Sitting of 28 February 1910

Preamble
The House met at a Quarter before Three of the clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.
Several other Members took and subscribed the Oath, and one other Member made and subscribed the Affirmation required by Law.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Bradford Corporation Bill,
Read a second time, and committed.
Egremont Urban District Council (Gas) Bill,
Read a second time, and committed.
Little Hulton Urban District Council Bill,
Read a second time, and committed.
Mallow Urban District Gas Bill,
Middlesbrough Corporation Bill,
Middleton Corporation Bill,
Read a second time, and committed.
Rhondda Urban District Council (Tramways Extension, etc.) Bill,
Southampton Corporation Bill,
Surbiton Urban District Council Bill,
Read a second time, and committed.
Wear Navigation and Sunderland Dock Bill,
Worksop Urban District Council Bill,
Read a second time, and committed.
Kingswood Water Bill,
Order [23rd February] that the Kings-wood Water Bill be read a second time, read, and discharged:—Bill referred to the Examiners of Petitioners for Private Bills.—[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]

STANDING ORDERS COMMITTEE.
Resolved, "That the Committee on Standing Orders do consist of thirteen Members:
"That Mr. Ashton, Mr. Ellis, Sir Thomas Esmonde, Lord Claud Hamilton, Mr. Mild-may, Sir Willans Nussey, Sir James Rankin, Mr. William Redmond, Mr. Samuel Roberts, Mr. Shackleton, Sir Mark Stewart, Mr. D. A. Thomas, and Mr. Eugene Wason be Members of the said Committee."—[Mr. Ellis.]

PAUPERISM (ENGLAND AND WALES) (MONTHLY STATEMENTS).
Ordered, Copy of statements for each month of the year 1910 of the number of paupers relieved in England and Wales (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 36, of Session 1909.—[Mr. Herbert Lewis.]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.

  Unclaimed Bank Balances.
  Mr. BOTTOMLEYasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury whether he could state in which of the British Colonies or Dominions periodical returns were required by law of all dormant balances and unclaimed securities in the hands of bankers; and whether he would grant a Return showing the value of unclaimed moneys and securities thus disclosed?
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Master of Elibank): Such returns are required by law in several British Colonies. I would suggest that my hon. Friend should move for a Return covering the information desired by his question. It will, however, take some time to prepare.
  Mr. BOTTOMLEY: I understand the Return will be granted?
  MASTER of ELIBANK: Yes.

  Law Officers (Remuneration).
  Mr. BOTTOMLEYasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether he could state the total sums paid up to the present during the current financial year to the two Law Officers of the Crown, respectively?
  The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Hobhouse): A Return of the total amount of fees paid to the Law Officers of the Crown is given annually in the Appropriation Accounts; and I do not think that any advantage would be gained by giving a Return for a broken portion of the financial year. The details required would have to be collected from many different Departments.

  Deportations (Egypt).
  Mr. WEDGWOODasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he could now state how many persons had been proceeded against in Egypt under the Deportation Law of 4th July, 1909; and whether he could give any details as to the cases?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. McKinnon Wood): I have no information since that-given in reply to a question by Mr. Mackarness on 25th November last, but will make inquiry.

  Railway Construction (Manchuria and Mongolia).
  Sir WILLIAM BULLasked whether His Majesty's Government were aware that the proposed construction by China of an important railway in Western Manchuria and Eastern Mongolia could not be proceeded with chiefly owing to the attitude of Japan, who after a period of protracted delay had submitted proposals which could not possibly be accepted; and, seeing that the nearest point of this proposed railway could not be less than 150 miles, whether His Majesty's Government was prepared to admit Japan's claim to be consulted as of right; and, if so, in what manner could such an attitude be reconciled with the existing treaty obligations of both Japan and Great Britain regarding Manchuria?
  Mr. McKINNON WOOD: In the case of the line referred to in the hon. Member's question, the Japanese Government expressed their readiness not to oppose the proposed railway, provided that they were admitted to participation in it as some compensation for the injury the line might inflict on their own railway. They have now, I understand, defined their demands; I am not aware that there is anything inherently unreasonable in these, and it is for the Chinese Government to decide in the first instance whether the conditions of the Japanese Government are acceptable or not. The original scheme for the railway in question was from Chinchow to Taonan-fu. It was subsequently extended to Tsitsihar, on the Siberian Railway, and finally to Aigun, on the River Amur. The Russian Government have now intimated both to His Majesty's Government and to China that on economic, strategical and political grounds they, as well as Japan, are interested in the question. This contention is obviously a reasonable one, seeing that Aigun is on the Russian frontier and that the line would actually cross the existing Russian railway, and the matter is therefore one for arrangement between Russia, China and Japan.

  East African Protectorate (Land Concessions).
  Mr. JOHN WARDasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury, if he could say whether any concessions of land or territory in the East African Protectorate had been made to Mr. E. S. Grogan; if so, what was the date and acreage of the concession, and whether the concession received the sanction of the then Secretary of State for the Colonies?
  MASTER of ELIBANK: By an Agreement made the 9th July, 1904, between the Acting Commissioner of the East African Protectorate and Captain E. S. Grogan, the former agreed to grant to the latter a lease of some 64,000 acres of forest for a term of 50 years from the 1st of October, 1904. The Protectorate was under the administration of the Foreign Office at that time, but the agreement appears to have been made by the Acting Commissioner, without reference to the then Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, in pursuance of the powers vested in him under the East African Order-in-Council. [An HON. MEMBER: "Have not the concessions now lapsed?"] I am not aware. I will refer the question to my Noble Friend, Lord Crewe.

  British Indians and Transvaal Registration Laws.
  Sir WILLIAM BULLasked whether the imprisonment of the British-Indians in the Transvaal for refusal to obey the registration laws still continues, and if Mr. Royeppen, a Natal-born Indian, a B.A., L.L.B., of Cambridge, and a barrister of Lincoln's Inn, has recently been arrested, tried, and deported for being in the Transvaal without a registration certificate; and whether His Majesty's Government will take some steps to correct this condition of things within the Empire?
  MASTER of ELIBANK: On the 5th of January there were 41 Indians in custody convicted of contraventions of the registration and immigration laws and four more were waiting the result of appeals. I cannot say what the present number may be nor have I any information that Mr. Royeppen has been arrested. The whole subject, which is one of extreme complexity, has been the subject of long correspondence with the Transvaal Government, which is not yet finished. There has also been a frequent interchange of opinion between the Secretary of State for the Colonies and the Secretary of State for India.

  British-born Settlers in Transvaal.
  Sir WILLIAM BULLasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury whether he can state how many British-born settlers have benefited by the mortgage advances made since its start by the Transvaal and Agricultural Bank; what is the exact amount of the advances they have received; and what proportion does the gross amount of these advances bear to the aggregate disbursements?
  MASTER of ELIBANK: According to the report of the Transvaal Land and Agricultural Bank for the year ended 30th June last a total of £1,105,568 loans had been made. No detailed information of the kind referred to is given, nor am I aware that it is in existence. Might I suggest that the hon. Member will get more information if he will apply to the Agent-General for the Transvaal.

  Selina Martin's Case (Treatment in Liverpool Gaol).
  Mr. WILLIAM REDMOND (on behalf of Mr. John O'Connor)asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware that Miss Selina Martin was detained in Liverpool Gaol as a prisoner awaiting trial on the 21st December, 1909; will he say if she was refused bail and put in irons during her detention and whilst she was still an untried prisoner; if she was frog-marched and forcibly fed, and, if so, for what offence was she so punished; will he also say if there was any inquiry by magistrates before such punishment; and, if not, by whose authority and by what regulations such treatment was meted to an untried prisoner?
  The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Churchill): Selina Martin, who was refused bail by the magistrate in the exercise of his discretion, was treated, while in Liverpool Prison on remand, in strict accordance with the rules for untried prisoners. No force was used towards her beyond what was rendered necessary by her very violent and destructive behaviour, and her resolve to starve herself. The allegations to the contrary were carefully investigated by magistrates, who found them to be untrue. I would refer the hon. Member to an answer sent by my predecessor in office to inquiries made by a correspondent with regard to the case which was published in the newspapers of the 12th ultimo. I will send him a copy.

  Newport Dock Accident (Report).
  Mr. JOHN WARDasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has received the report of Mr. Squiers, C.E., who was appointed by his Department to assist the coroner at the inquest upon the men killed in the dock accident at Newport last year; whether he intends to publish such report; and what further action he proposes to take to prevent such accidents in the future?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: The report was presented to Parliament and issued some months ago. I have no power at present to take any action on it. If the Building and Engineering Works Bill, which was introduced last Session by my predecessor, should pass it would give me jurisdiction in the works of this class.

  Lunacy Law (Committal of Sane Persons)
  Mr. PICKERSGILLasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to the action of Fowler v. Grant, tried at the Manchester Assizes last week, in which it appeared that a person now admitted to have been perfectly sane was committed to a lunatic asylum, and there treated as a lunatic for upwards of a year; and especially to the observations of Mr. Justice Walton that a man or woman, not a pauper, might be taken to the workhouse, shut up in an imbecile ward, and then declared to be a lunatic and placed in a lunatic asylum, without any public inquiry, any hearing before a magistrate, or any notice of what was going on; and whether he will consider the advisability of making inquiry, by means of a Select Committee or otherwise, into the working of the Lunacy Act, 1890?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: I am making inquiries about this matter, which I heard of for the first time from my hon. Friend's question. I will let him know the result.

  Factories Inspectors in Wales (Welsh Language).
  Mr. EDGAR JONESasked which of the lady inspectors of factories and workshops was responsible for the inspection of the South Wales and North Wales districts, respectively; and whether they had a competent knowledge of the Welsh language?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: South Wales is visited by lady inspectors from the headquarters, North Wales by lady inspectors attached to the Midland Division. None

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  of the lady inspectors, I am informed, speak Welsh, and no suggestion as to any necessity for their doing so has, so far as I am aware, ever been made. The number of women employed in factories and workshops in Wales is very small. The staff of men inspectors stationed in the Welsh districts include, of course, several who speak Welsh.

  Trunk Telephone (Dublin-Cavan).
  Mr. J. P. FARRELLasked the Postmaster-General what progress, if any, has been made with the proposed introduction of the trunk telephone from Dublin to Galway, Sligo and Cavan respectively; and when the project will be inaugurated?
  The POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Herbert Samuel): An extension of the trunk telephone system to Athlone, on the route to Galway, is being carried out, but a guarantee in respect of a further extension to Galway is not at present forthcoming. I am in correspondence with the Treasury with regard to the acceptance of a local guarantee for an extension to Sligo. An extension to Cavan cannot be undertaken until a guarantee has been given for an extension to Clones.

  Telephone Service (Glasgow).
  Mr. BARNESasked the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that the canvassing staff on the Glasgow telephone service, who were taken over by the Post Office when the service was taken over from the Glasgow. Corporation, are now being transferred to the service of the National Telephone Company, although when the staff entered the Post Office service they were guaranteed conditions as favourable as those they enjoyed under the corporation; and whether there is any guarantee that the transfer now taking place will not endanger the security of the men's employment, but that they will be retained and retransferred to the Post Office when the Department takes over the National Telephone Company's service?
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: Seven Post Office telephone canvassers, of whom four were formerly employed by the Glasgow Corporation, are being temporarily transferred to the service of the National Telephone Company, whose staff will carry out canvassing work for the Post Office in certain districts of Glasgow till the end of
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  1911. When the whole telephone system is taken over by the Post Office these men, provided their service has been satisfactory, will be retransferred to the Department on terms as favourable as those they would have enjoyed had they continued in the service of the corporation and the Post Office respectively.

  Increased Subsistence Allowances (Postal Service).
  Sir GEORGE WHITEasked the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that increased subsistence allowances were given to the staff at many head offices last year who were sent to take duty for season work and holiday relief at sub-offices and other places away from their homes; whether he is aware that at King's Lynn the allowance was increased for duty at one of its sub-offices; whether, as a result, the staff is not to be sent there in future, but the unestablished staff at that place are to perform holiday reliefs by means of overtime, and take charge of the office during several hours of the day and supervise established postmen; and whether he will make inquiry into this matter, with a view to having these duties performed by an established staff as in previous years?
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: I am aware that increased subsistence allowances have been given at certain season offices, including one of the King's Lynn sub-offices, but there is no intention of altering the general arrangements for season duty in the way the hon. Member suggests.

  Telegraphic Communication with Ireland.
  Mr. JOYCEasked the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that direct telegraphic communication between Limerick and London has been completely interrupted for three days ending the 23rd instant, thus causing inconvenience and loss to public and commercial interests; and whether he will cause an immediate inquiry to be made into the matter, with the view of some steps being taken to prevent a recurrence of such frequent and prolongd stoppages in future on those important lines, entailing a delay of many hours duration?
  The following questions were also on the Notice Paper:—
  Mr. LONSDALE: To ask the Postmaster-General whether his attention has been called to the loss and inconvenience occasioned in Ireland by the frequent

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  interruption of telegraphic communication with Great Britain by storms, and whether he will hasten the work of putting underground the wires between London and the North-West Coast of England?
  Mr. DEVLIN: To ask the Postmaster-General whether his attention has been called to the delay and inconvenience caused to the newspaper Press in Belfast by the breakdown of the telegraphic service between Belfast and London on Monday last; whether he is aware that messages handed in at London at noon had not arrived in Belfast at six o'clock; that not a line of the report of the proceedings in Parliament had arrived up to eight o'clock, although the House assembled early in the afternoon; and that, although the House adjourned at eight o'clock on Monday night, the reports of the Debate on the Address on that day had not been received in Belfast up to three o'clock on Tuesday morning; whether these delays in the transmission of Press telegrams have occurred four or five times since the General Election began; whether any steps have been taken to prevent such delay in the event of storms in future; whether he is aware of the feeling amongst newspaper proprietors in Belfast that the local telegraphic staff is not sufficient to cope with an exceptional rush of work; and whether he will have inquiries made into these matters, with a view to making the service more efficient and reliable?
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: Perhaps I may be allowed to answer these questions together. On account of the recent severe storms there was, I regret to say, a breakdown of telegraphic communication on Monday last with many parts of the United Kingdom. This breakdown coincided with the despatch of an amount of Parliamentary news which has only once been exceeded—on the occasion of the introduction of the Home Rule Bill of 1886. There had been other breakdowns of less importance earlier in the year. I am aware of the inconvenience that resulted in Ireland and elsewhere from interruptions of communication and I greatly regret it. A sum of £1,500,000 has been spent by my predecessors in laying about 1,000 miles of underground cables along the main lines of communication. I propose to continue this policy, and a considerable sum will be included for the purpose in this year's Estimates. The extension of the underground cable system to the large towns of South Wales and from there to the landing places of some of the Irish
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  cables is under consideration. It should be remembered, however, that a large proportion of lines must remain aerial, and that if these are broken down by storms, underground cables would be liable to become congested with traffic, and delay, though lessened, would not be entirely obviated. Telegraphic communication between London and Limerick was subject to some delay on the dates mentioned by the hon. Member for Limerick; but it was certainly not stopped for three days as the hon. Member's question appears to suggest. I will make inquiry as to the adequacy of the telegraph staff at Belfast as desired by the hon. Member for West Belfast.
  Mr. T. M. HEALY: Will the right hon. Gentleman say where the £1,500,000 has been spent for underground communications? We have no knowledge of any part of it having been spent in Ireland.
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: About 1,000 miles of underground cables have been laid to Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool, and elsewhere, and gradually the system is being extended. As I have stated, I hope that in future it will be possible to extend it to the landing places of the Irish cables in South Wales.
  Mr. T. M. HEALY: I think that of the £1,500,000 expenditure the Irish service did not get a pennyworth of advantage.
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: I do not think that is quite so. I am not sure that part of the route to Ireland, at any rate, is not protected from interruption from storms by underground cables. It should be remembered that not only the places to which the cables actually go have their communications protected, but messages to places beyond are less liable to suffer interruption from storms.

  Devonport New Post Office.
  Sir CLEMENT KINLOCH-COOKEasked when it is proposed to begin work on the new post office at Devonport; when the work will be completed; and whether the Postmaster-General is aware that the walls of the present building are cracking and the structure has to be shored up in places to guard against accident?
  The FIRST COMMISSIONER of WORKS (Mr. Harcourt): It is anticipated that the work of extension to the post office at Devonport will be commenced at the end of the present year, and that the premises may be ready for occupation by the end of 1911. The crack in the wall of

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  the present building was observed during last year, and inspections were made periodically to see if it extended. It was considered necessary in December to buttress the wall, in order to make the building secure, by means of timber shoring; this was done at once, and no further extension of the crack is anticipated.

  Guard Ship at Kingstown.
  Captain COOPERasked if there is any prospect of a guard ship or training ship being sent to Kingstown?
  The FIRST LORD of the ADMIRALTY (Mr. McKenna): It is not intended to establish a guardship or training ship at Kingstown.

  British and Foreign Submarines.
  Mr. BURGOYNEasked the number of submarines completed and building for the British, United States, German, and French navies?
  Mr. McKENNA: I am afraid I cannot undertake to bring up to date in reply to the hon. Member's question, a particular piece of information that can be found in the Dilke Return which is published annually in April or May.

  Armoured Vessels (1909–10 Programme).
  Mr. BURGOYNEasked whether either of the four contingent armoured vessels of the 1909–10 programme have yet been laid down; and, if so, the date when they were commenced?
  Mr. McKENNA: None of these vessels have yet been laid down, but work in connection with the preparation and collection of materials for guns, gun-mountings, machinery, and hull has been in progress since January.
  Mr. BURGOYNE: Is it anticipated that all these vessels will be laid down by 1st April as stated by His Majesty's Ministers?
  Mr. McKENNA: These vessels will be laid down as stated by His Majesty's Ministers in time to secure their completion by March, 1912.

  Battleship "Renown."
  Mr. BURGOYNEasked whether the battleship "Renown" is still considered an effective or reserve unit of the fleet?
  Mr. McKENNA: The "Renown" is a reserve unit of the Fleet.
  Mr. BURGOYNE: If the "Renown" is a reserve unit of the fleet, and it is anticipated that she will be required for action, is it hoped by the Admiralty to be able to replace her secondary armament in time to make her an efficient unit for war?
  Mr. McKENNA: The expression "reserve unit" is a technical expression, as the hon. Gentleman is aware, and is applied to ships which have no great fighting value. The "Renown" is a reserve unit.
  Mr. BURGOYNE: If the "Renown" is not regarded as having any very great fighting value, will her name be taken off the effective fighting force?
  Mr. McKENNA: No. The "Renown" is properly described for a ship of her class, and there is no need to take her name off the list.

  Destroyers Condemned.
  Mr. BURGOYNEasked how many, and which, of the destroyers of the 27-knot type have been condemned as unfit for further service?
  Mr. McKENNA: Five of the 27-knot type of destroyers have been condemned, namely: "Skate," "Hornet," "Starfish," "Sturgeon," "Ferret."
  Mr. ARTHUR LEE: Can the right hon. Gentleman say how many of the 27-knot destroyers are considered suitable for service in the North Sea?
  Mr. McKENNA: It depends on the conditions in the North Sea. That is to say, the particular service they have to perform, and the length of time they are expected to be away from their base.
  Mr. LEE: In the case of war service; that is the only practicable service?
  Mr. McKENNA: That is how I understood the question, but it would depend upon the particular war service. They are all capable of service in the North Sea.

