Sitting of 8 November 1909

FINANCE BILL.
NAVAL DISCIPLINE BILL.
POLICE (LIVERPOOL INQUIRY) BILL.
ROBERT GORDON'S TECHNICAL COLLEGE AND ABERDEEN ENDOWMENTS TRUST ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL.
COUNTY COUNCIL MORTGAGES BILL.
MOTOR CARS (INTERNATIONAL CIRCULATION) BILL.
Brought from the Commons.

DISEASES OF ANIMALS BILL. [H.L.]
PRISONS (SCOTLAND) BILL. [H.L.]
SUMMARY JURISDICTION (SCOTLAND) ACT, 1908, AMENDMENT BILL. [H.L.]
EDUCATION (ADMINISTRATIVE PROVISIONS) BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to.

CARDIFF CORPORATION BILL.
CINEMATOGRAPH BILL.
WEEDS AND AGRICULTURAL SEEDS (IRELAND) BILL.
Returned from the Commons, with the Amendments, agreed to.

HEALTH RESORTS AND WATERING PLACES (IRELAND) BILL.
WILD ANIMALS IN CAPTIVITY PROTECTION (SCOTLAND) BILL.
Returned from the Commons, with the Amendment, agreed to.

ELECTRIC LIGHTING ACTS (AMENDMENT) BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, with the Lords Amendments to the Commons Amendments, agreed to.

HOUSING, TOWN PLANNING, &c., BILL.
Returned from the Commons with several of the Amendments, agreed to; Several others agreed to, with Amendments, and with consequential Amendments to the Bill; and several others disagreed to,
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with reasons for such disagreement: The said Amendments and reasons to be printed, and to be considered on Thursday next. (No. 215.)

SMALL DWELLING-HOUSES IN BURGHS LETTING AND RATING (SCOTLAND) BILL.
Returned from the Commons with several of the Amendments agreed to: Several others agreed to, with Amendments, and with a consequential Amendment to the Bill; and several others disagreed to, with reasons for such disagreement: The said Amendments and reasons to be printed, and to be considered on Thursday next. (No. 216.)
IRISH LAND BILL.
Returned from the Commons with the Amendments disagreed to. with a reason for such disagreement: The said reason to be printed. (No. 217.)
STAGE PLAYS (CENSORSHIP).
Report from the Joint Committee (with the proceedings of the Committee) made, and to be printed. (No. 214.) Minutes of evidence, together with appendices, laid upon the Table, and to be delivered out.
IRISH UNIVERSITIES ACT, 1908.
A statute for University College, Dublin: Laid before the House (pursuant to Act), and to be printed. (No. 218.)
LONDON ELECTIONS BILL.
Petitions against; of Metropolitan Borough Councils of St. Marylebone—Holborn—Fulham—Chelsea—Mayor, &c., of Borough of Kensington;—Read, and ordered to lie on the Table.
SMALL DWELLING-HOUSES IN BURGHS LETTING AND RATING (SCOTLAND) BILL.
Petition for amendment of; of Faculty of Procurators and Solicitors in Dundee; read, and ordered to lie on the Table.

FINANCE BILL.
Petitions against; of persons signing (119);—Castle Donnington Conservative Association;—Electors of Derby;—

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West, South, and East of Scotland Malt Distillers Association;—Constitutional Club;—Landowners, &c., of Norfolk and Suffolk;—Read, and ordered to lie on the Table:
Petitions for amendment of; of Faculty of Procurators and Solicitors in Dundee;—Provost, &c., of Banff;—Read, and ordered to lie on the Table.

BOARD OF AGRICULTURE (SCOTLAND) BILL. [H.L.]
Petition against; of the County Council of Ayr; read, and ordered to lie on the Table.

ASYLUM OFFICERS' SUPERANNUATION BILL.
Amendments reported (according to order).
THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE had an Amendment on the Paper to subsection (4) of Clause 2—
(4) Where an established officer or servant of an asylum is injured—

(a)in the actual discharge of his duty; and

(b) without his own default; and

(c) by some injury specifically attributable to the nature of his duty and is permanently incapacitated for asylum duties as the result of such injury;

the visiting committee of such asylum may grant to him such gratuity or special superannuation allowance as they may consider reasonable:
Provided that a superannuation allowance shall not in any case exceed two-thirds of the salary or wages and emoluments of the superannuated person.
The Amendment was to insert, after the words "(c) by some injury, "the words "or illness." He understood that the noble Lord in charge of the Bill (Lord Monk Bretton) accepted this Amendment, and therefore he would not detain the House by explaining it. But there was a consequential Amendment arising out of this—namely, to insert, after the words "Where an established officer or servant of an asylum is injured," the words "or is incapacitated." He would first move the consequential Amendment.
Amendment moved—
"In page 2, line 32, after the word 'injured,' to insert the words 'or incapacitated.'"—(The Earl of Donoughmore.)
THE LORD STEWARD (EARL BEAUCHAMP)THE LORD STEWARD (EARL BEAUCHAMP) congratulated the noble Earl on
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having discovered a consequential Amendment which preceded the one on the Paper. It was worthy of the country to which the noble Earl belonged. This, however, was not an Amendment to which the Home Office could give their assent. In giving power to visiting committees to award superannuation in cases of incapacity a special concession had been made, and it might burden the rates considerably if the power were also given in cases of illness, In a great many instances it would be difficult, if not impossible, to decide whether the illness was specifically attributable to the nature of the duties, and in those circumstances a great many disappointments and disputes would arise. He thought their Lordships had dealt very liberally with asylum officers in this Bill, and he hoped the further concession proposed by the noble Earl would not be made.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE intimated that after this decision he would not move the Amendment to insert the words "or illness." He was, however, disappointed at the action of the Government. These persons were particularly liable to diseases arising from the carelessness of lunatics, and he thought the Amendment would have been a desirable one to insert.
LORD MONK BRETTON LORD MONK BRETTON moved an addition to Clause 2, which he hoped the Government would accept as it was in the interests of economy. The words which he proposed to add would prevent a local authority in a burst of generous enthusiasm giving too large a sum to any of its officers.
Amendment moved—
"In page 3, line 3, after the word 'person' to insert the words 'and a gratuity under this section shall not exceed one year's salary or wages and emoluments of the person to whom it is granted.'"—(Lord Monk Bretton.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE moved to amend subsection (1) of Clause 3—
3.—(1) Where a superannuation allowance is granted to an established officer or servant on the ground of incapacity for the performance of his duty, the managers or authority of the asylum shall, yearly or otherwise, until the power under this Act of requiring such officer or servant to serve again ceases, satisfy themselves that the incapacity continues, and unless they resolve that such evidence is unnecessary, shall satisfy themselves

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by the evidence of a legally qualified medical practitioner selected by the managers or authority,
by leaving out the words "managers or authority" ["the managers or authority of the asylum"] and substituting the words "visiting committee."
Amendment moved—
"In page 3, line 6, to leave out the words 'managers or authority' and to insert the words 'visiting committee.'"—(The Earl of Donoughmore.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE also moved to substitute "visiting Committee" for "managers or authority" at the end of the subsection.
Amendment moved—
"In page 3, line 12, to leave out the words 'managers or authority' and to insert the words 'visiting committee.'"—(The Earl of Donoughmore.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Drafting Amendments agreed to.
VISCOUNT HARDINGE VISCOUNT HARDINGE moved to amend Clause 4—
4. It shall be competent for the visiting committee with the consent of the local authority to grant at their discretion, and on such terms as they think fit, a gratuity to the widow or children of an established officer or servant dying while in the service of the asylum who if he had retired at the time of his death would have been entitled to a superannuation allowance, but such gratuity shall not exceed his total contributions, or one year's salary or wages and emoluments,
by dividing it into subsections and providing that in the case of the death of an established officer or servant while in service, the visiting committee, with the consent of the local authority, might grant a gratuity to his widow or children.
Amendment moved—
"In page 3, lines 29 and 30, to leave out the words 'a gratuity to the widow or children' and to insert—

'(a) In the case'; in line 33, to leave out 'but such gratuity' and to insert 'a gratuity to his widow or children; and

(b) In the case of an established officer or servant dying (whilst in the service of the asylum) to whom if he had survived, a special superannuation allowance might have been granted, an annual allowance or gratuity to his widow or children; and

(c) In the case of an established officer or servant dying whilst in the service of the asylum, before the completion of ten years service, in such circumstances as would not have rendered him
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eligible (had he survived) for a gratuity or special superannuation allowance, a gratuity to his widow or children:

Provided that a gratuity granted under subsections (a) and (b) of this clause'; and in line 34, after 'emoluments,' to insert 'whichever is the largest amount, and a gratuity granted under subsection (c) of this clause shall not exceed his total contributions and that an annual allowance granted under this clause shall not exceed two-thirds of his salary or wages and emoluments'"—(Viscount Hardinge.)
LORD MONK BRETTON,LORD MONK BRETTON, on behalf of the promoters of the Bill, supported the Amendment, and expressed the hope that, as the provision would be permissive and as he believed it emanated from Government sources, the noble Earl the Lord Steward would see his way to accept it.
EARL BEAUCHAMP EARL BEAUCHAMP said His Majesty's Government had no objection to the first part of the Amendment. But in paragraph (c) the noble Viscount had somewhat arbitrarily fixed the period of ten years. It seemed to him (Earl Beauchamp) that if a concession of this kind were to be given to asylum officers it would be fair to give it after ten years rather than before the completion of that period of service. That, however, was not the point he wished to press. The paragraph would create a precedent with regard to superannuation allowances, and in those circumstances the Home Office were unwilling to agree to it. Nothing of this kind existed in connection with pensions in the public service, and it was not thought desirable to introduce it here.
VISCOUNT HARDINGE VISCOUNT HARDINGE said that after the noble Earl's statement he would withdraw paragraph (c).
LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH pointed out that paragraph (b) introduced a new element into the clause. In addition to a gratuity it would permit an annual allowance to be given. He did not like the term "annual allowance." It was difficult to distinguish between an annual allowance and a pension, and it seemed quite possible under the Amendment to give to a widow an actual pension for the rest of her life. He would, therefore, move to amend the Amendment by omitting from paragraph (b) the words "an annual allowance or."
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD LOREHURN)THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD LOREHURN) said it would be more convenient if he put the first part of the

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Amendment down to the words "(a) In the case."
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR then put the Amendment to insert paragraph (b), to which Lord Clifford of Chudleigh had intimated his desire to move an Amendment.
Amendment moved to the Amendment—
"To leave out the words 'an annual allowance or,' and to insert the word 'a.'"—(Lord Clifford of Chudleigh.)
On Question, Amendment to the Amendment agreed to.
Amendment, as amended, agreed to.
VISCOUNT HARDINGE VISCOUNT HARDINGE intimated that he withdrew paragraph (c) of his Amendment.
EARL BEAUCHAMP EARL BEAUCHAMP said there still remained the proviso at the end of the noble Viscount's Amendment, and as paragraph (c) had been deleted he suggested that the proviso should be amended by omitting the words "subsections (a) and (b) of" and inserting the word "under." It would then read "Provided that a gratuity under this clause." The words "a gratuity granted under subsection (c) of this clause shall not exceed his total contributions" were also now unnecessary and should be deleted.
VISCOUNT HARDINGE VISCOUNT HARDINGE accepted the noble Earl's suggestions and amended his Amendment accordingly, a further suggestion from Lord Clifford of Chudleigh that the words "and that an annual allowance granted under this clause" should be omitted being postponed until Third Reading.
Amendment, as amended, agreed to.
LORD MONK BRETTON LORD MONK BRETTON moved to amend Clause 6—
6. All services by an established officer or servant in an asylum shall be aggregated and reckoned for the purposes of this Act, whether the services have been continuous or not, and whether they have been rendered at one or more asylums: Provided that no service which is not continuous for at least two years shall be so reckoned,
by inserting in the proviso, after the word "years," the words "under one local
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authority." He said their Lordships would remember that the clause was amended on the motion of Lord Belper by the insertion of a provision that no service should be reckoned as continuous in any asylum which did not come up to two years. Some local authorities had several asylums, and an officer might be transferred every six months or every year from one asylum to another. He was sure Lord Belper did not intend his Amendment to affect such a man, and the insertion of the words "under one local authority" would prevent any hardship occurring.
Amendment moved—
"In page 4, line 8, after 'years' to insert the words 'under one local authority.'"—(Lord Monk Bretton.)
LORD BELPER LORD BELPER said he had not contemplated the case mentioned by the noble Lord, and as he understood the Amendment was designed to meet that case he had no objection to it.
EARL BEAUCHAMP EARL BEAUCHAMP said there was no objection in substance to the Amendment, but if on Third Reading it was considered necessary to alter the drafting he hoped the noble Lord would not object.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD MONK BRETTON LORD MONK BRETTON moved to delete Clause 7—
7. When a person in receipt of superannuation allowance under this Act is appointed to any office or employment by any authority to which this Act applies, such allowance shall cease to be paid so long as he continues to hold such office or employment if the salary or wages and emoluments thereof are equal to or in excess of such allowance; if they are not, then only so much of such allowance shall be paid so long as he holds such employment as will make up the deficiency.
Any such person on ceasing to hold such office or employment shall be entitled to revert to and receive the full amount of his original superannuation allowance from the visiting committee which granted it. If an established officer or servant in receipt of superannuation allowance under this Act is appointed to an office or employment remunerated out of money provided by Parliament or out of a county or borough rate or fund, or out of any parochial district or other rate, he shall not while holding that office or employment receive more of the superannuation than, together with the remuneration of that office or employment, is equal to the remuneration of the office or employment in respect of which the superannuation was awarded,
and to insert a new clause, He explained that the new Clause 7 contained no matter which was not in the present clause, but as

