whether those interested in the drainage of the areas flooded by the Lower Bann have submitted a scheme for the drainage of these areas, undertaking to repay the cost of such drainage; and, if so, will he state why such scheme has not been adopted and carried out.
    MR. BIRRELL: The Local Taxation Returns show that for the year ending 31st March, 1907, the receipts of the Lower Bann Navigation Trustees were £1,264, and the expenditure £1,242. The expenditure for each of the two preceding years was slightly in excess of the receipts. I am not aware that any such scheme as is mentioned in the Question has been submitted.
    MR. GORDON: Will any scheme brought forward be considered?
    MR. BIRRELL: I am most anxious that any scheme with regard to either the Bann or the Barrow should be carefully considered.

    The Missing Dublin Crown Jewels.
    MR. GORDON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if the only reason for Sir Arthur Vicar's dismissal was his alleged carelessness in the custody of the jewels; and, if not, what other reasons were there.
    MR. BIRRELL: Sir Arthur Vicars was relieved of his office because he had failed to exercise due vigilance and proper care as custodian of the Regalia of the Order of St. Patrick, and for no other reason.
    MR. GORDON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he stated to Sir Arthur Vicars and his solicitor, in the month of October last, in the presence of His Excellency, that no suspicion whatever attached to Sir Arthur Vicars as to his integrity in the custody of the Crown Jewels, and offered to write a letter to that effect; and, if he has altered his opinion since, will Sir Arthur Vicars be given an opportunity of vindicating his character by being placed upon his trial.
    MR. BIRRELL: I have just stated that Sir Arthur Vicars was relieved of office solely because he had failed to exercise proper care and vigilance. No criminal charge has at any time been made against him, and consequently he has not been, and could not be, placed upon his trial.
    MR. GORDONasked whether the right hon. Gentleman would grant a public judicial inquiry.
    MR. BIRRELL: No, Sir. We have already directed an inquiry, and we have found three gentlemen giving their grounds why they consider Sir Arthur Vicars to have been guilty of negligence. No charge of any other kind was made against him.
    MR. KILBRIDE: Is there any truth in the rumours that the jewels are at present in Bond Street?
    MR. BIRRELL: I have no reason to believe so.
    MR. H. C. LEA: What is the reason why there was no inquiry on oath? Why was not Sir Arthur Vicars' request for such an inquiry entertained?
    MR. BIRRELL: The whole question has been explained over and over again.
    MR. LUPTON: How is it that the chief of police, who was really responsible for the jewels, escaped without comment as to his conduct?
    MR. BIRRELL: The chief of police is no more responsible for the care of these jewels than he is responsible for the care of the jewels of the hon. Member.

    Irish Post Office Stores.
    MR. J. MACVEAGH: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General whether he can state the total value of Post Office stores in Ireland in 1906–7 and 1907–8, and the total proportion purchased in Ireland; and whether he will take steps to secure that the system of local Irish contracts will be so extended as to cover such stores as bicycles, tools, cloths for Post Office uniform, paints, boots, waterproof bags, and other articles manufactured in Ireland.
    MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: I stated on the 23rd August last, in reply to the hon. Member for the St. Patrick Division of Dublin, that the annual value of stores used by all branches of the Post Office in Ireland is roughly estimated at £73,000, not including stationery supplied by the Stationery Office or domestic stores supplied by the Office of Works. This estimate applies to either of the two years mentioned. The stores purchased in Ireland for use there cost about £12,000 in 1906–7, and £8,650 in 1907–8. In addition, stores were purchased in Ireland for use in other parts of the Kingdom to the amount of about £3,150 in 1906–7 and £3,800 in 1907–8. Cloth for uniforms is obtained under contracts made by the War Office. As regards stores purchased by the Post Office, any competent Irish manufacturers may tender, and if the price is suitable I shall be glad to place orders with Irish firms.
    MR. FLYNN: Could not the Department establish a sample office in Ireland to which Irish manufacturers could send samples of goods they can supply?
    MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: I will consider that.

    Belfast Post Office Extension.
    MR. J. DEVLIN: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General whether, in view of the dissatisfaction which exists in Belfast as to the inconvenience of the present posting arrangements at the General Post Office there, he will consider the advisability of acquiring the adjoining premises in Royal Avenue, lately occupied by the Workshops for the Blind, in order to have the receiving boxes placed there instead of in their present position.
    MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: I am not aware that the property in question is yet in the market. The question of the extension of the Belfast Post Office has been under consideration, and land has been purchased with that view.

    Scottish Land Reform.
    MR. CATHCART WASON: I beg to ask the Prime Minister whether, in view of the necessity for land legislation throughout Scotland, he will consider the desirability of giving facilities for the Second Reading of the Crofters Holding Bill, which is supported by a number of
    1288
    Scottish Liberal Members, and is am effort to translate into legislative action the principles laid down by the right hon. Gentleman himself at Inverness in 1904, when he spoke for the Liberal Party and their views with reference to land reform.
    THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. ASQUITH,): The proposals of the Government on this subject have already been laid before and discussed by Parliament during the present session, and while I have much sympathy with what I understand to be the objects of the Bill referred to by my hon. friend, the shortness of the time which remains at our disposal and the pressure of Government business makes it impossible for me to give this measure special facilities.

    Scottish Estimates.
    MR. CLELAND: I beg to ask the Prime Minister whether, having regard to the paucity of opportunity for the discussion of the Scottish Estimates and the consequent inability adequately to discuss Scottish administration, he will consider the advisability of devising means by which the Scottish Standing Committee will have an opportunity in the future of discussing these Estimates before they are presented to the House.
    MR. ASQUITH: My hon. friend's suggestion would involve far-reaching changes in the relations between Standing Committees and the House which would probably not be confined to the case of the Scottish Standing Committee. As at present advised I am not prepared to recommend such a proposal to the House.

    Temperance Reform in Scotland.
    MR. PIRIE: I beg to ask the Prime Minister whether, in view of the desire in Scotland for a drastic measure of temperance reform, and having regard to the present legislative situation on this question in Scotland, he can state if the Government propose to introduce such a measure next year dealing with that country.
    MR. ASQUITH: I am not yet able to make any statement as to the legislation; of next year.
    MR. PIRIE: Can the right hon. Gentleman explain why last Friday on a Private Member's Bill dealing with the temperance question for Scotland the Government could not see their way to giving hon. Members a free hand as to referring it to the Scottish Grand Committee rather than a Committee of the Whole House.
    MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is reviving the debate of last week.

    Scottish Local Veto Bill.
    LORD WILLOUGHBY DE ERESBY: I beg to ask the Prime Minister whether, in view of public opinion as expressed at recent bye-elections in England and Scotland, he will proceed with the Scottish Local Veto Bill before the English Licensing Bill.
    MR. ASQUITH: The Answer is in the negative.
    LORD WILLOUGHBY DE ERESBY: Does the right hon. Gentleman consider bye-elections no sign at all?
    [No Answer was returned.]

    Licensing Bill.
    MAJOR DUNNE: I beg to ask the Prime Minister whether he can now inform the House when the Committee stage of the Licensing Bill will be taken.
    MR. ASQUITH: I regret that I am not yet in a position to fix a date.

    Creation of Peerages.
    MR. H. C. LEA: I beg to ask the Prime Minister how many peerages have been created since the Liberal Government accepted office in December 1905; and whether this is the method the Government intend to pursue with the House of Lords in order to make the will of the people prevail, more especially in view of the recent action of that Chamber in regard to the Scottish Land Bill of the Government.
    MR. ASQUITH: In answer to the first part of my hon. friend's Question, twenty-three temporal, and three spiritual Peers have been created during the period in question. The second part of the Question seems to trespass beyond the realm of fact into that Of opinion.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I desire to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether it is not the usual, almost the invariable, practice when considerable changes in the composition or powers of any body are intended, either by legislation or administrative action, that additions to that body, pending the changes, are suspended.
    MR. ASQUITH: That is a very large question. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will give notice of it.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Can I put another Question without notice? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the present Government have created as many Peers as were in the first Parliament of Henry VII.?
    MR. H. C. LEA: Is it not a fact that, with the exception of the instance mentioned by my hon. friend opposite, there is no period in English history in which so many peerages have been created as in the period of the present Government?
    MR. SPEAKER: That would require considerable research.
    MR. H. C. LEA: Is it not a fact that the democracy of this country have shown by recent bye-elections what they consider is hypocritical and inconsistent in the action taken by the Government in regard to the creation of Peers?
    [No Answer was returned.]

    Royal Visit to Russia.
    MR. H. C. LEA: I beg to ask the Prime Minister whether the King, on his approaching visit to Reval to interview the Czar of Russia, will be accompanied by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs or some other Member of the Cabinet, so as to be present at such interviews or at interviews between the King and the Russian Foreign; Minister, in accordance with constitutional practice and precedent.
    MR. LYNCH: Before answering the Question, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he recognises the reasonableness of the desire, which is felt in more than one quarter of the House, that on a visit of this nature His Majesty should be

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    accompanied by a Minister responsible to Parliament?
    MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is only repeating the Question on the Paper.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Yes, but with greater force.
    MR. ASQUITH: The King will not be accompanied by any Member of the Cabinet. With regard to constitutional practice and precedent, I must refer my hon. Member to previous Answers which have been given. I can only repeat that in the transaction of all affairs of State the practice of the Constitution is adhered to and the responsibility of Ministers of the Crown is fully maintained.
    MR. H. C. LEA: Is it not a fact that according to the librarian here the book which is the greatest authority on constitutional practice is the work called "The Law and the Custom of the Constitution," written by the hon. Member for Oxford University, and that on page 43 of that book it says that on no account should the head of the State see a foreign Sovereign or a foreign Minister without he is accompanied by a Member of the Cabinet?
    MR. SPEAKER: That would require more research.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINasked as to the business for next week.
MR. ASQUITHsaid that it was proposed on Monday to take the Second Reading of the Finance Bill, and as the Eleven o'clock rule did not apply, he hoped that the Debate might be concluded that night. [OPPOSITION cries of "Oh."] They had already had a discussion on the introduction of the Budget, one on the Income-tax Resolution in Committee, another on the Report stage, and one on the previous day on the Report of other Resolutions. He was most anxious not to curtail the liberty of discussion with regard to this measure, and if the House generally was of opinion that the debate could not be concluded on Monday night, it was proposed to
1292
continue it up to the dinner time on Tuesday. On the remainder of Tuesday evening they would take the Second Readings of three non-contentious Bills that it was very necessary to get—the Friendly Societies Bill, the Public Health (Markets in Rural Districts) Bill, and the Contempts of Court Bill. On Wednesday the first order would be the Motion for adjournment over the Whitsuntide holidays; and if, as he hoped, the discussion on that Motion might be concluded before 8.15, then he would respond to the appeal of the noble Lord the Member for Marylebone and put down, in order to test the opinion of the House, the Motion that had stood in his name for so many weeks with regard to blocking Motions. On Thursday they would take Supply, and assuming that the Motion for the adjournment was not taken advantage of for the discussion of Foreign Office Affairs, he would put down the Foreign Office Vote to give an opportunity for the discussion of a matter of interest for the moment. If the Foreign Office Vote was discussed on the Motion for adjournment, he would put down the War Office Votes 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. He hoped that the Old-Age Pensions Bill would be circulated in two or three days.
MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINasked if there was any precedent for allowing less than two days for the Second Reading on the Finance Bill.
MR. ASQUITH: Our position this year is very unusual. We have a Finance Bill and an Old-Age Pensions Bill, the latter of which offers further facilities for discussing the Budget. I hope the time I have allowed will be considered sufficient.
MR. FENWICKasked when the Old-Age Pensions Bill would be circulated?
MR. ASQUITH: In two or three days if we get the Report of the Money Resolution which is a necessary precedent.
MR. MACKARNESS: When will the Colonial Office Vote be taken?
MR. ASQUITH: Very soon after Whitsuntide.
MR. COURTHOPE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Chancellor of the Exchequer told the House that if the Finance Resolution were got through quickly two days would be given for the Second Reading of the Finance Bill.
MR. ASQUITH: My right hon. friend says he did not say that.
MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: I hope the right hon. Gentleman will keep an open mind on this question. If he will make inquiries I am sure he will find there is sufficient matter for discussion and desire to speak to justify at least two days.
MR. ASQUITH: My mind is always open, but at present I see no reason to alter the arrangement.

CORONERS' INQUESTS BILL.
Reported, with Amendments [Title amended] from Standing Committee A.
Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 157.]
Minutes of the Proceedings of the Standing Committee to be printed. [No. 157.]
Bill, as amended (in the Standing Committee) to be taken into consideration upon Thursday 11lth June, and to be printed. [Bill 250].

SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEES).
Sir WILLIAM BRAMPTON GURDONreported from the Committee of Selection; That they had discharged the following Members from Standing Committee C: Mr. Campbell and Mr. Moore; and had appointed in substitution (in respect of the Irish Universities Bill): Mr. Lonsdale and Mr. Staveley-Hill.
Report to lie upon the Table.

NEW BILLS.
  WHALE FISHERIES (IRELAND) BILL.
  "To regulate Whale Fisheries in Ireland," presented by Mr. T. W. Russell; to be read a second time upon Monday, 15th June, and to be printed. [Bill 252.]
  NAVIGATION WORKS (IRELAND) BILL.
  "To facilitate the execution of Navigation Works in Ireland, and for other porposes connected therewith," presented by Mr. T. W. Russell; to be read a second time upon Monday, 15th June, and to be printed. [Bill 253.]

  SUPPLY [8TH ALLOTTED DAY].
  Considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  [Mr. EMMOTT (Oldham) in the Chair.]

CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS ESTIMATES, 1908–9.

  CLASS V.
  1. Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £792,376, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1909, for sundry Colonial Services, including certain Grants-in-Aid."
  MR. LYTTSLTON: As the House understands there will be another' opportunity of discussing general questions connected with South Africa, I do not now propose to say anything in regard to South African questions, but I will confine my observations chiefly to East Africa, and to certain matters of Colonial administration connected with that country. The late Under-Secretary for the Colonies, after his recent journey, at any rate will not dispute the general interest in East Africa, and the general interest and opportunity that this country has in the future of East Africa has been recognised by very large sums of money being spent in the interior development not merely of East Africa, properly so-called, but what we may call the eastern side of the African Continent. It is hardly necessary to remind the House that large sums, amounting to something like £6,000,000 had been spent on the Uganda Railway, an expense which was always greatly deprecated by the late Sir William Harcourt, who prophesied the most gloomy financial results in respect to that railway, prophecies which, I am glad to say, have been very largely

  1295
  falsified in the result. Extensions of that railway, I believe, are actually in contemplation now, and with the general approval of those who are administering that country. If the Uganda Railway has been a success and done very much to open up the country, so we may recognise that further northwards a railway has been opened from Port Suakin to Khartoum which has opened up the Soudan, and that in Nyassaland the Shiré Railway is shortly to be opened.
  AN HON. MEMBER: It is open.
  MR. LYTTELTON: I will not labour this point. At Beira and Lorenco Marques great extensions of trade have also taken place. Many of these enterprises have been fostered especially by British enterprise and British capital, nor can it be denied for a moment that the British taxpayer has had a considerable burden and risk, and a very proper risk in my opinion, laid upon him for the development of these countries. What I wish to bring to the attention of the Colonial Office and of the hon. and gallant Gentleman who no doubt will speak later on, is that there seems to have been an arrest of activity at what the French would call the "beau moment"; that is to say, that while a very large expenditure has been made upon these internal communications, all the ports from Durban to Zanzibar had been allowed to fall into the hands of a subsidised German Shipping Company, who practically now hold the monopoly of all those ports. I do not wish the Committee to suppose that I complain of the Germans' action in this matter. They get £70,000 a year, and they are only following, as they are bound to do in consideration of the receipt of that subsidy, exclusively German interests, and of course, from their point of view, they are perfectly right to do that. They are pushing the merits of their country into East Africa, and they are pushing also the export of the raw materials of these countries for use in their own industries, and they are doing that with the energy and closeness always associated with German enterprise. Let me remind the House that I have been told by those who have been actually on the spot, as an illustration of the way in which British ports are treated by this German Company, that in their southward
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  voyage down the east coast of Africa they actually stay for only two hours at Zanzibar and that they then go on to Dar-es-Salaam, a German port, where they stay for several days, collecting German letters, and then they return to Zanzibar, in order, naturally enough, that the British interests in that place may be definitely deferred to the German interests at Dar-es-Salaam. I submit that this is a state of things which requires investigation and action. I think that in 1902 a Select Committee of this House, presided over with great ability by my hon. friend behind me, the Member for Aston, reported in favour of subsidising some British line in East Africa, having regard to the then condition of affairs, and I do not think it will be denied by any of those who have gone into the matter that the occasion is much more imminent now than it was then, because in those days, at any rate, the Austrian-Lloyd ships were in existence and had some business in that part, and so were also the Messageries Maritimes, the French company. Both these companies, I understand, are no longer running steamships to East Africa, and we therefore have this peculiar situation, that immense sums have been spent, and rightly spent, on the development of the interior of East Africa, and yet the ports are left exclusively in the hands of the Germans. To even the most devoted disciples of Cobden there must be some apparent absurdity in subsidising a country and permitting trade rivals to monopolise your ports. After going to vast expense in developing the Colonial estate it is a strange proceeding to draw timorously back when you are just about to gather important fruits as the result of that enterprise. I suppose they imagine this refusal to subsidise steamers is founded on a definite principle, and that the relations of this country with the Crown Colonies are those of the distinct laissez aller or the Manchester principle, or, as it is sometimes humorously called, the principle of free trade. I submit that that so called principle does not exist with respect to the relations between this country and her Crown Colonies. No less distinguished a man than Lord Cromer fell into what I believe is the general fallacy in respect to the matter. Let me remind the House of one or two fundamental

  1297
  matters with regard to Crown Colony finance. It is supposed to be one of absolute free trade. I say it exhibits very clearly and concedes the principle of Colonial preference By the instrumentality of the Crown Agents the Crown Colonies obtain the advantage of the credit of this country. Their loans are brought out here by the Crown Agents, and it is a fact, I believe, not generally known but worth knowing, that no Crown Colony has ever defaulted in one sixpence of interest on the loans which have been raised. Nobody will doubt that that is largely due to the great stabilty and credit which results to them from the flotation of these loans by the Crown Agents and by the credit of the country which inferentially is at the back of the Colonies. But that great assistance is not given for nothing. The Crown Colonies, broadly speaking, have been equipped in railways, in electric apparatus, in public buildings, and in what we may call the apparatus and equipment of civilised government, in the first place by money lent by this country, and next by stores bought in this country by contract with the Crown Agents; so that you have on one hand the credit of the country assisting the Crown Colony in its development, and on the other the very important advantage for this country of supplying not universally, but in almost every case, that equipment and those stores which are necessary to building up a civilised community in those lands. There is, therefore, the most definite reciprocity. There is the preference granted to the Colony by the lending to her of money and by the raising of loans in this country by the Crown Agents, and there is reciprocity and preference to this country granted by the purchase of the various and great necessities of her civilised existence by the Colony, which has the result, of course, of affording a very great amount of custom to our manufacturers and a very great amount of employment to our artisans. I have pointed out that in East Africa at the present moment there appears to be an arrested development. It is against common sense that we should do so much and yet stop at just the last moment—that we should in the first place go to the immense risk and expense of the acquisition of these countries, that we should call upon
  1298
  and encourage our citizens to develop them, to build railways and bridges and make roads, and then leave at the last moment when, with a very small expenditure in comparison with that which has gone before—£50,000 or £60,000 a year in subsidising steamships—we might, at any rate, occupy, not to the exclusion of the Germans but with them, both with honour and utility, those ports and those Colonies in whose development we have already spent so much. I am not at all saying that hon. Gentlemen opposite are solely responsible for this curious lapse on the part of the Colonial Office. I think all Governments, owing to the old traditions, have been, to a certain extent, responsible. But I attribute these defects very much to the want of actual contact of those who rule these Colonies as governors with the Colonial Office. The system of Government in Crown Colonies is, to some extent, responsible for this failure of touch, and I wish to ask the hon. Gentleman a question in regard to the organisation of the Colonial Office: What has become of a certain scheme which I had directed to be set in order just before I left the Colonial Office, and what reason there has been for its determination? I am referring to a schema with which I desired to make some experiment in order to give greater contact and greater interchange between our Colonial service and the Colonial Office. In the Foreign Office, officials are often changed from the Ambassadorial service abroad to the Foreign Office at home, to the great profit, I believe, of both services. I need hardly refer to the fact that our present Ambassador at Paris was the Chief Permanent Secretary at the Foreign Office, and Sir Charles Hardinge, now the Chief Permanent Official of the Foreign Office, was Ambassador at St. Petersburg. The India Office utilise the great experience, wisdom, and skill of their Indian administrators, by using them in the India Council. Lord Curzon pointed out, and I was pleased that he did so, because it corroborated my own action at the Colonial Office, how the country wasted the material of administration which it had at hand. He pointed out how many of those who had served the country abroad as Colonial Governors,