  Chatham Dockyard Establishment.
  Mr. HOHLERasked the number of men entered on the establishment at Chatham Dockyard on 1st February, 1906, and 1st February, 1910, respectively; whether the establishment has been closed or suspended during any, and what, part of the period from 1st February, 1906, to the present date; the number of men to which the establishment at Chatham Dockyard is to be reduced; and when it is proposed to allow new men to be entered on the establishment at Chatham?
  Mr. McKENNA: The reply to the first part of the question is 1,787 and 1,551 respectively. With regard to the second part, the establishment was closed during the whole period named, with a few exceptions as regards storehousemen and others not coming in the general category of workmen. The revised number allotted to Chatham and the other yards is under consideration. The filling of vacancies will proceed as soon as the revised details are settled.

  Osborne College (Illness among Army Cadets).
  Lord CHARLES BERESFORDasked the First Lord of the Admiralty what was the nature of the illness amongst the naval cadets at Osborne College; how many were affected; were any cases fatal; has any trace of the origin of the illness been discovered; and will he state whether the buildings were hastily erected against the advice of the civil engineering and medical authorities of the Admiralty, who recommended a larger expenditure of money in order to erect more suitable structures?
  Mr. McKENNA: The nature of the illness was epidemic influenza. Two hundred and forty-four were affected. The disease is epidemic throughout the country and has been introduced into the college in the usual way. One case proved fatal from pneumonia and peritonitis. There is no foundation for any of the suggestions contained in the last part of the Noble Lord's question. In any event, the Board of Admiralty in 1903 took full responsibility for the course pursued, and it would be irregular to refer to the advice of individual officials in the Admiralty.
  Mr. DOUGLAS HALL: How many epidemics have broken out since the college was opened, and is it the fact that a large number of cadets are constantly absent from duty owing to illness?
  Mr. McKENNA: No. I think it would be desirable to give notice of any question involving figures. I could not undertake to carry in my head the precise numbers.
  Mr. BURGOYNE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware whether those buildings have been placed on the original foundations of the Royal stables and that some of the boys suffer from an equine disease known as pink-eye?
  Mr. McKENNA: As the hon. Member is referring to facts which may have occurred
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  in the year 1903, I think he had better address the question privately to the hon. Gentleman opposite.
  Mr. LEE: Even if the right hon. Gentleman is successful in establishing his party point, has he no responsibility for the present state of affairs?
  Mr. McKENNA: I accept full and complete responsibility for the present state of affairs. The hon. Gentleman asked me whether the buildings established in 1903 were on the site of some stabling, and I invited him then to address the question to the hon. Gentlemen opposite.
  An HON. MEMBER: Is it not the fact that the buildings of the Royal Naval College at Osborne were erected as temporary buildings, and why is it that more permanent buildings have not been erected to take their place?
  Mr. McKENNA: If the term temporary was used in the sense that it meant only a period of six or seven years, the hon. Gentleman would be right. Although the term may have been used, it was intended that the buildings should have been used for a much longer period.

  Reduction of Royal Marines.
  Lord CHARLES BERESFORDasked the First Lord of the Admiralty: Is it intended to further reduce the corps of Royal Marines; if so, whether he will state the numbers proposed as a reduction, giving separately the Royal Marine Artillery and Royal Marine Light Infantry; and will he state the numbers reduced of each corps since 1906, and the strength of each corps at present, not including the bandsmen?
  Mr. McKENNA: I cannot undertake to give details of the numbers of Vote A of the Estimates for 1910–11 in anticipation of the presentation of the Estimates to the House. The reduction since 1906 is, in the case of the Royal Marine Artillery, 800; and in that of the Royal Marine Light Infantry, 946. The present strength of the Royal Marine Artillery is 3,057, and of the Royal Marine Light Infantry, 13,208. These numbers do not include twenty-seven Staff appointments.
  Lord CHARLES BERESFORD: When will the Estimates be presented?
  Mr. McKENNA: In the course of a very few days. I cannot give the precise date. It is a question of printing.

  Public Trustee's Office.
  Mr. FELLasked the Attorney-General how many estates came into the hands of the Public Trustee during the past year, and the amount of them; and what were the total cost and expenses of the Trustee's Office, and the total amount of the fees, commissions, and other sums paid to that office.
  The ATTORNEY-GENERAL (Sir William Robson): It is expected that the second general annual Report of the Public Trustee will be laid upon the Table of the House about the end of the present week. In this Report full information will be given upon the points mentioned in the question of the hon. Member.

  Register of Parliamentary Voters (Omissions).
  Mr. PETOasked the hon. and learned Gentleman whether any provision for appeal against or rectification of accidental omissions from or errors in the registers of Parliamentary voters after such registers have left the hands of the revising barrister exists; if not, whether he will undertake that one or more of the revising barristers will be constituted a body to whom appeal may be made during the month of January in each year to obtain redress in cases of unintentional error and hardship; and if he will have the effect of the omission of the whole of the old lodgers (13) in the parish of Rowde, in the Eastern (Devizes) Division of Wiltshire, redressed?
  Sir W. ROBSON: There is no provision for appeal in respect of accidental errors or omissions in the lists of voters after the Revising Barrister has closed his courts, nor for rectifying the register after it has been delivered to the Returning Officer. The omission referred to in the question therefore cannot be redressed. The plan suggested for obtaining redress in similar cases does not seem to be practicable.

  Secondary Schools (England).
  Mr. THOMAS O'DONNELLasked the President of the Board of Board of Education whether he will state the methods of paying secondary schools in England under the rules of August, 1909; whether this payment depends on attendance or on examination; and whether there is any training or registration for recognised secondary teachers?
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Trevelyan): I am not sure whether I understand what the hon. Member means by "the methods of paying secondary schools," but if he refers to the conditions of grant, he will find them fully set out in Chapter VII. of the Regulations for Secondary Schools in England, to which I must refer him. Payment of grant depends partly on the number of pupils attending the school. It does not depend at all on examinations, but is liable to be affected by a variety of considerations, all of which can be gathered from a perusal of the Regulations. Certain institutions are recognised and aided by the Board as affording a satisfactory course of training for persons intending to teach in secondary schools, but the number of such institutions is at present strictly limited. The question of the constitution of a Registration Council, with a view to the formation of a register of teachers in accordance with Section 16 (1) of the Education (Administrative Provisions) Act, 1907, is at preesnt receiving consideration.

  Old Age Pensions (Disqualifications).
  Mr. KERR-SMILEYasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he proposes to introduce legislation during the present Session to remove from applicants for old age pensions the disqualification arising from receipt of Poor Law relief?
  The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Lloyd-George): I hope to introduce legislation dealing with this matter. I may remind the hon. Member that in any case the disqualification automatically ceases to operate after the close of the current year.
  Mr. D. A. THOMASasked the Prime Minister whether a Bill to amend the Old Age Pensions Act, 1908, in the direction of removing the pauper disqualification, and of omitting the benefit received by any applicant for a pension from a friendly society or trade union when estimating his income, would be regarded by the Government as controversial; and, if not, will he consider the advisability of introducing such a measure at an early date?
  The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Asquith): My right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as he has just stated in reply to a similar question by the hon. Member for North Antrim, hopes to introduce legislation dealing with the pauper disqualification for old age pensions,

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  which, I may remind my hon. Friend, automatically ceases to operate after the close of the current year. It is not proposed to introduce further amending legislation this Session.

  Mobilisation of Horses.
  Major WHITEasked the right hon. Gentleman whether, in view of the difficulty of obtaining on mobilisation sufficient horses for Army purposes, and of the number annually shipped abroad, he will take steps to check such export, more especially in the case of mares, by an export duty or otherwise?
  The SECRETARY of STATE for WAR {Mr. Haldane) (for the Prime Minister): The demands of the Remount Department only amount to less than 3,000 horses a year, and, accordingly, these foreign purchases increase the demand for horses and thereby stimulate horse-breeding in the United Kingdom considerably in excess of Army peace requirements. The effect of the hon. and gallant Member's proposal would be to reduce the stock of horses available on mobilisation by giving a severe check to horse-breeding.
  Earl WINTERTON: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman if he recollects promising, in answer to a question put by me in the last Session of the late Parliament, that the Government were going shortly to make a statement on the question of the supply of horses for Army purposes?
  Mr. HALDANE: I shall have something to say upon that on the Estimates.

  House of Lords.
  Mr. J. G. BUTCHERasked the Prime Minister whether he is aware that the use of the words constituted and empowered in the King's Speech, in relation to the House of Lords, has caused much doubt and uncertainty amongst Members of this House and the public; whether, in view of pending elections and the danger as shown by recent experience of ambiguous utterances, he will state whether the words quoted above indicate an intention on the part of the Government to reform the constitution, as well as to limit the powers, of the House of Lords; and whether the Resolutions or the Bills promised for dealing with the House of Lords will make provision for a reform in the constitution of that House?
  The PRIME MINISTER: I am going to make a statement in a few moments on the subject referred to in the question.

  Scottish Universities.
  Sir HENRY CRAIKasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the Report of the Treasury Committee on the needs of the Scottish Universities will shortly be made public; and whether the Treasury is prepared to propose a grant in aid of these universities?
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: The report of the Committee is still under consideration, and though I hope to be able to propose an increase in the grant made to the Scottish Universities, I am unable to say at present what the increase will be or what conditions will be attached to it.

  Post Office and Trustees Savings Bank Funds.
  Mr. LEACHasked the right hon. Gentleman if he has considered whether a wider use could be made of post office and trustees savings bank funds for municipal administration; and whether, in the interests of ratepayers as well as of the depositors in savings banks, he will consider the advisability of widening the area of investment of such funds, so as to enable local authorities to obtain advances of such funds on the security of the rates or other property or funds which they are authorised to mortgage?
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: The object which my hon. Friend has in view is already to a large extent secured through the machinery of the Local Loans Fund, the securities issued on account of that fund being by law authorised investments for savings banks funds. There would, I think, be very strong objections to any arrangement under which municipal authorities would be allowed to borrow directly from these funds. I may also, perhaps, refer my hon. Friend to the Report of the Select Committee on Savings Banks of 1902, which was not in favour of an extension of the area of investment for savings banks moneys.

  Retail Licence Holders.
  Mr. PATRICK WHITEasked whether the right hon. Gentleman will state the estimated gross yield in Great Britain from the increase in duties proposed in the Budget of 1909 on all classes of retail licence holders, and what amount of extra duty per barrel, both on beer manufactured here and on beer imported into this country would produce an equivalent sum; whether the raising of revenue is the sole object of the proposed increase in the

  575
  licence duties; and, if so, whether it could be more expeditiously collected by a duty on beer from the manufacturers and importers than from a multiplicity of retail vendors by an increase in the licence duties?
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: For the reasons given in my reply to the late hon. Member for Darlington on 16th June last I am unable to give any reliable estimate of the yield of the new duties on retailers' licences. I scarcely think that the other points raised by the hon. Member are such as can be satisfactorily dealt with within the limits of an answer to a question.

  Development Fund.
  Mr. CHARLES BATHURSTasked whether any application has yet been made by the Board of Agriculture for any grant from the Development Fund; and, if so, what is the amount applied for and for what purpose or purposes it is intended.
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: No application has yet been made.
  Mr. BATHURST: Will any steps be taken to secure that the quarter of a million promised by the right hon. Gentleman during the Second Reading Debate of last year's Finance Bill for purely agricultural purposes shall be so applied?
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: I hope to make a statement with regard to the matter in the course of the next few days. I trust it will be seen that the names of the Commission will be the best guarantee that the sum of money, which will really exceed a quarter of a million, will be applied very largely to agricultural development.

  Boyle Rural District Council.
  Mr. O'KELLYasked the Chief Secretary whether his attention has been called to the resolution of the Boyle Rural District Council No. 1, of the 12th February, requesting that an inspector should be sent to inquire into the flooding of the land about Lough Key, which has been affected by operation carried on by the Congested Districts Board; and whether he will take steps to have the water lowered at Knock-vicar and the affected lands about Lough Key?
  The CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Mr. Birrell): The Congested Districts Board have received the resolution
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  referred to, but they do not read it as suggesting that the floods about Lough Key result from works carried out by the Board. On the contrary, they observe that it attributes such flooding to the retention of water at the outlet of the lake. The Board, however, will make inquiries into the matter with the object of ascertaining whether the flooding can be prevented.

  Old Age Pensions (Ireland).
  Mr. O'KELLYasked whether the right hon. Gentleman will inquire into the case of Michael M'Dermot, of Currawnban, Clooneyquinn, Elphin, Roscommon, whose pension was withdrawn last October on the ground that he had four cattle at grass, but who declares that these cattle are the property of his son; that this man is 75 years of age and is the occupier of a small farm, with a Government valuation of £5 15s., and declares he has no other means, except what small allowance his children can make him; and will he have the case inquired into with a view of having the pension restored?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The Local Government Board, on an appeal by the pension officer, reduced this man's pension from 5s. to 1s. per week, as they estimated the value of his means at more than £28 17s. 6d. per annum. His age and the valuation of his holding are as stated. The cattle referred to in the question were not taken by the Board as belonging to him, though they credited him with a small sum as the value of their grazing on his holding. It is not open to the Board to reconsider their decision on the appeal.
  Mr. CATHCART WASON: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether, in view of the many other similar cases existing, he will appoint a Departmental Committee to inquire into the possibility of having some fixed rules to guide the pension officers?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I should be very glad if such rules could be fixed, but how are you to lay down fixed rules for the purpose of determining whether the real income is £28 or £29 or £31? I am afraid it would be very difficult, though I should be very glad of assistance.
  Mr. FLAVIN: By what regulations or methods does the pension officer decide the value to the old age pensioner of his living in the house with his family?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The pension officer has to ascertain the income of the person in receipt of the pension, and he has to estimate as best he can his revenue from all sources.
  Mr. FLAVIN: Where there is no revenue, and the old man and woman have simply the right to live in a room of the house, how does the pension officer estimate the rent of the room per week?
  Mr. BIRRELL: It very often happens in Ireland that the old people have the right to live in the room by legal covenants, under which they have handed over their property, and the Revenue officer has to consider what the value of that legal covenant is, and how much the accommodation, and how much the food is worth per annum.
  Mr. DELANYasked the Chief Secretary whether he could say upon what grounds Patrick Dalton, Roskeen, Queen's County, was deprived of the pension of 5s. per week granted to him by the Mount-mellick sub-committee; whether he was aware that Dalton was in receipt of the pension from 1st January, 1909 to 1st July last, and that no appeal was lodged by the pension officer within the statutory period of seven days; and could he say under what circumstances and by what authority the pension was withdrawn?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I understand that Patrick Dalton was in receipt of a pension from 1st January to 1st July, 1909. The pension was discontinued by the pension sub-committee on a question raised by the pension officer in accordance with Article 17 of the Old Age Pensions Regulations as to whether Dalton had attained the statutory age. The name of Patrick Dalton not being found among his parents' family in the Census Return of 1841, the Local Government Board confirmed the decision of the pension committee when it came before them on appeal by the pensioner.
  Mr. O'DOWDasked the Chief Secretary whether he could state why Michael Burke, of Drumnasovey, Riverstown, Ballymote, county Sligo, an old age pensioner on the list since the Act came into operation, had been deprived of his pension; and whether he had been called upon to refund the sums already received by him?
  Mr. HOBHOUSE: Michael Burke has been deprived of his pension by the local pension committee on evidence produced
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  to them that, according to the Census Returns, he has not yet attained the statutory age. In accordance with the provision of Section 9 (2) of the Old Age Pensions Act, he has been called upon to refund the sums paid to him in respect of the pension while the statutory conditions were not fulfilled.
  Mr. O'DOWDasked the Chief Secretary if he could state why Mary McGarry, of Carrea, Ballintogher, county Sligo, who was born in 1835, and who had been in receipt of a weekly pension since the Act came into operation, had been suddenly deprived of such pension; whether such action was taken without the case having been duly investigated; and, if so, whether steps would be taken to have the facts of this case fully inquired into?
  Mr. BIRRELL: In this case the pension officer raised the question that Miss McGarry, who stated in her claim that she was born in 1837, had not reached the statutory age. The pension committee decided that her pension should be continued, but the pension officer appealed to the Local Government Board, who decided in his favour, as Miss McGarry was not included in the Census Return of her parents' family in 1841, and appeared as only eight years of age in the Census of 1851. Before coming to their decision the Board afforded her full opportunity of furnishing any evidence which she could obtain as to her age.
  Mr. O'DOWDasked the Chief Secretary whether he was aware that an application for an old age pension, accompanied by a certificate from the local parish priest, was duly made to the pension sub-committee of the district, either at Rivers-town or Ballintogher, county Sligo, by Dan Murphy, of Roughan, Conway's Cross, early in 1909, and that the applicant was granted the full pension of 5s. per week; whether he was aware that afterwards the Local Government Board refused their sanction on the grounds that the applicant's name could not be found in the Census Returns of 1841 and 1851; and whether, seeing that, at the suggestion of the pension officer, several old persons certified the applicant to be over 70 years of age, the case of Murphy would be re-investigated under the circumstances and in view of the unreliability of the Census Returns as a true test of age?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I understand that Daniel Murphy was allowed a pension of 5s. a week in September last by the Riverstown

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  pension sub-committee, who seem to have come to their decision as to the claimant's age on the ground of his appearance, and not, so far as the Local Government Board are aware, on any evidence or certificate. The pension officer appealed to the Local Government Board, who upheld the appeal as Murphy's name did not appear in the Census Returns of his parents' family in 1841 and the other evidence submitted by him afforded no proof of his having attained the statutory age.

  Prohibited Areas Trawling Act (Valentia and Scariff Islands).
  Mr. BOLANDasked the Chief Secretary whether the attention of the Congested Districts Board and of the Department of Agriculture has been called to the operating of steam trawlers within prohibited areas between Valentia Island and Scariff Island and within a short distance of Bolus Head; whether he is aware that the steamer "Helga" has not visited the district for months past; and can he say when he proposes to put into force the Prohibited Areas Trawling Act?
  Mr. BIRRELL: Complaints have been made to the Department of illegal trawling in the districts referred to. The hon. Member appears to be misinformed as to the visits of the "Helga." I understand that she was at or near Valentia for several days in November and December last and again in the present month, and that the Congested Districts Board's steamer, the "Granuaile," whose master is empowered to enforce the Department's by-laws, has recently been there for a week. These vessels devote as much attention to the Kerry Coast as is possible having regard to their duties elsewhere. The provisions of the Act of last Session are already in force and have been applied by the Department in two cases.