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the latter was made up of two Amendments moved in Committee there was considerable redundancy. He thought the new clause expressed the two Amendments in better drafting.
Amendment moved—
"In page 4, to leave out clause 7 and to insert the following new clause—
'7. If an established officer or servant, in receipt of superannuation allowance under this Act, is appointed to any office or employment by any authority to which this Act applies, or to an office or employment remunerated out of money provided by Parliament, or out of a county or borough rate or fund, or out of any parochial, district, or other rate, he shall not, while holding that office or employment, receive more of the superannuation than, together with the remuneration of that office or employment, is equal to the remuneration of the office or employment in respect of which the superannuation was awarded.
Any such person on ceasing to hold such office or employment shall be entitled to revert to and receive the full amount of his original superannuation allowance from the visiting committee which granted it.'"—(Lord Monk Bretton.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Consequential Amendments to Clause 8 agreed to.
LORD MONK BRETTON LORD MONK BRETTON had three Amendments on the Paper to Clause 10—
10. (1) An established officer or servant who has not become entitled to a superannuation allowance, and who loses his office or employment by reason of reduction of staff, or of any other cause whatever other than his own misconduct or voluntary resignation, shall be entitled to receive the aggregate amount of his contributions under this Act.
(2) The visiting committee of an asylum may, if they think fit, repay to any female officer or servant leaving to be married after not Jess than three years service, the amount of her contributions under this Act, provided that within three months after leaving she produces to the visiting committee her marriage certificate.
(3) If an officer or servant who has received his contributions under this section subsequently obtains a fresh office or employment, he shall not be entitled to reckon his service before obtaining such fresh office or employment towards a superannuation allowance under this Act, unless, upon obtaining such fresh office or employment he pays the amount so received to the visiting committee under whom he obtains such fresh office or employment.
The Amendments were confined to subsection (3), and were designed to make the subsection read—
(3) If an officer or servant who has received his contributions under this section subsequently obtains a fresh office or employment in an asylum, he shall not be entitled to reckon his service before obtaining such fresh office or employment towards a superannuation allowance under this
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Act, unless, upon obtaining such fresh office or employment he repays the amount so received to the visiting committee from whom he received them.
He explained that the object of the Amendment was to bring Clause 10 into harmony with Clause 12.
Amendments moved—
"In page 5, line 28, after the word 'employment' to insert the words 'in an asylum'; in line 31, to leave out 'pays' and to insert 'repays'; and in line 32, to leave out from 'committee' to the end of the clause, and to insert 'from whom he received them.'"—(Lord Monk Bretton.)
EARL BEAUCHAMP EARL BEAUCHAMP suggested that the last word of the subsection as amended should be "it" not "them."
LORD MONK BRETTON LORD MONK BRETTON said the word referred to the "contributions" and not to the "amount," and was therefore correct.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD MONK BRETTON LORD MONK BRETTON moved to amend Clause 11—
11. When an established officer or servant of the first class has attained the age of fifty-live, or an established officer or servant of the second class has attained the age of sixty, and the visiting committee of the asylum in which he is employed are of opinion that his retirement would be expedient in the interests of the service, it shall be competent for them to require him to retire upon payment to him of the superannuation allowance to which he may be entitled under this Act:
Provided that nothing in this section shall prejudice the existing right of any visiting committee to dismiss any officer or servant employed in an asylum, or to reduce him to a lower rate of pay, or shall prevent his claim to a superannuation allowance from being refused in any case where under this Act a claim to superannuation allowance is forfeited,
by inserting, after the words "it shall be competent for them," the words "with the consent of the Secretary of State." He said the clause gave power to the local authority compulsorily to retire any officer of the first class at the age of fifty-five. He proposed to modify that power by moving to insert words providing that the order of the local authority should be approved by the Secretary of State, and, according to the interpretation, in Ireland the Secretary of State meant the Lord Lieutenant. This was a provision which particularly concerned the administration in Ireland. Some of the officers there were appointed by the Lord Lieutenant previous to the Local Government Act, and might

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not be so acceptable to the present authorities. He was also told that religious differences entered into these matters in Ireland, and he therefore hoped the Government would accept the Amendment.
Amendment moved—
"In page 5, line 40, after the word 'them' to insert the words 'with the consent of the Secretary of State.'"—(Lord Monk Bretton.)
EARL BEAUCHAMP EARL BEAUCHAMP said the Government could not accept the Amendment. There was nothing in this Amendment which limited it to Ireland; it would apply to every local authority throughout the country. Ministers had duties enough to discharge without being obliged to hold an inquiry into the case of every officer which the visiting committee of an asylum thought it well compulsorily to retire at the age of fifty-five. In his opinion they might fairly trust the local authority in such a matter.
THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY thought there was something to be said for the case of Ireland, and if the noble Earl would allow him he would put down an Amendment on the point for Third Reading.
LORD ASHBOURNE LORD ASHBOURNE admitted the force of what the Lord Steward had said, but thought some Amendment of the kind was necessary to safeguard the interests of such officials in Ireland, as a man might be compulsorily retired for no other reason than that he had become unpopular.
THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE, in whose name a similar Amendment stood on the Paper, said this right of appeal existed in Ireland now, and all they desired was to safeguard an existing right.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE moved to insert in Clause 12 the following proviso:—"Provided that every superannuation allowance or gratuity under this Act shall be paid out of the fund out of which the salary or wages and emoluments of the officer or servant is or has been paid." He said the effect of the clause would be that all the allowances mentioned therein would be borne out of the visiting committees' maintenance fund, from which the cost of feeding, clothing, and maintenance of patients was paid. Repairs were carried out by the visiting committee
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and the cost was subsequently recovered from the county rate. This cost included the wages of such men as were employed on repairs work, and he was told that in the London asylums and in some of the county asylums as well there was a considerable established permanent staff employed in carrying out these repairs. It was thought that all these officials, if the visiting committees included them in the necessary regulations, would come under the clause, and the London County Council, on whose behalf he moved this Amendment, felt that it was desirable that the fund from which the wages of the men came should be the fund from which the superannuation should come also.
Amendment moved—
"In page 6, line 19, after the word 'section' to insert the words 'Provided that every superannuation allowance or gratuity under this Act shall be paid out of the fund out of which the salary or wages and emoluments of the officer or servant is or has been paid.'"—(The Earl of Donoughmore.)
EARL BEAUCHAMP EARL BEAUCHAMP said that the Home Office had no objection to the principle of the Amendment, and suggested a verbal alteration, which was accepted by Lord Donoughmore.
On Question, Amendment, as amended, agreed to.
LORD MONK BRETTON LORD MONK BRETTON moved the omission of Clause 13—
13. Where an officer or servant has been employed in a poor law asylum prior to or subsequent to his employment as au established officer or servant to which this Act applies, he shall, at the discretion of the managers or authority, be entitled to reckon his entire period of employment or service in both capacities for the purpose of pension on the scale and subject to the statutory requirements affecting pensions in the service from which he last retires.
He explained that this clause was inserted in Committee on the motion of Lord Donoughmore. Its object was to make asylum service for pension purposes interchangeable with Poor Law service. The noble Earl, in moving the clause, laid special stress upon the importance of bringing the Metropolitan Asylums Board into the Bill, and he thought it was chiefly with that object that the clause was inserted. The clause, however, considerably complicated the Bill. The promoters of the Bill would have been quite willing to accept the clause if it were workable, but it was objected to by the Local Government Board and was certainly

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outside the principle of the Bill, which was that asylums officers had a very difficult and dangerous service and should receive special treatment, whereas Poor Law officers did not come within that category. He had a number of Amendments on the Paper to bring the Metropolitan Asylums Board within the scope of the Bill, and he therefore hoped the noble Earl would agree to the deletion of the clause.
Amendment moved—
"To leave out Clause 13."—(Lord Monk Bretton.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD MONK BRETTON LORD MONK BRETTON moved an Amendment to Clause 14 to provide a punishment in the case of any person who made a wilful misstatement of fact. He said the Amendment had the sanction of the Government.
Amendment moved—
"In page 8, line 25, after the word 'made' to insert the words 'Any person who makes a wilful misstatement of material fact in any such declaration shall be liable on summary conviction to a line not exceeding fifty pounds or to imprisonment with or without hard labour not exceeding three calendar months.'"—(Lord Monk Bretton.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Drafting Amendment to Clause 15 agreed to.
THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE had an Amendment on the Paper to Clause 16. The clause ran—
16. The salary or wages and emoluments of an established officer or servant shall, for the purpose of computing the amount of a superannuation allowance or gratuity, be calculated according to the average amount of his salary or wages and emoluments during the ten years ending on the quarter day which immediately precedes the day on which he ceases to hold his office or employment, or, in the case of an officer or servant with less than ten years service, on the average amount during his whole period of service; and the expression "emoluments" includes all fees, poundage and other payments made to any established officer or servant as such for his own use, and also the money value any apartments, rations, or other allowances in kind appertaining to his office or employment.
The annual money value of all such fees, poundage and other payments, apartments, rations, or other allowance in kind shall be set out in a schedule to be prepared by the visiting committee of every asylum and affixed in a conspicuous place in the asylum.
He moved to leave out the words "ten
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years" in both cases where they occurred and to substitute the words "five years." The object of the Amendment was to restore the Bill to the shape in which it left the Select Committee in another place, and he asked their Lordships to reconsider the matter because a very important point was involved. If the clause remained as it now stood with the period at ten years, asylum officers, who had very special duties and very special dangers, would be placed in a worse position than Poor Law officers, whose pensions were calculated on a five year basis and whose calling was nothing like as difficult or dangerous as that of those to whom this Bill applied. The case for this Amendment was stated by Mr. Byrne on behalf of the Home Office in his evidence before the Select Committee. Mr. Byrne said—
" We should suggest that, as in the Poor Law Officers' Superannuation Act, computation should be made on the average salary for the last live years. … As the rest of the Bill is based on the Poor Law Officers Act, we think that those officers should be pensionable on the average of the last five years."
He (Lord Donoughmore) therefore hoped their Lordships would agree to the Amendment.
Amendment moved—
"In page 8, line 36, to leave out 'ten' and to insert 'five'; and in line 38, to leave out 'ten' and to insert 'five.'"—(The Earl of Donoughmore.)
LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH hoped the Amendment would not be accepted. Considering the small amount which these officers would contribute towards the pension it was not unfair to them to take the calculation on a ten years basis.
LORD MONK BRETTON LORD MONK BRETTON said he opposed this Amendment in Committee and must oppose it again on the score of economy. The Government were not proposing to give any grants in respect of asylum workers, as were given in the case of the police. If their Lordships altered the period from ten to five years they would be reversing the decision of the House of Commons.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
Drafting Amendments to Clause 17 agreed to.
LORD MONK BRETTON LORD MONK BRETTON moved to add to Clause 17 a new subsection to bring the