  1299
  or in India, were without occupation, coming back on pension, still with many years work in them, still with experience which is very much needed, and is almost unique, and yet is very much wasted. I have always felt there was great force in it. Before I left the Colonial Office, as the result of very prolonged consideration, I desired to make an experiment in this matter. It is peculiarly applicable to African administration. Our Governors, for instance, in West Africa, by reason of the climate, get six months holiday for every eighteen months that they serve. The whole continuity of their Governorship is broken, and they cease to be Governors when they come back to England for these six months, and they say that the gear of the Crown Colonies which they administer is thrown out for the time when the Deputy-Governor is appointed. There is a great desire, and it must be felt to be reasonable that, if possible, our (Colonial Office administration should be continuous, and the enormous bulk of correspondence between the Crown Colonies and the Colonial Office mitigated, as I think has taken place in some other offices, by more personal contact between the Colonial Office and those who administer the Crown Colonies. There is also the consideration, and it is a very vital one, of the health of our administrators in hot climates, and there is also the not less important consideration that under the old system, breaches of domestic life necessarily took place, because the wives and children of administrators are not able to be taken out in those climates. This throws a considerable burden upon Governors, and makes these positions not as popular as we should wish them to be. It would be an immense advantage if you could utilise the opportunities when Governors come home, to place them in an actual official position at the Colonial Office. Take the instance of a very distinguished man, Sir Frederick Lugard, who had administered with great distinction Northern Nigeria, for eight years, who was profoundly attached to that country, and of whose work there we are naturally proud. Why was his work there so good? Amongst other reasons, because it was continuous for eight years. Why was
  1300
  Lord Cromer's work in Egypt so abundantly fruitful? Because it was continuous for a long period of years. Putting aside controversial matters, and looking at Lord Milner's civil work in the Transvaal during his eight years of office, who can doubt that the continuity of his rule had a most important effect upon the efficiency of his administration? I do not say that this tendency is universal, but I believe that when men have held public offices not only abroad but in this country for three or four years, they are just beginning to find out what the office really means, and what its possibilities are. I believe myself that there are administrators in East and West Africa in regard to whom it would be good for them and the service and for the Colonial Office and the country if they could serve in the Colonial Office for three or four months periodically in the rainy season without vacating their Governorships. I believe that this system would settle many difficult and controversial questions which have, under the present system, to be submitted at immense length in correspondence to the Colonial Office. These administrators would then get the benefit of the experience and ability of the officials at the Colonial Office, and those who had administered for many years our Crown Colonies could discuss with the Secretary of State and the permanent officials those questions in regard to which there is any difference of opinion, and they could reason them out together. This would be spending their time far more satisfactorily than engaging in the almost interminable correspondence which now takes place. I do not say that there are no difficulties in the way. I desired to make an experiment in the case of Sir Frederick Lugard, allowing him to come home for five months while retaining his Governorship. He would then have been administering seven months in the Colony, and would have been at home five months. I think that that would have retained his services in Nigeria for a considerable time longer, and it would have formed a valuable precedent and example in the future for extension if it proved successful. Such a system would save a great deal of time and friction when there are differences of opinion between those at home and the Governors

  1301
  abroad. That personal contact with those who have been on the spot would give life and vigour to the Office, and it might form the germ of a council of administrators in tropical matters—corresponding in some respects to the Indian Council—which in that development of East and West Africa we all expect to see might be of the greatest possible service. Those matters were at the back of my mind when I suggested what was considered to be a cautious and tentative experiment. I regret that for some reason or other it was not pursued, and I should like to hear what the reason was. Very likely it was owing to the great burden of work thrown upon the Colonial Office in connection with South Africa when this Government first took office. I should be glad to hear that the proposal has not been definitely pigeon-holed, but that the Colonial Office are keeping in mind the great advantages which might accrue to the country were our administrators in these tropical climates given more frequent opportunity of being brought in consultation with our permanent officials at home. This would save a good deal of the labour and difficulty which arises in conducting important affairs of administration, finance, and the like, by correspondence. I trust that we may hear something satisfactory on this point from the Under-Secretary. We ought to be looking towards the time when the Crown Colonies should be separated definitely in administration at the Colonial Office from the self-governing Colonies, and there should be some open-mindedness with regard to the necessity of bringing our Colonial Governors into closer contact with the Colonial Office and obtaining for the country for a longer period than at present the benefit of their advice and prolonged experience.
  MR. ASHLEYsaid he wished to bring to the notice of the Under-Secretary for the Colonies certain recent events which had occurred in British East Africa. Before entering into any details he would like to congratulate the Colonial Office upon the fact that the Estimates for British East Africa had fallen from £192,000 to £138,000, a net decrease this year of
  1302
  £54,000. He confessed that that of itself was satisfactory, but he would be glad if the hon. Member would state how this great reduction had been brought about. Had it been brought about by the wholesale sale of Crown lands to the settlers without reserving a legitimate amount for the future? If so, he thought they might regard that diminution with some suspicion. He did not think the Committee quite realised what a great asset the Empire had in the Colony of British East Africa, which presented conditions which were unique in Crown Colonies. Take the case of the white settlers. There were some thousands of whites and Englishmen who had gone out to gain a livelihood and make a fortune if possible. There were also a certain number of Boer farmers from the south who had been pressed out of their own country by an increasing number of white settlers. There were also a certain number of native Indians there, and a large population of natives. Again, the natives were just as diverse in their characteristics. There were the coast towns and the districts where cotton could be cultivated in a greater degree year by year. Along the Uganda Railway they would find fine healthy plateaux where the white race could flourish in future, and where he had seen white children as healthy as any in England. On the north of the Colony they had unknown regions towards Abysinnia. Taking all these things into consideration the possibilities of this Colony were something which he thought in the not very distant future would be a very great advantage to our Colonial Empire, not only in regard to trade but also as an outlet for its surplus population. He saw no economic reason why this Colony should not prosper if the present labour difficulties there were smoothed over as they might very easily be. What were the difficulties which had arisen lately in British East Africa? The first was the economic difficulty. A great many men had gone out there thinking they would be able in a very short time to make fortunes out of agriculture, but they had found the elements against them, and many of them had been discouraged with the difficulties they had met with because

  1303
  they had tried to work on too small a capital. The inevitable result in all such cases was that those men became dissatisfied with the Government. Consequently these labour troubles which had arisen had found in this Colony a very fertile ground in which the seeds of dissatisfaction could be sown. The chief difficulty had been the inertia of the Governor and the permanent officials in failing to help the Colony to get a proper supply of native labour. The trouble had been going on for some time, but it did not reach an acute stage until last March, when deputations from the settlers were received, and the Governor convened a meeting at Nairobi. He did not like to criticise the action of the Governor, who was the representative of His Majesty, but he submitted that if the Governor convened a meeting and took the chair at it, he by that action rather laid himself open to hearing remarks and listening to speeches to which it was inadvisable His Majesty's representative should have to listen. But that was only a minor point. The Governor at the meeting made a speech which practically amounted to a refusal to modify in any serious way the present labour ordinance. In the speeches made at the meeting, various members pointed out that individual officials had discouraged the natives from coming in to labour. The Governor stated that, after all, he could not be responsible for the individual acts of his subordinates. Here, again, he was loth to criticise the Governor, but he thought they could not admit in this House that the Governor was not responsible for the acts of his subordinates. If they had done wrong he must bring them to book, and if their action was right he must support them. After the Governor withdrew, the Colonists held an indignation meeting, attended by two members of the Governor's Council, and a resolution was passed deprecating the action of the Governor. Members of the meeting proceeded to the Governor's house, and requested an interview, which he at first refused but eventually granted. There was no practical result from the interview, and they withdrew a certain distance and held another indignation meeting. He himself cordially sup-
  1304
  ported the action of the Colonial Office in supporting the Governor in suspending these two members of the council from their office, for it seemed to him that, whatever grievances there might be, they were no excuse for members of the Governor's Council attending an indignation meeting and practically appealing to him to give an answer whether he wished to do so or not. The gist of the matter was that the settlers had legitimate grievances, but that they were not very happy in the way they expressed them. What remedial measures did he ask the Government to adopt? He would suggest that the Government should see that the Governor, whoever he might be in future, possessed the great virtue of tact, that he had energy, and that he had great knowledge of the native character, because that was of very great importance in managing African natives. He did not think it was possible for this country to enter into the minute details of any labour regulations that might be laid down in East Africa. General principles could be laid down, and the working out of the details must be left to the Governor of the Colony and his Council. At present he thought the labour regulations were rather too one-sided; they said that an employer of native labour must provide cooking pots, food, blankets, and all sorts of things. That was quite right, but if the regulations were framed in a more liberal spirit, and carried out in a less dictatorial way, they would be more acceptable to the good employers of labour, and good employers were in the great majority there as in most other countries. At the same time the regulations should strictly lay down that any employer of labour who was found cheating or improperly treating his men would be most severely punished. Such regulations would carry the assent of the great majority of the people there. The Governor ought to try to take steps whereby an employer of labour who lost some of his men should be able to let the labourers know that they could not leave their work without any punishment at all. Some hon. Members might not agree with him in that. What he meant was that if a labourer was taken on for a month, and ran away within a week or

  1305
  ten days, it was surely only right that the Government should support the employer in bringing the labourer before the magistrates. These men were brought to a district at great expense from long distances, and employers should have security, if they were treating the men well, that the men would give a certain amount of stability of employment in the carrying out of agricultural operations. Another reform which he wished to see carried out was the substitution of a poll tax for the hut tax. At present they taxed only the father of a family, and this diminished the number of huts the people could live in, because they knew that the more huts they built the more they would be taxed. The change he suggested would have the advantage of causing lazy young natives who now only took to drink to do a useful day's work. There was a point in regard to passes from native reserves which ought to be dealt with. At present when a native left the reserves he was obliged to have a pass. He was practically unable to move without a pass. It was well-known that a great deal of blackmail was levied on the natives in connection with this matter. He would read an extract from a letter lately received from a prominent settler which illustrated this matter—
  "It is always said to be a desirable thing for natives to enter into the body politic of the country and give up living in reserves, but let's see what happens to them. The other day Nagollagwony, a lyoni (Masai), who used to work here thought he would give up living with his own people and go and live in one of the towns by working. He sold his cattle, much to the annoyance of his relations, and got a job as boy. He was paid off at Hisumu, promptly arrested by the police for being alive or something. He happened to know me and asked the police to wire to me, and all was well, but only because I knew him.
  "Is it likely natives are going to leave the reserves if that is what happens to them?
  "Another: three lyonis came in to visit my men in Nairobi the other day and asked me for a pass to go and feed and sleep in the town. I said that the other men had got one, and they could go under that. These three and two of my men went down to sleep in the town and as they could not all go together these three small boys went and slept at a different hut. All five were arrested. I was dining at the hotel and went to the police station. They released my men but refused to release the other three, although I told them I was responsible for them. I went into Court next morning and after a so-called trial in which
  1306
  no one, either prisoners, magistrate or interpreter, had the slightest idea what was going on, they were fined 2 rupees each for being outside the Masai reserve without a pass. I paid the fine, but if I hadn't they would have gone into the chain-gang. I turned round to the interpreter, a Masai with a blanket, and asked him for his pass. Of course as he was a Government askari he was outside the law and hadn't got one. I therefore called on the magistrate to have him arrested. He refused to do so. Of course they were quite wrong in law but they simply refused to carry it out."
  It was within his personal knowledge that that was a practical instance of what happened in East Africa. If the hon. Gentleman could not see his way to abolish the pass system, he would urge him to see whether it could not be made lighter and less stringent for the sake both of natives and employers of labour. The petty restrictions imposed on both white men and natives were rather paternal in their nature. The Government was started there when there were only a few wild tribes in the country. Since then the natives had got more educated and there had been a large influx of white population. Therefore, regulations which were suited for former times were not suitable for the present. He would conclude by reading another passage from the same letter, because it summed; up the situation very well—
  "In fact the official caste in this country which is all powerful here is putting the native under the same disabilities in the petty things of every-day life that he is under in South Africa and which were, according to the Natal Commission, the cause of the unrest in Natal. The Commission says it is not the taxes which cause the unrest but the fact that they are not thoroughly understood and their manner of collection. Take ourselves: we don't the least mind paying taxes but we object strongly to all the petty little childish regulations and rules we live under in this country. And the natives are just the same, at least they tell us so. They say we recognise that you people who have conquered our country have behaved well to us in not taking all our cattle and belongings and in not making us all slaves, because you are able to do so, and we are willing that reasonable limits should be put on the land we hold, and if you pay taxes—well, we must pay them too, and the young men can go out to look for work to pay them, as there is nothing for them to do now that raiding is done away with, and a great many of them take to drinking. That is all right; but in the name of goodness why do your policemen and askaris never leave us alone, and why do we have to walk several miles to get a pass to go half a mile, and why can't we go about as we like without being bothered? I will give you one or two instances

  1307
  illustrating this. I was talking the other day in the bar of the club to a police officer at the time this labour bother was on, and he said of course Kikuyu won't come in to work; they are afraid of you settlers on the roads. I said I believed on the contrary that one great reason was their fear of the police. I said let us have first-hand evidence, ask the Kikuuy serving behind the bar. The police officer asked him in Swahili why Kikuyu did not like coming in to work in Nairobi now, and the answer was: 'Because the police always arrest everyone for nothing.' I think that is worth a thousand assertions by people who never speak to a native."
  He was not at this point blaming officials there. On the whole they were doing excellent work under difficult circumstances. It was not easy to give an unbiased statement of what went on, but the administration of the law should be made as easy as possible to enable the natives to move about. He believed that a proposal had been made that the native reserves should be very greatly diminished. It was said that they should not keep natives in the reserves; that if they were allowed to remain in reserves they would not come out and work. He strongly protested against that argument. The natives of British East Africa were there long before we went there, and if the land belonged to anybody it was to the natives of that country. We had taken the country for good or evil, and we had done a good deal for the natives in the way of giving them security, law and order, and the opportunity to earn wages if they wished. We had given them many of the advantages of civilisation and also some of its disadvantages. But, as we had taken nine-tenths of their land from them, it was only fair that they in the House of Commons who had any say in the matter should preserve to these the land which yet remained to them. They knew what had happened when Crown Colony government ceased and self-government was given in certain Colonies. They knew that the Treaty of Waitangi in New Zealand guaranteed the lands forever to the Maoris and their children, yet the Maoris did not now own a quarter of the land which they used to do. The Waitangi Treaty had been absolutely torn up. He asked the hon. Gentleman to look very closely into any proposals that were made for a change in the land laws in British East Africa.
  MR. CATHCART WASONsaid that the hon. Member for Blackpool had referred to New Zealand, a country he knew well. The hon. Gentleman would be gratified to know that the Maoris in New Zealand were exceedingly well-off at the present time; that they were increasing in numbers and that in fact they were the landed aristocracy of the Dominion.
  MR. ASHLEYsaid that legislation had been passed which deprived them of a great deal of their land.
  MR. CATHCART WASONsaid that that was so at one time, but it was only possible now for the Crown to acquire land from the Maoris. Perhaps what had done more than anything else to satisfy native feeling in New Zealand had been the calling of the representatives of the Maoris themselves into the Colonial Parliament so that they might tell the Government what they wanted and how they felt, in a way which it would have been otherwise impossible for them to do. They all sympathised very much with the tone of the speech of the hon. Member for Blackpool. There was very little to find fault with in it, except a hint at first of some wrongdoing on the part of the Governor. He believed that the Governor of British East Africa possessed all the requisites of an excellent administrator. He had a complete knowledge of the natives, had great energy, and had long experience in Uganda before going to East Africa. The gentleman had travelled all over the country, and with few exceptions his conduct had, he believed, commanded the general approval of the settlers in East Africa. He thought that some of the settlers in East Africa did not quite realise how much they owed to the Governor. There were, of course, settlers and settlers. There were poor men who wanted to make a living peacefully, and establish a home for themselves where they could bring up their children. There were other settlers who merely went to that country to exploit it; men, representing large syndicates in this country and elsewhere, whose sole desire was to make what money they could out of the country and out of the natives. No doubt the Governor was made aware

  1309
  of very great abuses which had taken place, connected with the employment of the natives. Hon. Members, however, had not yet had all the Papers with regard to that subject. When the President of the Board of Trade was in that country he saw quite sufficient to warrant him in seriously considering the desirability of introducing certain regulations for the protection of the natives. Let the Committee realise what those regulations are. They did not amount to much. The hon. Member forgot the great fact that laws were made not for good men, but for bad men. He knew that a good man might object to laws which seemed to press rather hardly upon an individual here and there, but it should be remembered that laws were made for the general good. It was for that purpose that the labour regulations had been put in force by the Governor, and he was glad to hear that there was no intention of departing from them. They were as reasonable as they possibly could be made. The first was that the employer must see that his labourers were properly housed. The second had to do with the provision of blankets to the labourers. It was almost a paramount necessity that natives should be provided with blankets if they had to go from extreme heat to extreme cold within twenty-four hours. Other regulations applied to food rations or an allowance in lieu thereof, to an adequate supply of good water, and to security for the payment of wages. He did not think that there was one of the regulations to which the hon. Member would take objection if put in force in this country. At the celebrated meeting at Nairobi the spokesmen of the discontented settlers put their case and stated exactly what they wanted. He said—
  "I hold there is to-day a scarcity in the labour market, a ridiculous position when we consider the idle millions in this country all capable of being taught their responsibilities to the common State."
  What were we that we should attempt to dictate to the natives of East Africa that they must labour, how they were to labour, for whom they should labour, and at what rate they should labour? East Africa fell into our hands, so to speak,
  1310
  after it had been almost depopulated by many wars. For the suppression of slavery there we incurred an expenditure of six or seven millions, and he did not think that even if that great financier, the late Sir William Harcourt, were here now, he would grudge one penny expended in such noble work. We did not expect to make money out of that expenditure.
  MR. ASHLEYasked if we had not some responsibility for regulating the work of those natives and encouraging those who were not now inclined to work to engage in work?
  MR. CATHCART WASONsaid he hoped that British East Africa was, and would always remain, a free country. We had no right to regulate labour there any more that the hon. Member had the right to regulate labour on his own estate.
  MR. ASHLEYsaid that trade unions tried it.
  MR. CATHCART WASONsaid that if there had been trade unions among the natives the settlers would not have got as much labour as they did now. These natives could make a living on their own land. The taxation of the natives in Uganda amounted to only 2s. or 3s. a year, and that was not a heavy burden for all the advantages they enjoyed. But to say that the Colonial Governor was to regulate their labour and their rates of pay, and that they should be punished—possibly whipped—if they left their employ, was what he believed this Government and this House would never tolerate for a moment in any Colonial Possession. He hoped there would be many British settlers in British East Africa but not men who went there merely to make money.
  MR. REES: For what other purpose than to make money do settlers go to these countries?
  MR. CATHCART WASONsaid that there were many people who went to East Africa, as they did in the early days to Australia and New Zealand, simply to make a home.
  MR. REES: Not to make money?
  MR. CATHCART WASONsaid that homes were not made by money alone; and there were many homes in these Colonies at the present time made for the sake of homes, not money. As to the question of native lands in East Africa, he was sure they all felt glad to hear of the pledges given by the late Colonial Secretary and his predecessor in office, that the natives were to have ample lands for themselves and their children in the future. We had learned bitter lessons in other Colonies in regard to robbing the natives of their lands, and he hoped that we were not going to take away land from the people of East Africa so long as they could possibly obtain an existence from it. He congratulated his hon. friend on having the same good opinion of the country as he had from having visited it. He agreed with one remark of the right hon. Member for St. George's, Hanover Square, as to the necessity for more communications in East Africa if progress was to be made in that country. The communications hitherto hade been exceedingly unsatisfactory. He did not say they were to abandon free trade principles, but everybody knew very well that in all the mail contracts we had regard to the class of vessels that were to be employed for the conveyance of mails. He submitted that if the Government decided to send mails to America or Australia without giving a subsidy it would result in a very serious disturbance of business, and it was obvious that the Government must do something for East Africa in the way of subsidising a mail service. He did not agree that the development of East Africa was being arrested, and even if it were there was no principle which should be so close to the heart of the Administration as the principle of hastening slowly. If things were hurried they would only result in landing the country and the Administration in a hopeless position. He believed the Administrator of East Africa was a most capable manager of affairs, and he trusted the Government would condemn the action of those well-placed individuals who had set such a bad example to their fellows and to the natives. The natives possessed a strong sense of government and paid more
  1312
  duty and allegiance to their chief than any other people. He congratulated his hon. friend, and he agreed with much of what he said, on the sympathetic way in which he spoke.
  SIR GILBERT PARKERsaid that with regard to the question which had been raised by his right hon. friend the Member for St. George's, Hanover Square, which might be called co-operation in relation to the Colonial services, he would like to see the Government take advantage of the experience and service of officials of the Colonial Office over the seas by using them in the Colonial Office at home, and thereby providing a kind of co-ordination of the over-sea service in relation to the Colonial Office in this country. He regarded this as a very important matter, and the time had come when such a system was necessary in the case of the self-governing Colonies for the settlement of questions between those Colonies and ourselves. In the case of the Crown Colonies they were not in such close touch, and this country could not regard lightly the wonderful and important services rendered by Colonial officials in subordinate Crown Colonies. Our Colonial stake in the Colonies of West and East Africa in point of population was enormous and we had always been rather anxious as to the value of our great dependencies in Africa to the Empire. Most of those who had read the yearly Reports from West and East Africa must be satisfied that we had in Northern Nigeria particularly a country where Europeans could live, on the plateau, without that climatic change which was necessary for them when living in other parts, such as Southern Nigeria. The Committee could not estimate too highly the importance of these West and East African Colonies. When Canada ceased to take in the surplus population of these Islands—the arrest had already come in the United States with the agricultural development—we should need new places for our overflow, and Rhodesia, British East Africa, and Northern Nigeria, would, he believed, be settled by vast numbers of people. The lure of those lands would be as great then as was the lure of Canada now. The pessimism with regard to our Colonies was not, in his opinion, well-founded. His