  Land Purchase Act (Ireland) 1903 (Untenanted Lands).
  Mr. J. P. FARRELLasked the Chief Secretary whether he is now in a position to state when the offer of Mr. James W. Bond to sell to the Estates Commissioners, under Section 6 of The Land Purchase Act, 1903, the untenanted lands of Monedarragh or Strokestown, county Longford, will be accepted; and whether any steps have yet been taken or are about being taken for the division of these lands amongst deserving applicants in the locality?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The Estates Commissioners inform me that this estate consists partly of tenanted and partly of untenanted lands. The purchase agreements for the sale of the tenanted portion of the estate were not lodged until November, 1907. The estate will be dealt with in order of priority, but its turn has not yet come.
  Mr. MOORE: May I ask if this gentleman is still boycotted, and if there are any deserving applicants in that locality?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I should be very sorry to doubt that there are. I do not know whether he is the gentleman or not.
  Mr. FARRELLasked whether any proposal had been made to the Estates Commissioners for the sale, under Section 6 of The Land Purchase Act, 1903, of the lands of Coolcraff, or Coolcray, parish of Abbeylara and barony of Granard, county Longford; whether he is aware of the tract of untenanted land in this parish; and will he direct the attention of the Estates Commissioners to the desirability of acquiring the same immediately?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The Estates Commissioners are unable from the particulars given in the question to identify these lands as pending for sale before them. If the hon. Member will give the owner's name further inquiry will be made.
  Mr. LONSDALE: Will the right hon. Gentleman represent to the Estates Commissioners that they should not expedite the purchase from parties where there has been boycotting?
  Mr. BIRRELL: They know perfectly well what their duties are in this matter.
  Mr. FARRELL: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he is aware that the questions put to him by the hon Member from North Armagh and the hon. Member for Mid Armagh are totally wrong?
  Mr. FARRELLasked whether any further steps had been taken to acquire the estate of the late John E. Thompson, of Clonfin, county Longford, who, so far back as a year and a half ago, made an agreement for sale with his tenants, including the handing over to the Estates Commissioners of some 500 acres of untenanted lands for sub-division amongst the tenants and other deserving persons; whether any inspection of the property had taken place or was ordered; and when some definite progress in the case may be expected?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The Estates Commissioners inform me that proceedings for the sale of this estate were not instituted until October, 1908. It will be dealt with in order of priority. The Commissioners cannot yet say when its turn will come.

  Evicted Tenants (Case of family of Terence Reilly, North Longford).
  Mr. FARRELLasked the Chief Secretary if he will state the reason why the Estates Commissioners have taken no steps to provide a holding for the family of Terence Reilly, of Cooldoney, North Longford, an evicted tenant, who was recently found dead at the back of a ditch on his evicted holding; whether any inquiry was made into the facts of this case by the Estates Commissioners; and whether there is any hope of there being an equivalent holding found for them on some of the adjoining ranches in the district?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I understand that Terence Reilly died in Mullingar Asylum three years ago. His son is a clerk in Dublin, and the Commissioners do not consider him a suitable person to work a holding.

  Evicted Tenants (County Clare).
  Mr. WILLIAM REDMONDasked the Chief Secretary how many evicted tenants have been provided with holdings in county Clare since 1903, and how many claims for holdings are now under consideration?
  Mr. BIRRELL: 489 applications have been received by the Estates Commissioners from persons applying for reinstatement as tenants or the representatives of tenants evicted from holdings in the county of Clare; 217 of these applications have been refused after inquiry; 138 applicants have been reinstated or provided with new holdings, and 20 have been noted by the Commissioners for consideration in the allotment of untenanted land. The remaining 114 applications were received after the date mentioned in the Evicted Tenants Act and cannot be dealt with under that Act.

  Congested Districts Board (County Clare).
  Mr. WILLIAM REDMONDasked the Chief Secretary if he will represent to the Congested Districts Board the urgency of dealing with county Clare as soon as possible?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I can assure the hon. Member that there is not the slightest danger of county Clare being neglected by the Board.

  Tobacco Cultivation (Ireland).
  Captain COOPERasked the Chief Secretary if he will grant the Return in the name of the hon. Member for South Dublin?
  Mr. HOBHOUSE: If the hon. and gallant Member will substitute the words "who were allowed to grow tobacco in the season of 1909" for the words "to whom Permits have been issued for the growth of tobacco," I shall be glad to grant him the Return for which he asks.
  Captain COOPER: I shall be glad to do so.
  Mr. WILLIAM REDMOND: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he will consider the advisability of including in this Return not merely the area under tobacco, but the amount of tobacco raised on the area and the amount of duty?
  Mr. HOBHOUSE: I think there is no objection, but I do not want to say offhand.
  Mr. WILLIAM REDMOND: Will the right hon. Gentleman let me know if there is any objection?
  Mr. HOBHOUSE: If the hon. Gentleman would communicate with me indicating what he wants, I would be happy to consider it. I do not think there is any difficulty about it if the hon. Gentleman will produce his words in writing.
  Mr. WILLIAM REDMOND: I will do it straight away.

  Hamilton Stubber Estate (Queen's County).
  Mr. DELANYasked the Chief Secretary whether the Estates Commissioners have yet got possession of the untenanted land on the Hamilton Stubber estate, Queen's County, for which they have been in treaty; and, if so, can he say how they propose disposing of it?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The Estates Commissioners have instituted proceedings for the compulsory acquisition of these lands under the Evicted Tenants Act, but the owner has filed an objection, which has not yet been determined.

  Athenry Agricultural College.
  Mr. LONSDALEasked the Chief Secretary how much public money has been

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  voted or otherwise allocated for the establishment of an agricultural college at Athenry; what are the present intentions of the Department of Agriculture with reference to that project; and what are the reasons for the change of policy?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I have nothing to add to the reply given by the Vice-President of the Department to a similar question asked by the hon. Member for South Mayo on 29th July last.

  Census of Horses (Ireland).
  Mr. LONSDALEasked the Chief Secretary whether the census of horses taken by the constabulary in Ireland is complete; and whether he is able to state the results?
  The HON. MEMBERfurther asked the Secretary of State for War whether he has received from the constabulary authorities in Ireland the details of the horse census taken by them; and whether the information discloses how many horses are fit for military purposes?
  Mr. HALDANE: The details of this census have been received, but some time will be required to enable the staff concerned to examine them thoroughly and decide how many horses are fit for military purposes.
  Mr. MOONEY: May I ask will this census be a census apart from the annual return made by the Royal Irish Constabulary of live stock, and, if so, whether any charge will fall on the public funds; and if he can inform me, as the census is to be placed before county associations in England, and as there is no Territorial Army in Ireland and no county associations, before what body will the returns as to Ireland be placed?
  Mr. HALDANE: The census is taken for the Army generally.

  Agricultural Instruction in Ireland (Grants in Aid).
  Mr. D. A. THOMASasked the Chief Secretary how much of the revised Estimate of £22,425 for grants in aid under Section 15 of the Agriculture and Technical Education Instruction (Ireland) Act, 1899, and Section 49 of the Irish Land Act, 1909, is for agricultural instruction?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture informs me that the amount is approximately £21,000.

  Land Purchase and Evicted Tenants (County Dublin).
  Mr. CLANCYasked the Chief Secretary whether the Estates Commissioners will state, in the form of a Return or otherwise, the number and the names of the persons who have obtained parcels of land in the county of Dublin under the Land Purchase (Ireland) Act of 1903 and the Evicted Tenants (Ireland) Acts, the place from which each such person has come, the acreage in statute acres of the holding in each case, and the reason, in the case of persons not belonging to the county of Dublin, why they were provided with land in that county before provision was made for county Dublin people entitled to and in need of land?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The Estates Commissioners inform me that they have allotted parcels of untenanted land purchased by them in county Dublin to fifty-eight persons, including twenty-four tenants evicted from holdings in the county, and eighteen evicted from holdings in other counties. Of the remaining sixteen persons to whom parcels have been allotted five belong to county Dublin and eleven to other counties. For the further particulars which he requires I would refer the hon. Member to the Quarterly Returns of Proceedings under the Evicted Tenants Act, and the Monthly Returns of Advances under the Irish Land Act, 1903, which are presented to Parliament. The lands were allotted by the Commissioners in the discretion vested in them.

  Land Act, 1909 (Amount of Advances).
  Mr. T. M. HEALYasked the Chief Secretary if he will state the total amount of advances applied for under agreements for purchase since the passing of the Land Act, 1909, at the higher rate of interest prescribed by that Act, the total amount applied for in the equivalent period prior to the passing of the Act of 1909, and from what counties and by what landlords were such applications lodged?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The Land Act of 1909 was passed on 3rd December last. In the months of September, October, and November, 1909, 2,504 purchase agreements in the form prescribed under the Act of 1903 were lodged, representing a purchase money of £750,720. Of these agreements, 2,125, representing £625,206, were not lodged until after the 15th of September. 1909, the date mentioned in Section 13 (a) of the Act of 1909, and as they are not,

  585
  therefore, "pending purchase agreements" to be financed under the Act of 1903, they have been returned to be amended in accordance with the new Act or to be replaced by new agreements. In the months of December, January, and February (to 25th) 137 purchase agreements, representing £37,755, repayable by 3½ per cent. annuities, have been lodged. They have not yet been classified by counties or estates. As regards the period since the passing of the Act of 1909, it should be explained that the Act required the preparation of new regulations and rules as to procedure, some of which have been made and issued recently, while others are still under consideration.

  Arterial Drainage (Ireland).
  Mr. PATRICK MEEHANasked the Chief Secretary whether, in view of his statement on 22nd April, 1909, on the question of arterial drainage in Ireland that it was the duty of the Government at the earliest possible moment to avail themselves of the suggestions of the Arterial Drainage Commission of 1905, and to carry out some legislative procedure which would transfer to those local authorities the task of maintaining arterial drainage works, he would say when legislation on this matter would be submitted to the House?
  Mr. BIRRELL: A Bill with the object of transferring to local authorities the task of maintaining existing arterial drainage works is in course of preparation, but in present circumstances I cannot say when it will be possible to introduce such Bill.

  Churcher Estate, County Galway.
  Mr. JOHN ROCHEasked the Chief Secretary whether he was aware that the tenants on the Churcher estate, Castle-french, county Galway, agreed to purchase their holdings in November, 1907; and whether he could say if the estate had yet been inspected, and, if not, what was the cause of the delay?
  Mr. BIRRELL: This estate is pending for sale to the Estates Commissioners under Section 6 of the Irish Land Act, 1903. Owing to its place on the priority list, it has not yet been inspected with a view to the Commissioners making an offer to purchase.

  Steam Trawlers (Foyle Estuary).
  Mr. KERR-SMILEYasked the Chief Secretary what action the Department of Agriculture proposed to take by regulation
  586
  or by effective sea patrol to prevent the continued losses of the fishermen of Antrim, Derry, and Donegal through the depredations of steam trawlers in the estuary of the Foyle?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The Department have already made regulations prohibiting steam trawling in the locality referred to, and enforce them so far as the means at their disposal permit. Their steamer "Helga" has repeatedly visited the district during the past three months, and the "Granuaile," whose master is empowered to enforce the regulations, has also been along the coast. If local fishermen or others will furnish particulars of any case of illegal trawling, the Department will at once take such action as may be possible.

  Irish Intermediate Education (Rules and Programme).
  Mr. THOMAS O'DONNELLasked when the rules and programme of the Intermediate Education Board of Ireland would be laid upon the Table of the House?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The rules and programme are at present under consideration, and will be laid on the Table of the House as soon as possible.

  Evicted Tenants (County Kerry).
  Mr. THOMAS O'DONNELLasked the Chief Secretary whether he would inquire from the Estates Commissioners if their inspectors had reported on the applications of evicted tenants from the union district of Dingle, county Kerry; how many applications were sent in; how many investigated; how many tenants reinstated; and how many others placed on the list?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The statistics of the Estates Commissioners are not compiled by unions. Taking the county of Kerry as a whole, the Commissioners inform me that they have received 1,048 applications from persons seeking reinstatement as tenants or representatives of tenants evicted from holdings in the county. They have refused 508 of these applications after inquiry. Three hundred and one applicants have been reinstated or provided with new holdings. Ninety-four have been noted for consideration in the allotment of un-tenanted land, and the remaining 145 applications were received after the date mentioned in the Evicted Tenants Act, and cannot be dealt with under that Act.

  Horse Breeding (Department of Agriculture, Ireland).
  Mr. LONSDALEasked the Chief Secretary whether he would give particulars as to the nature of the experiment for which four Normandy sires had been purchased by the Department of Agriculture, and state who was in charge of the experiment?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The nature of the experiment was explained in a letter recently addressed by the Vice-President of the Department to the hon. Member for the Leix Division of Queen's County. I will send a copy of that letter to the hon. Member. The officers of the Department's establishment acting under the instructions of the Department will be in charge of the experiment.

  Intimidation (Ballinasloe).
  Mr. LONSDALEasked the Chief Secretary whether his attention had been drawn to a resolution of the Roscommon District Council requesting the Congested Districts Board to arrange to purchase the Tonlagee farm for distribution among the neighbouring tenants; whether this farm, and its owner, Mr. J. Byrne, of Ballinasloe, had been more or less boycotted for the past three years, with the object of compelling him to sell the farm at a price settled by the local branch of the United Irish League; and whether he would represent to the Congested Districts Board that, in view of the persistent intimidation which had been practised, it was not desirable to interfere in the matter?
  Mr. BIRRELL: My attention has been drawn to the resolution in question, but I am informed that the question of the purchase of this farm is not at present before the Congested Districts Board.

  Pointed Bullets.
  Mr. WEDGWOODasked whether the War Office had yet come to any conclusion as to the issue for general use of pointed bullets as the result of the experiments carried out last autumn?
  Mr. HALDANE: The experiments have been so far successful that an extended trial will shortly be made by the troops, and ammunition for this is now being manufactured.

  Military Aviation.
  Mr. WATERLOWasked the Secretary of State for War if there was a shortage of officers in the balloon and aviation
  588
  branch of the Royal Engineers; if so, and in view of the great advance that was being made by foreign countries in this branch of military work, would he state what he could propose to increase the number of officers in this branch of the service?
  The HON. MEMBERalso asked the right hon. Gentleman whether he was aware that officers of the Royal Engineers engaged in the regular work of ballooning and aviation were unable to insure against accidents on such favourable terms as other officers in the Army; and whether, in view of the risks incurred in this service, some consideration in extra pay should be given, on the same principle as extra pay was given for extra risk in the Navy?
  Mr. HALDANE: In reply to these two questions I may inform my hon. Friend that the whole organisation of the balloon companies is now under consideration, and that the question of the pay of officers and men will be dealt with. In reference to the matter of insurance representations have reached the War Office to the effect stated in the question.

  Bankruptcy Examinations (Transcript Rate).
  Mr. WEDGWOODasked the President of the Board of Trade why the rate of payment for transcripts of bankruptcy examinations was 4d. per folio of 90 words, whereas the Treasury rate for transcripts under the Criminal Appeal Act was the usual 8d. per folio of 72 words; and whether he would take steps to raise the rate of pay in these bankruptcy cases to the standard rate?
  The HON. MEMBERalso asked the right hon. Gentleman whether, by a recent order, the rate of pay for transcripts of bankruptcy proceedings had been in effect reduced by requiring that these transcripts should be type-written and in duplicate; under what order this reduction was made; and whether he would consider the possibility of increasing the rate of pay commensurate with the increase of work?
  The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Sydney Buxton): I am looking into the matter referred to in these questions and will communicate with my hon. Friend later.

  Fog Signals (West Coast of Ireland).
  Mr. JOYCEasked the President of the Board of Trade whether the attention of his Board had been called to the necessity

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  of further increasing the system of fog signals on the West Coast of Ireland; and was he aware of the fact that many vessels had been lost owing to fog-signal stations on that coast being very few in number, and that complaints had been made on this subject?
  Mr. BUXTON: I am informed by the Irish Lights Commissioners that they have recently received several applications for an increase in the number of fog-signal stations on the West Coast of Ireland, and that these applications are under consideration. I have received a similar representation from the Irish Harbours Association, which I have communicated to the Commissioners. I have no information as to any vessels having been lost owing to the want of such signals, but any proposals which may be made by the Irish Lights Commissioners will receive my careful consideration.

  Life-saving Apparatus (North-East Coast, Ireland).
  Captain COOPER (on behalf of Mr. Kerr-Smiley)asked at how many stations along the coast of North-East Ireland, from Lame to Londonderry, a life-saving apparatus was provided?
  Mr. BUXTON: There is no full life-saving apparatus station between the limits named in the hon. Member's question, but there is one at Port Muck, near Larne, and one at Greencastle, at the entrance to Lough Foyle. There are seven stations within the limits mentioned at which there are belts and lines for life-saving purposes, and there is a lifeboat stationed at Port Rush.

  Labour Bureaux (Statistics).
  Earl WINTERTONasked the President of the Board of Trade if he would give instructions for a Return to be published each month in the Board of Trade Labour Gazette giving, respectively, the number of persons applying for employment at the various Labour Bureaux and the number of cases in which such applications had been successful?
  Mr. BUXTON: The question as to the method, form, and frequency of publication of statistics relative to the operations of Labour Exchanges is at present under consideration.
  Earl WINTERTON: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when the figures for the first month will be available? They are very important.
  Mr. BUXTON: It is rather early to ask for statistics until the Exchanges are in full working order, but I have the matter under consideration.

  Unemployment (Comparative Statistics).
  Earl WINTERTONasked the President of the Board of Trade whether, while having regard to the difficulty of obtaining accurate comparable statistics of trades union unemployment in different countries, he could, following the example of his predecessor, state, generally, from information in the possession of his Department, whether there had been, during the present winter, more or less unemployment in the United Kingdom than in Germany or the United States of America?
  Mr. BUXTON: I regret that, as the statistics of unemployment in the three countries are not properly comparable, and that as regards two out of the three countries such figures as exist are not up to date, it is not possible to give the Noble Earl the information which he desires.

NOTICES OF MOTION.
Sir FORTESCUE FLANNERYgave notice that on going into Committee of Supply on the Navy Estimates he will call attention to the insufficiency of the amount supplied for the British Navy in comparison with foreign navies, and move a Resolution.
Mr. JOWETT: On going into Committee of Supply on the Civil Service Estimates to call attention to the administration of the Old Age Pensions Act, and move a Resolution.
Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD: On going into Committee of Supply on the Army Estimates, to call attention to the wages and conditions of service of Government workers, and move a Resolution.
Mr. SAMUEL ROBERTS: On going into Committee of Supply on the Navy Estimates, to call attention to the deficiency of naval bases on the East Coast.
Captain JOHN GILMOUR: On going into Committee of Supply on the Army Estimates, to call attention to the supply of horses for the Army.
Mr. GEORGE ROBERTS: On going into Committee of Supply on the Civil Service Estimates, to call attention to the civil rights of Government servants, and move a Resolution.