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Metropolitan Asylums Board within the Bill. The Metropolitan Asylums Board was not a Poor Law authority, and this was one of a series of Amendments which had been drafted with the approval of the Government in order to enable the Board's employés, who dealt with cases of acute mania almost as dangerous as the cases in ordinary lunatic asylums, to receive the benefits of this Bill.
Amendment moved—
"In page 9, line 28, after subsection (2) to insert the following new subsection—
'(3) In the case of an asylum for imbeciles provided or maintained by the Metropolitan Asylums Hoard, for references in this Act to the visiting committee of any asylum there shall be substituted references to the Board of Managers of the Metropolitan Asylums District, and for references to the Secretary of State there shall be substituted references to the Local Government Board.'"—(Lord Monk Bretton.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Drafting Amendment to Clause 18 agreed
LORD MONK BRETTON LORD MONK BRETTON moved to amend Clause 20—
20. The enactments specified in the schedule to this Act are hereby repealed to the extent specified in the third column thereof, subject to this qualification, that this repeal shall not affect the payment of any superannuation allowance granted before the commencement of this Act.
Any established officer or servant who is at the date of the commencement of this Act in the service or employment of a visiting committee of an asylum to which this Act applies may at any time within three months after the commencement of this Act signify in writing to such authority his intention not to avail himself of the provisions of this Act, and in that event it shall not be obligatory on him notwithstanding anything in this Act contained to make any contribution or submit to any deduction from his salary or wages under this Act, nor shall he be entitled to receive any superannuation allowance, gratuity, or other benefit under this Act, but any such established officer or servant of an asylum who has given such notice as aforesaid shall remain subject to the provisions of the enactments repealed by this Act with respect to the superannuation allowances of officers and servants in asylums as if this Act had not been passed,
by inserting, after the word "Act" ["shall remain subject to the provisions of the enactments repealed by this Act"] towards the end of the clause, the words "or, in the case of an officer or servant of the Metropolitan Asylums Board to the Poor Law Officers Superannuation Act, 1896." He said this was the first of two Amendments the object of which was to enable contracting
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out to apply to the officers of the Metropolitan Asylums Board.
Amendment moved—
"In page 11, line 1, after 'Act' to insert the words 'or, in the case of an officer or servant of the Metropolitan Asylums Board to the Poor Law Officers' Superannuation Act, 1896.'"—(Lord Monk Bretton.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Amendment moved—
"In page 11, line 3, after the word 'passed,' to insert the words 'After the expiration of three months from the commencement of this Act the Poor Law Officers' Superannuation Act, 1896, shall cease to apply to any established officer or servant employed in an asylum who has not, in the manner provided by this section, signified his intention not to avail himself of the provisions of this Act.'"—(Lord Monk Bretton.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE moved to insert a new subsection in Clause 20. This new subsection, he said, was essential in view of Amendments made to a former clause. Its object was to protect those existing officers who, although employed by a visiting committee and entitled to receive superannuation allowances under Section 280 of the Lunacy Act, 1890, might be determined under Clause 17 of this Bill not to be established officers. As Clause 20 stood these existing officers would neither be entitled to any benefits under the Bill nor under the section of the Lunacy Act referred to, as that section was repealed by the Bill. The salaries and wages of these officers were fixed on the assumption that they would be entitled to superannuation allowances, and without some such Amendment as he proposed they would fall between two stools.
Amendment moved—
"In page 11, line 3, to insert the following new subsection—
'(2) Any officer or servant of the asylum who is at the date of the commencement of this Act in the service of a visiting committee of an asylum to which this Act applies, and who is not or is not determined to be an established officer or servant within the meaning of this Act, shall remain subject to the provisions of the enactments repealed by this Ant with respect to the superannuation allowances of officers and servants in asylums as if this Act had not been passed.'"—(The Earl of Donoughmore.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Bill to be read 3a on Thursday next, and to be printed as amended. (No. 219.)

LONDON ELECTIONS BILL.
[SECOND READING.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD DENMAN: My Lords, as this is a Bill of considerable importance, I must ask the indulgence of the House for a few minutes whilst I endeavour to outline its main provisions. The object of the Bill is a very simple one. It is to confer on the electorate of London the same right of successive occupation which the electors of other great cities, such, for instance, as Manchester, Liverpool, and Glasgow, already enjoy. To those members of your Lordships' House who have contested Parliamentary elections the term "successive occupation" is no doubt a very familiar one, but as the majority of the members of this House have not had that experience, I may, perhaps, be allowed to explain what the expression "successive occupation" means. It is this. Where a voter in a Parliamentary borough changes his residence to another part of the borough, even although that part is situated in a different Parliamentary constituency or division, he retains his vote; but in London when a man changes his residence from one Parliamentary division to another or from one borough to another, he loses his vote. Say, for example, that a man changes his residence from Dover-street to Jermyn-street or from Bond-street to Piccadilly; he then loses his vote for at least one year and possibly even for nearly two years, according to the time when the removal is effected. And this brings about this very curious anomaly, that a man when he changes his residence, while retaining his vote for county council elections, borough council elections, and guardians elections, yet loses it for Parliamentary elections. Surely, my Lords, it is really an absurd and wholly indefensible thing to say to a man that he shall retain his vote for borough council, county council, and other elections, while he loses his vote for Parliamentary elections, and it is this really extraordinary anomaly which this Bill seeks to rectify.
Let me take the example of what takes place in another great city. I will take the case of Liverpool with which the noble Earl opposite. Lord Derby, is much more familiar than myself. In Liverpool there are nine divisions—Kirkdale, Walton Everton, West Derby, Scotland, Exchange,
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Abercromby, East Toxteth, and West Toxteth. A man can change his residence as often as he pleases in any of those divisions, and he yet retains his Parliamentary vote. London is divided into twenty-eight different boroughs, and a man by changing his residence will lose his Parliamentary vote for from one to two years. The object of this Bill is to make the law practically the same in London in this respect as it is in Liverpool. Therefore, I think it will be admitted that there is really no startlingly novel proposal in the principle of this Bill, and I do not think any member of this House, however much he may dislike His Majesty's present Government, will be able to detect even a taint of Socialism or the germs of revolution within the four-corners of this very modest measure. For really what it does is to bring London into line with the other great cities of this country with regard to this matter of successive occupation.
We have been charged elsewhere with an attempt to gerrymander the London constituencies in favour of the Liberal Party. [Ironical cheers.] I am grateful to noble Lords opposite for their kindly encouragement. But I hope I may be believed by some members of this House when I say that that is not the case; that the object of this Bill is, as I have stated it, to remove disabilities with regard to this matter of occupation which the electors of London, and practically of London alone of our great cities, suffer under at the present time. There are one or two other arguments which I would like to cite as showing that a measure of this kind is really due to London. In the first place, one has to consider that a large proportion of the London population is a migratory population. I am told removals amount in some Parliamentary divisions to as much as thirty per cent. of the population. In 1908 the revision of the lists in Camberwell revealed the fact that in Camberwell in 44,000 separately assessed hereditaments there were 32,000 cases of removal. I do not say they were all cases of removal from that particular Parliamentary division, but I quote it to show that the population of many Parliamentary divisions in London is largely migratory in its character. There is also this fact to consider, that the proportion of voters in the metropolis as compared with the population is less than that in the rest of the country. On the 1907 register the proportion of voters to population in London was 144 per thousand. For the rest of the United

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Kingdom it was 176 per thousand. I think these figures show that very disadvantageous treatment is meted out to London under the present system of registration.
This injustice—for it really, to my mind, is an injustice—we propose to remedy under Clause 1 of this Bill by creating London a Parliamentary borough. Were that to take place it would have these two very important effects. In the first place, elections in London would take place on the same day; and, secondly, the number of plural voters in and around London would be very greatly reduced. First of all, with regard to holding elections on the same day, that is already the law with regard to municipal elections; it has been found, I understand, to work well, and I submit that holding Parliamentary elections on the same day would result in less confusion and less dislocation of trade than the practice which obtains at present of holding those elections on different or on successive days. There are somewhere about 800,000 voters on the register of the London County Council. There are some 600,000 on the register of the Parliamentary divisions of a corresponding area. The London County Council elections are all held on the same day and no inconvenience arises from it, and therefore I think it is fair to conclude that the same practice would be equally convenient for Parliamentary elections.
Now with regard to plural voting, this Bill would, of course, restrict the plural voting powers of persons residing in London. But I would ask the House to note this fact. I do not use it as an argument for the Bill, but I want to put quite frankly before the House what the effect of the operation of the Bill will be. Whilst restricting, as I say, the plural voting power of persons residing in London, the operations of this Bill will allow a considerable number of persons living outside London but having qualifying premises in London to obtain the right to vote in London which they have not hitherto possessed. That comes about in this way. In order to be registered as the occupier of an office in a Parliamentary borough it is necessary for a man to reside with in seven miles of that borough. Thus, I will take the case of the Strand. In order to vote for business premises or an office in the Strand, the voter must reside within seven miles of the Strand. If, as would be the case under this Bill, the division of the Strand were merged into the much larger
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Parliamentary borough of London, then the distance of seven miles would be measured from the new boundary of the Parliamentary borough of London, and therefore that would include a large area which is not included at the present time. Take the case of a person living, for example, in Richmond who has also business premises in the Strand. At present he has not a vote in respect of his business premises in the Strand, but if this Bill were to pass he would have an additional vote for the reason which I have just stated.
While I am on the subject of plural voting, I should like to quote what the late Mr. Gladstone, speaking some seventeen years ago in the city of London, said on this subject. He used these words—
"The case of London is a very peculiar case. No place suffers as London Buffers from the defective state of the law. It suffers more than any other place from plural voting. The constituencies of the metropolis are bloated on the one hand and starved on the other; bloated by the plural vote and starved by the fact that successive occupation does not run throughout the whole area of London."
We all know that in these days many noble Lords opposite and even many noble Lords on the Cross Benches, profess a high regard for the authority of Mr. Gladstone. May I suggest that they will have an opportunity of proving it this evening. We may also be told by noble Lords opposite that what this Bill proposes to do can be done, or ought to be done, in a Redistribution Bill. I hope I have shown to the House—I have done my best to do so—what a very serious anomaly does already exist in this matter of successive occupation in London, and for my part I cannot understand the frame of mind which admits of the existence of an anomaly, but yet which refuses to remedy that particular anomaly because it is impossible for the moment to remedy other anomalies which we also know to exist elsewhere.
As the principle of this Rill is contained in Clause 1, I do not think it is necessary for me, at any rate now, to go further into details or attempt an explanation of the other clauses of the measure. And I am not encouraged to do so by observing on the Notice Paper that a Motion for the rejection of the Bill stands in the name of a noble Lord on the Front Bench opposite. I think I might be entitled to use an argument which is sometimes used against us, when it suits them, by

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noble Lords opposite with regard to the Division Lists of another place. I might point to the fact that only fifty-one members of the House of Commons were found to vote against the Second Reading of this Bill, and only twenty-nine against the Third Reading; or I might endeavour to emulate an example that was set during the debates on the Irish Land Bill by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Atkinson, who in an eloquent speech on the subject of congestion pleaded for the long line of congests waiting at the door of this House for relief from their unhappy plight. I think I, too, may be entitled to plead for the long line of London electors, thousands of them, waiting at the door of this House in expectation of relief from the disability with regard to the franchise under which they suffer at present through no fault of their own.
But I fear that arguments from this side of the House will be of little avail, and that this measure, so modest in its scope and moderate in its provisions, will share the fate of many other Liberal measures, and will shortly be done to death by noble Lords opposite, and we on this side are Powerless to do more than register our protest against this proceeding. But before I sit down I must say this. I regret to notice that a Motion for the rejection of this Bill stands in the name of the noble Earl opposite, Lord Derby, a representative in this House of a family connected, if I may say so with all sincerity, by long and honourable traditions with the great city of Liverpool, for in putting an end to this Bill he will deny to the electors of the metropolis that privilege which the electors of the city of Liverpool already enjoy; and I would like to ask him just one question. I have no right to ask him a question, but perhaps during the course of his remarks he will be so courteous as to give me an answer. Would he approve of a man who changed his residence from, say, the Everton district in Liverpool to the West Derby division losing his vote for eighteen months or two years for doing so, and, if not, why does he refuse this privilege—it is not a privilege it is a right—why does he refuse this right to the electors of London? I beg to move.
Moved, That this Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Denman.)
THE EARL OF DERBY THE EARL OF DERBY, who had given
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notice, on the Motion for the Second Reading, to move that the Bill be read 2a this day three months, said: My Lords, I shall not detain your Lordships long in moving the Amendment that stands in my name, and that for several reasons. In the first place, the noble Lord who has introduced the Bill has left it already in what I might call a dying condition, as he has evidently, perhaps rightly, forecasted its early demise. In the second place the arguments that apply as against this Bill are already well known to your Lordships, because it will probably be within your Lordships' recollection that about three years ago my noble friend Lord St. Aldwyn in this House moved the rejection of the Plural Voting Bill. He did so in what was known as a reasoned Amendment, asking your Lordships to reject the Bill because it was piecemeal legislation, because it destroyed ancient landmarks, because it altered the compromise arrived at between the two great Parties in 1885 with regard to the franchise of this country, and because it at the same time was not accompanied by a redistribution of seats. I hold that every word that applied to the Plural Voting Bill applies with redoubled force to the Bill now before your Lordships' House, because while that was piecemeal legislation, this is only a fragmentary piece of piecemeal legislation.
I shall follow the noble Lord's example and not go into any of the details of the Bill. I shall deal only with the principle; and as I believe in your Lordships' House, as in another place, the principle is dealt with on the Second Reading, and only the principle, I hope I shall be in order in confining myself to that. Now what is the ostensible object of this Bill? The ostensible object of the Bill is to make it easy for a man who changes his residence to take, so to speak, his vote with him—that his vote should be part of his household furniture, and that wherever he goes that vote should go with him; and it is held that there is especially in London an injustice owing to the great number of changes that undoubtedly take place in residence during the course of a year. I dare say there is a bigger proportion of changes of residences in London than in other parts of the country, but I doubt whether it is so very large as some noble Lords may think. I therefore hold, although I quite agree that there may be