  1313
  right hon. friend had spoken of the question of subsidising steamship companies. His right hon. friend was rather pessimistic in his view of British trade, which no doubt was not so good as it ought to be in view of the enormous opportunities we had had. In Uganda no doubt Germany had made enormous strides as against this country. Both Germany and the United States had done well for themselves in getting a share of the trade of Uganda and East Africa, and we were approaching the point at which we should lose; but in the main it was satisfactory to find that the grants-in-aid to these Colonies were steadily decreasing whilst the revenue was increasing by leaps and bounds. The record of imports and exports was entirely satisfactory in view of and in relation to the reduction of the grants-in-aid. The serious thing was that the British India Steam Navigation Company only visited these ports once a month. The Messageries Maritimes visited them once a month, but the Germans sent a ship every three weeks, and there was communication with Bombay every fortnight. That was a very serious thing. He remembered visiting Samoa in 1888 at which time we had scarcely any commercial connection with that island. We left it to Australia to control. We lost our connection with it because of the German subsidy to the North German Lloyd Steamship Company which sent little steamers from Sydney to carry all the trade that could be got. That policy eventually secured for Germany the complete control of Samoa, and the country that secured the commercial control of another country was eventually bound to secure the political control. Our position in the South Seas had been injured because we had not taken advantage as we ought to have done of the position we once held. We once had absolute commercial control of the Sandwich Islands. The United States eventually obtained it by means of subsidies, and had since made regulations which prevented a British ship carrying a single ounce of goods from those islands to the United States. Their policy had been to give an advantage to their own ships to devop trade. We did not confine our subsidies for mails to steamship companies. We extended them to rail-
  1314
  ways which carried mails. The Government, who had already infringed the principle of free trade, might very well do in British East Africa what they had already done in regard to cotton-growing in another place. It was an extremely elementary form of protection to subsidise cotton-growing, which cheapened cotton from Manchester. But he was not really trying to make a tariff reform discussion out of this subject. He was only pointing out what we had to face. The best of rules were infringed in the practical life of a nation. It must be so. We had deliberately infringed in the Merchant Shipping Acts and in the Patents Acts—["No"]—the old-fashioned theory of free trade. He did not want to be controversial, however; he was only making his plea for the consideration by the Government of increased subsidies and encouragements of British steamships to assist in developing the fast-growing trade of British East Africa, and what would be the still fast-growing trade of Northern Nigeria. Sir Percy Girouard believed, and anyone reading the Reports would agree with him, that in Nigeria we had a great commercial asset. The whole question of subsidies must be dealt with by this Government or a succeeding Government, in due course. He hoped his hon. friend would make more clear the difficulties, and the solving of those difficulties, if they had been solved, which had existed between the Government and members of the Council who had been removed. It was very difficult across the floor of the House to get at these matters, because the Government sometimes did not want to give an answer, or sometimes it was not expedient to give it. Sometimes the questions were not altogether wise, and sometimes those who put them were conscious that they were making difficulties for the Minister. But in a debate like the present they had the right to ask, and the public had a right to know, exactly what the situation was. He should like to know whether there was any indication that these gentlemen who had been removed were likely to be restored to their position. If they had been in the wrong, or if they had made a mistake—he did not know that they had; he believed that they had, but he had not all the facts before him—was

  1315
  there any possibility of their being restored to the Council? When in a strife between the Government and individuals the individuals had been worsted, it was a good thing on the part of the Government not to bear anything like a permanent reproach, and he should like to hear from his hon. friend that a settlement of the question had been arrived at, and, perhaps, at the same time he would make clear the exact condition as regarded the labour regulations. It would satisfy a good many of those who were greatly interested in the question. He did not wish to harry the Government in regard to a difficult problem. Might he raise another question which had been discussed in that House, sometimes with great acrimony, though he did not at all wish to discuss it with acrimony: he referred to the question of the New Hebrides and native labour. He believed the hon. Gentleman had been ore of the most strenuous in urging the Government to see that there were proper regulations concerning the recruiting of natives. They were really in the dark at the present time as to the exact position of affairs. He had asked Questions from time to time concerning the New Hebrides and had not had very satisfactory answers. For instance, he had asked whether France had proclaimed the Convention.
  THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Colonel SEELY,)was understood to say that they had made a proclamation.
  SIR GILBERT PARKERsaid he had asked the other day whether Deputy Commissioners had been appointed who would have control of the regulations dealing with native labour inside the islands jointly, and he had received no reply to that. These were very important questions. If the Deputy-Commissioners had not been appointed, if they had not been installed in their office, they had no direct control over the conditions of importation and the general regulations agreed upon by France and this country. Australia was making complaint. At the present time, arms, ammunition, and liquor were being imported into the islands.
  1316
  That was a very serious thing. He noticed in reading the Reports the other day that in 1905 £3,000 worth of ammunition was imported from France, and from this country or Australia £1,000 worth. There was no regulation so important as that relating to arms, ammunition, and liquor. The less arms and ammunition were put into the hands of the natives the better. Australia was right in protesting against this importation, and asked that a check should be put upon it. The House had never thoroughly understood the facts with regard to recruitment in the outside islands. It was quite true that the late Under-Secretary had made several statements which, if he interpreted them aright, meant that so far as those islands were concerned the two countries were jointly responsible for the recruiting that went on inside the islands, but when it came to a question of recruiting outside the islands, then each country became individually responsible. That was an extraordinary state of things. He knew the neighbouring islands and what was going on and what had gone on there, and as he had pointed out in the debates which first occurred on this subject, France ought to agree as to the regulations concerning natives who were recruited in the islands for work in New Caledonia. He held that view very strongly indeed. The Foreign Minister and the Under-Secretary for the Colonies held the view that legally and constitutionally France alone could be responsible for labour regulations inside her own territory. That was perfectly true, once the labour got there. But there was no reason whatever why we should not be responsible for the well-being of the natives. The Governments of France and England were the only Governments in the New Hebrides. He did not distrust France, but that was not the point; it was our duty as joint protector of the natives of these islands to know what the regulations were that were going to be enforced in regard to those who left the islands which were under our protection. He thought there could be no question of that; and if the Government were consenting that France should make for the natives recruited in the New Hebrides her own regulations in which we had no voice, to which we

  1317
  had not given our consent, and concerning which there was no agreement, then the Government was wanting in its duty, and was not playing fair to the natives for whom it was directly responsible. That was the point which he made most vehemently, and he maintained that it was the only position which the House could possiby take up. We were in those islands a sort of police, and we should either see that order was maintained as far as possible, provide that opportunities for settlement should be made easy, and see that the natives were well cared for and properly treated, or withdraw. France would have a perfect right to criticise any regulations that we made with regard to Fiji, and to say that she did not approve of the regulations we were making for the settlement of natives there. He hoped that the hon. Gentleman would give the Committee a satisfactory statement, for he believed that the principle involved was of vital importance, namely, that we should be responsible for everything that happened to these natives. He believed the Committee understood how important these islands were to the future of the Empire, as well as to the future of Australia. New Caledonia and the New Hebrides lay in the line of the trade routes to our own territories. They had Germany on the north and there was uncertainty as to what would eventually become of Java; they had the Philippines on the North-West owned by the United States; and quite apart from any question of who owned the territory it was a most important thing as to who should, as it were, control the lands that lay along our trade routes. We had deliberately given up the New Hebrides as we had deliberately given up Samoa to the Germans. It was offered to us and we refused to take it. We had always hesitated to add to our dominions. He had never advocated the acquisition of territory in order to enlarge our Empire, but he doubted if any man who knew the commerce of this country would not agree with him that it was important that in the South Pacific our influence should not be allowed to decline on a single one of these islands, because they represented to us the only security for our future. He did not
  1318
  suggest that the United States or Germany should not have coaling stations, but it had always been important that we should defend and protect our immense interests in Australasia and Oceania by seeing to it that along our trade routes we had practical control of the territory. When he first went to the New Hebrides we had practical control. France united with us and our settlers were the only settlers there. Since then the French settlers had come to outnumber ours, and they had a dominating influence there to-day which we ought to have in view of the contiguity of those islands to us. He was making this plea on grounds of high policy, that we should not give away an item or an atom of our grave responsibilities in these islands regarding natives or anything else, because if we did we should give away our influence, which was the most important asset we had. We were obliged to see to it that the several millions of people who lived in Australasia, and who were building up a nationality and a great civilisation there, were not dissatisfied with the arrangements which we made. The Australians had always been right in the policy of the South Pacific. They were right regarding New Guinea, Fiji, and Samoa, not because they were wiser, but because of their contiguity and their experience, and because they understood the situation. We should do everything to develop British interests in the New Hebrides, because it made not for the aggrandisement of the Empire or of Australia, but for the development of our trade, and the security of our trade routes; and, more important than anything else, since we had taken the responsibility regarding the natives there, it made for a strong position for ourselves for the future in the face of the vastly developing influence of France in those islands, to stand for the rights of the natives, and for their welfare. If we strongly defended and established a position now it would be much easier for us than when in days to come our position, commercially and politically, was weakened there. With the entente cordiale so strongly developed in the mind of both nations now, any effort to clear the situation and establish our relations regarding the natives upon a surer basis

  1319
  would receive the warm support of the authorities in Franco.
  SIR CHARLES DILKEsaid he had made a gallant attempt to get hold of the actual Vote before he rose, in order that he might once more discover what was in order on this occasion and what was not. It would be difficult for the Under-Secretary in his reply to cover the ground covered by the hon. Member for Gravesend without going outside the bounds of the Vote. For instance, there was a flavour of the well-known naval heresy of believing that trade routes were controlled by naval stations, whereas the fact was that they could only be controlled by a superiority of naval force over the force which was likely to attack them. The opinion that we ever should have been in a position to control the whole of the trade routes across the Pacific by holding every station which might be of some conceivable value, at our own expense, without a contribution towards holding them, was moonshine, if he might say so. With regard to the New Hebrides, undoubtedly Australian interest had always been clearly defined from the time when the great protest was made by Mr. Deakin against Lord Salisbury's cession of the New Hebrides to France in 1887, which Lord Salisbury had to get out of at a high price. There was a most mysterious incident about the New Hebrides Convention. Party had always prevented its being brought up in the House, but who was responsible for the Convention was a matter they had never been able to elucidate. Mr. Deakin stated at the Colonial Conference that he received in December the Convention almost exactly as it was afterwards signed from France, and he himself had seen it published in an obscure Colonial paper, before the change of Government occurred,—almost exactly as it was afterwards signed—as having been already agreed to in principle. He was perfectly certain that the heads of the Colonial Office, under the late and under the incoming Government, knew nothing about it, but there must have been some officials who had discussed the matter, and it had been treated as settled. He did not very
  1320
  much wonder if they did because it was a working arrangement on a basis which had long ago been agreed on. That we should be able to control the islands was out of the question, and it was only a question of arranging the details of joint control between ourselves and France. He came now to the portion of the speech of his hon. friend which opened the considerations which he wanted to raise. The series of articles which he had evidently read in the Sydney Morning Herald were full of statements which would not bear investigation. He doubted whether successive Governments had wilfully refused territories, such as those they were specially debating, without very strong reasons. In every case it was a matter of picking and choosing, and the balance ought to be against rather than in favour of extension. But where we were forced into these new dominions at great and continuing cost, even in this case of British East Africa, we were deliberately entering on a course laden with mischief, and, even if in the interests of the Empire it must be undertaken, full of dangers of the most horrible description, and they ought to do so in every case with their eyes wide open. British East Africa was no exceptional case. It was a typical Colony. In the essentials of the difficulties it presented it was like Ceylon. There was, in Ceylon, a great deal of low tropical land, and a great deal of high land where Europeans could live. There was a great and flourishing white population, but the labour was all black. In countries like these we had always been in the past led on step by step. After expending a great deal of money and incurring great responsibilities we were asked to give self-government. Then hut taxes and poll taxes were imposed and customs duties were raised on food, the natives paying almost the whole of the taxation which was spent ultimately on bringing in some better form of labour to compete with the natives who were said to be idle. Then, finally, after refusing it for years and years upon perfectly sound grounds, what was called full self-government was granted. Lord Kimberley, after refusing self-government to Natal in the most definite way ended by being wearied and worried into

  1321
  granting it. Then, as in Ceylon, as in Demerara, as in Jamaica, came something which was dignified into the name of a rebellion or a rising, and then they had martial law—the will of a frightened Government, or a frightened subordinate. It was a sort of a Devil's chain in which we involved ourselves whenever we went to a country of this kind. It might have to be faced, but it must be faced with full consideration of what we were coming to and where we were going, always at great cost. In the case of the West Indies he had often declared that the sham self-government by local Council was not democratic in any sense, and that in those cases where full self-government was obviously impossible, there was much to be said for enlightened despotism. As in such cases the elective Council was a planter oligarchy, the rule of a first-class Governor, tactful as well as strong, was best for the white minority and for the black majority alike. As had been said by a great supporter of autocracy in Russia, "Autocracy needs an autocrat," and the difficulty was to find him among Colonial Governors. The best men were ambitious, and consequently they would not stay long. Obviously in this case, although those who visited the country and received kindness from the Governor spoke as well as they could of him, there seemed to have been incidents which threw doubt upon the tact and strength of the Governor. However that might be, his policy had been supported by this House and they should not overlook the difficulty of having to rely upon native police and upon interpreters who were worse than the police, if that were possible. The difficulties in his way had been tremendous, and they were all desirous of supporting anything like a sound policy. In the West Indies and in such a Colony as British East Africa those who were extreme Radicals must not be under the illusion of believing that a Council, even with some show of being an elective Council, was a Liberal institution, or that it was necessarily on the side of the natives who formed a great majority of the people of the country. That was not the case, because it was a veiled oligarchy of the worst description, only rendered tolerable by the fact that the majority of the planters being of good
  1322
  stuff did the best they could under very difficult circumstances. The system itself Was as bad as possible, and it was distinctly on the capitalist side. They raised their taxation from the labourer, and they brought in outside labour to compete with native labour. He wished to support the words which fell from the hon. Member who opened this debate as to the desirability of maintaining the inviolable character of the native reserves. The land which was left ought to be made secure to them beyond all possible doubt. They ought to support the suggestions which had been made by the hon. Member as to mitigating the sharpness of the pass law, which although it might be thought necessary by the people on the spot, was always viewed with suspicion by hon. Members of this House and was revolting to the ordinary European mind. The choice of Governors was affected by the considerations which the late Secretary of State to the Colonies had put before the House. If they could get a higher type of general supervision, such as had been exercised by Sir Harry Johnstone both in East and in West Africa, or by Sir Frederick Lugard, there would be something to be said for the trial of such a scheme. In the case of the West Indies they had made experiments of that kind and no doubt there was some hope in that direction for the future. The Lugard experiment was tried, because he was at home for a long time and exercised a general direction over the Dominions he ruled. He had also ruled in similar fashion previously on the other side of Africa, in Uganda. At any rate they might support the suggestions which had been made as a tentative experiment. He wished, however, to protest against the constant pressure put upon Governments to grant sham representative institutions in these cases. That was a bad step in itself, and it generally led to a worse step, viz., the pressure of the locality to obtain full self-governing institutions, unsuitable to countries always destined to rely on black labour.
  MR. EVELYN CECILdesired to say a few words in support of the arguments which had been

  1323
  put forward in favour of ail improved direct communication with East Africa. This view had been supported by the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland and the hon. Member for Gravesend, and it had many supporters in various quarters of the House. He wished to remind the Committee that it was one of a number of recommendations proposed by the Steamship Subsidies Committee over which he had the honour to preside in 1902, and although many of those recommendations had already been carried out by the late Government and the present Government, this was one of the important ones which still remained outstanding, and which he hoped very soon would also be carried out. The general principle upon which mail subsidies were granted were that they should be for value received taking into consideration the speed and excellence of the vessels and the regularity of the service, and trade interests as a general rule were not considered except so for as the mails followed the lines of get commercial traffic. Of course, there were special cases, but the particular recommendation of the Committee to which he desired to call attention was as follows—
  "That rare cases occur where in view of special Imperial considerations subsidies are necessary for establishing fast direct British communication, and that at the present moment such a subsidy should be favourably considered for a line to East Africa, where there is no direct British steamship service and where British trade is handicapped by foreign subsidised steamship lines."
  It was important to bear in mind that that was the unanimous decision of a Committee which consisted of Unionists and Liberals, tariff reformers and free traders, and the special circumstances of the case were borne out by some of the liberal-minded witnesses who gave evidence. This was not the first case of the kind. The House would recollect that a Jamaica subsidy was in existence, and was proposed and carried through upon the recommendation contained in the Report of the West Indies Royal Commission, of which the present Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs was chairman. In the year 1901 a subsidy of £40,000 a year was established for ten years for Jamaica, of which sum this
  1324
  country paid £20,000 and the Colony the other £20,000 in order to improve Imperial communications as well as to pioneer and encourage trade. Consequently this particular recommendation was not quite the first of its kind. A subsidy was needed to establish trade in a new and promising market, and this was not an exceptional case. East Africa was a new and promising market which ought to have direct communication with these Islands. Such a subsidy might be withdrawn afterwards when the object had been attained, or it might be reduced as the traffic to or from this locality acquired a firm hold. It w s important to bear in mind that in all those special cases the experience of merchants constantly showed that the trade remained with those who originated it, and as in this case Germany had suceeded for various reasons in pushing her goods into our Colonies the native merchants in East Africa were more disposed to continue ordering their goods from Germany, and it was very difficult for English goods unless they were put on equal conditions to be able to enter this Colony in the same way and at a similar profit. Every new business required an initial outlay and Imperial enterprises were no exception to this rule. This was a special case for Imperial enterprise. They had shown by past Votes of this House that East Africa and its improvement and development was an Imperial enterprise, and it seemed penny wise and pound foolish if they were not going to spend sufficient money to carry that experiment through at the outset. Why had they spent all this money on the Uganda Railway if the best communication with it and the main profit from it were going to remain entirely in foreign hands? A direct British line of steamers would be valuable to Port Soudan, and to the Shire River and British Central Africa. That trade they knew had been going into foreign hands simply because some hon. Members believed in stereotyped dogmas which made them think they ought not to support any special lines of communication. The Committee to which he had alluded reported on impartial and not otherwise than free trade lines, and it was entirely a special case, and ought to be pleaded and granted

  1325
  on those lines. They might very well have laid the foundation for this particular line of steamers at the time they took out the material for the Uganda railway. That was an opportunity which was lost in the year 1894 or 1895, and if they had set their minds upon it and put their best efforts into it at that time to establish a line of that kind it was quite possible they would have had all the trade which now went through the German East Africa Line. What was the history of German competition? Nearly all the goods that went from Europe direct from East Africa had to be transhipped at Aden. At Aden there were constant delays and losses in consequence of the weather, breakage, or native thefts. It was true that the British India Line ran steamers direct between 1889 to 1892 from this country to East Africa, but he believed that the balance sheet of the company showed that there was a loss of something like £44,000 a year. It was a curious circumstance that the German East Africa Line, started in 1890, was originally supported with a subsidy of exactly £45,000 a year, or just about the same as the British India Company was losing. Though now the German East Africa Line had a subsidy of £67,500 for a more extended service, he believed that we could possibly run a service for our own trade purposes, and for strengthening our communications with the Colonies, for a sum considerably less than that. The way in which the Germans had pushed their trade was very remarkable. It was difficult to get all the German figures, and he had not succeeded in doing so. He found that the German East African trade rose from £300,900 in 1891 to £955,600 in 1898. He had not been able to get more recent figures. That was a gigantic increase, and one which might well be envied. He had looked to the British exports to Zanzibar and Pemba to see if they had increased to anything like the same extent. The British exports to Zanzibar and Pemba in 1892 amounted in value to £105,670, in 1898 they were only £114,217, and in 1906, as appeared from the latest Consular Report available, they were only £131,945. These figures were
  1326
  very telling and showed that we were not doing enough in this country. It was necessary to get more communication between these islands and the mainland. No doubt special rates on a scientific basis were granted in Germany to East Africa, but that did not completely account for all the results. When they remembered the great possibilities of development in East Africa which would be valuable to this country, he thought they should not neglect their opportunities. It was quite well known that Uganda was a great cotton growing country. A beginning had been made already in the growing of cotton. There was every opportunity for a vast development of that industry, and that would be of great use to Manchester. Why not have a direct line of communication by British ships? He did not see why cotton grown in Uganda should have to be shipped by German or other foreign lines. He wished to make one or two practical suggestions as to inter-colonial communication. There was a large amount of copper ore coming from the Hinterland which could be used at Beira as return cargo on ships taking out British goods to that part of the world. Another kind of return cargo which was probably possible was Natal coal. At present complaints came from Uganda that there was a great deal of deforestation in order to provide timber to burn in the railway locomotives. Deforestation in Uganda was likely to continue apace unless some coal fuel could be procured. It seemed to him that it might be perfectly possible to send out ships direct from this country to East Africa with British goods, to let them load Natal coal for the Uganda railway, and bring back copper ore from Beira, and so counter-balance trade in such a way as to make it profitable, after a subsidy had promoted its commencement. He commended that suggestion to the Under-Secretary for consideration. It was remarkable that successive Governments had not taken action in this matter, or, at all events, that this House had not pressed it more strongly than it had done when it was recollected that Consular Report after Consular Report from East Africa had been