BILLS PRESENTED.
The following Bills were presented, and read the first time:—
Mr. LEWIS HARCOURT—Duke of York's School (Chapel)—Bill to vest in the Commissioners of Works, freed from ecclesiastical uses, the chapel comprised in the buildings situate in the metropolitan borough of Chelsea, formerly occupied by the Duke of York's Royal Military School. (To be read a second time 1st March.)
Mr. LEWIS HARCOURT—Ancient Monuments Protection—Bill to amend the Ancient Monuments Protection Acts, 1882 to 1900, with respect to the gift, devise, or bequest of monuments to the Commissioners of Works. (To be read a second time 1st March.)
Mr. STUART-WORTLEY—Bishopric of Sheffield—Bill to provide for the foundation of a Bishopric of Sheffield; and for other matters incidental thereto. (To be read a second time 6th May.)
Mr. WARING—Poor Law Amendment (Scotland)—Bill to simplify the mode of raising the assessment for the poor in Scotland. (To be read a second time 21st March.)
Mr. MILLAR—Absent Voters—Bill to facilitate the recording of Votes at Parliamentary elections by fishermen, sailors, and other persons liable to habitual absence from their usual residence in pursuit of their calling. (To be read a second time 17th March.)
Captain CRAIG—Irish National Schools (Heating and Cleansing)—Bill to provide for the Heating and Cleansing of National Schoolhouses in Ireland. (To be read a second time 7th March.)
Sir FREDERICK BANBURY—Dogs (Protection)—Bill to prohibit experiments upon dogs. (To be read a second time 2nd March.)
Mr. SUMMERS—Local Authorities (Legal Expenses)—Bill to enable local authorities to contribute towards the expenses of legal proceedings and private and other Bills involving questions of common interest. (To be read a second time 6th May.)

LORDS VETO.

  PRIME MINISTER'S MOTION.
  The PRIME MINISTERmoved "That up to and including 24th March Government business shall have precedence at every sitting."
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  I am extremely sorry that my first duty after the conclusion of the Address in a new House of Commons should be, on behalf of the Government, to make a demand for an encroachment upon the time which is normally allotted to private Members. I certainly should not make that demand except under the stress of absolute necessity. I pointed out, I think, the main circumstances with which we have to deal when I was addressing the House a week ago in the Debate on the Address. That Debate occupied five days, and it is well that I should remind the House at once or recall to their attention the position in which we now stand. My Motion is that the Government business should have precedence at every sitting up to and including 24th March. To-day is 28th February, and from to-day until Thursday, 24th March, both days inclusive, there are nineteen Parliamentary days. Of those nineteen days there would, under our normal procedure, be available for Government business four Mondays, four Thursdays, and partial sittings on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. That is, roughly speaking, three days a week for four weeks, or out of nineteen days twelve days in all.
  On the other hand, under our normal procedure, private Members would have at their disposal evening sittings on Tuesday and Wednesday, and the whole of the Friday sittings; and that would work out at seven Parliamentary days. The effect of my Motion, therefore, if carried, will be to add to the twelve Parliamentary days, which, in any circumstances, the Government would have at their disposal and under their control, the seven more days which, under those conditions, would be at the disposal of private Members. The demand is not a very large one, though it is one I very much regret to have to make. But I may point out once more the circumstances which render it urgent, and, indeed, indispensible.
  I will take just the present week. During the present week, consisting of five Parliamentary days, we must, if we are to meet the financial exigencies of the country, as I explained them the other day, pass through all their stages, including the Money Resolutions in Committee and on Report; the Second Reading, the Committee stage, and the Third Reading of Bills—the Bill for temporary borrowing, and the Bill to Redeem the War Loan, and we must further during the present week, if we are to be at all up to time, pass the Supplementary Estimates for the expiring

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  financial year. I come then to the second week, the week which begins on Monday next, 7th March. In that week we propose—and I am afraid we are not allotting an unduly large share of time to each of the topics that will have to come under consideration—in that week we have to get Mr. Speaker out of the Chair on the Army Estimates, which we propose to do on Monday. We have to get the Army Votes on the Tuesday and Wednesday, we have on Thursday to get the Civil Service Vote on account, and on Friday to take the Report of the Supplementary Estimates and of the Army Vote. That disposes of the second week.
  Then there is the third week, which begins on Monday, 14th March. We propose on Monday to get Mr. Speaker out of the Chair on the Navy Estimates, and to devote Tuesday and Wednesday to Navy Votes, and Thursday the Report of the Navy Votes. That will be four days of that week devoted to the Navy. On the Friday we shall take the Report of the Vote on Account and the Committee stage of the Ways and Means Resolution which then becomes necessary, and the Army Report if not concluded. That brings me to Monday, 21st March. In that week we must take the Report of the Ways and Means Resolution, First Reading of Consolidated Fund Bill; on Tuesday the 22nd the Second Reading of Consolidated Fund Bill; on Wednesday, Committee stage of Consolidated Fund Bill, which is a very formal stage, and on that day we may perhaps be able to introduce one or two necessary and pressing Departmental measures of a non-controversial character, and on the Thursday the Third Reading of the Consolidated Fund Bill and the Motion for Adjournment.
  I think that shows the House that we have mapped out the time between now and 24th March on the most economical lines that we can possibly adopt, and that it is impossible between now and that day to introduce any other measures to the consideration of the House than the necessary financial measures of the country, which have to be carried into effect if things are not come to a standstill.
  4.0 P.M.
  I might stop there, because I think I have abundantly shown that my Resolution, which only proposes to take the time of the House up to and including 24th March, is not only justified and warranted, but necessitated by the conditions of the case. That is really all that is strictly relevant to the Resolution which you, Sir, are
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  about to put from the Chair. I think it would be convenient to hon. Members in all quarters of the House if I were to take the opportunity to make a further statement, confined, as it will be, within the briefest possible compass as to the business which, if this Motion is assented to, we shall take after the 24th and before we ask the House to adjourn for its spring Recess.
  Mr. A. J. BALFOUR: If I may say so, I entirely agree with the right hon. Gentleman that it may be convenient to go beyond the ambit of the strict limits of the Resolution upon the Paper; but I rise to ask you, Mr. Speaker, on a point of Order, whether, if the Prime Minister carries out that very convenient course, it would be in order for other Members in other parts of the House to discuss it as well as to discuss the strict terms of the Resolution?
  Mr. SPEAKER: I think it must be obvious that if the Prime Minister introduces matter contingent upon, but not strictly relevant to, the Motion, it must be equally open to Members in other parts of the House to discuss the topics which he brings forward. Perhaps it might be convenient, at this stage, if I said that the Amendment standing in the name of the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy Burghs (Sir Henry Dalziel) could not be raised as an Amendment to the Motion of the Prime Minister.
  The PRIME MINISTER: If I may say so respectfully, I anticipated that that would be your ruling. If the conditions had been normal I should certainly not have gone beyond the terms of my Motion. I believe I am speaking with the general assent of Members in all quarters of the House in claiming their indulgence, whilst slightly exceeding the technical limits of the Motion now before us.
  I am going now, in a very few sentences, to outline the course the Government propose to take, in the event of this Motion being carried, after March 24th. On that day we shall propose, as I said about a week ago, that the House should adjourn until the following Tuesday, the 29th. Immediately upon its reassembling, subject, of course, always—I must make that safeguarding provision—subject to unforeseen exigencies, we shall present our proposals in regard to the relations between the two Houses of Parliament, and present them in the first instance, as I have already intimated, in the form of Resolutions. These

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  Resolutions will, I hope and believe, be both few and simple. They will affirm—I am speaking now in general terms—the necessity for excluding the House of Lords altogether from the domain of finance. They will ask this House to declare that in the sphere of legislation the power of veto, at present possessed by the House of Lords, shall be so limited in its exercise as to secure the predominance of the deliberate and considered will of this House within the lifetime of a single Parliament. Further, it will be made plain that these constitutional changes are without prejudice to, and contemplate in a subsequent year, the substitution in our second Chamber of a democratic for an hereditary basis. If this House should assent to the Resolutions, a Bill, to give effect to them, will without delay be introduced—
  Lord HUGH CECIL: Not the proposals for reform?
  The PRIME MINISTER: The operative proposals of the Resolutions.
  Lord HUGH CECIL: The academic proposals will not be included?
  The PRIME MINISTER: We shall see whether they are academic when the time comes. The Bill will give effect to the operative parts of the Resolutions, but without waiting for that Bill to pass through all its stages in this House we have come to the conclusion—and in this respect only I have to vary what I said about procedure a week ago—that in order to avoid waste of time and labour, and to bring the main issue to trial and conclusion at the earliest possible moment, the Resolutions so assented to by this House will be submitted to the House of Lords. If that House agrees to them, well and good; but whatever it does, or whether it does not, we—I mean His Majesty's Government—regard the placing with all possible promptitude upon the Statute Book of provisions which will set free this House from the veto of the House of Lords, not only as the first condition of the legislative dignity and utility of the House of Commons, but as our own primary and paramount duty. In the prosecution of that cause we shall adopt all such measures within the limits of the Constitution as seem to us proper and adequate, and upon its successful accomplishment we stake, not only our fortunes, but our existence as a Government.
  Question proposed, "That, up to and including 24th March, Government Business shall have precedence at every sitting."
  Mr. BALFOUR: The observations of the Prime Minister naturally fall into two parts—that part of his speech which was relevant to the Motion, and that part of his speech which was irrelevant to the Motion just put from the Chair. I think they are of varying degrees of interest and of varying degrees of importance. I take them in the order of their interest and of their importance, and I take what the Prime Minister said upon the Resolution before I proceed to make such observations as occur to me upon the new programme of business he has laid before the House—which his mature consideration since last Monday has induced him to lay before the House—in respect to the proposed action of this House for the alteration of the status of the House of Lords.
  With regard to the Motion before the House, it certainly seems to me that the right hon. Gentleman has got a strong case. This is the first time, I believe, since the Rules were introduced in 1902, when it has been found necessary to interfere with the rights then secured for private Members. Before 1902 the nominal rights of private Members were far greater than they are now, but those rights were restricted under the pressure of public necessity by successive Governments, with the result that nobody knew what private Bills or private Members' Resolutions were ever likely to come on, and great uncertainty and confusion were introduced into all our proceedings. We endeavoured to cure that, and I think did cure it, speaking generally, by the alteration of procedure in 1902. We greatly restricted the number of hours given to independent Members of this House for raising questions by Resolutions or introducing Bills to the notice of the House, but we hoped to secure, and have for seven years secured, that such rights as private Members possessed they should hold securely. I am sorry that the Government have found it necesasry under the special circumstances of this Session to interfere with those firmly-established privileges. But I admit that the public necessity is so great and the special circumstances of the Session are so peculiar that it is hard to say what alternative was open to the Prime Minister except the one he has actually adopted. Therefore I will content myself with asking whether

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  before this Debate concludes the Prime Minister will tell us what are the uncontroversial Departmental Bills he proposes to take on those days when Supply-will occupy but a very brief portion of the time of the House, and I also ask whether he will consider, if it should turn out that the amount of time given to Votes in Supply is, in the general view of the House, inadequate to the very large questions to be raised on them, he will do his best at some later period of the Session to remedy the necessarily hurried procedure which we must undertake if the law is to be fulfilled. These are the only two points upon which I desire information with regard to the strictly businesslike or relevant part of the right hon. Gentleman's observations.
  I turn now to his revised programme of the business after Easter. I do not complain of his having told us too much of what the Government propose to do between the Easter Recess and the holidays we are promised some time in April, but I do rather complain of a great omission from his statement. In his original statement of business made on the first day of the Session I understood the Government's plan to be that they would take in the interval between what he called the Ecclesiastical Easter holidays and the longer holidays which were to combine the ordinary Easter holidays and the Whitsuntide holidays, he proposed to take, in the first place, the Resolutions on which were subsequently to be founded a Bill for dealing with the House of Lords, and, in the second place, the Budget, and that both the Resolutions and the Budget were to be dealt with in that interval. The right hon. Gentleman said nothing inconsistent with that object, but he did not make it quite clear whether that part of the plan had suffered revision as well as the other part.
  The PRIME MINISTER: I may say at once it has not suffered any change at all. I mentioned the only variation.
  Mr. BALFOUR: Then, Sir, I also gather that the right hon. Gentleman has mentioned the only changes that have taken place in his original idea, and the Budget is the first business after Easter. I do not know that the right hon. Gentleman's speech is conclusive on that point, but he made a speech a week before the Dissolution in which he said:—
  "If we are fortunate enough to enjoy the confidence of the House."
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  I have no reason to doubt that that condition is amply fulfilled—
  "If we are fortunate to enjoy the confidence of the House its first act will be to reimpose as from this week all taxes and duties which were embodied in the Finance Bill."
  That was to be the first duty of the reassembled House. The right hon. Gentleman has since discovered that the pressure of financial business, which must legally be squeezed into the interval which separates us from the Easter holidays, makes it impossible for him to carry out in literal terms that speech. If I may remind him, there is no legal necessity for proceeding to the destruction of the House of Lords. That is not a duty imposed upon us by statute, and I should certainly have conceived that under those circumstances the right hon. Gentleman would have felt that the pledges he gave just before the late House was dissolved became operative and binding absolutely as soon as the necessary financial business was carried through. I am sure that was the intention of the Government; at any rate, it was their intention on Monday last, and certainly before the House dissolved. I am not going into the circumstances, which require no Machiavellian intellect to conjecture what has induced the right hon. Gentleman to think that there may be other more interesting and even more pressing business than that of carrying through in the early days of the financial year beginning in April, 1910, the consideration of financial proposals for the year which began in April, 1909. I should have thought, in view of the denunciations which the right hon. Gentleman then passed on another place for postponing for a few weeks the consideration of the Finance Bill—I should have thought, I confess, that that consideration and the ordinary obligations of this House to as far as possible see that within the limits of each year the financial burden of each shall be legally levied as well as legally imposed, would have induced the Government to carry out-its specific pledge of a few weeks ago, and what I venture to think was the right hon. Gentleman's implied intentions six days ago, and introduce the Budget, though not part of it. For some reason they meant to hold it in terrorem over somebody; but the right hon. Gentleman meant to introduce it first. I suppose he has been told that that is not agreeable in influential quarters, where there is a passionate desire to see the House of Lords destroyed—[MINISTERIAL cheers]—I said a passionate desire. I intended to be, and I was, a

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  faithful interpreter of the wishes and aspirations of hon. Gentlemen to whom I speak. The right hon. Gentleman finds amongst his supporters that there is a passionate desire to destroy the House of Lords, but not a passionate desire to pass the People's Budget. In these circumstances, though I am sure the right hon. Gentleman must regret, as we all do, the necessity in which he finds himself of so rapidly making tactical evolutions in the presence of the enemy, it is so intelligible and from his point of view so eminently reasonable that he would be a hardhearted and brutal critic indeed who would measure out too severe a measure of justice to right hon. Gentlemen who find themselves in a somewhat difficult and embarrassing Parliamentary situation.
  What do the Government propose? They are now going to introduce the House of Lords Resolutions before they introduce the Budget. May I ask the right hon. Gentleman how soon he hopes to be able to lay on the Table of the House these Resolutions? I understand the right hon. Gentleman says that the Resolutions for this year are to be few and simple, and we are also promised more far-reaching legislation next year upon the constitution of the House of Lords, or, rather, upon the creation of a new Second Chamber upon a representative basis. These simple Resolutions are to include a Resolution saying that the House of Lords is to have nothing whatever to do with finance. It seems to me an odd time for a Resolution of that kind, just when everybody knows that it is through the House of Lords that a freshly-elected House of Commons will have an opportunity of giving effect to what everybody knows is its real view, namely, that the Budget with which the Lords are said to have interfered does not carry out the wishes of the people. It is a most extraordinary illustration of modern democratic philosophy that directly the Second Chamber refers something to the decision of the people, and directly the decision of the people is shown to be not the decision of the last House of Commons—[Cries of "No"]—that is regarded as a conclusive proof why this outrageous interference with the will of the democracy is never again to be tolerated.
  I would ask one further question about this financial part of the Government's proposals with regard to the House of Lords. The right hon. Gentleman said that their proposals would be simple. But it does not seem to me to be very easy to
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  draw up a Resolution about the powers of the House of Lords with regard to finance in such a perfectly simple form, because everybody agrees—at least, I think everybody agrees, for even hon. Gentleman sitting immediately below the Gangway agree that the practice of tacking has from the earliest time been admitted by every constitutional authority to be an illegitimate interference by this House with the privileges of another place. I hope the Government will consider—I think they must already have considered—that an alteration of our practice, which is to prevent the House of Lords offering an opinion upon a money Bill, if it is to be tolerable at all—personally I think it is altogether wrong—but even those who think it is right must admit that it is not just that this should be made an excuse for withdrawing from the cognisance of the other House matters which are not strictly relevant to the Finance Bill. Is the Government of the day to be judge whether tacking has taken place or not? But if the Government are going to carry their so-called democratic philosophy to the point, that everything which the Government of the day thinks., is right, well, of course, there is nothing more to be said. After all, the objection to tacking was that it was abused by the Government. The reason why men of all parties and opinions at every period of our history have said that tacking was objectionable is that it enabled a majority in this House that desired to make use of this weapon to entirely destroy the whole working of the constitutional machine. Therefore, if the rules against, tacking are to be really a provision against the abuse by the majority of the financial authority of this House, you must have as judges of what tacking is either a House of Lords or some external authority, and if it is to be an external authority, I do not know that the Resolution which embodies the creation and formation of the functions, powers, and duties of that independent body—I do not see how that could be embodied in a Resolution so elementary and simple that we can pass it as a mere annexe of the Budget of 1909–10, in addition to all the other work we are expected to do between the Easter holidays and the middle of April.
  My right hon. Friend (Mr. Austen Chamberlain) points out that it is necessary for somebody to define tacking. That will not be an easy thing to do, but if it is going to be done, I hope it will not be left entirely to the discretion of the present