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a hardship in London, that it is also a hardship which applies with equal force all over the country; and if the only question was to do away with that period of disfranchisement which is said to exist for two years—I never could make out how that calculation is arrived at—if that is the ostensible reason, if that is the real reason for bringing in this Bill, it could easily be remedied by a one-clause measure applicable all over the country, and which I venture to think your Lordships would be only too willing to accept. But that is not the real reason.
The noble Lord who introduced the Bill was frank enough to tell us that the real reason was to do away with plural voting in London. It is the Plural Voting Bill which was intended for the whole of the country and which was rejected by your Lordships' House made applicable only to London. The noble Lord in introducing this Bill spoke of it all through as an enfranchising Bill, as a Bill for giving votes. He absolutely ignored the fact that while you are giving votes, while you are allowing the easy transfer of votes to men who are continually changing their residences and who may be looked upon, perhaps, as having the least interest in the constituency in which they live, the Bill at the same time disfranchises thousands of voters who, having two residences in the present area of London, are entitled to vote in both places, and can be held, I think rightly, to have more stake in the country than those of the changeable and migratory order. The noble Viscount, Lord St. Aldwyn, when he spoke against the Plural Voting Bill, referred to the cynical humour of the author of that measure, Mr. Harcourt. The author of that Rill is the author of this Bill, and the cynical humour is just as apparent in this Bill as it was in the other; and it may be a curious coincidence which rather emphasises the humour, that the Second Beading of this Bill was taken in another place immediately after the transfer of a vote in London from Mr. Harcourt's side of the House to the other, and the Second Reading in this House is taken immediately after a similar process also in London. I have no doubt whatever in my own mind that Mr. Harcourt, whose knowledge of Parliamentary organisation is of the kind that what he does not know is not worth knowing, sees in this Bill a chance of getting through, under the guise of making
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the transfer of votes easy, a Bill which will disfranchise many thousands of those who, perhaps rightly, he holds to belong to the opposite Party to himself.
The whole principle of this Bill is contained in the first clause, which makes London one borough. In the words of the noble Lord who introduced the Bill, and who incidentally paid a great compliment to Liverpool and Manchester, it is to bring London in line with Liverpool and Manchester. Now is there any justice in attempting to make of London one borough the same as in the case of the other larger cities of the United Kingdom? Do remember this, that none of those boroughs have ever been anything else but single boroughs. The whole of their Parliamentary existence has been as one borough, which as their population has grown has been gradually divided into more constituencies. On the contrary London has been diametrically opposite. London has always been from the very outset of its Parliamentary life a series of boroughs, and you now propose to do away with their ancient traditions. Your Lordships have of late years accentuated the fact that London is not one gigantic borough. Both Houses of Parliament have passed Bills that have divided London into boroughs and given to each of those municipalities the same organisation—mayors, aldermen, councillor—exactly the same in every single one of those boroughs as exist in the large towns in the United Kingdom You now want to abolish the whole of that and to make London one borough, and you do that only for the purpose of depriving those who have plural votes of the extra votes to which they are at present entitled. You are going, you say, to remove an anomaly, but while you remove one anomaly by this Bill so far as London itself goes, you create another by depriving the dual voter in London of a vote which, if you compare like with like, is possessed by similar persons in other parts of the country.
You cannot, it seems to me compare London with a town like Liverpool or Manchester. You must compare like with like, and if you do that, let me just show what the effect of this Bill will be. The noble Lord said that I knew Liverpool well, and asked whether I would like to deprive those who change their residences from one constituency to another of their votes. No I should not; but I should like to make

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it equally easy for men all over the country who change their places of residence to take their vote with them. Compare Liverpool with any area in London which contains the same population. If your Lordships will take the trouble to look at the figures you will find that there are exactly the same number of Members for Liverpool as there are, not for the whole of London, but in the one part which is known as the Tower Hamlets. Surely, if you endeavour to put both on the same footing, you must look at like with like. I will continue that still further by asking you, if it is a question of distance as from one constituency to another, to test on a map of this country the area that London as you would now create it would occupy if put down in another part of England. I will give the noble Lord two cases. Let him put down the area of London where Birmingham now is and he would find that it would comprise not only Birmingham but five Parliamentary boroughs, not to mention the county constituencies which intervene. Then let the noble Lord put down the area in London where Manchester now is. He would there find that it would cover not only Manchester but seven other boroughs. I could go on giving your Lordships instances; but Liverpool is surely an example that may be worth quoting. A man lives in Westminster and has his business, we will say, in Southwark. He has now two votes. Under this Bill he is to lose one. A man lives in Liverpool and has his business in Birkenhead. Under this Bill he is not touched, and he will still have his two votes. I do not know that there is any difference between the two. One river is a little broader than the other, and I do not think it is much dirtier; otherwise there is no difference between the man who lives in Liverpool and has his business in Birkenhead and the man who lives in Westminster and has his business in Southwark.
I know perfectly well that the answer will be, "If we had our Plural Voting Bill that we asked for three years ago that anomaly would not exist." Yes; but you did not have your Plural Voting Bill of three years ago. It was rejected by this House. We are always told when your Lordships throw out a Bill that there is going to be a conflagration; but I noticed that there was no deep commotion caused by the rejection of that Bill. That Bill was rejected on the advice of my noble friend Lord St. Aldwyn. He asked your Lordships to reject for the
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whole country what I now ask your Lordships to reject for London in particular. I cannot pretend to speak with anything like the weight or the influence of the noble Viscount, but I hope I have been able to show to your Lordships that this Bill is not a Bill for enfranchisement, but a Bill for disfranchisement. It is a Bill for introducing into the limited area of London the principle of the Plural Voting Bill which your Lordships rejected three years ago.
Amendment moved—
"To leave out the word 'now' and to add at the end of the Motion the words 'this day three months.'"—(The Earl of Derby.)
LORD WELBY: My Lords, from long experience on the London County Council I have come to the conclusion that this Bill is a very desirable measure in itself. I see in it the completion of measures which have already been passed by Parliament in order to consolidate London and to make the capital of the Empire what it ought to be, one great consolidated city. I heard with very great regret the speech of the noble Earl opposite in which he moved the rejection of the Bill, and I cannot help feeling that the arguments, forcible in themselves, which he put forward with great moderation, did not really touch the root of the subject with which this Bill deals. I know it has always been said by opponents of a measure like this, and it has been repeated on the present occasion, that London is different from other cities, that it is not a consolidated city, that it is not fitted to be a consolidated city, that, in fact, it is a loose confederation of municipalities with no common interests, and, therefore, that those separate municipalities may be treated as separate units with no claim to a common government of any sort or kind.
The noble Earl called attention to the Act which was passed by the late Government creating the borough councils, but it struck me that there was a very considerable omission in his allusion to that matter, because he never mentioned a very important measure—probably the greatest measure affecting London that has been passed within the last century—the Act which created the administrative County Council of London. The County Council of London was brought into being by the Party opposite. It was, I believe, a very wise measure, for it realised the fact that these different districts of London have common interests, that it was necessary to provide for those

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common interests, and that that could only be effected by having one unified London. I venture to think that that Act of the Conservative Party, which I believe to have been an extremely wise one, is an effective answer to the arguments which have just been addressed to your Lordships by the noble Earl when he maintained that London did not permit of being made a unified city, and when he pleaded that the different municipalities and districts of the metropolis were absolutely independent of one another. The action of the Conservative Government in passing in the year 1888 the Act to which I have referred established the fact that all the districts of London have common interests, and that those interests can only be provided for by a common government; and the creation of the borough councils, so far from being an argument in favour of the breaking up of London is an argument entirely in a contrary directtion, inasmuch as they were created merely as subordinate authorities, entrusted, and rightly, with the management of their own local affairs, but subject to the control of the London County Council and forming part of the great central administrative county.
I cannot help feeling a little surprised at the line taken by noble Lords opposite in speaking thus disparagingly of the Capital of the Empire. I cannot understand how noble Lords who most consistently argue as to the dignity and duties of the Empire should make it their object to, if I may venture to say so, degrade the Capital of the Empire, to deny practically that there is a Capital of the Empire, and to argue that that Capital consists merely of a number of loose confederated municipal boroughs. But, further than that, I do venture to think that the policy of the Conservative Government in the Act of 1888 and in subsequent measures has been an extremely wise one. The effect of that Act has been to go a very long way in obviating a great danger which was threatening London—namely, the creation of cities of the rich and cities of the poor—and in teaching the richer districts that they have some connection with the poorer districts and impressing upon the public mind that the richer districts have not only a material but a moral interest in the welfare of the poorer districts. I would ask this question: If that policy of 1888 was a true one, if it was good policy to create a central consolidated administrative county of London, if it was
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desirable to give to London in that respect consolidated government, can the Party that brought in that measure bring forward any valid argument against the slight extension of the principle which is proposed in this Bill?
The noble Earl opposite has referred to the Plural Voting Bill that was rejected a few years ago by your Lordships' House. That was a Bill to put an end to plural voting generally; but in this case is it not the fact that London is put to a great disadvantage compared with cities such as those of which the noble Earl has spoken? There are very few chances of plural voting in the cities to which reference has been made, but it is the fact that a man may have thirty-six votes in London. Of course, that is an extreme case, but a man in London may have the power of qualifying under the various qualifications and so obtaining that number of votes. For a long time past it has been the general policy of Parliament to put an end to plural voting within a borough or within the same constituency. London alone, for some reason or other, has been left outside that provision, and it seems extraordinary that noble Lords opposite should contend that what is good in that respect for Liverpool and Manchester for some reason or other should not apply to London. There is no question whatever that the existence of plural voting in London is a matter which puts London to a very great extent at a disadvantage in regard to other parts of the country—perhaps I ought not to say a disadvantage, but it creates an anomaly against London which I think it is very difficult for noble Lords opposite logically to defend.
If we pass to the other important question dealt with by the Bill—successive occupation, which I think the noble Earl opposite has spoken of, I will not say contemptuously, but has rather passed by as unimportant—I venture to think that a disqualification which has been found by an analysis of the voting in five London boroughs to amount to a loss of 10,000 votes out of 160,000 is no light disqualification, and that the evil of which we complain is one that needs an early remedy. Nor can I see that there is any ground for saying that in order to remove these anomalies we must wait for a general measure. These anomalies are patent, they are very easily removed; they are anomalies which it is impossible for noble

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Lords opposite logically to defend; and I therefore cannot but express my great regret that noble Lords opposite should feel it necessary to perpetuate those anomalies for objects which I think at all events are quite insufficient, and for which up to the present no valid reason has been put forward.
LORD FARQUHAR: My Lords, it is with great diffidence that I venture to address your Lordships on this occasion, but my excuse must be that I feel strongly the injustice of this Bill, the rejection of which has been so ably moved by the noble Earl, Lord Derby, with whose arguments I entirely concur. I do not see why London should be selected and treated differently from every other part of the country, and why the Government should, by this Bill, deprive the citizens of London of their votes in the constituency in which they carry on their business. It would be turning business into a burlesque by arriving at the farcical position that the Parliamentary representatives of the city of London, the greatest banking and commercial centre of the world, would be elected, not by the great bankers, financiers, merchants, and trades people, but by their caretakers and watchmen. That would be degrading London.
I have been connected with London municipal affairs ever since the existence of the London County Council; I had the privilege of introducing the Bill for the creation of the borough councils into this House, and I know something of the feeling in regard to the present Bill. I can safely say that besides the City Corporation seven-eights at least of the banking, financial, mercantile, and tradesmen's communities in the metropolis are strongly opposed to the Bill. I would like to know what evidence there is to show that there is any demand at all for this change which would place the London elector on an inferior basis to that of an elector in all provincial boroughs. Such an act of injustice as is proposed would only go to increase the want of confidence now existing in the city of London caused by the Socialistic tendencies of the present Government, and especially those of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, which so seriously threaten the credit and financial supremacy of our country.
It is this point, a some what indirect one,
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I admit, which has influenced me most, although I agree most cordially with every argument used by the noble Earl who has moved the rejection of the Bill. If we look at the price of Government, railway, and industrial stocks of this country, and make inquiry as to the markets in these stocks, we find that what used to be large and active markets are to-day small and lifeless ones, and that the holders of these stocks have difficulty in realizing them, even at a sacrifice, to re-invest in foreign securities, the dividends on which are payable abroad. Millions and tens of millions are being sent out of the country for this purpose which will never return in any shape. No wonder at such a moment the Government would like to confiscate the votes of the citizens of London, who are sure to record them for their destruction, and mostly for the reasons which I have ventured to lay before your Lordships. This Bill is really a Party attack on the stronghold of Unionism, and, should it pass, it would be a great injustice to, and against the will of an overwhelming majority of the people of London.
THE MARQUESS OF NORTHAMPTON: My Lords, I listened attentively to the speech which has just been delivered by the noble Lord opposite, who, I think, was under a misapprehension as to the Bill we are discussing. At the commencement of the proceedings this evening a First Reading was given to the Finance Bill, and I think the noble Lord's speech would have been more appropriate at that time than at the present moment. We are not discussing now the question of taxation, but we are discussing a question of equal importance to a very large number of our fellow-countrymen. Both noble Lords who have spoken against this Bill seem to me to have lost hold of the most important principle of the measure. Are we in favour, or are we not, of continuing the policy which was initiated by the Conservative Government in 1888 in considering London as one whole?
THE EARL OF DERBY: One county.
THE MARQUESS OF NORTHAMPTON: The other large cities in the United Kingdom are one for municipal and Parliamentary purposes. London alone differs. We have in London one municipal unit, but not one Parliamentary borough, and that is what we are asking you to grant