  1327
  urging the improvement of the means of communication. The latest report from Zanzibar contained the following:—
  "One of the great grievances the British and Indian merchants have is that there is no direct British line running to and from the United Kingdom and Europe. They complain that at times they have great difficulty in getting their goods away by the foreign steamship companies. The British steamers have lately cut into the trade of the steamship companies of other nations, both from Europe and to India, and more could be done were a direct outward and homeward service maintained along the east coast of the mainland. It is now rumoured that an American line contemplates running direct steamers from America to Delagoa Bay, with a coasting service reaching as far as Mombasa."
  Those who had been in the country knew how much American machinery was taking the place of British machinery. [An HON. MEMBER: Is it a subsidised line?] He had no information about the rumour beyond what was stated by the British Consul. The Report also said—
  "It would be a pity for lack of a little enterprise on the part of British steamship companies to see trade which has been developed, and is daily developing as the interior of the mainland is opened out by British enterprise, captured by others."
  This complaint was constantly being made in the Consular Reports. There was nothing new in what he had read o the House. If our Consular officers were trusted, it was time that their recommendations should receive serious consideration. He did not wish that there should be an excessive subsidy. He merely wished such a subsidy as would pioneer and encourage trade, and provide direct mail communication with East Africa. He would do his utmost in season and out of season to bring that about. To show that this was not a tariff reform proposal—hon. Gentlemen opposite might think there was something insidious of that kind behind it—he would quote evidence which was given before the Steamship Subsidies Commission in 1902 by Sir Spencer Walpole, who was a member of the Cobden Club and for many years Secretary to the Post Office. In answer to the hon. Member for Pontefract he said—
  "If you thought it right to have a direct mail line to Zanzibar for Imperial purposes it would come within my principle, and you ought to establish it. I confess I thought till I came into this room that there was direct communication there."
  1328
  It was a very sound principle, and he should like to commend it to the Colonial Office for their very best consideration and to urge that this line should be established as soon as possible.
  COLONEL SEELYsaid that the debate had ranged over a wide field. The late Colonial Secretary had referred to his scheme for bringing the Colonial Office into closer touch with the Governors of the Crown Colonies. He was acquainted with the scheme as the right hon. Gentleman had left it, and he thought that everyone must sympathise with the object that the right hon. Gentleman had in view. There could be no doubt that misunderstandings arose owing to the lack of this close touch, and during the short time that he had been in office he had often felt this want acutely. It was often said: "How easy it would be to get over any kind of difficulty if the men were on the spot instead of having to communicate with them by telegraph." Lord Elgin, having considered the matter fully, had decided against the scheme as it stood for two reasons. First, because it was necessary for the Colonial Office to criticise the action of the Governors from time to time. But if they were to have a Governor walking into the Colonial Office the morning after some action of his had been disapproved co-operation would be more difficult, and the position would not tend to promote more cordial relations. He would not say that this was an insuperable objection, but it had to be borne in mind, and it had certainly weighed with Lord Elgin and the Colonial Office. There was another difficulty which, he thought, the right hon. Gentleman did not fully appreciate when he made the proposal. The proposal was that the Governors should come over and spend part of their time here, and that they should come to the Colonial Office as in some official capacity. It was also suggested that they should come over during the unhealthy season of their own Colonies, and that, in this way, they would be enabled to keep them there for seven or eight years and so get that continuity of policy in which would be found the most efficient administration. Yes, but what about the Deputy-Governor? Was he to be condemned for seven or eight years to be always there during the

  1329
  unhealthy season? That was a really practical objection to the proposal, and hitherto no way had been found out of the difficulty. Everyone who had read, as he had read, the Memorandum left by the right hon. Gentleman, realised to the full that his main contentions were absolutely true and just, and they hoped to succeed in carrying out some portion of his scheme, though he should imagine, from what he had been told, in another manner. The hon. Member for Aston, who had been Chairman of a Committee on the subject, had asked him a question in regard to a subsidy to run a line of steamers to British East Africa. It was quite true that we had spent large, almost vast, sums on making railways to Uganda and elsewhere. It was also true that at least one of them was paying its way.
  MR. REES: Which one?
  COLONEL SEELY: The Uganda Railway might be said, in one aspect of the case, to be paying its way. It paid a great deal more than anybody ever anticipated. But the question was asked, why did we allow Germany to have the trade from this country or elsewhere to the port of embarcation? There was always the question of pounds, shillings and pence. This was not a matter of sentiment, but of cash, and if he found that British goods were not conveyed in British ships, but that, as in this particular case, the German taxpayer was paying directly to enable British goods to be carried to a British port at a cheaper rate than we could do it ourselves, it seemed to him that, except for the loss that fell on the German taxpayer, there was something to be said for the arrangement.
  MR. EVELYN CECILsaid that the subsidy introduced far more German than British, goods. German goods thus obtained a footing from which British goods could not oust them.
  COLONEL SEELYsaid the hon. Gentleman was in error. A great quantity, in fact the largest part, of the goods carried on these German ships were British goods. That was part of the hon. Gentleman's own contention. [Mr. EVELYN CECIL dissented.] And why
  1330
  were they carried on German ships? Because the German taxpayer paid a large subsidy to run these ships. That did not fill him with horror, and, while there was a good deal to be said for preventing the complete disappearance of the British flag from any part of the sea, he confessed there was nothing here to fill them with alarm. The hon. Member said he was not in favour of an extravagant subsidy, but would it not be an extravagant subsidy? The right hon. Gentleman, he thought, suggested £50,000 or £60,000. The information in their possession was that they could not get a service for that amount, and that it was doubtful whether they could get it for a subsidy of £80,000. The Colonial Office had recently made inquiry on this subject, and they could get no lower offer at present than the sum he had named. Was it worth while? For the moment they said "No," and, while he fully sympathised with the view that they did not wish to see the British flag disappear, so long as we had more than half the tonnage of the world and so long as the British flag predominated enormously in every part of the world, they could not spend an unusually large sum on a shipping subsidy in a case where British goods were being carried, by a more or less satisfactory service, at the cost of the German taxpayer. A question had been raised with regard to the Governor and the members of the Legislative Council who had been suspended—Lord Delamere and Mr. Bailey—and he had been asked directly by the hon. Member for Blackpool what action the Government had taken or would take. His Majesty's Government proposed to support the Governor of East Africa to the full. They thought the action he took was perfectly right and perfectly correct. They were determined that nothing like forced labour should exist, with their consent, in any part of the British Empire. They did not think that either of the members of the Legislative Council who were suspended would themselves wish to employ a system of forced labour; but there was no doubt that some of the proposals which they urged before the Governor would, in fact, have had that result, and therefore the Government were of opinion that the Governor

  1331
  acted rightly, and they proposed to support him to the full. Papers would shortly be laid on the Table of the House in which the replies of the members of the Legislative Council were given in their own words, and the House would then see that it would not be proper for His Majesty's Government to ask the Governor to reinstate these members until a more complete understanding had been reached between the Governor and the members whom he felt it his duty to relieve of their functions. At the same time, everyone must wish that they would see that the action they took was quite unjustifiable in the view of any Member of that House, and it was to be hoped that they would soon be able again to put their talents and services at the disposal of the Governor. The question of the reduction in the Vote had been raised by the hon. Member for Aston. There were three reasons for the reduction in the Vote from £191,000 to £138,000. The first was that there was an increased amount from the hut tax; the next was the largely increased takings on the Uganda Railway; and the third was the increase in the Customs duties. These three together made so large an increase in the total amount received from Uganda that they were fortunately enabled to ask for the reduced sum of £138,000. The Committee were glad to hear that, but he was told that they must not expect a continuance of the diminution to this striking degree, as the increase in the takings on the Uganda Railway could not be expected to show so continuous an amount as had been the case in the past year.
  MR. ASHLEY: What about the pass law?
  COLONEL SEELYsaid he was much obliged to the hon. Member for reminding him of that point. In regard to the pass law, he did not know exactly what steps the Government proposed to take, but he did know what they thought about it, and that there was much in the contention that the pass law worked badly, and that it tended to make blackmail easier. He did not say they could abolish the law at once, but there was every reason why it should be amended. The
  1332
  hon. Member for Blackpool had asked whether a poll tax might not be substituted for the hut tax. He should have thought that a better plan, but he was told that the advantage of a hut tax over a poll tax was that it was easier to count huts than heads. However that might be, he thought it was a very excellent suggestion, and he would certainly bring it to the attention of the Governor. Breach of contract was a more difficult question. The Government could not sanction any proposal which would be in any way likely to lead to oppression, but the matter should be considered. The hon. Gentleman was as good a friend to the natives as anyone in the House, and he must realise that any step which it could be shown would not lead to oppression of any kind would receive the fullest consideration, always bearing in mind that they must make it quite plain that we were in East Africa and elsewhere not only for the good of the white settlers but for the good of the natives. Might he say how heartily they re-echoed the aspiration of the hon. Member for Blackpool that no further alienation of native reserves might take place, and they knew from the Governor that no such step would be taken, realising, as they did, that it was their country, that we had already taken too much of it, that alienation caused unrest, and that there was plenty of room for all in that country. The hon. Member for Gravesend and other hon. Members had addressed definite questions to him with regard to the New Hebrides Convention. The hon. Member had pressed him to say that the Convention was not complete in every detail, and if it was not complete why was it not complete? He could not help wondering why it was that a short time ago hon. Gentlemen opposite were abusing the Government somewhat hardly for making the Convention at all, and that now the Government was to be blamed for not going on more quickly. They were anxious to bring the Convention into operation, and the delay had been caused by the fact that it was a most extraordinary state of affairs that existed there. The New Hebrides contained a population which, as far as he could ascertain, was the only population in the world which had not a Sovereign. It did not belong to this country or to France; it did not belong

  1333
  to anybody. At every step the Government had been hampered by the fact that there was no precedent, and that was the excuse for delay. However, progress was being made. Both High Commissioners had been appointed, and that was a most important matter. The British High Commissioner was Sir Everard im Thurn, and the French High Commissioner was now M. Richard. The Deputy-Commissioners, he was glad to say, had been appointed, so that everything was in order for proceeding to carry out the Convention in full. The task was difficult. There were no buildings which could be used for the post-office or the police. It was a very primitive country. He had reason to believe, however, that order was being evolved out of chaos in the New Hebrides, and that something would be done to make the place rather happier for the unfortunate natives, who had been much harried in the past.
  SIR GILBERT PARKER: Will the hon. Gentleman answer my question whether there is joint responsibility or separate responsibility for recruiting labour outside the New Hebrides?
  COLONEL SEELYreplied that, under the Convention, this country had no control over the recruitment by France of natives for service in New Caledonia. We must rely on the well-known justice and humanity of the French in the matter. He believed we could do so. His hon. friend said that Great Britain had great responsibility for dominion or con-dominium in this matter; that we had a special responsibility to see that the natives were well treated; and that in the past we had led the way, and were not going to fall back. That was quite true; but we could not assert or attain the power. As he had said, the New Hebrides belonged to nobody. We had made a Convention with France by which some sort of order would be restored. We did not covet the New Hebrides, and we had been obliged to accept that kind of joint occupation—for it was not ownership—with France. If the question were raised, he was sure that France would resent the imputation that we should be likely to make better provision for the safety and well-being of the natives than she would do.
  1334
  Indeed, there was no doubt that France had been very near us in showing humanity to native races. He had looked at the papers which arrived that morning to see if we had any control under the Convention, and they showed that the Convention was intended primarily to regulate the recruiting of natives within the New Hebrides. Recruiting for New Caledonia was entirely outside the control of His Majesty's Government. He regretted it, but did not see how it could be altered without giving offence to a great and friendly nation, especially at a time when the head of that State was the honoured guest of this country. His right hon. friend the Member for the Forest of Dean had opened up a wider field when he said that in British East Africa they were seeking to reproduce the evils which necessarily followed the extension of Empire where a small minority of white men found themselves in the midst of a native population. The right hon. Baronet said they were led step by step, first, by trade interests, to take the country; then, by great and growing expenditure in that country, to give some kind of representative government to the small white population; and, finally, by the troubles which always arose under that half-and-half arrangement, to give what was called full self-government, which, after all, was only an oligarchy given to a few white men over the whole race of blacks. A great part of that statement was true. That difficulty must arise in any case where a small white population found itself in a small minority, especially if that small minority were composed of people of our own race. They were determined to govern themselves. A paternal form of government could not be maintained; they would not have it. The difficulty was caused partly by the merits of our own people. That inevitable fate must be accepted, and all that could be done was to hand over more of the work to the people on the spot. Although government by a small oligarchy had never been a good form of government and never would be, there was this to console them—that matters seemed to be going on better now, except in one part of the British Empire. Very strong reports had been sent from British East Africa

  1335
  by persons well qualified to judge of native affairs, pointing out that the natives had no reason to work unless they wished to do so, and that the land belonged to the natives as much as, or even more than, to the white population. These facts were pointed out with growing force by the white settlers in British East Africa, and he assured his right hon. friend that the Government did not lose sight of the fact that this House was primarily responsible for the unrepresented native races. The Government must work, as far as possible, in cooperation with our fellow-countrymen across the sea, and they had every confidence that those fellow-countrymen were growing in sympathy with the views entertained at home. The Government were determined to maintain the British Empire intact and its honour intact, and to see that it was a place in which white and black received unswerving justice.
  EARL WINTERTONthought it was rather unfortunate that they had not had the assistance of the President of the Board of Trade in this debate, because the right hon. Gentleman had paid what might be regarded as an official visit to British East Africa, had been in communication with the Governor and had had a unique opportunity of studying that country and its development. He would remind the House that the right hon. Gentleman had seen fit to publish in a certain magazine an illustrated account of his trip, although they had had no official account of his visit, and now when they had this debate the right hon. Gentleman was not present and they had not the assistance of his knowledge. The Under-Secretary had dealt with the matter as fully as he could, and no one would complain of the spirit in which he had spoken. He was not able, however, to answer some very important questions which could have been answered by the President of the Board of Trade. There was one very important point in respect to which he could not give a full answer, and that was with regard to the pass law. The hon. Gentleman did not know what step the Governor proposed in that matter; in fact, he seemed
  1336
  scarcely to realise the immense responsibility this country had for British East Africa. Here was a country which it was generally admitted had a great commercial and agricultural future before it, and this question of the pass law was of the greatest importance.
  COLONEL SEELYsaid the noble Lord quite misapprehended what he had said. If he waited until to-morrow, or went to the Vote Office now, he would see a full account of what had happened and what was proposed to be done in the way of emendation. He did not know exactly what was being done, but he was fully aware of the general position.
  EARL WINTERTONsaid he did not know himself what steps the Government proposed to take in the matter. The President of the Board of Trade had been in British East Africa, and presumably had discussed this most important matter with the Governor, unless he was too busy taking photographs; yet the Government were unable to tell them what decision had been come to, or what they proposed to do. Another matter which he desired to bring forward had reference to the unpleasant incident connected with Lord Delamere. It was obviously necessary on both sides of the House to avoid making this an acute personal matter, and he was most anxious to avoid doing so. But he respectfully urged that they were entitled to have a little more light thrown on this case. One could understand that at the time the incident took place there was a very great deal of acute feeling in British East Africa on certain subjects, but they could hardly believe that Lord Delamere and the other gentleman concerned would have acted as they did without strong reasons. That Lord Delamere should have taken the line he did everyone regretted, and everyone must support the Under-Secretary in sustaining the action of the Governor; but surely there was something behind the scenes which they had not yet had brought forward. It was incredible that a man like Lord Delamere and those joined with him would have acted in the way they did, or that the Governor would have taken up the attitude which

  1337
  he did, unless there was a greater question between them than appeared from the reports they had received. At any rate he thought they were entitled to emphasise the need there was for avoiding such incidents in the future. So far as he had heard in this debate, no one had attempted to hint that the same incidents were not likely to occur in the future. The whole situation was fraught with danger; and until these questions were settled one way or the other there was very great risk of further incidents of this undesirable nature. There was the question of white police which last year very nearly caused a similar outbreak A great many of the colonists of British East Africa were in favour of a white police force, because they did not think that the white men and women were safe in the midst of the enormous black population. So far as he knew all that had been done had been the appointment of some twenty or thirty men, a number absolutely useless. If the President of the Board of Trade had been present they could have discussed all these questions at much greater length. His hon. friend had visited British East Africa, but they had not had the same advantage of studying this question. It must be the wish of all parties that causes of friction between the Governor and the white settlers should be removed, and he was afraid they would not be removed as soon as the Undersecretary seemed to think unless the Colonial Office gave the very closest attention as to how the grievances which undoubtedly existed could be dealt with. The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland seemed to resent the suggestion that the Governor of this Colony ought in any way to regulate labour. Surely that was one of the primary duties of the Governor of a Colony such as British East Africa. Surely it was his duty to see that labour was not forced or exploited, to see that the ignorant natives were not taken advantage of, and to exercise almost the duty of the Board of Trade or of a trade union in this country. It was one of the primary duties of a Governor to look after the natives.
  MR. CATHCART WASON: Is the noble Lord aware that the suggestion made at this meeting was that the Govern-
  1338
  ment should actually call upon the natives to work, and teach them the responsibility of work?
  EARL WINTERTONsaid he was not present, but he understood that the hon. Member laid down the general proposition that it was undesirable in British East Africa that the Government should regulate labour. But it was their duty not only in the interests of labour, but in the interests of employers, in a great undeveloped country like British East Africa, with a vast number of natives, to deal in some way with the native problem. The fact of our not having regulated native labour in South Africa in the past was one of the causes of the terrible troubles that had taken place, and were likely to take place, all over the country. The fact that the Boers exploited native labour in the most scandalous way was one of the primary causes of the trouble there. We ought surely to avoid the same state of affairs taking place in this instance by drawing up a set of regulations which would be harsh neither to the natives nor to the settlers. So far as could be judged from this debate, and from what they had read in the Press, the present regulations for labour in that country tended to annoy and harass both the employers of labour and the natives. The Undersecretary shook his head, but he had given no answer to the fact brought forward by his hon. friend the Member for Blackpool with regard to the way in which the hut tax and pass law operated. It was obvious that the whole question of the regulations required to be very carefully looked into. There seemed to be very considerable danger that the whole future of British East Africa, which from a commercial and agricultural point of view should be great, was being jeopardised by the unfortunate system of bureaucracy, and because the Colonial Office in the last few years, and, he was sorry to say, this House, had very largely neglected and ignored the very grave problems which had to be discussed. During this debate, until the last hour, not a single representative of the Labour Party had been present; yet there was not a subject connected with the Empire which should

  1339
  be of more interest to that Party than this question of British East Africa, where there was an acute labour problem, which tended to become acuter every year, and which must be settled if the future if that country was to be saved.
  MR. MOLTENOwas understood to say that this was not a question of tariff reform; it was a question of trade not being sufficiently free. What was the reason why shipping did not go to British East Africa? It was because the place must be served through the Suez Canal. But shipping did not go that way because of the enormous charges upon it. The Suez Canal earned enormous dividends, but like the old robbers on the Rhine, they descended upon all trade which passed them and levied enormous tolls. It would be better if they got the Suez Canal charges reduced. The matter had been brought before the recent Colonial Conference, and he understood that Australia and New Zealand had taken steps with regard to those charges. An effort should be made by His Majesty's Government to get them reduced, so that British shipping might be able to get through the Canal on even terms with the shipping of other countries. He had risen, however, to draw attention to the enormous increase in this Vote. Ten years ago it was £109,000, and last year with the Supplementary Estimate it had risen to £1,410,000. The question of reducing this Vote should be carefully considered. Ten years ago the item as regarded the High Commissioners stood at £1,000; but he saw that this year it was £11,500 for salaries alone. And there were various other items of expenditure which might also be reduced. He suggested that South Africa should meet this expenditure herself, for with these payments we were really becoming tributaries to the Colonies. What was a High Commissioner? It was difficult to say. He was not a Governor-General. He had no locus standi in the Colonies. He would urge strongly the Government to save our money, to meet the wishes of the people in South Africa, and also to safeguard the interests of the natives by making the change he had suggested.
  SIR F. CAWLEYsaid he wished to call the attention of the Under-Secretary for the Colonies to the dearth of native labour and the conditions imposed on settlers in East Africa. As the hon. Gentleman was no doubt aware, settlers had to undertake to spend a certain sum of money when they received a grant of land. With the dearth of labour they were not able to fulfil the conditions imposed upon them. Several people, he was informed, wanted to go forward with their schemes. The money was already provided, but they were not able to sign the leases because they knew they would not get the necessary labour in East Africa. He was also informed that at a recent conference, over which the Governor presided, it was stated that between 3,000 and 4,000 labourers were wanted there now. He asked the Under-Secretary to take this great scarcity of labour into consideration, and also the conditions on which the leases were granted. Possibly the Government might be able to help the question forward.
  MR. H. J. TENNANTdesired to emphasise the point made by the hon. Member for Gravesend with regard to the New Hebrides. He had listened with great interest to the Under-Secretary detailing what had been done in that rather chaotic part of the world. The hon. Gentleman had informed them that the only part of the Convention which had been put into force was that relating to arms and ammunition, and alcoholic liquors. He would like to inform him, with regard to one of those points, that information which had reached him was not in accordance with his statement. There was a telegram from Sydney on the 18th of this month saying—
  "The latest news from the New Hebrides emphasises the immediate importance of the appointment of British officials to enforce the Convention, because French traders, alleging that gin is the only prohibited liquor, have unloaded on two of the islands in question large cargoes of wine, beer, and whisky."
  He had asked the Under-Secretary a question, and he had Said that he would cause immediate inquiries to be made. He had no doubt those inquiries would be made, but he thought it was only due