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  Chancellor of the Exchequer. What is the second proposal which, I understand, the right hon. Gentleman to make? He intends to make a proposal, I presume, on the lines sketched out by the First Commissioner of Works, most elaborately, in a speech to which I have already referred, and which, I understand, was an official declaration of the Cabinet a few months ago. That practically entirely destroys any power the House of Lords may possess during the first two or three years of a Parliament. That was the intention of it, and evidently the Government mean to carry it out. I do not quite understand what relation that proposal has to the creation of the representative Second Chamber which we are promised next year.
  It is notorious, and the Cabinet have made no secret of it—it certainly appeared on the very face of the Gracious Speech from the Throne—that there have been divisions in the Cabinet, one section of the Cabinet desiring a representative Second Chamber, and the other section of the Cabinet desiring the abolition of the Veto. I take it the statement the right hon. Gentleman has just made was a rather clumsy attempt to unite in Holy matrimony those two utterly incompatible views. The section of the Cabinet who want a really representative Second Chamber are to look forward in hope, if not in confidence, to the creation of such a Chamber by the legislation of next year. The other section are to have their more modest wishes immediately satisfied. But I do not quite understand how in this double policy the Government propose to approach the House of Lords. They are going, as I understand, to send up to the House of Lords, contrary to the original view of the Prime Minister, these few and simple Resolutions as soon as they have passed this House, and they are going to take what steps they can to induce the House of Lords to indorse them. Very well, but how can you possibly ask the House of Lords to indorse an interim arrangement, which leaves us without a Second Chamber, when at the very moment you are making that proposal you tell them that in your opinion there ought to be a Second Chamber, and a much stronger Second Chamber than the one which at present exists. I do not see how, without laughing and without general hilarity in every part of the Kingdom you can really ask the House of Lords to agree that for the six months, let us say, which separates the
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  Resolutions of this year and the legislation of this year from the legislation of next year, the country should be without a Second Chamber at all—practically without a Second Chamber—because, forsooth, next year you are going to introduce a measure for having a representative Second Chamber, proving beyond all controversy how valuable you think the element of a Second Chamber is in the working of the Constitution.
  I think the whole policy of the Government as now explained by the right hon. Gentleman shows an utter lack of consistent statesmanship. In every sentence and in every clause of the revised programme he has put before us you see one consideration dominant, and one consideration alone: How is the Cabinet to be kept together and what lightning conductor can they find to dissipate the threatening electrical storm which menaces them from that side of the House as well as this? I do not think this is statesmanship, though I am not at all prepared to deny it may be very good Parliamentary management. I think he may have succeeded—I have no doubt he has succeeded—in satisfying the excellent Gentlemen who sit upon the same bench as himself, and it is quite possible he may have thrown sufficient sop to the ardent One Chamber Gentlemen who sit below the Gangway on that side of the House and to the strenuous opponents of the Budget who sit below the Gangway on this side of the House, but who are prepared on grounds of high policy to sacrifice their convictions on that particular point—I do not mean in any wrong sense, but the vote they would naturally give if that subject were considered alone and the vote their constituents would like them to give—because of some greater and ulterior gain that they hope to attain. I do not know whether the payment they are receiving in the way of legislative promises may not be sufficient. It just occurs to me as I am speaking—I have not had time to consider these views, I am sorry to say; I could have put my case much better if I had had notice of what I was expected to deal with—it occurs to me while I am speaking that there may be an explanation of what I understand to be the policy of the Government, which is to abolish the House of Lords for all veto purposes in the present year, then to leave a hiatus, and afterwards to introduce a strong Second Chamber of representative government next year or some subsequent

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  Session. I suppose it is in that interval that Home Rule is to be passed. At all events, it would be an extremely ingenious idea, and if it emanates from the fertile brain of the hon. Gentleman who leads the Nationalist party, I present him all my compliments. I cannot think it would meet with the approval either of the House or of the country. Indeed, I think the country, when they read the right hon. Gentleman's speech to-morrow, will be extraordinarily desirous of knowing what is the view of the Government upon the all-important question of the position of the Second Chamber in this Legislature of ours. We shall have plenty of opportunity of seeing their policy develop when we return after the Easter holidays. Meanwhile, I am bound to say the statement of the right hon. Gentleman, however well adapted it may be for securing an era of peace for the hardly-tried Gentlemen who manage their tactical affairs in this House, however well it may be for that purpose, it will be very little adapted either for raising the impression of the country as to the statesmanship of the Government which can suggest so ill-compounded a plan and great misgivings as to the composition of the party, the clash of whose various elements is driving the Government into this unhappy procedure.
  Mr. JOHN REDMOND: I can assure the House that I am most unwilling, whatever the appearances, of obtruding the Irish view of this Question unnecessarily upon its attention. Indeed, nothing would be more pleasant to myself personally than if it were possible for me in the very grave and delicate situation in which we stand to remain silent, but I cannot do so. My colleagues and I sitting on these benches are, on the main question on which this Parliament was elected, in complete and whole-hearted agreement with the majority of hon. Members on that side of the House. [An HON. MEMBER: "On the Budget?"] No, I am not speaking of the Budget. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] That seems to surprise hon. Members above the Gangway, but I have been perfectly frank and candid, and I shall be so again before I resume my seat. I ask to be allowed to pursue my own humble argument in my own poor way. I say that on what I regard as the main question on which this House was elected, namely, the abolition of part of the veto of the House of Lords and the limitation of the rest of the veto of the House of Lords, we are in complete agreement
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  with hon. Members opposite, and on that question, which I maintain is the main question decided by the country, the right hon. Gentleman possesses a majority of 124. My object is not to pick a quarrel with him or his Government, not, indeed, to pick a quarrel with those on the other side of the House, who I know are, in the main, friends of Ireland and the Irish people, but to insist, as far as it rests with me and my colleagues, upon the right hon. Gentleman not throwing away and dissipating that great mandate and not destroying that great power he has got by receding in the smallest degree from the bold and, I believe, the statesmanlike policy which he laid down in his Albert Hall speech. Nominally, we are on a comparatively small point—whether all private Members' time is to be given to the Government between now and 24th March. My colleagues and I have always stood up in this House as the defenders of the rights and privileges of private Members. I cannot remember an occasion or any circumstances when we consented to a Motion taking away the time of private Members. Yet upon this occasion I declared last week, and I declare again now, we are willing to-morrow, without any delay at all, to pass the Budget into law, and we are willing at once to give up all private Members' time—we have already proved our willingness by the fact that we have not ballotted for any Motions or Bills since the commencement of the Session—and we are willing to give the Government a united and whole-hearted support on the one condition that they carry out what we believe to be the policy of the Government, and the policy of the Government, as understood, let me say, not only by us, but as understood by his own colleagues on that bench, and as understood by the great bulk of the Liberal party in the country.
  I will not rake up again the precise words of the pledge of the right hon. Gentleman in the Albert Hall. I dealt with that on Monday, and, while I gave my opinion frankly, I think the right hon. Gentleman himself will admit that I gave it fairly and without unnecessary offence. I do not want to rake that up again, but the right hon. Gentleman on Monday last said that so far as asking for guarantees from the Crown was concerned, it was impossible for him to do so, or any constitutional Minister, until his veto was at least proposed, and perhaps considered and passed, by this House. I admitted the

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  plea, but my admission of that plea did not excuse the Government, because I think their veto plan ought to have been agreed upon and known by them long ago. I was under the impression—a mistaken one as we understand now—that their plan was the plan of the late Sir Henry Camp-bell-Bannerman, which had been adopted by a large majority in this House, but I had to face the fact that they had not agreed upon their plan, that they had not produced their plan, and that the House of Commons had not considered it. Therefore, I admitted the right hon. Gentleman was in a strong position when he said that under those circumstances he could not approach the Crown as to the use of the Royal Prerogative. I urged upon him last week that that made the greatest, the strongest, and the most unanswerable argument in favour of the immediate production of his plan. He has told us to-day that he is going to produce a Resolution at once embodying his plan.
  But he told us further—and it was an important and interesting communication—that he is going to send that plan to the House of Lords. If it is either rejected or held up by the House of Lords, what then? The right hon. Gentleman, who is a master of lucidity, was, I am afraid, somewhat obscure on this point. These are occasions when one must speak with reference to the Crown and to the Royal prerogative and so forth in a way which, under ordinary circumstances, would be improper and perhaps out of order. But we must get to the bottom of things on an occasion like this. If the right hon. Gentleman intends, when his Resolution is rejected or hung up in the House of Lords, there and then to ask for guarantees and for the exercise of the Royal prerogative, why does he not frankly say so? If he means to do that, let him say so at once And let him say, further, if they are refused, does he intend to continue responsible for the Government of this country? I ask him, first of all, that this obscurity shall be cleared up. I ask, Is it the intention of the right hon. Gentleman, when his Resolution is suspended or rejected by the Lords, to ask for guarantees, and, if they are refused, does he propose to continue—in contradistinction to what he said in his Albert Hall speech—does he propose to continue responsible for the Government of the country?
  Meantime what about the Budget? [Ironical UNIONIST cheers.] Let hon. Members lend me their ears. So far as we on these benches are concerned we stand
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  exactly in every particular where we did this day last week. If the right hon. Gentleman will pursue the course he has indicated about the Resolution, if he will say, further, that if it is rejected he will go and ask for guarantees, and if those are refused will not consent to retain office—if he will do that, and if, in the meantime, he will suspend the consideration of the Budget, I, for my part, will vote for his Resolution to-day, and will be perfectly satisfied with the situation. But if he does not, then nothing that the right hon. Gentleman has said alters my view that we should vote against the Resolution taking all the time of the House. I notice, with great interest, that the Leader of the Opposition kindly offered assistance to the Government. I understood the right hon. Gentleman to say that he and his friends would support this Motion.
  Mr. BALFOUR: I said I did not see what the Government could do except to propose it.
  Mr. JOHN REDMOND: Do not let the Leader of the Opposition now sink into obscurity. What does he mean? Is he with his friends going to support the Motion or not? Let me give my reading of the situation. The right hon. Gentleman, the Leader of the Opposition, is afraid for his life of an immediate dissolution, whereas, from my point of view, if there is to be a dissolution at all this year, the Government have everything to gain by an early dissolution on a bold policy. [A UNIONIST MEMBER: "What about yourself?"] As to myself, I can only say if the hon. Gentleman will come down and contest my seat in Waterford, I promise him a most attentive and courteous hearing, but not many votes. I repeat I believe it would be well for the Government to have an early dissolution on a bold policy. I am quite sure that that would not suit the Leader of the Opposition and his party. Hence they are most anxious to help the Government to secure the adoption of this Motion and to carry on business for the next four weeks, getting the necessary Votes in Supply for the sake of the Empire. Hon. Members who thought nothing of the rejection of the Budget by the House of Lords last year are quite willing now to help the Government, because they do not want an early dissolution. I hope that word of wisdom and that hint as to the probable future will find some legitimate hold in the minds of hon. Gentlemen opposite.

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  One word about Reform. The Government has a mandate on the Veto. It has no mandate on Reform. Let the Government deal with Veto, and in some subsequent year or Parliament let the Liberal party or the Conservative party—led, it may be, by Lord Rosebery—tackle this question of Reform. But until the Question of the Veto is satisfactorily settled it would be madness, in my opinion, for the democracy of England to listen to the question of Reform. I am glad no mention has been made of the Referendum—that outlandish proposal which has recently appeared on this Question in some newspapers—a proposal which, for my part, I would not approve for one moment, and the effect of which would only be—[UNIONIST cheers.] Of course, you like the Referendum, but what would it involve? [UNIONIST cries of "It would kill Home Rule."] No, it would not kill Home Rule. It would mean the indefinite postponement of the curtailment of the powers of the Lords. [UNIONIST cheers.] Hon. Members having enjoyed themselves by cheering, I hope they will now listen to me for a moment. I again ask what would the Referendum mean? It would involve, in the first place, the passing of a Bill, and that Bill would be rejected by the House of Lords. The whole question would then be hung up, and all hope of getting a curtailment of the powers of the House of Lords would be put back for one or more generations. Hon. Members will, therefore, see, I think, that their cheers were a little premature.
  Let me sum up my somewhat rambling observations. I make the same plea for indulgence as was made by a far more experienced and skilful debater. Like the Leader of the Opposition, I did not know beforehand what the Prime Minister was going to say. I have been giving my impressions of his speech. I say if no guarantees are to be asked for—if the Budget is to be carried into law through all its stages, and if this Session is for months more to meander along in the ordinary humdrum fashion, as if nothing had happened—we, for our part, cannot agree to this Resolution to give up the time of private Members. We stand exactly where we did. The right hon. Gentleman has nothing to lose from the point of view of his party or from the point of view of Empire, the interests of which must, of course, be paramount—he has, I say, nothing to lose by suspending the Budget for two or three weeks longer
  608
  than he intended. He has admitted that the Budget cannot now be passed within this financial year—that is, before 31st March. It must necessarily now go over into the new financial year. Whatever loss or confusion is caused by that fact will not be materially increased by postponing the consideration of the Budget and keeping this great weapon in your hands. In his speech the Home Secretary said—and indeed everybody knows—that it is a great weapon. You lose nothing, then, by keeping that weapon in your hands for two or three weeks longer until you have gone to the Throne and asked for your guarantees. Why do you want, before the crisis comes—before the climax—to straighten out the paths for those who may perhaps follow you? Why do you want to go out of your way to run the risk of dangers to the great policy you have at heart for the sake of undoing some of the mischief caused by the action of the House of Lords? The right hon. Gentleman has nothing to lose by suspending the Budget for two or three weeks longer until we see the result of the appeal to the Throne. The Leader of the Opposition quoted just now the pledge of the Prime Minister that the Budget would be the first business of this Parliament. I quote against that a statement in his Election Address a much more important document than the report of any speech, no matter how remarkable the occasion. In his Election Address the Prime Minister said the first and most urgent step to be taken in this Parliament was limiting the veto of the House of Lords. If the right hon. Gentleman gave the pledge quoted by the Leader of the Opposition, he gave this pledge also. Let him, I beg of him, for the sake of this great cause go this one step further. If he does I am convinced he will not alienate the support or goodwill of a single man sitting behind him.
  5.0 P.M.
  I am, in one sense, in a most difficult position. I have to take a course which possibly may bring me before everything is over into conflict with the representatives of the democracy of England, although on the main issue we are absolutely united. That is a very hard thing for a man in my position, remembering my experience, extending over thirty years, in this House. There has not been a democratic measure passed in those years for England that has not been passed by our votes and with our aid in this House. We have on every occasion supported the representatives of the democracy in England. They have, in

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  the main, supported us, and there are bonds of steel between us on the really great principles that divide party politics in this country. It will be a very hard thing if a wrench occurs between us. I hope one will not. My desire is not to say one word to alienate the friendship of those old and true friends of Ireland on the other side of the House. But at the same time, I believe, if the right hon. Gentleman does not follow out to the letter and in the spirit the pledges on which he gained his majority of 124 there will result nothing but disaster to the hopes of the democratic party in this country. I ask hon. Gentlemen opposite, even if they may differ from me in the future—I do not honestly think we differ much at present on anything I have said on this Question—but if they differ from me in the future upon any action that we may take, I ask them to believe that we take it reluctantly, that we are anxious to work hand in hand with them, that we have the same object as they have—to free the democracy of this country from that power which, so long as it exists, will effectually and permanently prevent the realisation of all their most cherished dreams and aspirations. I thank the House for having listened to me so patiently, and I conclude by saying again, that unless I hear further from the right hon. Gentleman on these two points about the guarantees to be asked from the Throne and his action afterwards, and the suspension of the Budget meantime, my Friends and I will vote against this Motion.
  Lord HUGH CECIL: Strictly speaking, the Motion is one for considering how we shall deal with the time before Easter. The question that is propounded is very much that which is heard in the churches at this time of the new year—what good work can we do in Lent? The Government have their own very modest plan of settling their account and paying their bills, but much more polemical matter of considerable interest has been introduced. In the speech of the hon. Member for Waterford (Mr. John Redmond), to which we have just listened, the hon. Member put his finger in a moment on what is the real difficulty in the Government's way. I confess that I commiserate with the Prime Minister to some extent. He has gone a long way from the position he took up with a great show of resolution on the first night
  610
  of the Session. Then the right hon. Gentleman treated the suggestion that the Resolutions should go to the House of Lords with something like contempt. Now the Resolutions are to go to the House of Lords. Then he went a few steps further from his path to explain that he had not the slightest intention of asking for any constitutional guarantees—for any guarantees; they certainly are not constitutional.
  The PRIME MINISTER: What I said was this: That if the occasion arose, I would tender such advice to the Crown, as having regard to the exigencies of the case, I thought desirable in the public interest. The Noble Lord represents me as having the intention that I would never ask.
  Lord HUGH CECIL: I did not say "never."
  The PRIME MINISTER: I distinctly repudiate any such idea.
  Lord HUGH CECIL: The right hon. Gentleman certainly said that before the matter had been submitted to both Houses of Parliament, it would be quite out of the question to ask for them; but now, on this occasion, he has said nothing whatever on this subject, and yet it is a subject on which he very well knows the votes of hon. Members behind me depend. As the hon. Member for Waterford says, what is the use of playing fast and loose with a great constitutional question? If the right hon. Gentleman is, as I believe him to be, a constitutional Minister, he must know very well that the advice he is urged to give would be a scandalous outrage upon the Constitution of the country. I have been at pains to investigate the any two precedents on the subject. The course recommended by the hon. Member for Waterford was, though in an immensely more moderate degree, taken in the reign of Queen Anne—that is to say, twelve Peers were created. As soon as the House of Hanover came to the Throne the great Whig House of Commons, which was responsible for setting the House of Hanover on the Throne, impeached Robert Earl of Oxford for giving the advice to the Queen which was supposed to have resulted in the creation of those Peers. The language is somewhat bombastic, and will probably make the House laugh, because it smacks of the eighteenth century, but it does not lack vigour. The sixteenth article of the

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  impeachment of Robert Earl of Oxford, as passed by the House of Commons, runs:—
  "That whereas the said Robert Earl of Oxford, having on all occasions used his utmost endeavours to subvert the ancient established Constitution of Parliaments, the great and only security of the Prerogatives of the Crown and of the Rights, Liberties and Properties, of the People, and being most wickedly determined, at one fatal blow, as far as in him lay, to destroy the freedom and independency of the House of Lord, the great ornament and nearest support of the Imperial Crown of the Realms, and falsely intending to disguise his mischievous purposes under a pretended zeal for the Prerogative of the Crown; he, the said Robert Earl of Oxford, on or about the months of December or January, 1711, whilst the House of Lords were under an adjournment, and had reason to expect that, on their next meeting, matters of the highest importance would be communicated to them from the Throne; they having, some few days before, given their humble opinion and advice to Her Majesty, that no peace could be safe or honorable to Great Britain or Europe, if Spain and the West Indies were to be allotted to any branch of the House of Bourbon; being the Lord High Treasurer of Great Britain, and one of Her Majesty's Privy Council, and assuming to himself an arbitrary discretion and control of Her Majesty's Councils, contrary to his duty and his oath and in violation of the great trust reposed in him, and with an immediate purpose to render ineffectual the many earnest representations of Her Majesty's allies against the said negotiations of peace, as might shelter and protect his secret and unwarrantable proceedings, together with other false and evil councillors, did advise Her Majesty to create and make 12 Peers of this realm and Lords of Parliament; and pursuant to his destructive counsels, Letters Patent did forthwith pass, whereby 12 Peers were made and created; and did likewise advise Her Majesty immediately to call and summon them to Parliament; which being done accordingly, they took their seats in the House of Lords on or about January 2, 1711, to which day the House then stood adjourned, whereby the said Robert Earl of Oxford did most highly abuse the influence he then had with Her Majesty, and prevailed on her to exercise in the most unprecedented and dangerous manner, that valuable and undoubted prerogative which the wisdom of the laws and constitution of the Kingdom hath entrusted with the Crown for the rewarding of signal virtue and distinguished merit; by which desperate advice he did not only, as far as in him lay, deprive Her Majesty of the continuance of those seasonable and wholesome counsels in that critical juncture, but wickedly perverted the true and only end of that great and useful prerogative, to the dishonour of the Crown and the irreparable mischief to the Constitution of Parliaments."
  I quite agree, and, as I have said, the language is somewhat bombastic, as the language of legal documents of that period was apt sometimes to be, but from the point of view of constitutional law there could not be a more conclusive proof that the course now recommended is unconstitutional. If any impeachment by the House of Commons does not determine a constitutional point of that kind there is an end of the determination of constitutional points of law altogether.
  Then we come to 1832. The Reform Bill was first rejected in the House of Lords, and there followed a dissolution. It was then sent up to the House of Lords and rejected on the Second Reading. After the Prorogation which then followed, and
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  before the introduction of the third Reform Bill, Lord Althorpe, who was the Leader of the House of Commons and principal Minister in charge of the Bill, wrote to Lord Grey:—
  "I told him that I felt a very decided objection to making any great number, and that I was convinced that the Cabinet would not agree to make this application to the King. His answer was that if this was the case he had made up his mind to resign. I advised him to speak to you about this tomorrow. I confess that I have had my misgivings upon this subject, and that was the reason I mentioned it to you this morning. I feel what I believe to be an insurmountable objection to overwhelming the House of Lords by a large creation of Peers; but still I must admit that if it was clearly proved to me that a revolution would be the consequence of not taking this step, and that not only the House of Lords but every other thing of value in the country would be overturned, it would be a very strong tiling to say it ought not to be taken."
  Those are the precedents and the course which the right hon. Gentleman is recommended to take is to create not ten or sixty peers, but to advise the Crown to create five hundred. What makes it most amazing is that when it is asked why that advice should be given at this particular moment the answer is not because the right hon. Gentleman has such a hold upon public opinion, that however often the country is asked it is certain to support him, but, on the contrary, that if the matter is put off for a few months, so-ephemeral, so precarious is the hold of his policy on public opinion, that the country will certainty take the other view and the Government will not get the necessary support at the next election. That is to ask the Sovereign to make hay of the Constitution while the setting sun of Radicalism still shines. The plain truth of the matter is that the course pressed on the Government is unconstitutional to the point of insanity. There is not merely no precedent, but there is nothing even distantly resembling a precedent for such a course. That being so, there remains only to consider whether the Government's own plan is one which will meet the reasonable desires of hon. Members to introduce a constitutional reform. The Government plan, as I understand, is to bring forward a Resolution, to carry it through this House, to bring it forward in the House of Lords and then to wait and see what happens. They expressly refrain from saying that they would at that stage make any application to the Crown. I do not understand what advantage there is in the change. If these veto Resolutions are to go no further, if there is not to be a Bill founded upon them, I do not understand why the Budget is to be postponed and why the more convenient course of taking