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by this Bill. It was not the Liberal party who brought about the existence of the London County Council. The London County Council possesses larger powers than any other county council in the United Kingdom; it not only has all the great municipal functions, but it has the right to collect and spend the larger part of the rates. The London County Council is practically the municipality of London; and I cannot understand why noble Lords opposite should lose sight altogether of the great importance of having this unit in the Capital of the Empire, just as much as we have it in other cities. London was made one for municipal purposes by the Unionist Government. And may I say that it has been very rare when a political Party has taken a high-sounding name for a political purpose that it has had the chance of proving its right to that name in such a short space of time as was the case when the Unionist Government passed the Act creating the London County Council?
We are referred to Birmingham, Manchester, and Salford, and it is said, Why not do the same thing for them? But the circumstances are totally different. We support this Bill coming before your Lordships for one purpose and for one purpose only—to obtain for London what every other large town has obtained. It seems to me that any one who is in favour of every qualified inhabitant of London having the power of exercising his vote at general and by-elections must be in favour of the principles of this Bill. Will any noble Lord get up and say that he is opposed to that principle? It is that which we are going to bring about by this Bill. I should like to deal with one or two of the objections that have been raised. The principal objection has reference to plural voting, and the chief reason why noble Lords have come down to this House to-day to destroy this Bill is that by it plural voting would be done away with in the area of London. I believe that is the sole reason of the objection of noble Lords opposite to this Bill; because I do not fancy for one moment that they object to the voter if he is qualified having the power to record his vote. I do not believe any single noble Lord opposite wishes to disfranchise any inhabitant of London, but they desire to preserve the plural vote, and that is the only reason for their opposition to this Bill.
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Now, as regards the plural voter, we are told that the Government have introduced this measure not for the sake of carrying out the principle which I have ventured to lay before your Lordships, but for the sole purpose of gerrymandering and in some way gaining seats in London. I am aware that when that statement was made before it was met with cheers, and I am wondering whether it will ever be possible for noble Lords opposite to believe that there are some honest gentlemen in the Liberal Party. I support this Bill considering myself as responsible as any member of the Government as far as that charge is concerned, and I will say this, that I consider it would be just as fair, although I would not do it, for me to stand up in this House and accuse noble Lords opposite of dishonest conduct or gerrymandering, or whatever it may be called, because they oppose this Bill thinking it may lose them some seats. We ought not to have any idea in our minds as to whether one bit of London goes to one Party or another. That, in my opinion, is a small matter. I think that the Party opposite have a political supremacy in the constituencies in London. I have never looked upon London as a Liberal city. I have had some experience, because I contested a division and I also sat on the London County Council for some years. I believe that if you had to give some political title to London you would have to call it Tory-Democratic. London is to my mind instinctively Conservative. I have regretted that fact many a time. I do not believe there is a question of your getting one seat or losing one seat, or of our gaining or losing a seat. Londoners will settle that for themselves. I do not believe the abolition of plural voting would make much difference as regards the representation of the constituencies.
I want to get away from the Party point of view altogether. This ought not to be, and I do not believe it is, a Party Bill. It is a Bill to give justice to those who are disfranchised at present when elections take place, and it gives the possibility of holding all elections on one day, which is of supreme importance to the trade of London. As regards convenience and everything else this Bill would be a blessing to us all. I shall probably be told that, after all, nothing can do away with the point that we have introduced this Bill for some sinister Party motive.

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This House is rapidly gaining for itself a reputation, which it did not formerly have, of attacking subjects and measures from a purely Party point of view. There, is nothing more regrettable—and I believe noble Lords opposite will agree with me—than that the two great political Parties in the State should be so unequally divided in this House. It is because we are so unequally divided, because we who sit here are in such a small minority whilst noble Lords opposite are in such an overwhelming permanent majority that I think you ought to be a little more generous to the minority in the accusations which you bring against them. If I thought for one moment that His Majesty's Government had introduced this Bill simply in order to try and win a few seats, I for one would at once separate myself from them and would be one of the first to denounce them. But it is because I believe that the Cabinet is composed of men as honest and straightforward as any members on the opposite side of the House, because I know them as my personal friends to be perfectly honest, straightforward gentlemen, that I refuse to think for one moment that this is in any sense a Party measure and I ask your Lordships to give it a Second Reading as a measure of justice.
THE EARL OF DARTMOUTH: My Lords, as one who for a good many years represented one of the constituencies in London and who was returned on four separate occasions as the representative of the borough of Lewisham, which is so often quoted in this connection, containing, as it does, a population of 127,000, I desire to oppose this Bill. The noble Marquess who has just sat down suggested that the sole objection we have on this side of the House is on the question of plural voting. I will give him another objection. I refer to the manner in which your Lordships' House has been treated in this matter, of which I think we have a right to complain. If this Bill is of the importance that the noble Lord who moved its Second Reading and the noble Marquess who has just spoken appear to think and if there is this great injustice done to London as a whole, why is it that we only get the Bill on the 8th of November?
I think when we consider how the Bill has been treated in another place we have a right to complain. The First Reading was moved under the ten-minute rule, and
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if it had not been for the impassioned speeches to which we have listened in this House we should have thought that it was one of those elaborate jokes so dear to the family of Harcourt, carefully elaborated in their home and reproduced for the edification of the House of Commons. The First Reading took place in April, the Second Reading in June, and it is needless to remind your Lordships that the Second Reading was closured. One of the stock charges always brought against those who sit on this side and who agree with us is that we are always pressing for redistribution. I take it that until redistribution comes we shall always press for it. Mr. Harcourt in another place accused Sir Henry Kimber of being so obsessed with a desire for redistribution that if anybody had brought in a Bill for the revision of the Book of Common Prayer he would have moved for a redistribution of the Ten Commandments. There is no necessity for any redistribution of the Ten Commandments now. That has already been done. So much prominence by recent events has been given to the ninth commandment that it has assumed a position of importance which was never intended by the original framer of the Decalogue.
Then we come to the next stage of the Bill—the reference of the Committee stage to Grand Committee. The Bill was sent to Grand Committee in spite of a distinct pledge given by the late Prime Minister that no measure of that kind should be so treated. In the discussion that took place in the other House the present Prime Minister said that no measure such as this was in the mind of the late Prime Minister when he gave that promise. I wonder how he knows that. The only explanation I can suggest is that he has obtained this knowledge by adopting a system to which reference has been made and by which a good deal of support is supposed to be obtained for other Government measures—by the assistance of Mr. Stead and the Julia Bureau. I venture to say that where a pledge is given the Party to which it is given has a right to say something when it is broken. I submit that the sending of this Bill to Grand Committee was a distinct breach of a pledge. Then we come to the Third Reading and the Report stage. That took place on October 18, and it is now on November 8 that we are asked to read the Bill a second

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time. I object most strongly to the Second Reading for the reasons I have given, and I object equally strongly on account of the measure itself.
I do not propose to go at any length into those reasons, but we have heard that the object of the Bill is to secure successive voting. Comparisons have been made over and over again with regard to London as an entity and to other large towns in the provinces, and it has been shown, I think conclusively, that there is no comparison; and, of course, as long as we have electoral boundaries any constituent who passes over those boundaries will lose his vote. Personally I should like to see this proposal as to successive voting given to the whole country and not to only part. The same with regard to polling taking place on the same day. That I believe to be a good thing, and I should like to see it extended so that every county and every borough recorded its vote on the same day. The noble Lord opposite, Lord Welby, compared the present Bill with what was done by the Conservative Government in the formation of the London County Council. These two proposals are hardly on the same plane. There is no intention on our part to disparage London, but we do not see why a man in London should alone be deprived of the undoubted right of plural voting. Those, I believe, are the principal objects with which the Bill has been brought in. As I have said, I do not for one moment believe that the Bill is necessary. I do not believe it is a good Bill; and putting Party feeling entirely on one side, and largely on the ground of the manner in which the Bill has been presented to your Lordships' House, I shall support its rejection.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, one form of argument has been used by the noble Earl who has just sat down which I think is somewhat novel, and I am not sure that it is very expedient. He told us what had happened to this Bill in the House of Commons. He did not say that it had reached this House too late to receive adequate consideration, because that obviously is not the case. So far as I know there is very little, if anything, for your Lordships' House to do for ten days or a fortnight to come. He complained of the Bill having been sent to a Grand Committee of the House of Commons. Is the House of Commons not to be permitted
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in the same way as this House is permitted to manage its own business in its own way and to conduct its internal affairs in its own fashion? On one former occasion I adverted to this subject, and I cannot help thinking there is some danger and some inconvenience, not to one Party or one Government only, in constituting ourselves censors and arbiters of the manner in which the other House chooses to manage its own business. Apart from that I am afraid that there is no use in prolonging the debate, because as soon as any Amendment to a Government measure has been moved from the Front Opposition Bench—I might almost say from any Opposition Bench—its obituary notice alone remains to be written, and obituary notices are proverbially short.
What is this Bill? It is not a Bill applying to the whole country and to all constituencies. It is an exceptional Bill, applying only to London, because the conditions under which Londoners vote are exceptional, and differ from those in other parts of the country. Can any one deny that, while London has a County Council transacting the business of the county, the whole of London is a city, one corporate whole? Lord Derby admitted—I think he is the only member of the Opposition in this House who has admitted—that there is a hardship. Of course there is a great hardship, which results in the disfranchisement of thousands of people in London every year through no fault of their own. He says that the same thing exists in other towns. With great respect to him, I think he is completely wrong. In all Parliamentary boroughs except London, all boroughs, that is, which return several Members of Parliament, electors in one part of the borough can remove to another part of the borough and yet retain their votes by the rule of successive occupation. In London they cannot. In every other town an elector can vote in respect of one qualification only, though he may have six or nine qualifications, and all elections in a borough take place on the same day.
In London there are fifty-nine constituencies returning members, and there are twenty-nine boroughs, the City of London excepted, and the City is the only one of them of which the municipal and Parliamentary boundaries are coterminous. In all others the boundaries overlap—in many of them to a very large extent. The consequence

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is that an elector loses his vote, for example, by moving from Bond-street to Piccadilly, though both streets are in the same metropolitan borough. On the other hand, if he moves from a street in the metropolitan borough of Poplar to one in Bethnal Green he preserves it. What can be the reason for maintaining anomalies of that kind? An elector who has offices in Bond-street, Charing Cross, and Parliament-street—all within a few yards of one another—may vote for three members of Parliament, but he can only vote at one County Council election. On the other hand, in the Tower Hamlets he may vote in five different borough elections, but only for one member of Parliament. What aggravates this mischief and anomaly is that Londoners move more freely and constantly from one part to another than do the people in any other part of the kingdom. I believe it is the case that in many of the constituencies thirty per cent. of the electors move in the course of a year. It is estimated that no fewer than 40,000 electors in London lose their votes every year by reason of this. That is the state of things which we seek to remedy.
The result, I agree, is that those who have plural votes within the area of London will lose all but one vote. That is the inevitable result, but that is not the object of the Bill at all. The object is to do away with the inconvenience, mischief, and injustice which undoubtedly exist in London. It has been recalled that Viscount St. Aldwyn moved to reject the Plural Voting Bill, and that the motion was carried in this House. We make no secret of the fact that we are against plural voting. At the same time, I cannot see how any parallel can be drawn between this Bill and a Bill that dealt with plural voting all over the country. This is exceptional in its character, dealing only with anomalies which apply to London.
It has been suggested that in order to remove those anomalies we should bring in a Redistribution Bill for the whole of the United Kingdom. That is a colossal task. The noble Earl was a member of the Government which attempted it in the year 1895, and the difficulties which arose at that time were such that, after adumbrating a scheme, the Government made haste to drop the Bill and to leave the subject alone. It is impossible to tack to a Bill of this kind a redistribution scheme even for London, but to do so for the whole of the country
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seems to me to be almost a reductio ad absurdum. I am sorry to have taken up so much time in the fruitless task of putting what I am afraid will be a very unsuccessful argument, as I have so often had to do before. For my own part I am heartily glad that the Bill should contain provisions having the effect of ending plural voting, but the main purpose of the Bill is to remove the anomalies I have described. Merely in justice the electors of London should be able to use their franchise on the same conditions as other citizens of the country.
VISCOUNT MIDLETON: My Lords, the speech to which we have just listened was, we shall all agree, moderate and cautious; but I do not believe that the noble and learned Lord is justified in his assumption that because an amendment has been moved from this side of the House, therefore whatever be the course of the debate the Bill would be rejected. But I think that the noble and learned Lord by the admirable speech which he has delivered has done much to minimise the issue which is before us and to direct your Lordships' consideration, not to the results of the Bill, which we are bound to consider, but to the objects of the Bill which exist in the minds of His Majesty's Government. The noble Marquess opposite justified those objects and called upon us for generosity. I do not think that those who have studied the speeches of members of the Government in the country have any reason to admonish your Lordships upon the subject of generosity. I believe there has hardly been a speech at the end of a session in which prominent members of the Government have not boasted before the country of the exceptional amount of legislation—and novel legislation—they have passed into law; and I think the noble Marquess and his friends ought to have had the generosity to admit that many of the Bills, which have been faulty to the last degree and have not received the support of many noble Lords opposite, have been put in order by this side of the House, and been given to the country in a much more effective condition than when they came to this House.
THE MARQUESS OF NORTHAMPTON: When I asked for generosity it was not in connection with the passing of legislation; it was in connection with defamation of character.
VISCOUNT MIDLETON: It is a little hard to tell us that we are never to see in