  1341
  to him that he should place before him this information which had reached him in order that he might bring pressure to bear on these traders and see that the regulations were actually enforced. With regard to the closer touch into which the hon. Gentleman wished to bring the Colonies with the Office of which he was Under-Secretary, he conceived that that was one of the most important functions which the Colonial Office had in hand. The House would look forward with interest to a statement of what was being done to carry out one of the recommendations of the Colonial Conference of last year in regard to the Secretariat.
  MR. REESfelt sure that in commercial circles pleasure would be manifested at the proposal of his right hon. friend opposite, and that it would be gratifying to people concerned in enterprises in the Colonies and Protectorates if there was some system under which the Governors and administrators of those Colonies could be got at and consulted about the various works in which they were so much interested. Nor could he quite understand his hon. and gallant friend's answer upon this point. He said there would be difficulty, and it would be awkward if a Governor walked into the Colonial Office when the Colonial Office was about to reprimand him. But the Colonial Secretary was always a statesman of resource, and he could always post the reprimand so as to catch the Governor when he returned to his Colony. That was a simple way out of that difficulty. If that was too simple, might he suggest that although it was usual in Colonies to have another officer designated the Deputy-Governor, who took over charge when the Governor went away, there was no particular virtue in the title, and it was quite a simple matter to let the next senior officer administer during the absence of the Governor? Therefore he hoped the hon. Gentleman would again consider that scheme which he regretted Lord Elgin was not able to accept. He was making his recommendation entirely from the commercial and not from the official point of view, because he belived it was a good thing that there should be this frequent intercommunication between the officers administering and the Colonial Office. It
  1342
  was with great respect to the right hon. Baronet the Member for the Forest of Dean and with submission to the House, that he took considerable exception to what the right hon. Baronet had sketched out as the ordinary course of events in a British Colony, and more especially to the view he took of the planting interest. He had said that these European planters became a white oligarchy, and the Undersecretary had said that oligarchy was always a bad form of government. That was rather a comprehensive conclusion, and it might be capable of argument that this country had been fairly well-governed by a great oligarchy. It went on anyhow, and he was inclined to think it was a good Government. The Colony which the right hon. Baronet singled out as his example, Ceylon, owed its prosperity to its planters. It was they who had provided occupation for the natives of Southern India, and it was they who in India had clothed the barren hills of Assam and other districts with tea. So much had they raised the wages and so well did they treat the coolies that these men settled in crowds when their indentures were finished. Ceylon, India, and Trinidad owed their prosperity chiefly to the planters. The man who took his capital into one of these territories and invested it in planting had interests which were very closely bound up with the true interests of the people. It was not a sham representation, for these men were generally sincere friends of the natives, amongst whom they brought a great deal of money, whose wages they invariably raised, and whose true friends he declared from lifelong experience they were. Take the case of Nyassaland, in which he was interested. He trusted he would not put himself out of court by saying he represented a large commercial interest there. Since the railway was made there the wages of labour had been exactly doubled. Those who made the railway had to pay two or three times what they expected, and the higher wage immediately became the usual wage throughout the Protectorate. If the natives could express their opinion they would say: "Give us the men who doubled our wages." He had no doubt the two non-official members of the Council of East Africa, whose proceedings

  1343
  he was far from defending, were representatives of this character, and even in regard to them, they might wait to pronounce judgment until they saw the Blue-book which the hon. and gallant Gentleman said they would receive tomorrow.
  COLONEL SEELYsaid he found that an unexpected delay had arisen. A further communication had had to be made, but he expected they would be able to publish the book in less than three weeks.
  MR. REESsaid he was quite satisfied with that since the Colonial Office was supporting the Governor, and added that there were various matters connected with Nyassaland to which he desired to refer. For the information of the hon. Member for South Down he might explain that the Zambezi ran south of that Colony and was not "somewhere in Siam." The hon. Member for South Down illustrated in his own person by his speech the other evening the deplorable condition of elementary education in Ireland. He did not seem to know in what quarter of the globe were situated the places he mentioned, or how important it was to persons trading in Africa that the Colonial Office should cure sleeping sickness, and keep an eye on the tetse fly. There was a matter in which he was greatly interested which had been referred to since the Under-Secretary to the Colonies had spoken, viz., the question of steamer communication on the East coast of Africa. That question had been argued as one of free trade or protection, but the question was whether a subsidy would be a good thing or not for the East coast of Africa, and he cared nothing at all whether it would be classified by fiscal purists as falling under the one heading or the other. The question was whether it was a good thing for East Africa or not.
  MR. JOHN WARD: Where does England come in?
  MR. REESsaid that that was just the point, she did not come in. There was no English line at all serving these ports. It seemed to him a most
  1344
  unfortunate thing that those who wished to ship rails or other materials to South Africa could not do it in British ships. It had been said, and it was prima facie a strong argument that the British shipper got the advantage of the cheap German rate, which was lessened in proportion to the subsidy paid by the German Government. That argument, however, only carried the matter to a certain point, because when once these low rates had driven all other lines away from these ports, it was in the power of the German monopolists to raise their rates. Therefore, the argument was only good up to a certain point, and that point had now been passed, because that line of ships was now in practically complete control of the coast. He urged upon the Under-Secretary for the Colonies the serious consideration of what his hon. friend opposite had said, because many British subjects were interested in business on the East coast of Africa. Personally he would be very glad indeed to see a little subsidy given, and he could assure the Committee that business men would not inquire whether it infringed the scientific principles of any particular fiscal system. The Colonial Office had appointed a small Committee to consider certain questions affecting Crown Agents. He would like to speak on behalf of those persons, who had business with the Colonial Office, who had to make contracts with the Crown Agents, on behalf of that office. The question in which they were interested was, the status of the Crown Agents, as an outside Colonial Office, standing between contractors and the Secretary of State. He confessed the terms of reference to that Committee as he read them did not seem to him to cover the case so thoroughly as he would like to have seen, but he was assured by the Under-Secretary that this question was covered by the reference. As regarded the Council which had been mentioned he sincerely hoped the advice which had been tendered on this point by several hon. Members would not be entertained. The abolition of the Council in East Africa would be viewed with considerable disfavour and would cause alarm along the coast of Africa where a similar Council had been appointed for Nyassaland, which contained two members of the Legislative Council who

  1345
  represented the natives as well as the Europeans in that part of the world. The hon. Member for Blackpool had referred to the necessity in a primitive community of some law for regulating labour and protecting the labourer against a breach of contract. It had been pointed out that in Africa an employer might get labourers under contract to come at very great expense from long distances. The employer had to trust very much to their good faith and very often they left him in the lurch and he had no remedy. In such cases the defendant had no means and could not to any advantage be sued, and it was a matter worth the consideration of the Colonial Office whether or not some form of law, such as that which existed by way of criminal breach of contract in the planting districts of Ceylon and India, could not be introduced on the east coast of Africa and in the African Protectorates. He was glad to hear in the interesting speech of the Under-Secretary for the Colonies the statement that in his opinion the English law was not suitable for those regions. He hoped, however, some simple and suitable form of law to meet such breaches of contract as he had referred to would be introduced, for he felt sure this would be much to the advantage of those doing business in protectorates upon the East Coast of Africa.
  MR. JOHN WARD: Would flogging meet the case?
  MR. REESsaid he had not suggested anything of the sort, but that where a man contracted with an employer at considerable expense to that employer who gave him an advance, and did so simply to run away, surely there ought to be some way of dealing with him otherwise than by civil suit for breach of contract.
  MR. BENNETTsaid that he would make no attempt to follow the train of thought contained in the utterances of that amazing, and, indeed, unique exponent of Liberal ideals, the hon. Member who had just sat down. But he would remark that the system of oligarchy which had been so warmly eulogised by the hon.
  1346
  Member in question was held by most serious students of political history to be one of the worst forms of human government ever devised by the evil ingenuity of mankind. His only object in rising that evening was to call attention to certain grants of public money made to our Crown Colonies. Let them take for example the grant of £1,350 made to the island of St. Helena in order to assist the people of that Colony in meeting certain trade losses incurred from the removal of its small garrison. Here they had an island garrisoned by a company of Regular infantry and a handful of sappers and gunners. For cogent and sensible reasons of Imperial policy these troops were in 1906 removed from St. Helena. Immediately upon the withdrawal of these troops an outcry was made that the British Exchequer must make good to the islanders the amount of trade which they had lost from the removal of the soldiers. He had lived for a few years of his earlier life in St. Helena, and he hoped that anything he might say would not be regarded as ungracious towards the inhabitants of his former home. He had merely cited the case of the St. Helena grant because it was typical. It embodied a vicious principle far too prevalent in the case of our financial relations with our Colonies. For the life of him he could not see what greater moral claim the island of St. Helena had upon the British taxpayer than, say, any town or rural district in the Mother Country. Suppose, for example, that the War Office resolved, for good and sufficient reasons, to remove a cavalry regiment from Colchester, Canterbury, or Edinburgh, would any hon. Member of that House get up and claim a subsidy from the Imperial Exchequer because, say, the tradesmen in any of these towns who had supplied the troops with bread or beer lost a great deal of their trade in consequence of the disappearance of the regiment in question? The monstrous character of such a demand was apparent and obvious in the case of any portion of Great Britain; but if the applicants were Colonials no difficulties were made, and the British taxpayer was bled without further scruple or delay for the benefit of Colonials who were almost invariably far better off, man for man, than ourselves.

  1347
  We had not neglected St. Helena in the past; we had sent her a variety of crowned heads from Napoleon to Dinizulu, and the despatch to the island of a large number of Boer prisoners during the South African War had brought the islanders a great increase of trade. But their theory seemed to be that we were to keep useless troops in a useless island in order to provide trade for the civilian population, and if we declined to do this, the British Exchequer was to make good any trade losses. He was afraid that the former prosperity of St. Helena, the golden age of the little island, was gone, never to return. The cutting of the Suez Canal had dealt its prosperity a blow from which it could not, of course, ever hope to fully recover, and these subsidies were, besides being unjust to our people at home, mere palliatives to the distress of the islanders. He hoped that the condition of St. Helena's people might materially improve without artificial aids like these doles from the central Exchequer. The island had no public debt, enjoyed a beautiful and equable climate, and could produce good crops, and it was worth noticing that its once considerable export of potatoes to the Cape was ruined by the high tariff imposed by that neighbouring Colony; so much for Colonial amenities in trade relationships! He found the same bad principle which he had instanced in the case of St. Helena prevalent all along the line in these Colonial subsidy Estimates. There, for example, was a line of steamers trading, between Canada and the West Indies, and coming nowhere near the Mother Country at all. Nevertheless the Imperial contribution to this line amounted to no less than £13,500! Lower down he noticed that the British taxpayer actually provided the salary of a lecturer in agriculture in the Barbados! Suppose a grant were wanted from the Exchequer to provide a few lecturers in our English counties who might go round the villages and teach our people the advantages of co-operation, and the best methods of cultivating small holdings, what sort of answer would be given? Not a favourable one, he feared. Money was wanted in England for all manner of good and useful purposes—money to establish credit banks, money to make the Housing Act a real
  1348
  success, and so on in many directions. For such urgent needs as these at home no money might be forthcoming, but if a lecturer was needed to teach the people of Barbados the best way to cultivate their own farms for their own benefit, the British taxpayer paid the lecturer's salary without hesitation. He wondered how much longer the nation was going to tolerate these selfish and unreasonable demands from the Colonies? The only possible justification for Imperial subsidies might arise from the claim that they were made on a strictly business footing. The grant of money, for example, to a railway in Nigeria might be supported on the ground that it would develop large cotton districts and so ultimately prove of some real benefit to England in general and Lancashire in particular. But this claim could not conceivably be made good in the case of many of these Imperial grants-in-aid and subsidies. He hoped, in conclusion, that the present Government would not be content always to follow the same path in these Colonial matters, but would from time to time initiate, so to speak, an Imperial stock-taking, and weed out from our Imperial responsibilities these financial abuses, and so accord a tardy act of justice to the British taxpayers, the vast majority of whom are poor men and women.
  MR. WEDGWOODsaid that Liberal Members had constantly made merry over the folly of France and Germany in paying sugar bounties in order that we might get cheap sugar and cheap jam. It seemed slightly inconsistent to suggest that they should now pay bounties in order that Lord Delamere, Mr. Bailey, and others interested in East Africa, should get their goods cheaper. That was merely by way of comment on the arguments he had heard in favour of a subsidy to British East Africa. So far as he was concerned, whether it was a decaying trade or a decaying port, whether in this country or in the Colonies, or in any other part of the world, he had an equal objection to the payment of bounties, subsidies, rebates on Suez Canal rates, or any other form of preference whatever. He was quite certain that that was the only possible attitude for a free trader to take up.

  1349
  The right hon. Member for St. George's, Hanover Square, had urged that grants-in-aid to the various Colonies should be continued and not be stopped just when they were beginning to be paying concerns. He was very anxious that these grants-in-aid should not be stopped when it was bad for business in the Colony and this country also, and in order to put them on a better footing he was extremely anxious they should be made not as grants but as loans. The revenue of British East Africa and Uganda and Nigeria was rising every year. It had risen in Uganda from £108,000 in 1903–4 to £395,000 in 1906–7. In fact, the time was coming when Uganda would begin to pay its way, and no more grants-in-aid would be required. What he asked was that as soon as a Colony began to pay its way we should at least have some interest on the grants which had been made in the way of grants-in-aid. If money was advanced on loan instead of by grants-in-aid we should in time get money back from some of the Colonies at all events. He did not think that either the Colonial Office or the Treasury should miss an opportunity of recovering some of the vast sums which had been swallowed up in Uganda and British East Africa. It was obvious that all these Colonies would pay their way soon, and they would become profitable to the British taxpayer and trader sooner if we did not give away the valuable assets which the Colonies possessed. He quite agreed with the hon. Member for Blackpool that in British East Africa we had a great asset, but, unfortunately, it was a constantly diminishing asset. Every year we sold off permanently to private persons more and more of the public lands in that Colony and in all our other Crown Colonies. He would give one example from British East Africa. The sales of public lands there amounted in 1903 to 3,000 acres, in 1904 to 21,000 acres, in 1905 to 31,000 acres, in 1906 to 41,000 acres. In 1906 247,000 acres were leased for an average period of ninety-four years, which was practically as good as a sale, and only 4,500 acres were leased for what he called the reasonable period of forty years. Altogether, we had alienated almost permanently
  1350
  over 1,000,000 acres of land, in the value of which, with the increase in population in British East Africa and. the expenditure of public money, there would be a constant increase. We, who were making the value, would not reap a penny of benefit. Surely it was good business not to part with assets which must increase in value. There were plenty of Crown Colonies which were not alienating their land permanently. The Federated Malay States only let land on thirty-year leases. There was another objection he had to this common habit of selling land. These sales were either made in private or by public auction. It was obvious that a private sale lent itself to all manner of jobbery and back-stairs dealing, and the State did not get the best bargain out of private sales. Private sales were recognised as the worst possible way of selling national land. Sale by public auction was better, but even that was not the best form of disposing of land, because it was easy to form rings. There were not many people in those Colonies who had capital to make large purchases of land. Even sale by auction produced very unfortunate results for the country that was selling its land. Lord Milner invented what was, perhaps, the best way, if they must alienate land permanently. No public land in the Transvaal was ever to be bought or sold without being put up to auction, the upset price being first of all fixed by Government valuers. In that way the benefit of competition was obtained, and the risk was avoided of rings being formed to give too small a price for the land. That was not done in British East Africa and one or two other Colonies, and he begged the Under-Secretary to see that in future these sales were conducted by public auction, and that the upset price was. arrived at by careful valuation made by Government valuers. He wished to say a word about one drawback to the system of treating land in the Federated Malay States. A good deal of land there had been permanently alienated before Sir Frank Swettenham took the country in hand. In one of the states the Government were going to the expense of a re-survey of the country which had been so alienated in perpetuity, and in that

  1351
  way they were making the land far more valuable for its owners. He maintained that such a survey had always been carried out at the expense of the owners. That was done in the Argentine, in the Transvaal, and in Swaziland.
  THE CHAIRMAN: Does this arise on this Vote?
  MR. WEDGWOOD: I think it is all under the Colonial Office.
  THE CHAIRMAN: This Vote is for certain Consular services. I do not find any reference to the valuation of land in the Malay States.
  MR. WEDGWOODsaid it would surely be in order to discuss Northern Nigeria on this Vote. Perhaps the best possible method of dealing with land in Crown Colonies was that at present adopted in Northern Nigeria, and which we owed to Sir Francis Lugard and Sir Percy Girouard. Originally, the Emirs held all the land as far as Kano, and all the peasants or ryots held their land from the Emirs, and paid rates for it. Now in Northern Nigeria we had taken the position of the Emirs who held off the Crown, the same as the barons held their land in England off William the Conqueror. The Emirs, however, had been changed into tax or rent collectors. They handed over sometimes a half and sometimes three-quarters of the rents to the State, retaining the balance for the purpose of carrying on local government. It was exactly the same system as prevailed in Bengal. Practically the whole rent of the country was paid either as local taxation or as general taxation. It was called a land tax, but as a matter of fact it was rates. He was extremely anxious that this system should be extended from Northern Nigeria to Southern Nigeria and the Northern Territory of the Gold Coast.
  THE CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member is again out of order. Southern Nigeria and Lagos are not on this Vote.
  MR. WEDGWOODsaid he hoped the Under-Secretary would consider the possibility of extending to the countries he had mentioned the powers of the
  1352
  reference of the Committee which was inquiring into the question of the tenure of land in the Colonial possessions.
  MR. SUMMERBELLsaid that the impression seemed to be left on the Committee that the Labour Members objected to coolie labour from the point of view of morals. What they objected to was subsidies being granted to planters in connection with the supply of coolie labour. They saw no reason why planters had any right to be treated differently from other employers of labour in the Colonies.
  MR. REESsaid he knew of no subsidies.
  MR. SUMMERBELLsaid that subsidies or grants had been mentioned as having been given to planters in connection with the introduction of coolie labour. The Labour Party objected to grants or subsidies being given out of the taxes of this country or out of the taxes of the Colonies for such a purpose. The coolie labour so introduced had reduced the rate of wages paid in one of the Colonies from 60 to 32 cents a day. There was plenty of labour already to be had in the Colonies if only the planters would pay a proper wage.
  COLONEL SEELYsaid that perhaps the Committee would like him to say a few words in reply to the criticisms that had been made. His hon. friend the Member for Montgomery Burghs had urged again the question of subsidies to steamers to East Africa. He could assure the hon. Member that the matter was receiving consideration. But with regard to the alleged amount of trade lost to this country, in point of fact there had been an increase in the amount of British goods sent to East Africa to a very great and striking extent, while of German goods there had been a positive decrease. The imports from the United Kingdom had increased by £62,000, and the imports from British possessions had increased by £48,000, whereas the imports from Germany had decreased by £5,000.
  MR. REES: To East Africa proper?
  COLONEL SEELEY: To East Africa proper. The total trade was even more