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  the Budget is not to be adopted. I understand very well that what the Government are really trying to do is, by a series of manœuvres, to avert the evil day when the discrepancy among their supporters becomes manifest by a Division. They conceive, and this is the fundamental error, that they can carry through a great national revolution by a series of log-rolling manœuvres.
  It must be admitted that they dare not submit the Budget to the consideration of the House of Commons till they have squared a certain number of votes from Ireland by offering a wholly different consideration. They know perfectly well that they cannot propose Home Rule to this House without alienating a great body of British public opinion, which is not less indispensable. Accordingly, Home Rule is postponed to an indefinite future. The Government has a majority in favour of the abolition of the Veto of the House of Lords, but that majority wholly depends on various considerations first to one section of opinion and then to another, and yet they think they can carry through a revolution. Was there ever such a masquerading of statesmanship? I have examined many calculations which have been made as to the numbers of the last election, which are all very interesting if you are analysing a party victory, but a party victory is not the same thing as a national movement, and you cannot change the fundamental constitution of the country without a national movement. Supposing this insane plan of creating 500 peers is carried out does anybody think it will finally settle the Question, and that a Second Chamber numbering 1,100 peers would be a permanent part of the polity of this country. As soon as a more rational House of Commons was returned the matter would be reopened, and a Second Chamber of a proper kind would be created. Was there ever a more insane folly than the notion that by linking together certain large bodies of opinion and straining the Royal prerogative past all precedent you can get a revolution, which, if it is to be lasting, must depend on the will of the people, extending far beyond the limits of one party or one class.
  Personally I hear with great regret that the reform of the House of Lords is to be postponed to a future Session, so far as the Government are concerned. I believe that reform of the Second Chamber is the true solution of the difficulty in which we find ourselves, but, of all the silly proposals
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  first to abolish the Veto of the Second Chamber and then to reform its Constitution! We have all heard of the plan of making a cucumber salad, of slicing, peppering, salting, and vinegaring it, and then throwing it out of the window. The Government plan is a different one. They begin by throwing the cucumber out of the window, and next year they are going to get the cruet-stand and make a salad. A more futile proposal was never made. If you are going to take the trouble to reform the Second Chamber, I presume you are going to give it certain substantial powers, but, if so, why do a thing so necessarily difficult and offensive as abolishing the powers of the present Second Chamber altogether this year? The plain, natural course is, first to reform the composition of your Second Chamber, and then see what powers you propose that the reformed Chamber should have. But you begin at the wrong end. To begin by destroying the thing altogether is only defensible on those principles of party tactics which alone guide the Government. Let us have done with the pretensions of the Government to taking a strong and statesmanlike attitude on a difficult matter. They have already changed their attitude twice. In the Albert Hall speech it is manifest that they contemplated an immediate appeal to revolutionary resources. Since then they have modified the position, and last Monday the Budget was to come before the Veto, or the initial stages of the Budget; and the Resolutions were not to go to the House of Lords at all. Now they have made a third modification, and the Resolutions on the Veto Bill are to come before the Budget, the Budget being wedged into an extraordinarily narrow place. It is like a poor relation. I have heard the statement made by an old gentleman that we all have some relations whom we are ashamed of. The Government have now quite a large number of these legislative relations. The first is the Budget, which used to be their favourite child, and now, poor thing! must be kept out of sight lest it be contumeliously rejected before they have had time to develop their own proposals. Then there is Home Rule. That has long been in a position of very doubtful welcome. It is lucky if it gets a place at the lower table when it dines with the Prime Minister. Now there is to be a third one, the reform of the House of Lords, which is put off till the next year, and I doubt whether it will ever be admitted within

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  the precincts of Downing Street at all. Already there are some people who would rather that it was away. Gentlemen on this side do not like the Budget, and Gentlemen on that side do not like the reform of the House of Lords. It is only on the Treasury Bench that there is anything like complacency about the proposals the Government put forward.
  It is not by the tactics of a faction that you can do these things. It is not in order, in the Prime Minister's phrase, to obtain all the objects on which the Liberal party have set their hearts, that you can make a great constitutional change. You want to approach the matter in a wide spirit, you want to try and find out what the great majority of the people really care for, and what they really want, and not rake together eighty Members from this side and forty from that into the Lobby in favour of some proposal which, by its ambiguity, more or less satisfies both the one and the other. What you want is to treat the matter with something like the patriotic feeling with which the great men of the past have treated matters of equal importance. If not, you are doomed to fail. Already hon. Members sit there, a gang of disconcerted wreckers, engaged on an enterprise of which only the destructive character has any attractive aspect for their supporters. They will go on from bad to worse. All these ingenious, dexterous explanations and renewed explanations, and explanations once more renewed, will not save them in the end from the fatal weakness of propounding a policy which has no national support behind it in the least commensurate with its importance. Sooner or later it will become clear that those have the title to the confidence of the country who are prepared to reform and to work the Constitution, and to reform and work it in the interest of the nation as a whole, and not those who, at the bidding of conflicting passions and in the interests of merely partisan objects, are resolved to destroy what is ancient without any sense of the gravity of their enterprise, and without any measure of the support by which alone such an enterprise can be carried through.
  Sir HENRY DALZIEL: The speech of the Noble Lord, whose return to this House we all cordially welcome, may be summed up in one phrase, and that is, that there is no precedent for the course which is indicated by the Prime Minister. I will say to the Noble Lord that we are not
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  here to-day to be governed entirely by precedent. I do not agree with the Noble Lord that there is no complete precedent for the course that is indicated, but we are here, if necessary, to make a precedent. Does the Noble Lord suggest that, no matter how high a majority, no matter how strong the feeling in the country may be, under no possible and conceivable circumstances can the will of the people, as expressed to the House of Commons, be made effective in law? Is that the position of the Noble Lord that if we came back to-morrow with 300 or 400 majority he can show us no way in which we can make the will of the people supreme if the House of Lords stands in the way?
  Lord HUGH CECIL: You do not anticipate a majority.
  Sir HENRY DALZIEL: The Noble Lord anticipated a majority at the last election but did not get it. Of course we anticipate a majority under conditions which deserve a majority. Can he show me one way out of a position in which we have an overwhelming majority returned to the House of Commons for a certain policy and the House of Lords stands in the way other than the weapon which we suggest should be used by the Prime Minister? There is no other constitutional way. Therefore if the Noble Lord agrees with me in regard to that it is tantamount to saying that no matter how united the democracy, or how determined on a given policy, it must always be subordinate to the will of the House of Lords. That is a totally indefensible condition of things, and that way breathes revolution. If that is the position of the Tory party we welcome the situation. We suggest proceeding by constitutional means; we are determined if it is possible by constitutional means to assert the will of the people as expressed by the electorate. I consider that the Noble Lord's speech failed entirely to suggest any course but the one which we are asking the Prime Minister to adopt. We had rather a remarkable speech from the Leader of the Opposition. Like all his supporters now, even the Noble Lord, he is in a terrible state of anxiety about the fate of the Budget, this Budget that represents Socialism and robbers, and injustice, and all the other things we heard at the election. They are in a desperate state of mind lest it should be lost. I can hardly understand the consistency of that position. The friends of the Budget will take care of the Budget, and I am hopeful and confident that the

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  Budget will still pass into law. The Leader of the Opposition complained that the Budget was being held up, so to speak, in order that the veto might be proceeded with. The premier position for the veto has been our policy throughout the election, and it is our policy now. The Leader of the Opposition said the Prime Minister had said that their first duty would be to carry the Budget. I will read exactly what the Prime Minister said:
  "The limitation of the veto is the first and most urgent step to be taken, for it is a condition precedent to the attainment of the great legislative reforms which our party has at heart."
  Speaking in East Fife on 18th January, he said:
  "I promise no legislation of any kind in the next Parliament until we have settled our conclusions with the House of Lords, and until we have overcome the obstacle, the permanent obstacle, that prevents us from giving effective expression and legislative embodiment for those views, it is no good whatever talking about legislation for the benefit of the people."
  So that on nearly all the occasions on which the Prime Minister has alluded to the question of policy in this new Parliament he was clear and distinct that his intention was to deal with the veto in the first place. Therefore, I consider we are justified in pressing that course upon the Government. I conceive it to be impossible, in an important Debate like this, to put any plea forward on behalf of the independent private Member so far as the taking of his time is concerned. I have raised that question on many previous occasions and in many previous Parliaments, but I am reluctantly forced to the conclusion that, so far as the private Member is concerned, our usefulness is that his political life is now almost finally closed. Both sides of the House are treated in the same fashion. They deal with us sometimes gently, sometimes severely, but the end is the same. The private Member to-day has no real power whatever. The ideal private Member in the eyes of the Leaders on both Front Benches is one who will always cheer Ministers at the right moment and always vote in the right Lobby. Therefore I think it is useless to put in a plea on his behalf on the present occasion. But what we can do when our time is taken from us is to use what influence we have to see that the time is properly occupied and, of course, the speech the Prime Minister has made this afternoon has very materially altered the whole situation so far as the outlook in this House is concerned. As I understand the statement of the Prime Minister, it is that we are now to have the Resolutions at the
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  earliest possible date embodying the policy with regard to the House of Lords, and that the Question of the Second Chamber is not to be dealt with in any shape or form in the course of the present Session. If that is the view of the Government, while it is not by any means satisfactory, it is a little better than the position taken up by them last week. As to the Resolutions, I regret exceedingly that their policy has not been introduced in the first place by way of a Bill. I think, and I always have thought, that the first reading of a Bill in regard to their policy, as soon as their policy was Tabled, at the earliest date, would have given great satisfaction indeed to their supporters, and would greatly relieve an acute situation. But that is not the policy of the Government. If I have any influence with them, I would ask them now to alter it, to drop the Resolutions and to introduce their policy in a Bill. But, of course, I see difficulties in regard to that. I see the difficulty, perhaps, that you cannot at the same moment introduce the policy into the House of Lords. I still consider, as we with a majority in this House were returned for one plain purpose, namely, to carry out a Bill to abolish the veto of the House of Lords, that that policy ought to be placed in a Bill and sent from this House with the least possible delay. Of course, Resolutions have this advantage, that if there are certain Members of the Cabinet who are in favour of what is called a strong elective Second Chamber, then probably their political conscience is satisfied with the fact that the Resolutions are really not to take the effect of law. From that point of view I greatly regret it. I see no advantage in Resolutions. They will take practically as much time as a Bill would take. They are bound to do so, and therefore we shall have to go through the whole process again, going over the same ground and prolonging the Session much longer than would otherwise be the case. The only possible advantage I see for Resolutions is that they bring the issue in its final form nearer to us so far as this House is concerned.
  As I understand the intentions of the Government are to have the Resolutions embodied in the main clauses of the proposed Bill, and that there will be nothing in regard to the alteration of the constitution of the Second Chamber. Therefore we have progressed a little from the position taken up last week. We are to have these Resolutions without any mention of the alteration of the constitution of the

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  Second Chamber introduced in this House. The Government hope and believe that they will be accepted by a majority in this House, and that we shall record the highest majority possible in this House in support of them. At the same moment the House of Lords will be considering the same Resolutions, and of course one does not need to be a prophet to know that the Resolutions will be rejected by the House of Lords. The only tactical point in favour of the Resolutions is the saving of time in regard to this House. If the House of Lords are uncompromisingly opposed to the substance of the Resolutions, we will know at once whether there is any possibility of our policy as embodied in the Resolutions being turned into law. If the House of Lords reject the Resolutions, then, of course, to use a common phrase, "the fat is in the fire." We shall know then where we are. We know that the House of Commons is in favour of this policy, and, by the way, not committed to any elective Second Chamber, and I am content to support the Government so long as they go on the principle of dealing with the Veto, and then being able to deal with the question of the constitution of the Second Chamber when the opportunity arrives. The Government would know that they have a large majority in the House of Commons for the limitation of a veto on the lines of the Campbell-Bannerman Resolutions, and at the same time they could anticipate being in possession of the information that the House of Lords is opposed to the Resolutions. They would naturally say, "What is the use of us wasting the time of the House of Commons passing a Bill when the House of Lords is totally hostile to the purpose of our policy?" We would then arrive at a very interesting situation—a situation which the leader of the Irish party put to the Government. What is the intention of the Government at that point? When they get a majority of this House, as I believe they would for these Resolutions, and when they are rejected in the House of Lords, what is the Government going to do? Are they going then to the Crown to ask for the guarantees of which we heard so much during the election? I think that is the position we have got to get to if there is any reality in the policy of the Government. If they can assure us that the moment a condition of things has arrived such as I have indicated, they will then
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  and there make up their minds to ascertain in a constitutional fashion, after the Bill has passed through this House, embodying the policy of the Resolutions, the attitude of the Crown, this, I think, will leave no doubt that there is real daylight in regard to the policy we are supporting. For my part, if the Government will give a pledge that that is their policy, having arrived at that state of things, and that they intend to ask those guarantees, they will have my most hearty and loyal support.
  But why all this delicacy and explanation now of the position of the Government in regard to guarantees? We know the position of the Prime Minister in regard to them. He tells us exactly where he stands in regard to them. He tells us we are under a misapprehension, and that our votes were obtained under a false interpretation of what he said. He says we misinterpreted his statement when we thought that he, immediately after the election, would ask for guarantees. I am one of those who made the mistake. I was at the Albert Hall and heard the speech, and that was my interpretation of it. I believe it was the interpretation of the audience he was addressing. I know it was the interpretation of the leading organs in the Press next morning. We at once accept the interpretation which he now gives of his position. But what is the position of other Members who sit on the Treasury Bench? The Home Secretary the other night accused us in this matter. The right hon. Gentleman said it was absurd and unreasonable that we should form the view that guarantees were to be asked for before any legislation was carried out. What did the right hon. Gentleman himself say next night after the Albert Hall meeting? After the lecture he gave us the other night it is exceedingly interesting to see what his immediate interpretation was of the Prime Minister's statement. I may say that I gave him notice that I would call attention to what he said in order that he might be here to correct me if I am wrong. The right hon. Gentleman, speaking at Oldham on 11th December, said:—
  "The Prime Minister in his speech last night, said with a clearness none could mistake and with a solemnity all could appreciate, that no Liberal Government will ever again take or hold office under the conditions which have prevailed in the Parliament which is now drawing to a close. This is a statement which is binding on every Liberal, official or unofficial. If you support us the consequences of this declaration cannot fail to emerge in action after the election is concluded."
  There is no mistaking what that means if the English language means anything.