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what is so obviously, or seems on the surface to be, a Party gain—that we are never to see anything of the dictates of Party when one single question is taken out of all others, and when one only of the many anomalies existing in our electoral laws is singled out for redress. The noble Lord who introduced the measure said this was not, unfortunately, the moment when other anomalies could be redressed. I submit that this Bill is unique; that it violates every tradition on which reform Bills which have passed through both Houses of Parliament have been founded. Past measures have been national and universal; this Bill is local and partial. Past measures have added to the electorate and have been most careful of votes which were already given. Mr. Gladstone himself, in a most pregnant sentence, said, with regard to the Franchise Bill of 1884, that it did not interfere with the right already legally acquired, however illegitimate it might seem to be. But this Bill, while it undoubtedly, as Lord Derby pointed out, might by a single registration clause have given to all parts, of the country, with probably the universal consent of your Lordships, the enfranchisement which it proposes, this Bill is a measure of disfranchisement, and an exceptional proposal for London. There is no denying, moreover, that once on the Statute Book it would be made the jumping-off place for a further extension of the same principle to other parts of the country.
Then past measures which have been introduced have also preserved communities. I do not think that either of the great Reform Bills of 1867 and 1885 would have spared the smaller boroughs but for the fact that, as the introducer of each of them pointed out, the past tradition of Great Britain had been to represent communities and not to represent classes, to avoid putting one class against another. I believe this to be the kernel of our electoral laws. An American writer the other day pointed out, in a most studied and admirable work, that the reason that all classes in this country understand each other so well as compared to America and other parts of the world is that in matters like sport they are all engaged together and learn each others difficulties and become mutually acquainted with each other. If in a matter of that kind there is this gain, I ask your Lordships what is to be the result if you adopt legislation which is going to divide constituencies into rich and poor, which is going to prevent the
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east from joining hands with the west, to divide men whose interests ought to be in common, and separate sympathies which ought to be mutual? No greater change could be made in our electoral laws than if you force all employers to vote in one place and all employed to vote in another. That would be the effect of this Bill so far as London is concerned. In London, in the boroughs of long standing, there is a great deal of local patriotism, and blending them into one vast whole is certainly not likely to be conducive to that local life which was set up, not by the establishment of the London County Council, but by the formation of the borough councils with separate constitutions and all the appanage of separate constitution.
Past Bills have decentralised the administration of our electoral laws, and have trusted the local authorities. This Bill proceeds on the novel practice which seems to infect every Government measure at the present time of uniting all power, patronage, and responsibility in one official sitting in the neighbourhood of Westminster. In this case the over-worked permanent head of the London County Council is to be made responsible for the lists for an electorate of 700,000 voters—the largest electorate in the world—and I am surprised at the proposal to make one revising barrister responsible for the preparation of the whole of these lists. I sincerely hope that if the Lord Chief Justice ever has to name this one unfortunate individual he will see that he has some detective experience, for I notice that on the list for London there are seventy-nine men of the name of John Smith alone and forty-nine of the name of David Jones. How is any one man to take up in the centre the work which has always been done in the locality of separating men of the same name? I have only to state these facts to show how difficult would be the labour.
The noble Lord opposite, Lord Welby, urged that we should pass this Bill on the ground that London was a borough; but he made that appeal to your Lordships after he had spent some minutes in explaining how great was London as a county. If London is a county then obviously it is to be treated like other counties and other organisations which in the same compass have a large number of independent seats. The noble Lord opposite said, Why not redress one small anomaly. But

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there are anomalies in electoral law infinitely worse than those which have been referred to. Is it not an anomaly that you should have 103 members to 4,400,000 inhabitants in Ireland, while there are seventy-two members for 4,500,000 inhabitants of Scotland, and fifty-nine for nearly 6,000,000 inhabitants in London? But those anomalies remain untouched by this Bill. Again, half of the present House of Commons are elected by close upon 5,000,000 electors; the other half are elected by 2,000,000 electors. Is not that an anomaly worthy of the attention of His Majesty's Government? Again, the borough of Wandsworth has 27,000 electors, whilst the borough of Kilkenny has only 1,600. Is not that, too, an anomaly? Such is the distribution of electoral power at this moment that His Majesty's Government at the General Election obtained a majority in the House of Commons of 354, but, reckoned by votes, their majority should only have been ninety-four. If that had been the majority most of the Bills with which your Lordships have had to deal would never have been sent here at all. I ask your Lordships whether the anomalies used with such skill by the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack are to be compared with those which I have just described under an electoral law which was pronounced by the late Sir William Harcourt sixteen years ago to be full of glaring defects, and which he said it was the business of a Liberal Government to amend, and amend sooner than later. I cannot help wishing that that strong pronouncement had been present to the mind of the First Commissioner of Works, and that he had not allowed his political zeal to outrun his filial piety.
The noble Lord opposite said that although the Plural Voting Bill had been rejected by this House, the people who would gain their votes by this Bill were appealing to your Lordships' House for justice. Where do we find that appeal? Have any Petitions been presented? There has not been a single Petition presented to this House in favour of the Bill. I believe three have been presented against the Bill. I cannot say that even in the appearance of the Benches opposite we find an exaggerated desire on the part of supporters of this Administration to record their votes in favour of this Bill. And certainly if we are to make other glaring inconsistencies of our electoral law more
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grotesque by the introduction of this principle for one city, then clearly it can only be done or could only be done, in deference to a large amount of popular support, of which, I venture to say, there is not the smallest evidence in this House or outside.
The noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack said that London was exceptional, and was therefore a proper subject for exceptional legislation. Now I venture to say that if your Lordships pass this Bill you will take a step which is unprecedented in the whole history of Reform Bills. Look back at any of the great Reform Bills. Were there no exceptions which might have been made to the Bill of 1831? I think those who have read the Debates of that day will bear me out when I say that in regard to that Bill a landslide which almost became a revolution could have been avoided if the Minister of the day had been willing to tinker with the matter and to make exceptions which would have spoilt perhaps the general effect, but which would have prevented the immense public feeling aroused. Look again at the Bill of 1867. I do not suppose there ever was a Bill upon which there was so much doubt or so much reason to make exceptions. It was before national education had been introduced and when communications to newspapers were comparatively scanty compared with what they are at the present day; certainly the difference between towns like London and Manchester and the more remote parts of the country in education and political fitness was enormous, but the statesmen of the day gave to those remote parts, despite many protests, the same privileges which they bestowed on the centre of the Empire.
Still more so was that the case in 1885. Many sitting round me will remember a great discussion which was aroused in the House of Commons as to the leaving of Ireland out of the Bill, and I well remember the brilliant oratorical effort made by a noble Lord, Lord Rathmore, who, unfortunately, too seldom speaks in this House, to whom great justice was done by the noble Viscount, Lord Morley, in his "Life of Gladstone." He pointed out that if you gave to Ireland the franchise which was then proposed for England, it would be given to men thirty or forty per cent. of whom were illiterate, and the Ballot Act would be defeated because they would be bound to make their declarations in

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public and undergo that very intimidation which it was the object of the Ballot Act to avoid. So great was the effect produced by that speech that I remember a member of the present Government telling me that it had convinced even the members of the Party opposite, and that an Amendment would have been carried except for the intervention of Mr. Gladstone. His argument was that in matters of franchise you could not make exceptions; the more remote a man was the more necessary it was that his grievance should be considered, and he convinced Parliament that without regard to political fitness or education it was necessary to give with an open hand and fully to all concerned the franchise to which all had a common claim. Will the strongest and warmest advocate of this measure say that that principle can ever be carried out if you are going to make the sort of exceptions which it is proposed to make to-night?
There are, no doubt, great reasons for a new Bill if you maintain that the workingman, because of his habit of moving by reason of the necessities of his life, is unduly deprived of political power; then I cannot see on what principle a man is not injured who removes form Manchester to Salford, Liverpool to Birkenhead, or Newcastle to Gateshead, which boroughs are one indeed in reality although not so in name, much more than St. George's in the East and St. George's, Hanover Square. The First Commissioner of Works said he objected to the property qualification. If you think that the payment of rates and taxes is a thing which you can ignore, and that a man is to be regarded as fit to vote simply because he exists, and if it is to be said that property has nothing to do with the matter, then I say the change ought to be effected by a Bill which deals with all constituencies, and ought not to be brought in by a side wind. To say to a man, You must give up your political power; to deny a man representation in the place where he works among those with whom his whole fiscal interests are bound up, is a course which Parliament ought not to adopt except after mature consideration and as a general measure.
Before I sit down I would appeal to your Lordships not to regard this question from any of those smaller standpoints to which allusion was made by the noble Marquess opposite. Measures of reform surely cannot be considered in this House from the point
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of view of their effect on any election or even on a succession of elections. Many of those who based themselves on these considerations have been disappointed in the past, but in any case your Lordships' House would lose, I submit, all title to legislate if we did not attempt to have regard, not to passing sentiment, but to the permanent conclusions of the people. You will not do that by dividing constituencies between rich and poor, by encouraging people to consider how they can best represent their class rather than their community. It is very easy to tell a democracy that they are infallible, that they need no steering gear, that property is no test and education no guide. Who, however, can guarantee political stability, which is vital to any progress in our home affairs and equally vital to any permanent policy in Imperial questions, if the people are left to work out everything by themselves without the help of others who are associated with them?
I ask your Lordships, Is not this a practical question for everyone? Is it not already becoming more difficult every year for a Government to maintain a continuous policy owing to the shiftings of popular opinion, and is it not a serious matter to weaken in any case the electoral stability which has given something like a reasoned popular opinion in the past? If you are going to adopt this policy I would say, let us have it as a considered policy to be adopted throughout the country and not bring it forward at almost I the last moment of the longest session on record, as the last experiment of a harassed Government to administer a narcotic to one portion of the electorate, while not touching another very large portion who have an equal claim. My Lords, I believe that this measure has been shown by my noble friends who have I already spoken to be partial and unprecedented. I think it is a retrograde measure in which the interests of a part have been preferred to the interests of the whole, in which local considerations have been allowed to outweigh Imperial prudence, and I urge your Lordships to refuse it a Second Reading.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL AND SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (THE EARL OF CREWE): My Lords, I only propose to say a few words in concluding this debate, and I certainly shall not attempt to follow the noble