  1353
  striking. The increase for the United Kingdom was £427,000, and for Germany £48,000. At the same time he quite agreed that we should keep a close watch on these matters. An hon. Member had asked a question in regard to breach of contracts. That would be carefully considered. He did not think it would be wise that breach of contract should be made a criminal offence. In regard to Crown Agents, that did not arise on this Vote, but he would give all information on the matter as to the arrangement come to with these gentlemen when the proper Vote was reached. The hon. Member for the Woodstock division had referred to the grant to St. Helena. That grant was fully justified because the military who formerly formed so large a proportion of that population—one to three—had been withdrawn from the island, and it was obvious that great hardship—amounting to almost a cataclysm or an earthquake—had been caused. A very large proportion of the small population had been deprived of their means of subsistence by the removal of the garrison, and, as he had said, the grant was fully justified. The hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme had raised the very interesting question of the alienation of land in Crown Colonies. The Colonial Office were fully alive to it, and the Committee which was about to sit on the subject would carefully consider all the points raised by the hon. Member. It was not proposed to allow the native land reserves in East Africa to be permanently enroached upon. A question had been asked as to a High Commissioner for Johannesburg. That matter was very important no doubt, but he could not take any steps in regard to it at present. The hon. Member for Berwickshire had raised the question of the imports of gin into the New Hebrides by French traders and said that the import of all kinds of liquor should be prohibited in an equal degree. The High Commissioner of the Pacific would make a report on the subject. The Colonial Office had taken note of the point raised by the hon. Gentleman opposite in regard to labour in the West Indies, but he did not think that the particular suggestion made by the hon. Gentleman could be entertained. It was a fact that coolie labour was imported into the West Indian
  1354
  Islands very considerably, but it was not quite true to say that the coolies displaced native labour. He had had a conversation with the Governor of Jamaica who had very strong views or the subject of the natives, and he assured him that the work done by imported labour was work that would not be done by indigenous labour. Of course the actual condition of the labourers must in every case be made all that was desirable, nor was it desired that the coolies should lower the native wages. He was assured that they did not; but he undertook that representations should be made on the subject to the proper authorities. He hoped the Committee would now allow the Vote to pass.
  MR. BOWLEScalled attention to what, in his opinion, appeared to be a strange vagary in our system of finance. He noticed in the Votes that it was expected that we should receive £20,000 from the Gold Coast Colony in respect to their debt to us. In 1905–6 and again in 1906–7 the Committee was informed that the Gold Coast was going to pay us no less a sum than £100,000. That no doubt greatly influenced the Committee in voting the grant-in-aid. Yet in neither of these years had we received any of this very large sum.
  THE CHAIRMANpointed out that this question did not appear to arise in Committee of Supply and was therefore out of order.
  LORD BALCARRESsubmitted that appropriations-in-aid were in many cases charges on the taxpayer. He had known occasions when debates in Supply lasting two hours had taken place in connection with the appropriation-in-aid from seats in Hyde Park.
  THE CHAIRMANsaid there were decisions that appropriations-in-aid could not be discussed in Supply.
  MR. BOWLESsaid he bowed to ruling of the Chairman and would not proceed further with the subject. Another vagary in our financial system was the manner in which these grants-in-aid were

  1355
  dealt with. It seemed that they had to be subject to audit by the Comptroller and Auditor-General, but if they were not spent during the year in which they were granted no surrender was to be made of them to the Exchequer. He could not understand on what principle that arrangement was made. The only object of an audit by the Comptroller and Auditor-General was to ensure that such part of the money granted for a particular purpose as was not spent should be returned to the Exchequer in the ordinary way. The truth was that these grants-in-aid were free gifts. We gave away so much and there was an end of it. We never saw one halfpenny of it again. He, therefore, could not see that there was any utility in the account of it being audited by the Comptroller and Auditor-General, and unless some advantage could be shown he would suggest that the practice should be discontinued.
  SIR F. BANBURYpointed out that the hon. and gallant Gentleman had not replied to the Question of the hon. Member for Dumtriesshire with regard to the mail services and the payment of dues on the Sues Canal. The subsidies given to steamers by other Powers were protection pure and. simple, and it was an extraordinary doctrine to be advanced by hon. Members opposite. Many of the ratepayers of this country who were interested in the Suez Canal had no wish to make presents to the shipowners, who were quite able to take care of themselves, especially if they were free trade shipowners. The hon. and gallant Gentleman had dealt with the question of the New Hebrides in a most unfortunate way. He said that something had to be done to make the conditions of the natives happier; but children were to be employed, not according to their age, but to their height. Then there was the repatriation clause, when it was to operate in another place, to which the hon. and gallant Gentleman so much objected.
  COLONEL SEELY: That has been altered.
  SIR F. BANBURYsaid there were also the extraordinary hours from sunrise to sunset, no interval for Sunday, and
  1356
  no proper precaution taken with regard to the food the natives should have. Did the hon. and gallant Gentleman propose to see those conditions altered, especially with regard to child labour? The hon. and gallant Gentleman had also stated that the Government could not be responsible for the employment of natives outside the New Hebrides; that, therefore, the Convention would not apply to natives employed by France in New Caledonia. He said it would be discourteous to throw upon France the imputation of treating the natives badly. But the question did not arise here. The question that did arise was this. The Government were responsible for the treatment of the natives in this quarter of the world. The place apparently belonged to nobody, but the Government had thought it right, in conjunction with another Power, to interfere on behalf of the natives and, therefore, had made themselves responsible for the well-being of the natives in the country. If that were so, then we ought to be responsible for their well being both inside and outside the country, especially when it was a question of forced labour, for it should be remembered that very often only the chief was asked and he had power to order his people to go, whether they liked it or not. Surely the hon. and gallant Gentleman did not suggest that France, a nation of great humanity, should be left free to act as she pleased inside the New Hebrides. Our responsibility could not be shirked in that way. France could not object to our entering into a Convention to regulate the conditions of native labour inside the New Hebrides and therefore she could not object to its being extended to the employment of natives outside that country. It made very little difference to the native whether he was transported to another part of the New Hebrides or to some other country, and he was surprised that the hon. and gallant Gentleman who had made such a reputation for himself as a humanitarian in the matter of the Chinese coolies should have dismissed this case so airily.
  And, it being a quarter past Eight of the Clock, and there being Private Business set down by direction of the Chairman of Ways and Means under Standing

  1357
  Order No. 8, further Proceeding was postponed without Question put.

  TYNE IMPROVEMENT BILL [BY ORDER].
  Consideration, as amended, deferred till Thursday, 18th June, at a quarter-past Eight of the Clock.
  WIDNES CORPORATION BILL [BY ORDER].
  Third Reading deferred till Friday, 12th June.

  SUPPLY (CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS ESTIMATES, 1908–9).
  Postponed Proceeding on Question, "That a sum, not exceeding £792,376, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1909, for sundry Colonial Services, including certain Grants-in-Aid," resumed.
  Question again proposed.
  SIR F. BANBURY SIR F. BANBURY, continuing his observations, said he merely desired that the hon. Gentleman should answer the questions which he had put to him in regard to child labour, and the power of the head of the tribe to force labour contracts on natives.
  COLONEL SEELYwas understood to say that the question which had been put in regard to the Gold Coast was out of order. The hon. Member for Norwood had said that the taxpayers of this country were induced to part with their money on representations made in that House, and that it should be seen that money granted was spent in the way intended.
  MR. BOWLESsaid his point was that if money granted to a Colonial Government was not properly spent what could the Comptroller and Auditor do on behalf of that House? He could do nothing.
  COLONEL SEELYsupposed that the resources of civilisation would not be exhausted, and that they would be able to deal with such a case. In
  1358
  reply to the hon. Baronet the Member for the City, he had not lightly dismissed the question raised by him, but he had not dealt with the particular aspect of the labour clauses to which the hon. Gentleman referred. The hon. Baronet, however, would find the reasons in a paper published in the Treaty series, if he remembered rightly, at the end of December of last year, and a very full account was given of the reforms which had been made. With regard to repatriation he would point out that the whole of this arrangement took place under the Government which the hon. Baronet supported. ["No."] Yes, indeed. The preliminary negotiations took place then, and he was sure that they were not conducted with undue lack of consideration for the native races. The repatriation clauses were now definitely settled. That could be seen from the series of Papers.
  SIR F. BANBURY: What is the date of the Paper?
  COLONEL SEELYsaid it was a Paper published at the very end of last year or the beginning of this year. It was to be found in the Vote Office. It set out the despatches with reference to the New Hebrides by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. In that Paper was the definite statement of the Secretary of State that under no circumstances could repatriation be imposed, and that the words meant that the labourer should only be repatriated if he desired. In fact there never was any intention of repatriating the natives, and nobody wanted it. In the case of the Chinese there were obvious reasons why it was desirable from the point of view of some people that they should be repatriated; they were not considered to be desirable settlers. In the case of the New Hebrides there never was any question that the natives would be undesirable, and the clause was understood at the time only to mean in the event of the labourer wishing to return. It was a pure error not putting in the words "if he so desire." With regard to the children he did not think that he could make any substantial amendment of the statement made at the end of last

  1359
  session. The situation was this. They had made an arrangement with France with a view to framing regulations. He believed that one of the French representatives had a great regard for the natives, and he was very desirous that regulations should be made to check certain evils which existed; and no native could possibly suffer from the regulations which had been passed. If the regulations were carried out as intended thousands of natives would be relieved from an immense amount of real suffering. The hon. Baronet knew the difficulty of dealing with these matters, but they were trying to get the age raised and also the height, and they were endeavouring to regulate the whole matter of child labour which had hitherto been without any regulation whatever. He could assure the hon. Baronet that they would lose no opportunity of screwing up the regulations in favour of the natives in the New Hebrides. They were always glad of any protest from any quarter of the House to strengthen their hand, and it was a matter of perpetually raising the standard of labour in the country where the evils of the labour system had been most deplorable in every respect.
  SIR F. BANBURY: There is the question about the head of the tribe, and his power to compel natives to enter into labour contracts.
  COLONEL SEELYdid not think that was the fact, but he had had so many questions to deal with that afternoon that his memory did not serve him for the moment; he could assure the hon. Gentleman, however, that if he put a question he would be glad to answer it. He could assure him that he welcomed pressure on this matter.
  LORD BALCARRESsaid the statement of the hon. Gentleman was not thoroughly satisfactory to him. It would be remembered that when the clauses were read across the floor of the House no one could say which clause applied to the Chinese and which to the natives of the New Hebrides. The hon. Member would also recollect that the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs stated categorically that the New Hebrides repatria-
  1360
  tion clause was not obligatory. Of course that was obviously not the case, because nobody knew which was which. Now he understood that the error was admitted, and the hon. Member said that the words "if he so desire" would be inserted. He was glad that the error in that respect had been admitted, but the Under-Secretary must remember that in the Blue-book issued at Christmas last there was no acquiescence on the part of the French Republic to those words. It might have come since the time of the Blue-book, which appeared nearly four months ago. Certainly in the Blue-book there was no acquiescence on the part of the French authorities to our interpretation on this point, and the French words as they stood were of a character clearly without any option; they were wholly mandatory with regard to repatriation; so that unless the French had been persuaded to accept the British view and to insert the Amendment, the repatriation would continue to be obligatory, as it was in the case of the Chinese labourers. The Under-Secretary had said that he welcomed criticism; indeed, he thought the hon. Gentleman had said that he welcomed pressure, but that he had been very much occupied, and that these matters had had to stand aside in view of more pressing business. A number of questions had been raised in the course of the debate, and the hon. Gentleman had dealt with them in a short way. The raising of the age for child labour, the position of the chief of the tribe, the possible hours of labour, were all points which had been raised a long time since and discussion had centred upon them. There were some subsidiary points about punishment by adding two months to every twelve months of indenture, and other matters about the time-table, diet, and so on; but the three main points which were discussed a year or so ago related to the almost supreme position occupied by the head of the tribe, the matter of the children, and the hours of labour. He was bound to say that the Colonial Office, though it might be owing to the changes which had taken place, had been dilatory in the matter. This question was of very great importance. They knew that the tribes were very scattered, and that

  1361
  our naval force in that part of the Pacific was very weak. But no effort had been made. The hon. and gallant Gentleman would do well to direct the attention of the Department to the fact that these matters now were of old standing, that they had excited considerable interest, and that it was really in the interests of the Department as well as of the inhabitants of the islands that the matter should not be left floating as it had been for twelve months past, but should be finally settled one way or the other without delay.
  MR. JOHN WARDsaid the debate had been interesting because of the view it had presented of the treatment by England of native subject races. The discussion had shown that this was one of the saddest phases of our Empire development that could possibly be imagined. We seemed to look upon the subject races that by one means or other came under our sway as if they had no rights at all, as if they were merely food for our development, and were not entitled to any personal liberty of any kind, but ought to be treated as though they were so much cattle, without any human feelings whatever. That seemed to be the accepted principle of our conduct with regard to these races. He did not know whether this state of affairs had always been the same, but he assumed after what had been said that, although the condition of some of these subject races was extremely unsatisfactory to-day, years gone by could tell an even sadder story. While he recognised that the Under-Secretary for the Colonies was just the sort of man that would urge the Colonial Office to do everything possible to promote the interests of the natives, still he was afraid that those who were responsible for our Colonies, and especially our Crown Colonies where these coloured and primitive races came under our jurisdiction, did not set up a very high standard for their conduct. There seemed to have been fashioned in that debate an entirely different code of moral conduct towards black as compared with white men. He had always understood that to a very large extent the moment a black, yellow, or any other coloured man came under the protection of the British Empire, he had equal laws
  1362
  and equal rights with all others. That debate, however, had shown that we treated native races on an entirely different footing from white people. It appeared to amuse some Members who had been responsible for the administration of Crown Colonies that anybody should hold the opinion that black men should be equally treated with white. It seemed a conundrum to those Members, and they appeared to wonder where he and others who held that view could have come from. A black man, of course, knew whether he was dealt with fairly as well as a white man. He (Mr. Ward) held that view and he considered that it was the duty of those who represented labour in that House—knowing that in the past the same feeling prevailed with regard to the class they represented, viz., that they were merely hewers of wood and drawers of water, and had no rights of representation and no business to interfere in administration or in the making of the laws—to try to prevail upon the House to regard the rights of subject races as somewhat on the same level as our own. A Liberal Member had told the House during that debate that leases of land on the East Coast of Africa were only regarded as proper, and only recognised and enforced on condition that the particular portion of land that was the subject of the lease could be cultivated, and that there was a supply of labour for it. That hon. Member had asked the Under-Secretary to find means to compel somebody to work on these particular farms. He was sorry to hear a suggestion of that kind from an hon. Member who called himself Liberal in politics—a suggestion that the Imperial Government should go and take some black people from their homes and country which were just as precious to them as our country was to us. He had in the Soudan found the natives quite as patriotic as any Britisher he had seen, and they had fought and struggled for their own barren wastes in a way he hoped Englishmen would do should our country ever be attacked. It might be taken for granted that natives had the same feelings and instincts as to country as Europeans, and it was an unworthy suggestion that the Colonial Office should secure by force a supply of labour

  1363
  for the cultivation of farms for the mere sake of profit or of particular holdings and for the purpose of giving validity to some peculiar leases which he supposed really amounted to stealing the lands of these tribes. He should leave a suggestion of that kind to come from the other side of the House. It would seem more fitting, when one remembered that they were told in the case of the first quarrel with the Transvaal that possibly there would be a splendid opportunity for British labour, and the great Conservative Party afterwards introduced Chinese labour almost by force, certainly by fraud. He wanted to raise his voice against the idea that the native was a mere chattel, a mere slave who could be laid hold of and. emigrated away from his country whether he wanted to go or not, and seized for the purpose of developing portions of the Empire that could not at present be developed profitably to the speculators who were taking leases in different parts, especially on the East Coast of Africa. He would be delighted to assist in at least eradicating the idea of the justice or right of forced labour of any description within the British Empire. It was demoralising to those engaged in the business and to the country as a whole. Whatever they might say as to the necessity of maintaining our supremacy in those countries, whatever views they might hold as to maintaining every inch of territory which the Empire possessed, the object of those who represented labour ought to be in the direction of giving subject races brought under our sway equal rights and privileges with ourselves.
  MR. HART-DAVIESaltogether agreed with the hon. Member on the question of subject races, but in this particular case of the New Hebrides there were very serious difficulties in the way of establishing a satisfactory system of control. He was perhaps the only Member of the House who had ever been in the New Hebrides. It was a good many years ago, but he remembered the lurid stories he used to hear of the kind of thing that went on in those days. It was simply a hotbed of crime. At all events, after the Convention things were rather better than they had been, but
  1364
  without the expenditure of considerable sums of money on police and frequent visits from warships it would be impossible to have any real control over the management of those islands, and. over the export of human beings from them. He thought that, considering all the difficulties, the Colonial Office had done very good work, and at any rate it was a very great improvement upon the state of things which he remembered existed twenty years ago, when the amount of tyranny and bloodshed in that part of the world was something to make one shudder to think of. He hoped the Under-Secretary for the Colonies would be able to state that he would do as much as he possibly could upon this question in conjunction with the French Government and spend an adequate amount of money in order properly to police those islands and keep them under proper control. He knew that that was a matter of expense, but he thought they might trust the Colonial. Office to do what they could in the matter.
  Question put, and agreed to.

  CLASS III.
  2. £127,889, to complete the sum for Reformatory and Industrial Schools, Great Britain.
  3. £400,345, to complete the sum for Prisons, England and the Colonies.
  MR. PICKERSGILLsaid it was very unfortunate that when this Vote came on the latest Report on Prisons was invariably from fifteen to eighteen months old, and he did not know any substantial reason why that state of things should continue. There were one or two matters to which he desired to call attention. In the first place he did not think that there had ever been an occasion before when this Vote was discussed in the absence of the Secretary of State for the Home Department. At the present time in consequence of a dispute which had arisen between the Home Office and the London County Council a very large number of women who were habitual drunkards and qualified to receive treatment under the Habitual Drunkards Act were being sent to prison instead of being treated

  1365
  under that Act It seemed to him to be little short of a public scandal that in consequence of this dispute there was not sufficient accommodation for the large number of women whom the magistrates of London would prefer to send to reformatories instead of prisons, if that accommodation were provided.
  THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL,),on a point of order, asked whether the hon. Member's remarks were in order and whether they would not be more appropriate under the Home Office Vote. He was afraid that he would not be able on this Vote to reply to the hon. Member's Questions.
  MR. PICKERSGILLsaid a large number of women were being sent to prison who would not go to prison at all if an arrangement was come to between the Home Office and the London County Council. He certainly thought that this question affected the Vote for prisons, because in case this provision was made the amount required in this Vote would be reduced.
  THE DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I think that what the hon. Member is raising is a question of policy that does not come under this Vote.
  MR. PICKERSGILLsaid, that being the case, he would leave that point. Last session he pressed the Home Office to make two appointments. One of them was in regard to a woman inspector and the other was to appoint a woman as a member of the Board of Commissioners. The woman inspector was appointed, but the right hon. Gentleman declined to appoint a woman as a member of the Board of Commissioners. He desired now to press that question upon the notice of the Department. Unfortunately, the number of women criminals was increasing in this country, and he believed the same remark applied to most countries on the Continent. There was, therefore, all the more reason why the interests of women should be protected by having one of their own sex on the Board of Commissioners, which was the central body controlling prisons. The
  1366
  interest of women prisoners suffered from the fact that there was no one of their own sex on that Board. He wished to call attention to one aspect of the treatment of women prisoners. Anyone who had visited the women's side of a prison must have noticed the pitiable object which the women prisoners presented as regarded their clothes and their boots. It might be unreasonable to suggest that women prisoners should be measured for their clothes, but one would imagine that the clothes which these women wore might more closely approximate to the figures on which they were placed. It was not wise that the natural instinct of the sex to present a decent appearance should be so ruthlessly disregarded, and it did not tend to preserve or encourage the self-respect of the prisoners. One of the ladies who was recently put in prison, a Doctor of Medicine, wrote, in regard to Holloway Prison—
  "There are some habits and arrangements in Holloway prison which are neither cleanly nor sanitary and which would not be allowed in any factory, and would be reported at once by the sanitary inspector."
  He was sure if a woman were appointed upon the Board of Commissioners the interests of women would be more carefully guarded than they were at the present time, and that was a point which he wished to press upon the Department concerned.
  MR. TOMKINSONsaid that he found in the Report of the year under notice in this debate that there were still in our prisons twenty-six cases of corporal punishment, sixteen in local and ten in convict prisons. Sixteen of them had been birched, with sentences varying from twelve to thirty-six strokes and ten were punished with the cat-o'-nine tails with strokes varying from twelve to thirty. The subject of corporal punishment in various branches of the public service had been a matter which had been contested for a good many years. They all knew the great struggle which had been made to obtain a reduction of this form of punishment, and finally its abolition, in certain quarters. Thirty years ago it was held that discipline in the Army could not be maintained without the odious punishment of flogging, and it