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  It means that the policy as understood by the Home Secretary was that the Liberal Government would not take or hold office unless they had the guarantees which I understand they are going to ask for. The right hon. Gentleman made the same statement at Manchester. He said:—
  "Whatever may be the result of the election be sure of this, no Liberal Government will at any future time bear the burden of office without securing guarantees that the reforms should be carried out. (Prolonged cheers)."
  The right hon. Gentleman has not only continued to bear the burden of office, but he has taken on an increased burden. He has taken on the burden of the Home Office, an appointment which I venture to say is thoroughly well deserved and very popular among the supporters of the Government. The Prime Minister's statement seems to have been a tit-bit with the right hon. Gentleman, for he in his speeches invariably brought in the sentence about guarantees. He made similar statements to that which I have quoted at Southport, Dundee, Inverness, Bristol, and Glasgow Then he comes here and tells us that it is absurd and unreasonable for us to suppose that they were to have guarantees before they produced their policy. I say it is a very inconsistent position, and I should like to hear the Home Secretary endeavouring to reconcile the statement he made a few evenings ago with what he said at the places I have named. I could quote the Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Hobhouse) and other Members of the Government who said exactly the same thing. Therefore, whether we like it or not, we have to face the fact that the supporters of the Government in this House put that interpretation on the Prime Minister's speech, with regard to his policy, and we are returned here to carry out that policy. We say, therefore, that if there is any weakness in the political situation, it is not the weakness of the Liberal party in this House. I do not pretend to speak for anyone but myself, but so far as I have ascertained, the feeling is that that is the first policy of the Government, and that we are willing to support them in every way, and on every possible occasion, if they will show that they earnestly desire to carry out the policy the country gave a verdict upon. So much for guarantees.
  Let me say one word about the new policy which has been launched upon us during the past few days. I suppose no one will deny that the proposal to tinker the Second Chamber is a new policy so far as the Government are concerned. During
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  the election it was no part of the Government programme. The Prime Minister is the proper exponent of the policy of his party. He made his statement at the Albert Hall, and in it there was not a single word about Second Chamber policy. The policy there was the Campbell-Bannerman Resolutions. He spoke afterwards on many occasions throughout the country. Speaking at Ipswich, he pointed out the three great issues before the electorate at that time, and there was not a single word or hint about an alteration in the constitution of the Second Chamber. In his election address there was not a word about the reconstitution of the Second Chamber. Not a single word in any of the speeches which he delivered gave any indication whatever that that was to be the policy of the Prime Minister if he was returned by a majority to this House. Therefore I say we have grave reason to complain of the Government that without any consultation with the party, without any mandate whatever from the country, within the last few days and since the beginning of the Session, they have launched a policy on the party and the country of which hitherto they gave us no indication whatever. I ask the House to mark this. Every Minister who has spoken since the Government came into office after the election has advocated a Second Chamber policy. He has advocated an alteration in the constitution of the Second Chamber. Take the Under-Secretary for the Colonies (Colonel Seely). He goes down to fight an election, and what does he say is the first policy of the Government? He says he is not speaking for the Government, but as he is Under-Secretary for the Colonies I presume he does not ask the electors to return him to support a policy which he does not anticipate will be the policy of the Government. He wants to be elected on the same democratic franchise. The policy of the Second Chamber is interdependent with regard to the other policy of the veto, and he says that that Chamber ought to be formed and the relations between the two Chambers should be on the lines laid down in the case of South Africa.
  That is a new policy for a Government candidate. It is not the policy which the Under-Secretary for the Colonies advocated when he was standing as a candidate for Liverpool. So therefore some change must have taken place in the situation. Some new policy has been brought forward in the Cabinet, and I suppose that we are

  623
  expected without any notice or without any consultation to give it our most hearty support. I tell the Cabinet and every Member of the Front Bench that they are there because we support them in this House, and it is not open to any Cabinet to force a policy on the party for which no mandate has been obtained from the country, and as to which I very much doubt if they have any majority in this House. Here is the most serious aspect, I think, of this new policy. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy went down the other night to a by-election in which he is now engaged and enunciated there his new policy. He said: "And now comes the question, What is the Government to do next? Some people have been writing to the newspapers, thinking it is quite easy for the House of Commons to pass what they call a Veto Bill before they pass the Budget, and they think that we ought at once to deal with the House of Lords. I will tell you"—he, a Member of the Cabinet, fresh from the Cabinet Council—"what the Government themselves propose. They propose before we attempt to deal with the Budget that we shall give Parliament an opportunity to discuss and take a vote upon our proposals as to how the House of Lords ought to be constituted and what powers ought to be conferred upon them. If the House of Commons then decide to support the Government proposals we shall rapidly, I trust, pass through its various stages the Budget Bill, and we shall then proceed to carry out in the form of a Bill the proposals in regard to the reconstitution of the House of Lords which will then come before Parliament in the form of a Bill."
  It is quite clear, therefore, that the policy of the Cabinet was to bring in a Bill immediately for the reconstitution of the House of Lords. I am very glad indeed, and it is very satisfactory, I think, that that policy has now been abandoned. It is not now the policy of the Government to proceed this Session, as the Chancellor of the Duchy said, with a Bill for the re-constitution of the Second Chamber. Therefore, I think that the protest which has been made by some of us outside this House has had its effect, and I am very glad that the Government have recognised the strong feeling of the country with regard to this proposal of a reconstituted Second Chamber. As I indicated before, we are here for one policy alone. We believe that the Government have a majority
  624
  to carry that policy to a successful issue. We have no desire in the slightest degree to embarrass either the Prime Minister or the Government. We are anxious to support them. But if they desire our support, they must proceed upon the policy which we were elected to support. They must not abandon that policy and take on a new policy which was never before the country.
  Let the Government go boldly forward with their policy of limitation of veto. Let them keep absolutely aside this question of the reformed Second Chamber, and I believe they will be able to make good progress. It is not only as to the form of the proposed Second Chamber that I object. I say that by launching this policy you are turning the public mind into a new channel which was never anticipated, and which can only have the effect of weakening public opinion, so far as our other policy is concerned. Therefore, we must limit ourselves to the policy which we were elected to support. If the Government make it clear that if these Resolutions are adopted they will ask for guarantees before wasting any more of the time of the House—because, after all, it is wasting the time of the House if we are unable to do anything effective with regard to the larger question of policy—and if it is clear that the question of a reconstituted Second Chamber is not an integral part of their policy, and that there will be a full and free opportunity of opposing and giving our views with regard to it when the proper time arrives, if the Government show earnestness in carrying out that policy, then I believe they will receive the hearty support of the great mass of the party both in this House and in the country.
  Mr. T. M. HEALY: As everything which has been said to-night has been directed to a consideration of the action of the Government, I should like to say a few words with regard to the action of the Opposition, because it seems to me, from the point of view of independent Members, that after what has occurred during the past week independent Members of this House may now go about their business. I should like to point out what has occurred since we met on the first night of the Session. The Government then laid down an important line of policy. They were quarrelled with, and quarrelled with seriously, by a number of their supporters, and undoubtedly a crisis of considerable magnitude developed. What did the leaders of the Opposition do? Instead of keeping the Government on the run, instead of pressing them in any way, or

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  causing them any embarrassment, the first thing they did was they sprang to the rescue of His Majesty's advisers, for they put down a Motion which they knew very well would not command a majority of Members of this House against His Majesty's Government. They put down the Motion of the Member for Worcester in respect of Tariff Reform, and thereby, after the exciting days of Monday and Tuesday, delivered us over to the dullness of Wednesday and Thursday, and as if that was not enough, on Friday they gave us Hops, well knowing, as they must have known, that if they come here as an Opposition to oppose the Government, the business of an Opposition is to oppose.
  What have we had to-day? If this were an ordinary Session no doubt ordinary tactics should prevail. This is not an ordinary Session. This is a Session in which we have had a King's Speech promising us no Bills except Bills dealing with the question of the House of Lords and the Budget. And accordingly to say that we would treat the Government on an occasion of this kind by considering what is the convenience of the Government, seems to me to involve this proposition—that we are considering not the convenience of the Government, but the convenience of the Opposition; because if the Opposition are serious, if they believe the Budget to be bad, as I believe in regard to Ireland it is bad, if they believe the proposals of the Government in regard to the House of Lords are bad, and if the Opposition believe that they have the country behind them, I should have imagined that the Opposition would have grasped the very first opportunity of turning the Government out. The Member for Kirkcaldy (Sir H. Dalziel), who has just sat down, said with regard to the Members of the Government: "They are there because we support them in this House." I say they are not there for any such reason. They are there because the Opposition support them, or rather they are there because the Opposition do not oppose them. And accordingly I think it well that the country should consider whether this House is not engaged in a game of make-believe, and I am greatly afraid it is, because so far as last week is concerned we know this, that on Friday the great thing that was troubling the Opposition was whether that terrible calamity was about to occur, that they would defeat the Government and put them in a minority. Can anybody deny that? And accordingly now what
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  you have done by the promise of the Opposition to support this Motion is this, that this terrible Government which you condemn so much, and the authors of this Budget which you hate so much, are being given by you a complete reprieve until Easter next. And that being so I ask anybody outside this House, where these games are not understood, to say can their conduct as an Opposition be regarded as serious? We know very well that regard must be had to tactics. There is an old proverb which seems to me to be in point in this case:—
  "He that will not when he may
  When he will he shall have nay."
  And I am seriously concerned, having regard to my antagonism to the Irish portion of this Budget whether if this game goes on the sole result of the Session will be that the Government will have sent their Budget up to the House of Lords, and having passed that Budget will have escaped, and the Opposition will have refrained from coming to close quarters with them. That is practically my summation of the present situation as between both sides of the House, and I simply take note of this fact that whenever the Opposition find the Irish determined to vote against the Government they are going to support the Government, and whenever the Irish find that the Opposition are going to support the Government then the Irish will oppose the Government, which is a situation that from the point of view of the independent Member, if I may use a French expression to express it, is I find difficult of orientation.
  6.0 P.M.
  That is the situation. Let the Government distinctly understand that any threats that may be held out to them as regards either tactics or the House of Lords by their dissatisfied supporters, such as the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy, they can treat absolutely with disdain, because on that side of their policy they are certain of the support of the Opposition. Then, whenever the Opposition threaten them with any terrible pains or penalties, they may be satisfied that their independent supporters opposite will grow suddenly loyal and that the Irish Members will abstain. And so it shall go on from month to month during this Session, neither party avowing what is the fact, that they do not want another dissolution of Parliament. I think, therefore, I may be sure that what I have said will not be grateful to any section of this House, but I believe, at the same time, it is most essential that serious

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  people outside who regard us as serious people inside should know exactly where we are. Therefore, so far as I am concerned, I do not think it matters in the smallest degree if the Opposition intend to support this Motion or intend to abstain. I do not think it matters in the smallest degree whether they pass the Motion or whether they do not. The Opposition have made up their minds that this terrible Government, on which they have lavished so much talk, and this terrible policy to which they are so much opposed, shall have another reprieve. They have given them a long day, and the result is that persons like myself may go away about their business.
  Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: The hon. and learned Member for Louth has given his view of the situation in which the House is placed, and the position which is occupied by different parties in it. The hon. and learned Member said he was afraid that the expression of his opinion would not be grateful to any party in this House, and I think that gave a certain added satisfaction to the expression of his view. Though I cannot agree with what he considers to be the attitude of Gentlemen on these benches, I do agree with him that it is desirable that the country outside should understand what we are doing, and should pierce behind the make-believe, of which there has been so much during the short sitting we have had in the present Parliament. The position of the Opposition was clearly stated by my right hon. Friend on the day after the opening of the House at a function at the Constitutional Club. The hon. and learned Member for Louth suggests that we are refraining from coming to close quarters with the Government. We are anxious to come to close quarters with them at the earliest possible moment on the big and real issues which divide us from them. On these great issues, whether they concern the relations of the two Houses, or whether they concern the Budget of the expiring year, we are ready to take up the challenge at any moment when the Government will throw it down. If we have any criticism to make on the conduct of business by the Government under these circumstances, it is that they have gone back from the definite statement of the Prime Minister that the Budget should be the first business brought before the House of Commons, and that the Government would, at the
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  earliest possible moment, take the opinion of the House upon it. What is it that the hon. and learned Member would have us do? He says we are consulting the convenience of the Government. I shall not, of course, be talking disrespectfully of Ministers if I say that their convenience is not a matter with which we really have any concern. They will understand the sense in which I use those words; there is no personal discourtesy to them.
  But when great issues of this kind are at stake and when the real business of the country is concerned, personal convenience is a matter which always has to be sacrificed, by Ministers first of all. It is not the convenience of Ministers that troubles or concerns us at all; it is the question of how the King's Government is to be carried on that troubles us. There is certain necessary business which must be done unless the law is to be broken, and unless, even with a broken law, the grave difficulties and possibly a complete standstill be produced in our Executive Government. Unless the financial business which the Government have announced will be taken before Easter, is taken and passed by the two Houses of Parliament, there is no authority to pay the soldiers or sailors, there is no authority to pay the Civil Service, and there is no authority to pay old age pensions. There is no money to pay any of these things, and if there were money there is no authority in anyone to issue it for that purpose. Under these circumstances, we are governed by the principles laid down for us by my right hon. Friend when he said that in all that was necessary for carrying on the King's Government we shall be ready to give His Majesty's Ministers any support we see necessary, as long as they concentrate their efforts on those measures that are so necessary, and still refrain from interposing between the House and the consideration of the Budget, which is long overdue, and is only one degree less necessary than the financial business of which I have spoken, any other contentious business. The hon. and learned Member says that if we mean business we should have jumped at and sprung at and grasped at the first opportunity of turning the Government out. We do not so read our duty to the country or to our constituents. We want a clear issue, we want to come to close quarters with big issues, but we are not going to upset the Government of the country on some minor point or side issue, when the Government are demanding no more than is necessary

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  for any Government to demand, and when the result of defeating them would be to throw the business of the country into confusion. I do not claim for my right hon. Friends, for my hon. Friends and myself, a larger share than others of patriotism, which ought to be the common property of every party in this House, but, at any rate, we are not willing to throw the whole affairs of the nation into confusion by a snap Division on a somewhat minor point which settles nothing. We are anxious to get at once, and as quickly as we can, to those great debatable points which divide us one from the other. I want to ask the Government for a little more information as to what they do propose in regard to the Budget of the present year.
  The Prime Minister and his colleagues, both in this House last Parliament and in the country, dwelt upon the confusion introduced into finance, the injury caused to trade, and the great interests adversely affected by the postponement of the Budget, until the opinion of the country was expressed upon it. The opinion of the country has been expressed upon it. You can have that issue before the House at any moment. Why do you not do it? We know why the Government do not do that. They do not do it because if they brought the Budget before the House they have not got a majority for it at this moment, and the confusion is to be made worse confounded, the injury to the great interests of which the Prime Minister spoke is to be increased, the uncertainty is to be continued and multiplied, whilst the Government are negotiating and bargaining, whilst they are receiving deputations from each section of their supporters in turn, who tell them what they are to do and how they are to do it, and whilst they are struggling to purchase support, by concession in other matters, by changing their attitude every time they make a speech about the House of Lords, and producing on each occasion fresh proposals to render more palatable those which have already been rejected by this House—while, by these means, the Budget is to be delayed until a majority has somehow been bought for it, and a system of log-rolling—which was to be introduced for the first time by Tariff Reform—is now in full swing, the whole programme of the Government, and the whole business of the country, are to be put up to auction. How long is that to continue? The Prime Minister did not expressly say on Monday last that the Budget would
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  be taken before the Resolutions were discussed by the House, but, if he will read his speech, I will undertake to say that he himself, reading it with a fresh mind, will derive from it the impression that that was obviously his intention at the time. He began by explaining why he did not proceed with the Budget at once because of the necessary financial business, the still more urgent financial business which is covered by the Resolution we are discussing to-day. Then he came to the Budget, and said:—
  "I have been pointing out that these other measures must necessarily have precedence, because they have all to be passed before the end of the financial year."
  Then he goes on to describe the situation in regard to the Budget, and to say how the Government propose to deal with that Budget, and finally he said:—
  "I have made it clear that we mean to pass the Budget and get it through before we adjourn for the spring Recess, and that it shall not pass from the control of the House until the decision has been taken by the Resolution."
  Did any human being then, or will any human being now, if he reads the speech again, pretend that it was not in the mind of the Government to lay the Resolution about the House of Lords on the Table of the House, and then to proceed with the Budget, but, before passing the last stage of the Budget, to take the decision on The House of Lords? Of course the Government has made a complete volte face on this subject, and of course we know why. But really there are interests at stake in this matter of the Budget which I think are graver even than the fortunes of the Government. It is not in the interests of trade, it is not in the interests of the money market, it is not in the interests of the credit of the country, which the Government boast of as so largely the creation of Free Trade—or, at any rate, a great asset; of it—that this uncertainty should continue. The Government themselves know that their borrowings are affected by the uncertainty that the market is put to by the delay, that the vast floating debt for which they have to provide hangs like a millstone round their necks, depreciates securities, and lessens our credit. Is that state of things to go on indefinitely whilst the Government settle matters with the independent parties, who are, after all, so dependent on them just as they are so dependent on those parties? I cannot help smiling when I hear Members of those two parties boasting so loudly of their independence, the kind of independence of men who know that if they cannot hang

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  together they will hang separately, while the Government is in the same position. I want to know before this Debate closes what is now the latest plan of the Government. Do they mean to take the whole of the House of Lords Resolutions before they proceed with the Budget at all? Do they mean to defer the collection of the Income Tax indefinitely, with all the inconvenience that that causes to the Treasury with all the disturbance it creates in the money market, and the injustice which it necessarily involves as between taxpayer and taxpayer? One man has had his Income Tax deducted by the banks through whom he has received his income, and accepted by the Government from those banks, while another man has had no demand for his Income Tax, whatever from the Government, and the Government, if I am rightly informed by letters I have seen in the Press, has actually, when this Income Tax was offered, declined, acting on Government instructions, when it is voluntarily tendered to them.
  The Prime Minister said that he hoped there would be but little loss resulting from the delay in regulating the financial position which had occurred, but that there would be some. That loss, whatever it was, he explained, would be due to the dislike, the very natural dislike, of a taxpayer to pay the same tax twice in the same year, and also to the difficulty which the Government would have in collecting the tax twice over in the new year. Of course, that is true, and it is true that the Government, not having foreseen all the other financial business which they had to get through, and not having chosen to deal with non-contentious finances in an uncontentious way last Session, as they might have done even after the Budget had been referred to the country, have now come to the point at which they cannot collect the whole of this Income Tax within the current year, and a great portion of it must be collected next year. But you could take an Income Tax Resolution even on your own programme. You have time by your showing for doing that—sacrifice your Departmental Bill, take your Income Tax Resolution, and begin to collect your Income Tax to-morrow. I believe that even now you might collect by far the greater portion of what is outstanding within the present year, but, of course, if you do not begin now, with every week you aggravate the situation, and every
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  week you put it off you make it more certain that the taxpayer is going to be called on to pay twice in the one year, and you make it more certain that not only will your Income Tax of the expiring year suffer, but that the Income Tax of the new year will suffer also.
  The Government, in pursuit of some way out of their dilemma, in trying somehow to secure a more stable equilibrium amongst the various parties of which they are composed, are deliberately aggravating the financial situation, are deliberately sacrificing the real and solid interests of the country, quite apart from the party interests on either side of the House, to the necessities of their own position at the moment and to the bargains which they still have to conclude. I agree with the hon. and learned Member for Louth that it is well that serious people outside the House should understand all that this means. I hope they will take note of it. For my Friends and myself, anxious as we are to challenge the Government on the great issues of which I have spoken, and to take the decision of the House upon those great issues as early as we can, and grave as is the injury which from their course of action has accrued to the country at large, are not prepared to upset the King's Government merely in order that they may be turned out of office a little earlier than will otherwise be the case.
  The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Lloyd-George): The right hon. Gentleman, who has just sat down, has made it perfectly clear that, in supporting the Motion before the House, the Opposition are not doing it for the convenience of the Government. They are doing it entirely for their own convenience. It is perfectly obvious to anyone who realises what would happen, if they turned out the Government on this Motion, they would have to submit a similar Motion to the House immediately afterwards; and they could not possibly go to the country until they had passed the very Bill and the very Supplies which we are inviting the House now to give facilities to the Government to carry. Therefore, he need not have proclaimed any intention of unselfishly supporting His Majesty's Government on this occasion, as they are simply taking the course which he himself would have to follow if he found himself in the position in which the Prime Minister and I are.
  I come to the second part—the more contentious part of his speech. I was