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Viscount over the very wide field which he traversed in his interesting speech. The noble Viscount dealt skilfully and broadly with the whole subject of Parliamentary reform, illustrated by historical instances, and he wound up with an appeal for a general policy of Parliamentary reform. But, my Lords, the noble Viscount seemed to me—I will not say to fall into an error, because I have no doubt he did it intentionally—but to take a course which is only too familiar to us on this side of the House, and it is this. When some anomaly is mentioned, and it is proposed by a Parliamentary measure to remove it, we are continually met with the argument:—"What is the use of dealing with the matter in this piecemeal fashion? If you are to remove anomalies, you must sweep them all away at once."
But the whole custom of legislation in this country has been towards piecemeal legislation. All the reform Bills to which the noble Viscount alluded were unquestionably piecemeal measures, full of exceptions, hedged round with safeguards, and conferring the trust of the franchise on one limited class at a time. My Lords, it is all very well to say that you must deal with all anomalies at once. The noble Viscount is prepared to repeal the Union between Great Britain and Ireland in order to redress what he considers to be the electoral disproportion between Ireland and Scotland; and he is prepared also apparently for something like equal electoral divisions all over the United Kingdom. That is all very well, and it may come. A great number of things may come, although these particular things may not come within the lifetime of most of us here. But that is really no argument for saying that if you have a chance of meeting a particular grievance, the existence of which is not denied, you should not take that chance, provided, of course, that you can show that in doing so you are not inflicting a worse grievance on anybody else. And I think it is not difficult to show in regard to this measure that this is the case.
The noble Viscount said, and we all appreciated his saying it, that it is as well not to impute Party motives in relation to a measure of this kind, and he alluded to the protest so well made by the noble Marquess behind me. Yes, my Lords, but we did not begin it. The charge was
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brought against us that this measure was introduced by reason of the fact that a certain number of plural votes would be lost, and there was an implication, and even more than an implication, that we hoped to gain some electoral advantage by the manoeuvre. My noble friend the noble Marquess behind me pointed out with great force that this is a double-edged argument—that if it were true that we were only guided by electoral considerations in desiring to deprive a certain number of voters of the plural vote, it might be equally true to say that noble Lords opposite only valued the plural vote because they believed it would be given in their interest. I do not make that charge, and I am equally desirous that the other charge should not be made against us. If there is no great moral beauty in the one attitude there is no great moral beauty in the other, and I think we can leave the matter there and cry quits, disclaiming on both sides, as I am quite sure we can, a Party motive in the matter. Anyone who is disposed to be cynical might further point out that if this Bill is an attempt to gerrymander, it is a very poor attempt, and one which, so far as I have information, would be of very small service from a Party point of view. I think it would be very difficult for anybody to I point to a London seat which would be gained to one Party or lost to another, or even endangered, by this measure if it were passed.
Now, the line of demarcation between the two Parties is a clear one. We stand for the recognition of the unity of London, whereas noble Lords opposite show, not for the first time—for indeed they have shown it, I was going to say, hundreds of times before—a mistrust of a great London and a desire to see London disintegrated into the component parts out of which it is no doubt true the great London as we know it has come together. Noble Lords opposite would like to go back, I have no doubt, to the days of the village of Kensington, the quite separate city of Westminster, and the other hamlets and villages which crowned the northern heights. The noble Viscount used what seemed to me a somewhat strange argument in relation to this question of one London or the many boroughs forming a federated London. He said that if all the workers voted in one part and all the employers in another part that would be destructive to the sense

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of community of interest and anything like corporate life. I should have thought that nothing could have done so much to destroy the sense of unity of corporate life as this incessant dwelling on the existence of the different cities and boroughs of London. If a man is taught to think more of himself as a resident in Westminster or St. George's Hanover-square, than as a citizen of London it must weaken his sense both of pride in London as a whole and his sense of duty towards the more remote parts of London which he has, perhaps, scarcely ever seen. Our desire is to accentuate in every way the unity of the great city in order to quicken the sense of pride in citizenship of the greatest city in the world, and also to stimulate the sense of duty of those who live in the richer quarters towards the great mass who live in the poorer quarters.
The noble Lord, Lord Farquhar, dwelt on the importance of the metropolitan boroughs. I have no desire to say a word against the organisation of the metropolitan boroughs, but it is not accurate to think or speak of them as if they were comparable to or commensurate with boroughs as we understand them in other parts of England. It is true that they are decorated with the appanage of boroughs, with the robes and chains which distinguish officers of boroughs all over the country, but none of the municipal powers which we understand as belonging to great boroughs are conferred upon them. It is necessary, therefore, to draw that distinction, because when you speak of Liverpool and Birkenhead on the one hand, and Westminster and Poplar on the other, you must remember that Westminster and Poplar are under one municipal management. Liverpool and Birkenhead are two absolutely distinct cities differently governed in every way.
VISCOUNT MIDLETON: Not in every way.
THE EARL OF CREWE: Perhaps not in everyway, but the London boroughs would be more fitly compared with the relations which exist between a county council and a district council in an ordinary county area. Now, my Lords, it really comes down to this. We frankly admit that we do not like plural voting. Plural voting is objectionable to us from two points of view. We do not think that property, as such, demands separate representation, but we say that,
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if it does, plural voting is not the way to give it, because one man might own the whole area of a large county constituency and have only one vote there, whereas another man having the most trivial property interests in twenty or twenty-five constituencies in different parts of England is supplied with a vote for each, and is able to exercise a great number of those votes by the fact that the elections are not held on the same day. I noticed in the strong desire of the noble Earl opposite, Lord Dartmouth, that all elections should be held on the same day, a sign of grace which I was very glad to observe on the Benches opposite. As I say, we do not like plural voting, but if it exists, as it does exist, it may be argued that it is a hardship that a particular set of plural voters who have a qualification in one London borough where they live and another qualification in another borough where their businesses are carried on should lose their vote. Admitting for the purposes of argument that that is a hardship, surely it is an infinitely smaller hardship than that of the man who loses his vote altogether because there is no successive occupation in London. I do not see, hardship for hardship, how it is possible to compare the two, and that seems to me to be a complete defence of our measure as we bring it in.
The time may come, as we hope it will from our point of view, when there will be no plural voting, and until that time does come noble Lords opposite have a right to point out what appears to them to be a hardship; but if we are to be told that we must wait until all the historical anomalies of our electoral law can be swept away in one measure, I doubt nobody's good faith, but I cannot believe that anybody who takes such a view can be seriously anxious that any kind of electoral reform should be instituted in any way. The noble Earl who moved the rejection of the measure pointed out how simple it would be to make voting easy for everybody by introducing a registration Bill. The noble Earl must know, I am sure, and noble Lords opposite know, that there is no subject more baffling and more difficult, and which has given more trouble to those who have studied the question, than the problem of how to get a really reasonable system of Parliamentary registration. The noble Earl said, amid some applause from his own friends, that everybody would be in favour of such a system. Noble Lords opposite had ten years of office, not altogether overburdened

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as we think with fruitful legislation, and they might have devoted some part of that ten years in considering this question of registration. If they did not do so, no doubt it was partly owing to the difficulty and the complexity of the subject.
My Lords, I need say no more. I greatly regret the conclusion at which noble Lords opposite have arrived, and I cannot help thinking that reflection might induce some of your Lordships to wonder whether you
are not making a mistake in guarding so carefully the rights, as you conceive them to be, of a few voters and thereby preventing a far larger number of voters, of a humbler class it is true, from exercising in any way the right of voting which ought to be theirs.
On Question, whether the word "now" stand part of the Motion?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 40; Not-Contents, 157.

CONTENTS.

Loreburn, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Allendale, L.

Nunburnholme, L.

Crewe, E. (L. Privy Seal.)

Armitstead, L.

O'Hagan, L.

Blyth, L.

Pentland, L.

Northampton, M.

Boston, L.

Pirrie, L.

Brassey, L.

Sandhurst, L.

Beauchamp, E. (L. Steward.)

Colebrooke, L. [Teller.]

Saye and Sele, L.

Carrington, E.

Denman, L. [Teller.]

Shaw, L.

Chesterfield, E.

Eversley, L.

Shuttleworth, L.

Chichester, E.

Farrer, L.

Stanley of Alderley, L. (L. Sheffield.)

Kimberley, E.

Hamilton of Dalzell, L.

Liverpool, E.

Haversham, L.

Swaythling, L.

Russell, E.

Hemphill, L.

Wandsworth, L.

Temple, E.

Lucas, L.

Weardale, L.

Lyveden, L.

Welby, L.

Althorp, V. (L. Chamberlain.)

MacDonnell, L.

NOT-CONTENTS.

Norfolk, D. (E. Marshal.)

Jersey, E.

Addington, L.

Bedford, D.

Kilmorey, E.

Aldenham, L.

Newcastle, D.

Lathom, E.

Alverstone, L.

Northumberland, D.

Lauderdale, E.

Ampthill, L.

Rutland, D.

Lichfield, E.

Ardilaun, L.

Wellington, D.

Lindsey, E.

Ashbourne, L.

Lovelace, E.

Ashcombe, L.

Ailesbury, M.

Lucan, E.

Barrymore, L.

Bath, M.

Lytton, E.

Basing, L.

Hertford, M.

Malmesbury, E.

Belper, L.

Lansdowne, M.

Mayo, E.

Blythswood, L.

Salisbury, M.

Northbrook, E.

Borthwick, L.

Winchester, M.

Onslow, E.

Braye, L.

Zetland, M.

Pembroke and Montgomery, E.

Brodrick, L. (V. Midleton.)

Plymouth, E.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Albemarle, E.

Radnor, E.

Camoys, L.

Ancaster, E.

Rosslyn, E.

Chaworth, L. (E. Meath.)

Cadogan, E.

Rothes, E.

Cheylesmore, L.

Camperdown, E.

Shaftesbury, E.

Clanwilliam, L. (E. Clanwilliam.)

Carnwath, E.

Stanhope, E.

Cathcart, E.

Stradbroke, E.

Clements, L. (E. Leitrim.)

Cawdor, E.

Vane, E. (M. Londonderry.)

Clifford of Chudleigh, L.

Clarendon, E.

Verulam, E.

Clonbrock, L.

Coventry, E.

Waldegrave, E. [Teller.]

Colchester, L.

Cromer, E.

Wharncliffe, E.

Cottesloe, L.

Dartmouth, E.

Crawshaw, L.

Dartrey, E.

Churchill, V. [Teller.]

Curzon of Kedleston, L.

Derby, E.

Colville of Culross, V.

Dawnay, L. (V. Downe.)

Devon, E.

Falkland, V.

Deramore, L.

Doncaster, E. (D. Buccleuch and Queensberry.)

Goschen, V.

Desborough, L.

Hampden, V.

Digby, L.

Eldon, E.

Hood, V.

Dunalley, L.

Ellesmere, E.

Iveagh, V.

Dunboyne, L.

Essex, E.

Milner, V.

Dunleath, L.

Halsbury, E.

Ridley, V.

Dunmore, L. (E. Dunmore.)

Hardwicke, E.

St. Aldwyn, V.

Ellenborough, L.

Huntingdon, E.

Elphinstone, L.

Ilchester, E.

Abinger, L.

Farnham, L.

Farquhar, L.

Llangattock, L.

St. Levan, L.

Fermanagh, L. (E. Erne.)

Lovat, L.

St. Oswald, L.

Glanusk, L.

Monckton, L. (V. Galway.)

Sanderson, L.

Gormanston, L. (V. Gormanston.)

Monk Bretton, L.

Shute, L. (V. Barrington.)

North, L.

Sinclair, L.

Grenfell, L.

Northcote, L.

Stalbridge, L.

Harris, L.

Oranmore and Browne, L.

Stanmore, L.

Hastings, L.

Ormathwaite, L.

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

Hindlip, L.

Penrhyn, L.

Hothfield, L.

Playfair, L.

Sudeley, L.

Hylton, L.

Poltimore, L.

Templemore, L.

Kenmare, L. (E. Kenmare.)

Ponsonby, L. (E. Bessborough.)

Tennyson, L.

Kilmarnock, L. (E. Erroll.)

Ranfurly, L. (E. Ranfurly.)

Vivian, L.

Kinnaird, L.

Rathdonnell, L.

Waleran, L.

Knaresborough, L.

Revelstoke, L.

Walsingham, L.

Lamington, L.

Ritchie of Dundee, L.

Wolverton, L.

Leigh, L.

Rothschild, L.

Wynford, L.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Resolved in the negative accordingly, and Bill to be read 2a this day three months.

LOCAL REGISTRATION OF TITLE (IRELAND) BILL.
House in Committee (according to order): Bill reported without amendment: Standing Committee negatived, and Bill to be read 3a To-morrow.