  1367
  was only within the last few years that that form of punishment had been finally abolished in the Army and in military prisons. The abolition of flogging, wherever tried, had been a success, and there was no one who would advocate a return to it in the quarters where it had disappeared. He asked the representative of the Home Office to say whether it would not be possible in time to get rid of the practice altogether. He noticed that in every case where flogging had been ordered the offences were against discipline. They had always been told that corporal punishment was necessary, and that without it discipline could not be maintained. He believed he was correct in stating that flogging in Irish prisons was absolutely unknown. He hoped that as time went on this method of punishment would fall more and more into disrepute.
  MR. JOHN WARDdrew attention to the wages of warders in the Metropolitan prisons and in the other prisons of the country. Though the Home Secretary alleged that there was now no grievance, he asserted, on the contrary, that there was still a substantial grievance existing in the wages and conditions of employment, especially of the assistant warders, in respect of their opportunities to get on the establishment and in their conditions generally. He would like to know whether something could not be done to remove the grievances of that very deserving body of men. He also drew attention to the case of a warder who had been injured by a hammer stroke on the head in subduing a gang riot in Wandsworth Prison. The man had been laid aside from duty for some months, and now as the result of that injury, he was utterly incapable of performing any kind of work. He was sure all Members of the House would be surprised to hear that the Home Secretary had declared that no compensation was to be given to him. Some slight compensation had been mentioned, but it was out of all proportion to the serious injury which the man had suffered. He wished to know whether it would not be possible to reconsider this matter with the view to something being done for the unfortunate young man.
  MR. HERBERT SAMUELjoined in the regret that had been expressed as to the absence of the Home Secretary. As the Committee were aware, certain functions connected with the visit of M. Fallières made it difficult for some Ministers to be as regular in their attendance at the House as they were accustomed to be. His right hon. friend had, he thought, never previously been absent during the discussion of this Vote, and hoped that the Committee would excuse his unavoidable absence on this occasion. Complaint had been made about the date when the Report on Prisons was issued. If the calendar year were substituted for the financial year in the date of the Report the House would suffer rather than gain, for it could not be presented to the House until later in the session. Either the discussion of the Vote would have to be postponed to a late period, which would not be an advantage, or else the Report in their hands would be that for two years previous, and would not be even so up-to-date as it now was. With regard to the treatment of women in prisons, the Committee would be pleased to remember that the present Home Secretary had in the last year carried out a great reform in the appointment of a woman prison inspector. The outcome of her investigations would, no doubt, be a considerable improvement in the details of prison administration so far as the female population was concerned. He was not sure that his hon. friend was wise in suggesting that the clothing of female prisoners should be made less unattractive. In view of the fact that the female prison population was increasing a more attractive, or less unattractive, dress was, perhaps, hardly to be desired. The allegation of a prisoner who had been to Holloway in connection with the suffragist agitation, that the sanitary state of that prison was not satisfactory was entirely unsubstantiated. The Prison Commissioners and inspectors took pains to secure that the sanitation of our prisons should be as perfect as it could be made. He had visited a considerable number of prisons throughout the country and he had been impressed by the almost apalling cleanliness of the prisons,

  1369
  the depressing spotlessness which characterised them. There was a marked distinction between the appointment of a woman Commissioner and a woman Inspector, but the question of appointing a woman Commissioner would receive his right hon. friend's consideration; he would not pledge himself that that consideration would be favourable. His hon. friend the Member for Crewe had again brought forward the question of flogging in prisons. The twenty-six floggings in prison in 1906 which had been referred to were a reduction on the number in the previous year, when there were forty-three. The hon. Member had stated that floggings were inflicted for offences against discipline. It was possible that some Members of the House who were not acquainted with the details of prison administration might not be aware that the offences for which flogging could be inflicted were of the gravest character. It should be remembered that the offences for which flogging could be inflicted were very grave, and were only three in number—mutiny, incitement to mutiny, and grave assault upon a warder. Flogging could not be inflicted on the order of a governor, but only by order of the board of visiting magistrates, who had to hear evidence on oath and the prisoner in his own defence. The sentence had to be submitted to the Home Secretary.
  MR. JOHN WARD: Was it not natural for a prisoner to attempt to escape?
  MR. HERBERT SAMUELsaid he hardly thought that in ordinary attempts to escape the prisoner was ever punished by flogging, but he would make inquiry. The cases of flogging were very limited and the infliction was carefully safeguarded. He wished to disabuse the minds of hon. Members that floggings were frequently inflicted for trivial offences. His right hon. friend was of opinion that, in view of the class of people committed, it would not be safe at the present time to deprive the warders of this protection. The position of warders had been improved in many particulars. The position of the London warders, however, was still under consideration.
  1370
  Later in the session there might be something to be said with regard to them. In the case of the injured warder referred to, it was disputed that he owed his incapacity to any assault made upon him. There was no riot. Medical examination had followed medical examination in this case. Six doctors, he believed, had once investigated the case, and their Report was unanimous that there was no reason to believe that the warder owed his incapacity to assault, and that there was no valid claim against the Treasury. An important improvement had been made in prison administration during the last twelve months. It had long been the rule that a remission of a portion of the term for which a prisoner was sentenced could be earned by good conduct and industry; but the application of the rule had been limited to persons in penal servitude or serving a period of at least six months imprisonment. The Home Secretary had made a new regulation reducing the period from six months to one month, so that now all persons sentenced to a term of imprisonment exceeding one month—and they formed an enormous proportion of the number of prisoners—were able to earn a remission. That afforded these prisoners an inducement, hitherto lacking, to be well-behaved and industrious, and it contributed to a reduction in the amount of the Prison Estimates owing to a large number of prisoners being released at an earlier date. Three years ago the Prison Estimates amounted to £775,000; this year the amount was only £720,000.
  MR. BYLESsaid that he regretted the absence of the Home Secretary, although the House was to be congratulated that the right hon. Gentleman had had so good an understudy and so extremely capable a representative of the Home Office in the person of the hon. Member for Cleveland. The question of flogging in prison had been raised. He thought that in this twentieth century that method of punishment should be entirely abolished from our prison system. The Under-Secretary had stated that the number of floggings had been reduced from forty-three in

  1371
  1905 to twenty-six in the succeeding year. He did not know whether the Committee were to infer from that that the number of floggings was excessive in the former year, that they were larger than they ought to have been, or that more enlightened views were taken in the succeeding year, and that a number were therefore dispensed with. If the latter were the case, why not dispense with flogging altogether and substitute some other mode of punishment? Only on the previous day the Home Secretary had introduced a Bill which must have given pleasure to all prison reformers, on account of the humanitarian ideas which inspired it. He could not help hoping that that was an indication of the attention which was being paid by the Home Office to the general question of prison discipline, and that the more enlightened methods adopted in America and in some European countries in regard to prison rules and discipline would be thought out. A great many hon. Members had been very much shocked at the sentences passed at the recent assizes at Cardiff, where a large number of grown men, with a good deal of human capacity, were sentenced by, the Judge to the degrading punishment of flogging. He had long felt that flogging was a brutalising method of punishment, not only to the victim, but even more to the man who unfortunately was called upon to inflict it; and in his judgment, brutalising to the community and to the nation at large. He did not believe that they would drive out crime and wrong-doing from any individual by the aid of the lash. Yesterday's Prison Bill was not the only indication which they had had in the present Parliament of the existence of a more humanitarian spirit in our prison legislation. Some of them had been engaged for a number of days in thrashing out the details of the great measure for the protection of children, which had been taken charge of so ably by the hon. Member for Cleveland. There were signs that the conscience and the feeling of England towards individual items in it were becoming more tender and humanitarian than they used to be. He did not want to encourage crime, but he believed that wrong-doing might be got out of any man, and that such a man might be led
  1372
  into right courses, by other means than this ancient and brutal method of punishment. The Under-Secretary seemed to think that the appointment of a woman inspector during the past year was a sufficient substitute for the appointment of a woman Prison Commissioner. A year ago some of them had endeavoured to persuade the Home Secretary to include the female element in the Prison Commission, and it seemed to him that, considering the wide duties and the responsibilities undertaken by the Prison Commission, it was extremely desirable that the woman element should be introduced into that body, and he hoped that they would also have that reform by-and-bye. He was glad to find that the question of the condition of the warders and their discipline was being very carefully watched by the prison authorities. Only the other day a complaint had been forwarded to him of things going on in a great prison in his constituency, and amongst the authorities in the prison, which were not quite right. He knew that the servants in a prison were very liable to internal jealousies and favoritism, which might lead to unjust and unequal treatment of those under them. He had mentioned this matter privately to the Secretary to the Home Department. He hoped in next year there would be further reforms and the entire abolition of flogging.
  MR. WARDLEasked whether the right of association enjoyed by every workman in the country would be granted to the warders of the prisons. Up to the present time he believed the right had been denied. He desired to know whether the limitations which had been to some extent removed had been found to work properly, and whether the warders were now allowed fully and freely the right of representation. He also desired to ask a question as to the hours of warders. From the Return supplied by the hon. Gentleman, it seemed to him that the hours were too long; but he further understood that the Return did not cover all the facts. He was told that the warders in Dartmoor prison had been on duty as long as seventeen hours at a stretch. If that were so, then that condition of things ought not to be allowed. The warders should only be on duty a proper number of hours, and if necessary

  1373
  they should work in shifts, other warders being engaged for the purpose.
  MR. HERBERT SAMUELsaid that one of the improvements effected by his right hon. friend had been to allow the warders under proper conditions the right of association for the purpose of ameliorating their conditions. With regard to their hours steps had been taken to reduce the hours and the Treasury had recently increased the prison staffs in order that there should be a sufficient number of warders to prevent the continuation of the overtime that had existed.
  Vote agreed to.
  4. £28,781, to complete the sum for Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum.
  Resolutions to be reported To-morrow; Committee sit again To-morrow.

  SUPPLY [2ND APRIL] REPORT.
  Resolutions reported:—
CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS ESTIMATES, 1908–9.

  CLASS I.
  1. "That a sum, not exceeding £473,000, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1909, for the Customs, Inland Revenue, Post Office, and Post Office Telegraph Buildings in Great Britain, and certain Post Offices abroad, including Furniture, Fuel, and sundry Miscellaneous Services."
  2. "That a sum, not exceeding £342,900, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1909, in respect of sundry Public Buildings in Great Britain, not provided for on other Votes."
  3. "That a sum, not exceeding £52,400 (including a Supplementary sum of £13,000), be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1909, for Expenditure in respect of Diplomatic and Consular
  1374
  Buildings, and for the maintenance of certain Cemeteries abroad."
  Resolutions agreed to.

  SUPPLY [14TH MAY] REPORT.
  Resolutions reported:—
CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS ESTIMATES, AND SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATE, 1908–9.

  CLASS II.
  1. "That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £5, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1909, for Stationery, Printing, &c, including Reports of Parliamentary Debates."
  2. "That a sum, not exceeding £405,212, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1909, for Stationery, Printing, Paper, Binding, and Printed Books for the Public Service; for the Salaries and Expenses of the Stationery Office; and for sundry Miscellaneous Services, including Reports of Parliamentary Debates."

  CLASS I.
  3. "That a sum, not exceeding £355,000, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1909, for Rates and Contributions in lieu of Rates, &c, in respect of Government Property, and for Rates on Houses occupied by Representatives of Foreign Powers, and for the Salaries and Expenses of the Rating of Government Property Department, and for a Contribution towards the Expenses of the London Fire Brigade."

  CLASS II.
  4. "That a sum, not exceeding £35, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1909, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Mint, including the Expenses of Coinage."
  5. "That a sum, not exceeding £8,420, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1909, for the Salaries and Expenses of the National Debt Office."

  CLASS VI.
  6. "That a sum, not exceeding £338, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1909, for certain Miscellaneous Charitable and other Allowances."

  CLASS II.
  7. "That a sum, not exceeding £23,178, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1909, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Civil Service Commission."
  Resolutions agreed to.

  SUPPLY [21ST MAY] REPORT.
  Resolution reported:—
CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS ESTIMATES, 1908–9.

  CLASS II.
  "That a sum, not exceeding £120,788, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1909, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Department of Agriculture and other Industries and Technical Instruction for Ireland, and of the services administered by that Department, including sundry Grants in Aid."
  Resolution read a second time.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."
  MR. JOYCEcalled attention to the question of the preservation of inland fishing in Ireland, especially
  1376
  salmon fishing. He did not suggest that the Agricultural Department ought to look after this, because no doubt to them it was a question of money, but the salmon fishing was not looked after as it should be by the Imperial Parliament. The whole question of salmon and trout fishing should be gone into in a much larger way than hitherto, and money which would be returned twenty-fold should be expended on this most important branch of the industries of Ireland. To his own knowledge salmon fishing on the Shannon had greatly declined. Why, he did not know. The river was not polluted with a great amount of sewage, and the fishermen were pretty closely watched, so there could not be much poaching. The fact remained that the salmon were going back, and fishermen who could get a good living twenty years ago were now almost starving. He believed in a close time for the preservation of fish, but the fish should be preserved in a proper manner. It was quite another thing to see these poor fishermen hunted and harried as if they were not Christians. Last winter three poor fishermen were brought before the magistrates for poaching and the two magistrates were divided in opinion. One said he thought the case had not been proved, the other thought it had. The consequence was that no rule was made and the unfortunate men were summoned again. On the second occasion there were three magistrates on the Bench, and the case was dismissed. Then the case came before the County Court Judge, as good a Judge as they could have in any county and a favourite with all classes, and he, on the evidence of the water bailiff, reversed the acquittal of the magistrates and imposed a fine of something like £20 on these men, who at that time could not pay twenty pence. Consequently, they had to go to gaol, and in mid winter. The people felt so much for their families that a collection was made, the fine paid, and the men taken out of prison. There was something which was not right in the way in which the fishery regulations were carried out in Ireland. The fishermen had no faith in the Board of Conservators for the reason that they had no direct representation on it. He brought in a Bill last year and the year before.
  SIR F. BANBURYasked, on a point of order, if the hon. Member was in order. It would require

  1377
  legislation to alter the constitution of the Board of Conservators.
  THE DEPUTY CHAIRMANsaid the hon. Member was referring to a fact that he had brought in a Bill himself. He must not deal with legislative matters, but with questions of administration.
  MR. JOYCEsaid he was only making a passing allusion to his Bill. The Board of Conservators was not at all so constituted that the people had confidence in the way it carried out the conservation of the rivers. He therefore appealed to the Vice-President to see that something was done in his Bill to remedy the present state of things and that the poor fishermen had an opportunity of earning their hard livelihood. Last night hon. Members were speaking on behalf of navvies, but he did not think any navvy worked as hard as fishermen, whose work was the most laborious he knew. They had to pull long distances in all weathers on the I Shannon, because a great company owned miles of the river, and it was not, he thought, watched as closely as they were. The Vice-President and his Department might appeal to the House to widen their powers to enable them to foster the fish in the river by the creation of more hatcheries and to watch where the fish was poached in the most open and flagrant manner. At the end of the season the fish got up into the small by-rivers, some of which were only six or eight feet wide at the most; and boys and servants with pitchforks destroyed millions of the ova that would otherwise ripen and become perfect fish. He had drawn attention to this before and had advocated that barriers of some kind should be put at certain times of the season at the mouths of by-rivers and that water bailiffs should go to the rivers and watch this kind of poaching. This was a very important matter, and he hoped the Department would pay proper attention to it. If they did so, they would not have the fish becoming less and less in quantities every year and the fishermen emigrating because there was not a good living to be made. He knew that where there were thirty boats with three men in each twenty years ago, there were not ten now on the same stretch of river. Something might and could be done. If water bailiffs were authorised and made to do their work
  1378
  properly in these by-rivers, there would be more done for the preservation of salmon and trout than by having steamers running in the tidal waters hunting and harrassing fishermen. He hoped the Vice-President, when he introduced his Bill, would pay some attention to the matter. He hoped also that some provision would be introduced to enable the workingmen to enjoy a day's fishing. Sunday was a favourite day in Ireland for workingmen to enjoy a day's fishing with rod and line. They got out into the fresh air and amused themselves and caught very little fish; and he hoped the Vice-President would introduce a clause in his Salmon Fishery Bill providing for a free day per week on all waters. The men who used to fish in the Shannon had had the right taken away by someone who claimed the water, but legislation would change that, and he would give the hon. Gentleman every assistance in his power. It would be a means of recreation to great numbers of people; it would not injure the fish in any way, and no owner of any fishing would suffer by it. These three considerations he thought should induce the hon. Gentleman, with the assistance of the House, to give effect to a clause dealing with the matter in his Bill. If he did, his name would be handed down to posterity in Ireland, and the chances were that he would have a monument on the Shannon.
  MR. DILLONsaid he wished to endorse the view put forward by the hon. Member for Limerick. There could not be a second opinion as to the salmon fisheries of Ireland being an extremely valuable asset. These fisheries had become depleted to an alarming extent during recent years. His own object in rising to speak was to draw the attention of the House to the extraordinary contrast between the tone and character of the present discussion and that on May 21st, with the discussions on a previous occasion when a very violent attack was made upon the Vice-President of the Irish Board of Agriculture, on the ground that he had overthrown or undone the work of his predecessor. In one respect he had undone the work of his predecessor, and that was to the great advantage of the House. The last time, three years ago, when this Vote was discussed in the House, a Motion was made from those

  1379
  benches to reduce the salary of the Vice-President, and the whole body of the Irish Members voted in favour of the Motion and every speech that came from those benches was an attack on the whole policy of the Department. To-night there was no attack on the policy of the Department. Since the hon. Member for South Tyrone had taken charge of it he had been working in harmony with the public feeling of Ireland. The criticism that came from those benches was friendly. Many of them desired to urge certain aspects of his work upon him, but between them and him there was nothing but kindly feeling and sympathy, and there was no idea of moving any reduction in this salary or attacking the present administration in a hostile spirit. The hon. Member for North Derry had attacked the Vice-President in violent language and he had been assailed in Ireland when the first took this Department, and the Liberal party were assailed for putting him in his present position on the ground that they were making the Department political. But that was exactly the re verse of what the present Government had done. They on those benches had ground to complain and attacked the Department in the past because the administration of the late Vice-President had turned the Department into a vast political machine and had the entire funds and enormous influence of the Department not primarily for the promotion of the proper objects for which it was founded, but for the purpose of attacking the Nationalist Party. In the old days when the Department was first founded, they promised to give it every possible fair play, but they found that instead of being used as an organisation for the social improvement of Ireland and the promotion of her industries it was being used as a political machine, and they were obliged to criticise its proceedings in a hostile spirit. It was impossible for the Department to conduct its work in Ireland with any prospect of success so long as it was carried on in a spirit hostile to the Nationalist Party. The first essential for the head of this Department was to secure the confidence of the Irish people and to convince all sections that the administration was free from political bias. In his opinion the present Vice-President carried on his administration in that spirit, and it was for that reason
  1380
  that the character of their debates had totally altered. The questions now were no longer political but practical. He did not intend to dwell at any length upon it, but desired to say one or two words upon the general scope of the work. He had always contended that the Department had too much placed upon it. It had to look after the fisheries, agriculture, and Irish exports and imports it was supposed to promote industries, to take control of technical education, to watch cattle disease; it had control of the National Library and the School of Art in Dublin, the Glasnevin Botanical Gardens, the Museum in Dublin, the College of Science in Dublin; in fact he did not believe there ever was a Department which had such varied and multitudinous duties to perform. It had had too much to do and the corollary of that was that its funds were deficient. But while making that criticism he had to say that since the hon. Gentleman had taken charge of it he had done a great deal of good, and had worked in harmony with the people, and that whatever criticism came from those benches was not conceived in any hostile spirit, but rather in a spirit of co-operation, urging the Department to fresh exertions. He wished further to say something on the question of afforestation. It was a sad fact that Ireland, which used to be described in ancient times as the island of woods and forests, and was covered with fine trees, as might be seen from the passage in Froude's "History of the English in Ireland in the Eighteenth Century," should be in that respect so greatly changed. Now, it was a fact that in vast; districts known to him, where for miles and miles there had been magnificent forests, there was not a tree to be seen, with the result that the climate of the country had changed, that great tracts had been turned into waste and bog, owing to the absence of sheltering timber. The destruction of the forests had caused great damage in the west of Ireland. The woods and forests of Ireland were gradually disappearing and the country was becoming almost treeless. Those who were in the habit of visiting Ireland were struck with the difference in the aspect of the country as contrasted with what it used to be. Nevertheless there still remained on some great estates in Ireland and on some of the landlords desmesnes magnificent woods and

  1381
  forests. The danger was that in transferring the land to the tenants, the first thing the landlord did was to sell the woods to timber merchants, and Ireland in its scenery was being ruined by the destruction of these woods when they were getting ready for the sale of the estates. He knew of one part of the country where some of the roads used to be shaded with magnificent trees, and since the land had been sold those trees had been cut down and carted off. This was a matter of absolute urgency, because with the change of ownership the process of destruction was going on in all directions. In the course of the next ten or fifteen years timber would probably rise in price to double its present value, because the timber reserves from America and other countries were gradually becoming exhausted. Consequently, in the not very distant future, the woods of Ireland and of this country would undoubtedly become a very valuable asset. In France the fuel of the poor was timber from the wastage of the woods, and they got all their fuel in that way. One of the great consolations to the poor people of Ireland in past years had been that there was a plentiful supply of turf which they used for fuel, but in many districts that, privilege was now passing away because the bogs were being cut out, and where ever that occurred in Ireland the hardship on the poor was exceedingly great. In some country districts in Ireland coal was now 35s. a ton, and of course the poor people could not buy it. The result was that where turf was scarce the hardship endured by the poor people was exceedingly great. This scarcity of fuel was a thing likely to spread in the next few years, and if no provision of the kind which had been suggested in this debate was made it would be very difficult for the poor people to get fuel of any kind. That evil might be considerably alleviated by a proper conservation of the woods, which would provide an abundance of cheap fuel at an extremely moderate rate and bring it within the reach of the poor. That was a consideration which, apart from the other reasons put forward in favour of the preservation of the woods and forests of Ireland, had appealed very strongly to him. For those reasons he desired strongly to support his hon. friend in the appeal which he had made for the preservation of the woods of Ireland.
  MR. TOMKINSONsaid that there were millions of acres of land in Ireland well adapted for the plantation of trees There were many ways in which the production of timber was an enormous advantage to any country. He was not at all disposed to praise other countries at the expense of his own, but he thought they did these things very much better abroad. In the Duchy of Baden the Government had carried out the work of afforestation systematically, and with advantage to the people. One half of the Duchy was covered with forests, and there were in the country many manufactories of wooden goods of all kinds. He was quite sure that the proposal as to afforestation was one which everyone would desire to support.
  MR. MOONEYsaid the Vice-President of the Board of Agriculture might be called the Poo-bah of Ireland, for the matters of which his Department had charge were very varied. The hon. Gentleman was responsible for agriculture, the College of Science in Dublin, the Botanical Gardens in Dublin, the Veterinary College, the National Museum, fisheries, railway transit, and piers. In fact he hardly knew what the hon. Gentleman was not responsible for. He quite agreed with what the hon. Member for East Mayo had said about the change which had come over the policy of this Department. Since the present Vice-President came into office he had taken considerable trouble to bring the Department more into touch with national sentiment in Ireland, with the result that it had now more chance of succeeding than it had ever had since it was founded. He wished to ask if there was no provision made in the Vote for the Veterinary College in Dublin. The head of the college was a man distinguished in his profession, and he had thrown himself whole-heartedly into the work of promoting the success of the institution. It was one of the few Departments in Ireland that was paying its way. The number of students was larger than could be accommodated, and applications had been made over and over again for increased accommodation. He admitted that the hon. Gentleman had tried to meet them. The present accommodation being insufficient, a good many students who would otherwise go there went to Glasgow and other places. Not only did