OATHS BILL.
Read 3a (according to order), with the Amendments.
LORD ALVERSTONE LORD ALVERSTONE moved to amend Clause 2, so that it would read—
2.—(1) Any oath may be administered and taken in the form and manner following:—
The person taking the oath shall hold the New Testament, or, in the case of a Jew, the Old Testament, in his uplifted hand and shall say or repeat after the officer administering the oath the words "I swear by Almighty God that …", followed by the words of the oath prescribed by law.
(2) The officer shall (unless the person about to take the oath voluntarily objects thereto, or is physically incapable of so taking the oath) administer the oath in the form and manner aforesaid without question:
Provided that in the case of a person who is neither a Christian nor a Jew the oath shall be administered in any manner which is now lawful.
Amendment moved—
"In clause 2, page 1, line 10, after 'Testament,' to insert 'or in the case of a Jew, the Old Testament'; and in line 19, to leave out 'not' and to insert 'neither,' and after 'Christian' to insert 'nor a Jew.'"—(Lord Alverstone.)
EARL BEAUCHAMP EARL BEAUCHAMP, in moving to insert at the end of subsection (1) of Clause 2 "but omitting any further words of imprecation or calling to witness," said he was
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anxious to take the opinion of their Lordships' House upon the Amendment, and to know especially what the view was of the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chief Justice, whose experience naturally was so great as to render his advice on an Amendment of the kind of particular value to His Majesty's Government. There was in one or two quarters of the House considerable feeling with regard to the words "So help me God!" which come at the end of the oath. Those words had entered into the current phraseology of the nation in a way in which the other words of the oath had not done, and to a great many people they constituted a most important part of it. He could not help feeling if those words were inserted in the oath that they did not really bear the strict meaning they ought to bear, being really more in the nature of an imprecation than of a prayer. It was not very easy to argue such things, and it was a case in which His Majesty's Government desired to follow the opinion of the House.
Amendment moved—
"In page 1, line 14, after 'law' to insert 'but omitting any further words of imprecation or calling to witness.'"—(Earl Beauchamp.)
LORD ALVERSTONE LORD ALVERSTONE said he attached very little importance to the retention of the words in question, but thought that His Majesty's Government had made a great step in advance in the Bill by putting the words "I swear by Almighty God" into the mouth of the witness himself. With regard to the words "So help me God," he was inclined to think that those words meant "God help me if I do not tell the truth," but of course what they were really taken to mean was somewhat doubtful. It might also be considered important that the words had formed part of the oath for a considerable

533
time, but he repeated that personally he did not attach any importance to their retention. At the same time if there was no strong feeling and desire to omit them, probably His Majesty's Government would allow them to remain. He attached much more importance to the witness himself using the words in the Bill.
THE DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLAND THE DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLAND was doubtful whether he had any right to intervene in a matter of the kind, but as their Lordships had been invited to express their lay opinions on the subject, it seemed to him that it would be a great pity to leave out the words in question. No doubt their meaning was ambiguous, but he was pretty certain that a large number of people took them in the sense of invoking Divine assistance to enable them to do what, after all, was not a perfectly simple matter in many cases—to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; and the words having been in the form of the oath for so many years and a good many people taking them in the sense he had indicated, he could not help feeling that it would be a somewhat serious thing to omit them. Therefore, as there appeared to be no strong feeling on the part of the Lord Chief Justice against their retention, he would submit that it would be better to retain them. That was the safest course. He could not see that their retention did any harm, whereas their omission might possibly do harm.
VISCOUNT ST. ALDWYN VISCOUNT ST. ALDWYN supported what had just fallen from the noble Duke behind him. The words in question had been part of the oath in every Court of the land for a very long time, and it would be a great pity to remove them, especially after what had been said by the Lord Chief Justice that there was no strong feeling against their retention.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Bill passed, and returned to the Commons.

POLICE BILL.
Bill read 3a (according to order), with the Amendment.
EARL BEAUCHAMP EARL BEAUCHAMP moved to add a new subsection to Clause 4. The clause ran—
4.—(1) The power of the Secretary of State under the Metropolitan Police Superannuation Act,
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1875, to make regulations respecting the grant to the officers to whom that Act applies of superannuation allowances, compensations, gratuities, or other allowances, on the like principles and conditions as were in force at the passing of that Act with respect to persons in the permanent civil service of the State, shall be extended so as to include a power to make such regulations on the like principles and conditions as are for the time being in force with respect to persons in the permanent civil service of the State, and to vary and revoke any such regulations.
(2) In section one of the said Act, the words "as soon as conveniently may be" shall be repealed.
Amendment moved—
"In page 2, line 13, after subsection (2) to insert the following new subsection—
'(3) For removing doubts it is hereby declared that in subsection (2) of section five of the Metropolitan Police Courts Act, 1897 (which relates to the superannuation allowances of members of the staff of the metropolitan police courts, except police magistrates) the expression "the Superannuation Act, 1859, and the enactments amending the same" includes the enactments amending that Act passed after as well as before the passing of the Metropolitan Police Courts Act, 1897.'"—(Earl Beauchamp.)
Bill passed, and returned to the Commons.

FINANCE BILL.
Read 1a; to be printed: and to be read 2a on Monday the 22 nd instant (The Lord Privy Seal (E. Crewe).) (No. 213.)

NAVAL DISCIPLINE BILL. (No. 220.)
COUNTY COUNCIL MORTGAGES BILL. (No. 221.)
MOTOR CARS (INTERNATIONAL CIRCULATION) BILL. (No. 222.)
Read 1a, and to be printed.

POLICE (LIVERPOOL INQUIRY) BILL.
Read 1a; to be printed; and to be read 2a To-morrow (The Lord Steward (E. Beauchamp)), and Standing Order No. XXXIX. to be considered in order to its being dispensed with. (No. 223.)
ROBERT GORDON'S TECHNICAL COLLEGE AND ABERDEEN ENDOWMENTS TRUST ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL.
Read 1a; to be printed: and (pursuant to the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899) deemed to have been read 2a (the Lord Pentland); and reported from the Committee. (No. 224.)

RAILWAY ENTERPRISES IN CHINA.
EARL STANHOPE*EARL STANHOPE rose to ask His Majesty's Government—

1. In view of Germany's assertion of rights to participate on equal terms in the construction and financing of railways in the Yang-tsze Provinces, whether His Majesty's Government recognise German claims to an exclusive position in mines and railways in Shantung.

2. Similarly, whether Russian financiers having intimated their intention of participating in railway enterprises in the Yang-tsze Valley, the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1899 with regard to railway enterprise in China has been abrogated, and whether in that case British enterprise is in a position to claim equal opportunities in the region North of the Great Wall.

3. Whether it is not advisable to determine the geographical limits within which the Japanese Government is entitled to veto or intervene in such measures as the Chinese Government may desire to take for the development of Western Manchuria and Mongolia.

The noble Earl said: My Lords, in rising to put to His Majesty's Government the Questions which stand in my name, I crave that indulgence which your Lordships have so frequently shown in the past to those who address this House for the first time. Your Lordships will observe that the first two Questions on the Paper concern the continuance of what is known as the Spheres of Influence Policy in China. I do not propose, particularly at this late hour, to occupy the time of the House by discussing that policy, still less would I venture to criticise the foreign policy of His Majesty's Government. I would merely venture to suggest to your Lordships that conditions in China having so completely changed since the Spheres of Influence Policy was inaugurated, the time may now have come when the position of this country in these matters should be reconsidered. Your Lordships will no doubt remember that a debate took place in this House in the spring of 1898 on the question of defining the British and German spheres of influence in China, and that in the following September the British and German banks concerned in the financing of railways in China passed resolutions which were laid on the Table of your Lordships' House defining the respective limits of the spheres within which each should undertake such construction. Your
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Lordships are no doubt aware that German financiers have for some time past been competing with British financiers in the Yang-tsze Valley, the British sphere of influence. I am further informed that the German syndicate has notified the British group that so far as the Yang-tsze Valley is concerned the agreement between those two groups made in 1898 is now at an end. I therefore venture to ask His Majesty's Government whether the British syndicates have received authority to cancel the arrangement with regard to the German sphere of influence in the province of Shantung.
With regard to the second Question which I have placed upon the Paper, very much the same state of affairs exists. By an exchange of notes between Great Britain and Russia, signed on the 28th of April, 1899, this country engaged not to seek for any concessions for railway construction north of the Great Wall of China in return for a similar engagement from Russia in regard to the Yang-tsze Valley. Your Lordships no doubt will have observed that Russian financiers have recently intimated their intention of participating with others in the concessions for and in the financing of railway construction within the latter region. I therefore venture to ask His Majesty's Government whether the Convention of 1899 has been abrogated, and whether in that case British enterprise is in a position to claim equal opportunities north of the Great Wall?
I now turn to the last Question, and here I find myself at once on somewhat delicate ground, with more than a risk of being considered l'enfant terrible of this House. I need not weary your Lordships with tales of atrocities which, albeit contrary to the wishes of the Japanese authorities, have none the less occurred under their rule, nor need I touch on the merits or demerits of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, an arrangement now, perhaps, not so popular among British residents in the Ear East as could be wished. I would, however, refer your Lordships to the preamble of that Agreement, which states that one of the objects of the Articles that follow is—
"the preservation of the common interests of all Powers in China by insuring the independence and integrity of the Chinese Empire and the principle of equal opportunities for the commerce and industry of all nations in China,"
and to Article IV. of the Treaty of Portsmouth

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between Japan and Russia, which states that the two Powers—
"reciprocally engage not to obstruct any general measures common to all countries which China may take for the development of the commerce and industry of Manchuria."
Your Lordships will remember that the Japanese Government objected to an extension of the Chinese Northern Railway from Shin-min-tun, a town about forty miles west of Mukden, to Fakumen—due north of Shin-min-tun—on the grounds that it would be parallel to and competing with the South Manchurian Railway. I think it will surprise some of your Lordships almost as much as it did me when I was out there this summer to hear that the sites of these two railways are thirty-five miles apart and separated by the Liao River, a stream as wide at Shin-min-tun as the Thames at Windsor. It is hardly necessary to add that the trade of Fakumen, a town of 40,000 inhabitants, and of the surrounding district does not find its way to the South Manchurian Railway, which incidentally without it has been compelled, owing to the growing export trade of Manchuria, to double its line to Port Arthur. I do not know how far His Majesty's representatives in Japan, who certainly do not err as a whole on the side of partiality to British and Chinese aspirations, have advised His Majesty's Government to support vetos on railway construction, but certainly an influential supporter in this country of Japan wrote recently that even a railway constructed from Shan-hai-kwan, where the Great Wall of China runs into the sea, to Tsitsihar on the Trans-Siberian Railway, 168 miles west of Harbin, must be considered as a line running parallel to and in competition with the South Manchurian Railway, a line which with the exception of a few miles at either end will run entirely outside Manchuria through Mongolia, and about 150 miles from the South Manchurian Railway. It is obvious that there is considerable difference of opinion as to the limits within which a railway may be considered parallel to and competing with another in this region.
There is a growing party in Japan who have a feeling that Manchuria should be ear-marked to Japan as a result of the war. Under the wise and guiding hand of the late Prince Ito, a Statesman who perhaps will occupy a place unequalled by any other in the history of our times, that party was kept in check. By a
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dastardly crime which the whole civilised world abhors, and particularly the friends of Korea, this country joins in mourning with Japan, for whom he did so much, the loss of that great man. By such an untoward event the check which his great influence imposed in the past upon all wild policy has thus unfortunately been removed. Other nations have cast their eyes on the rich and fertile province of Manchuria, and His Majesty's Government may in the not far distant future be called upon to decide how far this country is to support Japan in any opposition she may make to a concession for railway construction in this region. The time may now fast be approaching when His Majesty's Government may be called upon to decide how far this country will support Japan in any veto or interference she may make to measures tending to the development of Western Manchuria and Mongolia undertaken by other Powers than herself. If we wait till these question's arise, we may find ourselves between the horns of a dilemma—either to oppose Great Powers such as the United States of America, to whom we are bound by every tie of sentiment, of friendship, and of community of interests in the Far East, and to be accused of suddenly relinquishing the open door policy in China, which this country has so long advocated, or to be accused of suddenly leaving our ally in the lurch at the very moment when she might be most in need of our support. I venture to suggest that if this country makes known its position in regard to these matters now when affairs in the Far East appear to be in a happily quiescent state we shall avoid finding ourselves in this somewhat embarrassing position. It is for these reasons that I venture to ask His Majesty's Government how far Great Britain will support Japan in this particular matter. In conclusion, I have to thank your Lordships for the more than kind way in which you have listened to my remarks, and to apologise to the House for having occupied so much of your valuable time. I beg to ask His Majesty's Government the Questions that stand in my name.
THE EARL OF CREWE: My Lords, I hope the noble Earl, Lord Stanhope, will allow me to express the pleasure which I am sure it gives the whole House and myself in particular, as an old friend of many members of his family, to see him taking that part in the Debates of your Lordships' House which we like to see

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taken by one who bears his distinguished Parliamentary name; and I hope that the Questions which he has put to His Majesty's Government to-night may be the forerunner, I will not say of many more Questions, because Governments are glad not to be asked Questions, but of frequent participations on his part in the discussions in your Lordships' House.
The noble Earl has asked three Questions. As regards the first, he asks whether His Majesty's Government recognise German claims to an exclusive position in mines and railways in Shantung. The answer to that is that His Majesty's Government have not given the German Government any assurance in that sense. The second Question which the noble Earl asks is with regard to the participation of Russian financiers in the Yang-tsze Valley. There the case is of a somewhat different character. The proposed participation by the Russians in railway enterprise in the Yang-tsze Valley is confined to a loan, which is not secured by any mortgage on the line, and that loan does not appear to contravene the terms of the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1899. I ought to add that we do not anticipate that British participation in railway enterprises north of the Great Wall of China on similar terms to those on which the Russians are engaged in the Yang-tsze Valley would occasion any protest on the part of the Russian Government. Of course it is important to remember in considering all these matters—and the noble Earl very properly drew attention to it—the great change which has taken place in the condition of affairs in China since the two Agreements to which he alluded were made, and that all new railways in China henceforth will be under the control of the Chinese Government. As regards the third Question, the noble Earl, I think, was conscious that he was treading on somewhat risky ground, and I am afraid I cannot follow him into the very interesting matters which he raised in putting his Question. As the matter stands—the noble Earl, I think, will agree, and I have no doubt noble Lords opposite will agree also—it is one entirely for arrangement between the respective Governments of China and Japan; and I am afraid I can give the noble Earl no more satisfaction as regards that Question than these very brief words.
House adjourned at ten minutes past Eight o'clock till To-morrow, a quarter-past Four o'clock.