  1383
  the veterinary college lose the fees which would have accrued to it from these students, but Dublin lost what would have been paid there for board and lodging. He wished to know whether arrangements had been made to provide the necessary accommodation. Last year the hon. Gentleman was pressed over and over again to take steps for the carrying out of the intentions of this House in regard to certain piers in Ireland. The hon. Gentleman attempted to carry out the wishes of the House and of the Irish Members, but he was blocked in his endeavours by the action of the Irish Board of Works, which was responsible for a good deal of evil in Ireland. What did the hon. Gentleman intend to do in this matter? At present fishermen could not earn their living owing to the dangerous condition of the harbours round the coast. In fact, it was more dangerous in a storm to be in some of the harbours than to be in the open sea. How was it intended to meet the objection of the Board of Works to the scheme proposed last year? The description given by the hon. Member for East Mayo in regard to forestry in Ireland was in no way exaggerated. During the Cromwellian and other periods in Ireland instructions were given for the destruction of forests, and time after time, as the reports to be found in Irish history showed, hundreds of acres of the ancient forests were destroyed at a time. The question of reafforestation was engaging attention all over Europe. The hon. Gentleman appointed a Departmental Committee to consider this question. He himself regretted the appointment of that Committee. He regretted the appointment of this Departmental Committee the less, because it had made a most conclusive Report in regard to reafforestation, which it would be advisable for hon. Members to read. He did not know whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer had read it, but he was sure that, short as was the time the right hon. Gentleman had been in his present office, he had begun to see that they were always asking for too much for Ireland. The curious thing about this Committee was that, unlike other Committees upstairs, they started their Recommendations by saying that there was no necessity for creating a new Board in Ireland. That was good, for the fewer Boards they had in Ireland the better. They had too
  1384
  many already. The Report went on to say that the existing Board of Agriculture had power to deal with forestry. In the Report of that Department for 1906, which was the last issued, it was stated that the number of acres planted with trees in Ireland had decreased, compared with the previous year. The number of trees felled was 883,700, and that of these 407,000 were used for propping purposes. That meant that these trees were immature, and should not have been cut down. In Switzerland the woods were national property, and the State derived considerable profits from them. The owners of the land had certain rights in the woods on their properties, and a landowner had told him that the system was that, where an owner was entitled to cut down a certain number of trees, for every tree so cut down he had to plant three. The result was that the forests in Switzerland were rapidly increasing, and so was the revenue derived from them by the State. There was a paragraph in the Report of the Board of Agriculture which stated that there were something like 1,000,000 acres of land in Ireland which could not be used for any other purpose than tree-planting. The Report went on to say that owing to State action in the past the woods in Ireland had never been properly looked after, and that the country had been devastated of its forests. The State was now largely becoming the landowner, and it was therefore their duty to plant trees and encourage reafforestation. This was not a question of asking the Chancellor of the Exchequer for money the expenditure of which would not be productive. The scheme submitted in the Report showed that if the money asked for was properly spent in reafforestation it would be productive of very good interest. It was estimated that the expense of a national scheme of afforestation, including the cost of the land, would range from £44,525 per annum to £32,000 over five different periods, and that eventually the forests would yield 4½ per cent. on the capital invested. It had been a subject of complaint from the Irish benches that the Commissioner of Woods and Forests drew annually large sums by way of quit rents and Crown rents, and it was said that in England and Scotland the quit rents and Crown rents were reinvested in lands for the benefit of the

  1385
  public. It was further stated in the Report that in the year under review the amount of quit rents and Crown rents in Ireland was something like £60,000, and when one of the witnesses who represented the Woods and Forests Department was asked how the money was spent for the benefit of Ireland, he said that £13,000 had been devoted to the purchase and development of woods and forests in Scotland. He did not think that such a policy was in accordance with the recommendations; of the Board of Agriculture, or that it would be satisfactory to the public that large sums of money should be drawn from Ireland to be spent on afforestation in Scotland. Had the right hon. Gentleman considered this Report, and if he had, would he give some assurance that when the Vice-President approached him on the subject, if he was not able to give the money they asked for, at least he would arrange some scheme with the Crown Office by which the money now drawn out and spent upon woods and forests should be spent on the woods and forests of Ireland? That was a desirable thing and would do an immense amount of good. They were not asking for a fresh grant, but simply that money derived from Ireland should be spent for Ireland in Ireland. He hoped when the hon. Gentleman came to reply he would say in the words of the late Prime Minister that he had been a sturdy beggar, and that the money which was derived from Ireland should be spent in Ireland.
  THE VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE (Mr. T. W. RUSSELL,)said it was only twelve months since he became Vice-President of the Department, and this was the third debate that had taken place on its work during that period. He remembered the time when Irish Members—he himself among them—constantly complained that the work of the Department was never reviewed, for the reason that there was no one to represent it in the House of Commons and to reply to any question. At all events that mischief had been cured. With regard to the question of forestry, he was extremely glad they had the advantage of the presence of the Chancellor of the Ex-
  1386
  chequer, for this was a question of money. It was not a question of expenditure in the direct sense, but more a question of investment than anything else. The question of afforestation had been made urgent by the action of the State itself, and not by the action of anybody in Ireland, and a condition of things had been brought about which needed instant attention. Under the Act of 1903, the Estates Commissioners were buying estates all over the country, and having bought them were under the necessity of disposing of the timber. In the case of two estates, one in Tipperary with timber worth £5,600, and one in county Wexford with timber worth £6,000, the Department had purchased the timber to prevent its being cut down; but they could not afford to carry out this experiment all over the country. Besides the danger of timber being cut down, wasteland suitable for planting was being sold. He supposed he was violating all official precedent in inviting the attention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to this question, involving no large expenditure on the Treasury, but a most urgent matter. With regard to fisheries, the hon. Member for Limerick pleaded for one day's free rod-fishing for the people of the country. He thought there was a good deal of free fishing. He certainly would not pledge himself to any such provision in the Bill under consideration by his Department. He admitted that the whole fisheries of Ireland were in a lamentable position. The Department, when created, received £10,000 for the purposes of the fishing industry, and they could not do very much with that amount of money. The whole question of the fisheries of Ireland must be inquired into. The fishing industry was declining all over the country, and unless something was done it would go out of existence. There was a Bill in preparation, and there were points in the hon. Member for Limerick's speech which they would be able to deal with, but he asked his hon. friend to shut off the free fishing.
  MR. JOYCE: I certainly shall not.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELLsaid the hon. Member for Newry had raised the question of the technical college. Under the Act of 1899 the Department was

  1387
  authorised to give £10,000 for the college. It had bestowed upon it £10,800 so that the Department had done rather better. In regard to the veterinary college, they again wanted more money. In 1899, the Department were authorised by Parliament to give £15,000 for building that college, and they had given £26,650. They had bettered their instructions, and had given an endowment of £200 a year for research purposes. The college was doing good work, and he thought it had a great future before it. Of course, they could not make bricks without straw, but they had done all they could with the money at their disposal to make it an effective institution, and he was glad to say it was effective and was doing good work. He had introduced a Bill again which would enable county councils to give more money to repair piers than at present, and also enable the Department to do more. He hoped the Bill would get through.
  AN HON. MEMBER: Will it enable the Board of Works to run the piers?
  MR. T. W. RUSSELLsaid the piers would be vested in the county councils, and the Board of Works would be shut out. Then he was asked when the Report of the Department would be published. It was a little late, but the Secretary of the Department had been presiding over the Forestry Committee, and a great deal of his time had been occupied on that Committee. That was the reason of any delay. It was now ready, and he hoped it would be presented in the course of a few days. The hon. Member for East Mayo had said something about the Department itself. He was much obliged to him for the way in which he had spoken of it. He did not want to say more, because he had not been long enough at the Department to speak authoritatively about it on some points, but his predecessor, whatever might be said of him, had undoubtedly done a great work in establishing the Department. It was a tremendous work to undertake, and the constitution of the Department was in many respects admirable. There was a Board of twelve and a Council of 103, and it was a perfectly independent body. He only wished that some other Departments in Ireland
  1388
  had the same freedom. After close observation of the Department's work, he could say that it was bearing fruit. Agricultural education was a slow matter, but he was glad to say that the improvement had been such that the exports in 1906 of the produce of a small agricultural industry was of the value of £9,500,000. which was more than equal to the value of the cattle trade which was the greatest agricultural industry in Ireland. The flax industry was growing, 10,000 more acres having been devoted to it during the last three years. In the County of Cork, where the flax industry had practically died out, the mills were being repaired, and the industry was being encouraged. Thus the education of the past few years was beginning to tell; people were beginning to take pains; and he had hopes that as time went on, the condition of the industry would get better and better.
  MR. GWYNNsaid he should like to associate himself with what had been said by his hon. friend with regard to the change in the Department. There was no man in Ireland who had a greater admiration for Sir Horace Plunkett's personality and work, but at the same time he thought the Government made a great mistake when they asked him to continue in office and that Sir Horace Plunkett made a greater mistake when he accepted that proposal. The Department itself was, after all, the true monument to Sir Horace Plunkett, and he rejoiced that it was really becoming what he desired it to be. It had already been said that there was an enormous number of subjects covered by the Department, and a great many of them appealed to him very intimately and keenly. If the Vice-President could see his way to grant a free day's fishing on all waters, he should certainly spend the Sundays in his own constituency, because within the neighbourhood of the Bridge of Galway there were more salmon to be found than in any part of the world. His experience was that where they had free fishing at certain times they did not as a rule have poaching. Free fishing did no harm, such as was done by the poacher with weapons of destruction, like pitchforks. He, therefore, thought that if anything could be

  1389
  done to increase the area of free fishing, it would really make for the improvement of the fishing in Ireland. He wished, also, to press upon the hon. Member some considerations in regard to sea-fishing.
  And, it being Eleven of the clock, the Debate stood adjourned.
  Debate to be resumed upon Monday next.

OLD-AGE PENSIONS.
Resolution reported—
"That it is expedient to provide old-age-pensions and to authorise the payment, out of moneys to be provided by Parliament, of any Expenses incurred for that purpose and connected therewith."
MR. WILLIAM RUTHERFORDsaid that if ever a financial Resolution contained a demand for an open cheque the Resolution now before the House contained such a demand. The Resolution committed Parliament to provide "any expenses." There was no limitation beyond the explanation which had been given by Ministers on the previous stages that the Resolution had already passed through, and there had been no indication as to what amount Parliament was committed to, or what the country had to provide, and what they were now asked to do was to pass a Resolution authorising Parliament to provide out of the taxation of the country "any expenses incurred for that purpose and connected therewith." His first objection to the Resolution in the shape in which they found it was this. The whole of the moneys to be provided for old-age pensions was to be provided by Parliament, and it seemed to him that that entirely disposed of any suggestion that these old-age pensions were to be contributory. He had not been prepared to contend that under any circumstances, the only old-age pensions should
1390
be contributory. On the contrary, he at all events, was prepared to admit that it was a fair thing under certain circumstances that old-age pensions of a kind, and applicable to certain people, should be entirely provided, as suggested in this Resolution, by Parliament. But it appeared to him that there was a matter of principle which ought to be incorporated in a Resolution of this kind without which it should not be accepted by the House if the whole of the moneys for old-age pensions of the kind suggested were to be provided by Parliament. The matter of principle was that if the whole of the money was provided by Parliament and the old-age pensions were non-contributory, they ought to be universal in their application If the money provided by Parliament was to come out of the general taxation of the country, then, as a matter of principle, of justice, and of right, every man and woman attaining the age of seventy ought to be able to participate. But the effect of passing this Resolution would be that thrifty people would be taxed to provide old-age pensions for the unthrifty. It was a gross injustice that the man who had saved sufficient to yield him 9s. 11d. a week should have it increased to 14s.11d., while the man who had saved sufficient to yield him 10s. 1d. was to remain at that figure. He was glad hon. Members opposite approved these principles. He took it that a wave of common-sense, if not a sentiment of justice, would appear suddenly to have broken out on the opposite side of the House. The two principles to be applied were, first, if the pensions were noncontributory they should be general in their application; and, secondly, if they were contributory they should be restricted to the people who contributed. The effect of passing the Resolution ii its present shape was that the thrifty people would, be taxed to provide old-age pensions for the unthrifty, and he was surprised that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should submit such a Resolution to the

1391
House. The right hon. Gentleman had said that if they relaxed any of the restrictions and widened the basis of persons entitled to receive pensions, sufficient money could not be provided. When an old-age pension scheme calculated to fall upon the whole of the taxpayers of the country was proposed it seemed to him that that was a subject which ought to be thoroughly threshed out. He was in hopes that, having regard to the effective criticism which had already been passed upon this scheme, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Government would have seen their way to have modified it so as to make it reasonably just; but notwithstanding all the protests, many of them coming from the opposite side of the House, the Government deliberately stuck to their original suggestions and declined to accept any modifications to remove the most unjust anomalies with which their proposition teemed. Consequently he felt quite justified in standing up on behalf of the taxpayer of the country and in a very few words making this protest against the proposal. If a man and woman happened to be married and living together their total income under this pension scheme was to be restricted to 7s. 6d. per week, whereas if they were not married and living together they would get 10s. per week. In bringing forward a scheme like that the Government were putting a premium upon irregular connections and immorality. [Cries of "Order."] Unless that could be explained and unless the Chancellor of the Exchequer was prepared to assure them that the effect of his proposal would not be what he had tried to point out, that was an effective reason why this scheme should not be accepted and why no Government ought to put such a scheme before the House of Commons. The appeal by the Chancellor of the Exchequer that for fear of increasing the burden the House should not suggest the removal of any of these anomalies
1392
was one which appeared to him utterly unfounded. If the Government were not prepared to bring forward a scheme which did not lay itself open to criticisms of that kind they should have kept their proposal back until they had thought it out a little more. He gathered that this old-age pension scheme was to cost £6,000,000 per annum. Criticisms had been brought to bear on the Chancellor of the Exchequer in which it had been pointed out that only £1,250,000 was available for this purpose this year. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had stated in reply that they had only to deal with three months of this year and that next year must look after itself. The suggestion was that that was a complete answer to the criticisms which had been passed upon the scheme. The reply to that was that this particular scheme of old-age pensions demanded £6,000,000 a year at least, and the mere fact that they had only got a quarter of the year to provide for did not reduce the £6,000,000 per annum which would be needed in the future. Although he agreed that they had no right to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what he was going to do next year, they had a right to say when the Government were bringing forward a scheme involving the expenditure of £6,000,000 per annum the Government ought to give the House of Commons some idea as to where they proposed to get that money. [Cries of "Agreed," and "Divide, divide."] He was one of those who for many years past had given considerable attention to this subject of old-age pensions, and he felt very deeply upon the matter. He had made a very careful study of it, and he thought he was entitled when the House of Commons was about to deal with such a subject to say a few words upon it.
MR. J. MACVEAGH: Give Banbury a chance.
MR. WILLIAM RUTHERFORDsaid he could suggest a very easy way of securing an excellent system of old-age pensions under the Resolution they had before the House. Inasmuch as there were in this country not more than 8,000,000 children between the ages of five and fourteen and as it was an actuarial fact that 3d. a week paid for every child between the ages of five and fourteen would provide 5s. a week at the age Of sixty-five for all those children who survived he thought a scheme of that kind would be better than the one they were discussing. Six million pounds a year would be required in order to equal these weekly payments, and if that amount were Set aside now and accumulated, say, at 2¾ per cent., all the inhabitants of these islands would, on attaining the age of sixty-five find they had 5s. a week for the rest of their lives. If they only began to insure children now in this manner there would be old-age pensions for everybody. The only possible objection to that scheme was that it would not come into operation for fifty years, but fifty years was a very short time in the life of a country. But the fact that everybody would get a pension was to be taken into consideration, especially if that scheme could be accompanied by, say, £1,500,000 being put aside every year by the State and added to contributions from the employers and the workmen, so that there might be some addition to the 5s. at sixty-five. Five shillings under a non-contributory scheme would be a fair thing if accompanied by a contribution which would make the old-age of the people comfortable. He objected strongly to this Resolution on the ground that it had not been fully considered. It seemed to him that to fix the age at seventy was not decent. There were in many parts of the country few working men of that age who were not already in the workhouse, and the right hon. Gentleman's scheme should not be accompanied by
1394
such restrictions as to bring it about that these decent old people could have no part of the pension. Why should they be disqualified? It was not because it was right that they should be excluded, but because this precious scheme in order that it might work required that they should be excluded. Why did not the right hon. Gentleman either wait till he had got the money necessary for old-age pensions or boldly provide it now? He ought to do one or the other.
THE CHAIRMANpointed out to the hon. Gentleman that he was indulging in great repetition.
MR. WILLIAM RUTHERFORDapologised for having been betrayed into repetition, but pointed out that in order to facilitate the passing of an old-age pension scheme hon. Members had stood aside on former occasions, and that now when the Government had elected to take this Resolution after Eleven o'clock they were entitled to have their say, and give their opinion. He was quite prepared to go into all the details, but would only say that if the Government now would put aside £500,000 a year additional—
THE CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member is again repeating himself.
MR. WILLIAM RUTHERFORDsaid he was not conscious that he had referred to that part of the subject before. All he desired to say was that if the Government would put aside something to add to the money they already proposed to give so as to enable these different anomalies to which he had referred to be removed, and enable the incomes to be made up to a sum not exceeding 15s., instead of the hard and fast 10s., with a maximum of 5s., there would not be the gross injustice which arose between the person who had 9s. 11d. and another

1395
who had 10s. 1d. Moreover, the restriction should be removed as to married couples receiving less. It would not cost much more.
Resolution agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Asquith, Mr. Burns, and Mr. Attorney-General.

OLD-AGE PENSIONS BILL.
"To provide for Old Age Pensions," presented accordingly, and read the first time; to be read a second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 254.]

PUBLIC OFFICES SITES (EXTENSION) [EXPENSES].
Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Question [27th May], "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the Resolution, 'That it is expedient to authorise the payment, out of moneys provided by Parliament, of any Expenses, so far as not otherwise provided for, incurred by the Commissioners of Works under any Act of the present Session, to provide for the Acquisition of Land for the extension of certain Public Offices in Westminster and of the Patent Office, and for certain other public purposes.'"—(Mr. Harcourt.)
Question again proposed.
MR. WILLIAM RUTHERFORDsaid that this Resolution was to commit the country to the payment of a very large sum of money indeed for another of those palatial establishments in which the servants in the different public Departments were to be housed. He was not aware, when this matter was brought before the Committee on a former occasion, that the scheme was one which had been approved of some years ago, and that the idea was to acquire
1396
a very large piece of land between the last new building at the corner of Parliament Street and Great George Street and Delahay Street, the last-named of which streets was to be shut up. In his opinion sufficient explanation had not been given as to precisely how much of the land had already been acquired, or how much money was intended to be got by this particular Vote. He understood that a considerable portion of the property still to be acquired consisted of the excellent and magnificent building of the Institute of Civil Engineers, which had only been erected twelve or thirteen, years, but which was to be taken down simply because it was desired to have a uniform set of buildings for the public Departments. He protested on behalf of the taxpayers of the country against the expenditure of £600,000 for that site and for the buildings to be put upon it, when another site might have been procured within two or three hundreds yards, next to the building occupied by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, at a tenth of the cost. Even if this scheme had originated with the late Government he did not see why it was less objectionable that it should be carried out by the present Government with all their professions of retrenchment, economy, and reform. The present Government should have had the courage immediately to alter the scheme, and not to come before the House in a session like the present, when there were so many demands on the public purse, asking for this enormously expensive scheme. It was for these reasons that he ventured to protest most strongly against this Resolution.
Question put, and agreed to.
And, it being after half-past Eleven of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
Adjourned at twenty minutes before Twelve o'clock.