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  amazed to hear him dwell upon the injury to trade and to business, on the damage to the commercial interests of this country, which happened how? Upon the hanging up of the Budget for a few weeks. The right hon. Gentleman admits himself that we could not possibly deal with the Budget before Easter. It is therefore purely a question of a few days after Easter. If it will irreparably injure trade that you should put off the Budget by, say, a fortnight, who is responsible for putting off the Budget for three months? When did the right hon. Gentleman discover this irreparable injury to the business of the country through not collecting the Income Tax and the other different taxes imposed by the Budget? He seems to have discovered it now for the first time. We pointed it out to him in the late Parliament, and now he has discovered that there was some ground in our complaint at that moment. The right hon. Gentleman says, "Why did you not bring in a sort of non-contentious Bill when the House of Lords threw out the Budget? Why did you not bring in another Budget dealing with the Income Tax, and the taxes the House of Lords allowed us to impose?" Why, the Government that would do that would be guilty of a gross betrayal of the privileges of the House of Commons, and would allow the House of Lords to dictate to the House of Commons what provision it should make for the finances of the year. They would simply, having thrown out one Bill, say, "Send us up another," and, if we complied with that request, they might throw that out and say, "Send us up another." That would have been an abject surrender that no Member of the House of Commons, with any sense of self-respect and decency would support for a moment.
  The right hon. Gentleman has been very severe on what he calls our change of attitude. I ask what change of attitude? The Prime Minister, in his opening statement this Session, made it perfectly clear that so far as he, and the Government of which he is the head are concerned, the one business of this Session was to deal with the problem of the Lords. Has there been any change of attitude in that respect? He made it perfectly clear that he would proceed, in the first instance, by way of Resolution. I will come later to the question raised by the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy (Sir H. Dalziel). The Prime Minister made it absolutely clear, and the only point where there has been any departure
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  has been indicated by the Prime Minister in his speech—that is, with regard to the sending of the Resolutions to the House of Lords. He did not then preclude or prejudge the decision which we have arrived at now. On the contrary, it was one of the questions which we were considering as to its desirability, and we have come to the conclusion it is better to send them up to the House of Lords in order to get a decision at once as to the relative position of the two Houses on this great issue.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy wanted to know why we are proceeding by Resolutions before proceeding by Bill. I should have thought that from his point of view he certainly would rather impress upon us to persist in the course indicated by the Prime Minister. What is his point of view? And I think it is also the point of view of the hon. and learned Member fox Waterford (Mr. John Redmond). He says, "You ought to have full powers," and he indicated his methods by which we should be empowered with those powers: "You ought to know you have full powers not merely of carrying your Bill through the House of Commons, but of carrying your Bill even if rejected by the Lords." That is their position. A good deal has been said about guarantees, but it is obvious that no Minister standing at this box, whatever the position of the Government might be, could say, "Here we propose to go to the Sovereign and ask him in certain contingencies for guarantees." Some of us have given very definite pledges upon that question, and we have no desire to shirk them. On the contrary, we shall certainly stand or fall by them. But what is the position taken up by the hon. and learned Member for Waterford and the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy, who takes the same view? They both admit that you could not possibly ask for the exercise of the Royal Prerogative upon proposals, I will not say publicly formulated, as that is not the case, but upon proposals which have not received the sanction and approval of the House of Commons. That is absolutely essential. It is obviously impossible. I ask the hon. Gentleman to put himself in the position of the Prime Minister, as that is the only way of judging it. If he were in that position could he go to the Sovereign and say, "We ask for guarantees"? The Sovereign would say, "What for? Are you sure you have got the support of the House of Commons to begin with for your proposals?" Are you sure the House of Lords will

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  reject them? A great deal has been said about the guarantees which were given in the case of the Reform Bill. But they were never asked for until it was certain not only that the House of Commons approved of the Bill, but also that the House of Lords would reject it. The hon. Member also said that, from his point of view at any rate, we should have these proposals and a general outline of the Bill approved or rejected by the House of Commons at the earliest possible moment, and that we should also know whether the House of Lords would be prepared to proceed with a measure drafted upon those lines. If they are not, I can assure all our friends in the House and outside that we do not propose to plough the sands. Unless we find ourselves in a position to ensure that our proposals not merely will pass the House of Commons, but can be passed into law, we shall not continue in office. That has really been the policy of the Government all through. It must be obvious to every Member of the House who has experience of these matters that it is exceedingly difficult to discuss such questions as has been put in the course of the Debate. We must in this matter appeal to the confidence of hon. Members. I agree with the hon. and learned Member for Louth (Mr. T. Healy) that if we are merely playing a game it will soon be obvious. Parliament need not wait very long for that. Just a few weeks, that is all. But when Ministers say that they stake the existence of their Government upon taking a certain definite course, is that playing a game? On the contrary, I can assure hon. Members behind me and on the benches opposite that in this matter of bringing to an issue the question of the relations of the two Houses and the predominance of the House of Commons, there is no shrinking or hesitation, and the Government will absolutely stake its existence on the advice which they will give to the Sovereign if ever it becomes necessary to take that course.
  My hon. Friend (Sir H. Dalziel) has asked me, What about reform? He is wrong in saying that reform was absolutely precluded by every discussion which took place before the General Election. As a matter of fact, if he will refer to the speech delivered by Sir Henry Campbell-Banner-man in moving his Resolution, upon which, in my judgment, the country has pronounced, he will find these words:—
  "Let me point out that the plan which I have sketched to the House does not in the least preclude or
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  prejudice any proposals which may he made for the reform of the House of Lords itself. The constitution and composition of the House of Lords is a question entirely independent of my subject."
  That is entirely the view of the Government at the present moment. We adhere absolutely to that declaration of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman. The question of the veto stands by itself. Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman never contended that the House of Lords would be a perfect Second Chamber after it had been deprived of its veto. What he said was that the urgent question to deal with was the veto. Why does the Noble Lord the Member for Oxford University (Lord H. Cecil) press us to proceed at once with the reconstitution of the House of Lords? Because he knows that if we began to do that instead of dealing with the veto first, the Government would be put off and the settlement of the really urgent issue would be delayed. Even if you created 500 Peers, and even if all the 500 were of the most satisfactory character when they entered the House of Lords—how long they would remain so I do not know—no one can believe that that House would be much nearer perfection. Therefore, the question would have to be faced by any Government. That Chamber would have to be put on a proper basis, because it must be obvious to anyone that even then it would not be holding the balance fairly between parties. Even if the Campbell-Bannerman Resolutions were carried it would operate as a check upon Liberal legislation, and never upon Conservative legislation. Under these circumstances no one can pretend that that Chamber would not need revision. The Government are of the same opinion as they were three years ago, that the urgent immediate problem is to settle the relations of the two Houses by dealing with the veto.
  Therefore I do not think there is any difference between the view taken by my hon. Friend and those who sit beside him and that which has been taken throughout by the Government. We could not possibly preclude reform from the final operation of dealing with the Constitution, otherwise we should be acting in direct contravention of what was laid down by Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman himself when he introduced his Resolutions. The House may depend upon it, the Government are in earnest in dealing with this matter. I do not know how a Government can show greater earnestness than by saying that if they find themselves not in a position to carry their proposals into law they will not hold office. [An HON. MEMBER: "You

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  said that on the Licensing Bill."] Hon. Members may say that they do not believe our declaration. They need only wait a few weeks. If then the Government do not carry out the definite pledges they have given throughout they will be entirely in the hands of the House. But I do entreat hon. Members on both sides. This is a matter of the greatest moment to the democracy, not merely of Great Britain, but also of Ireland. I am not sure that it is not a matter of even greater importance to the smaller races of this Kingdom than to the great and powerful race that lives in England. The people of England, if they are very keen upon a subject, may be able to overpower the resistance of the Lords, but the smaller races have no such power. I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Waterford that this matter will not be carried through without great sacrifices or without great effort. We are fighting against a very powerful combination of interests. It is all very well for the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. A. Chamberlain) to talk about log-rolling. There never was greater log-rolling than on the other side during the last General Election. It was purely a log-rolling business. The brewers, the great landlords, and all those who would be interested in a tariff, are a powerful combination which cannot be overcome without unity—without such unity as, after years of tribulation, hon. Members opposite are beginning to find. They know perfectly well that they cannot carry any great cause even to within sight of victory without unity, and the lesson which they have learnt is one worth our bearing in mind. You cannot carry to victory a great cause like this without unity, courage, comradeship, loyalty, and sacrifice. I say to the hon. Member for Waterford that the sacrifices when you are going to war must be on all sides. All must take the risks. I appeal to all who believe in the future of democracy and who know how much it is bound up with this issue to act together, to act promptly, to act boldly, and to act without hesitation.
  Sir CHARLES CRIPPS: I do not know whether I ought to call the speech to which we have just listened an apologia for the Government or an explanatory statement for the purpose of making clear what I think no one at present really understands. But whatever point of view we approach the question, the right hon. Gentleman has not made the position of
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  the Government any clearer. I agree with the right hon. Member for East Worcestershire that in discussing this question it is essential to draw a distinction between necessary Supply and the Budget. No one denies that whatever Government may be in power the necessary Supply must be granted in order that the Government of the country may be carried on. The old notion of redress before Supply would be a barbarous anachronism at the present moment, because it would be utterly impossible for any Government to continue in power and not at the same time have the means of fulfilling its obligations to the Civil Service, the Army, and the Navy. But what we say as regards the action of the Government is that it is all very well to be a Free Trade Government in economic questions, but to carry the policy of the higgling of the market into great constitutional questions is a course of action of which no responsible Government in this country ought at any time to be guilty. No one who has listened to the Debate can doubt that the action and the attitude of the Government are actuated, not by any direct patriotic motive at all, but solely by their desire to maintain, if possible, the coherence of the disconnected forces by which they claim to be supported in this House.
  As regards the Budget, I cannot agree that it was ever stated on this side of the House that the holding up of the Budget per se was a great injury to trade. What was said by the late Chancellor of the Exchequer was that, if the Budget was held up beyond the financial year, and you had two demands for Income Tax within the same financial year you must expect great dislocation as regards the financial conditions in this country. Surely that is absolutely true. I should like to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he denies the statement, which I now reiterate, that it is most unfortunate, as regards the financial conditions, not to pass your finances in a particular year, and to have a double charge of that kind in the succeeding year.
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: The real confusion has been created, not by what the hon. Member thinks, but is due to the fact that those assessments were not signed in November and December, and collected in January. But as to being collected in March and April there is very little in it.
  Sir CHARLES CRIPPS: There is everything involved in collecting the Income

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  Tax during the particular year in which it is assigned, and you get a maximum of financial difficulty by postponing the collection of Income Tax to a succeeding year. The conditions which so arise are entirely different from the postponement of the Budget owing to the intervention of the House of Lords. And let me say, also, in answer to the argument of the right hon. Gentleman, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that he did not condescend to say whether the reference of the Budget to the country was a proper step to be taken or not. What he said was that the reference by the House of Lords of the Budget to the country was a gross interference with the privilege of this House. Now that is the very matter on which I join issue with him. I say if there is one constitutional duty that the House of Lords has more than another, it is their right to intervene in matters of finance to the same extent as they are entitled to intervene in matters of ordinary legislation. Of course, whether it is expedient to carry out an intervention of that kind is a matter of policy, but I beg to say that as a matter of constitutional right, I do not believe any constitutional lawyer on either side of the House will find any fault with the statement I make, namely, that so far as constitutional right is concerned the House of Lords are absolutely justified in the action they take. There is another matter in connection with the Budget. I was astonished the other night to hear the Leader of the Labour party make the suggestion that new Members in this House ought not to take any part in the Budget discussion. I cannot imagine a more undemocratic or unconstitutional principle advanced than that.
  Surely if there is one principle more certainly established in our constitutional practice than another it is that every Member of the House of Commons, after a General Election, not only has the right, but is bound, in this House, to put forward the views on which he was elected and on which he had the support of his constituents. I am bound to say that as far as I am concerned in my election there was no matter more to the point, and the attitude I took up was that if returned to this House I would use every legitimate means to oppose what I called an iniquitous, unjust Budget. And I intend to do that as far as I can, and not in any sense taking an obstructive attitude. But, in so far as we are talking about these constitutional
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  questions, can any doctrine of tyranny, any doctrine of autocracy, be carried further than that laid down by the Leader of the Labour party, namely: That however much the constitution of this House may be altered what passed in an old House of Commons, which was elected under different conditions, should be binding not only upon that House of Commons but on its successors immediately on the morning of a General Election? That brings me to what I consider a most important matter as regards this constitutional crisis. I suppose everyone will admit that a constitutional change is a matter of the greatest gravity, and that we should have every opportunity for discussion both in this House and in the House of Lords. But when you come to great constitutional crises you have to consider the whole position of the democracy and the whole position of Government in every department in this country.
  The other night the Home Secretary likened the last election to the process of a person in the hands of a dentist who is having his teeth drawn out, and he actually said that although the party opposite suffered in that way during the last General Election, yet his opinion was that they had what I think he called a mandate, both in reference to the Budget and also in reference to constitutional reform. I recommend this point to him, that a man does not generally go on a filibustering expedition immediately after he has had all his teeth extracted at the hands of the dentist. But what is much more important than that is this. I deny wholly that at the last election there was anything in the nature of a mandate, cither for the passing of the Budget or for a constitutional revolution, such as is suggested by the Prime Minister. So far as the Budget is concerned, I do not suppose there is in this House the slightest difference of opinion. It is known perfectly well that, apart from jerrymandering or log-rolling, there is a majority returned to the Parliament of the United Kingdom opposed to the proposals contained in the Budget. And upon that point I would like to say that the action of the House of Lords has been justified up to the hilt. The reason why they took that action was that they considered those novel proposals ought not to be passed until the assent of the country had been ascertained. The Government went to the country, with the result that a new House of Commons has been returned in which there is a majority

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  against the proposals of the Budget. Now I will come to the constitutional question.
  I am not concerned in the attack which was made, for instance, by the Hon. Member for Kirkcaldy upon his own leaders, nor am I concerned in the views put forward by the hon. Member for Waterford. But when you find those views being put forward, when you find those who have studied the speeches and opinions of occupants of the Front Bench opposite, coming forward and saying that the position has not been appreciated and understood, or, if it has been appreciated and understood, is now being departed from by the Members of the Government, surely you have the strongest possible argument that ever could be advanced against the approaching of great constitutional reforms at the present moment. No constitutional change of this kind ought to be approached unless there is a large consensus of national opinion in its favour, and no one who has watched the progress of the election or who has heard the speeches in this House can for a moment say that he really believes that any mandate has been obtained from the country for a policy foreshadowed by the Prime Minister, and to which reference has been made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Of course, the guarantees asked for by the hon. Member for Waterford are impossible, because they could not be given in accordance with any constitutional doctrine known to this country at the present time. The Prime Minister is threatened with an adverse vote of the Irish party unless he gets up and makes a statement before the end of this Debate that if those Resolutions are not carried he will ask for guarantees from the Crown.
  I say without any hesitation, and without reference to the precedence mentioned by the Noble Lord who represents Oxford University, that no Prime Minister and no Government could, under any circumstances, if they understood the Constitution of this country, give, at this stage, a guarantee such as is asked for by the hon. Member for Waterford. That brings me to this point. If no such guarantees can be given, what is the position of the supporters of the Government in this House? I have heard Member after Member, other than those sitting on the Irish Benches, get up and say that unless a guarantee is given they are not prepared to support the Government at the present time—in other words, they ought not to give their support
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  because they are asking for guarantees which the Government cannot give. If they act in accordance with the principles they have enunciated, so far from supporting the Government in the constitutional crisis they are seeking to bring about, they ought to vote against them, because it is impossible for any Government to give the guarantee which they demand.
  The position taken up to-day by the Government, as explained by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, is, of course, entirely different from what was stated by the Prime Minister last Monday. The Prime Minister said then, quite definitely, that if the Resolutions were passed in this House he did not propose to send them up to the House of Lords, and that after the Resolutions had been passed in this House he intended to go on with the discussion of the Budget. The change made, owing I presume, to tactical considerations, is an unworthy artifice when you are dealing with great questions of constitutional reform. Perhaps in ordinary matters of politics the higgling of the market, and the Dutch auction as between the Front Bench and other sections of the House, may be matters of necessity, but when you come to constitutional questions, when you are touching the very foundations of our rights and liberties, when you come to attacking the basis of our Constitution on which we have relied for centuries, then, I say, it is a crime for the Government to undertake an attack of that kind by getting the spirit of groups on various questions, knowing perfectly well that they have not got the opinion of the country behind them. Surely that position is emphasised by what we are told as regards the tactics of the Government when they come to questions of constitutional reform. The real constitutional question is the change which they wish to introduce either into this House or into the House of Lords. That is the first point which you have got to determine. You have got to see, as regards this House, whether we are really a representative body. You have got to see, as regards the other House, whether, in the words of the King's Speech, you can get an impartial authority which would treat equally legislation sent up by either one party or the other. Is it possible that this House of Commons is going to undertake a constitutional reform whilst putting off to another occasion, which may never arise, the constitution of the Second Chamber with which they are affecting to deal?

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  7.0 P.M.
  The question of the power with which a Second Chamber ought to be endowed depends upon the constitution of the Second Chamber, and until you know what the constitution of the Second Chamber is, how can anybody, or how can any House of Commons, really determine on satisfactory constitutional grounds to what extent, if at all, the veto should be limited, either for matters of legislation or of taxation? The first question must be, if there is to be a constitutional change, what form of Second Chamber shall be established in order to bring about the reform? I challenge hon. Members opposite to deny where you have a reformed Second Chamber there is practically no institution of the kind in Europe, or America, or in the Colonies, where the full right of veto is not allowed and where the two Chambers are not looked upon as being co-ordinate in matters of legislation and in a very large number of matters of taxation.
  It is impossible to contemplate the government of this country under the Single Chamber system. The evil of such a proposal lies in this, that it is based upon the supposition that this House is necessarily the representative body. It is very often not a representative body at all. I have noticed when I have been in the House—I have been exiled from it for the last four years—that the House takes the most aggressive attitude as regards the assertion of its claims as it becomes uncertain whether it represents the feeling of the people of this country or not. If we are to embark upon constitutional reform we ought first to require this House to see that our electoral methods are brought up to modern days. I entirely agree that we ought to have a method of proportionate representation. We ought to have redistribution.
  Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. and learned Gentleman is leading the discussion very far away from the Motion on the Paper.
  Sir CHARLES CRIPPS: I will not carry it further except to say that if you have constitutional reform you must approach the subject as one subject. You cannot approach it in the way suggested by the Government without, in my opinion, creating greater difficulties and injustices than exist at the present moment. I certainly hope, when this question of constitutional reform is to be taken in hand, we shall approach it as the hon. and
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  learned Member for North Louth (Mr. T. M. Healy) said, in a spirit of sincerity, and not in a spirit of make-believe, not in a mere party spirit as between the two sides of the House, but in order to put it on a patriotic basis, so that we may in the future, as in the past, have the best form of Government for guaranteeing the rights and liberties of all classes in this old country of ours.
  Mr. G. N. BARNES: I rise with some considerable degree of diffidence to take part in this Debate which has already been taken part in by those giants of constitutional law. My contribution will last only for a few minutes, and it will be, I hope, presented from the point of view of common sense. With regard to the point made by the hon. and learned Gentleman who has just sat down that I have suggested that new Members in this new Parliament should not again discuss the Budget, he charges that this suggestion was undemocratic, and sets up a precedent. I think it is a sufficient answer to say that the circumstances under which we are here to-day are precedents in themselves, and that the House of Lords, in rejecting the Budget last year set up a precedent which in itself is sufficient to justify many more precedents. I desire to state our point of view in regard to this matter as it now stands, and as it emerges after the statements made by the Government. We welcome the statements which have been made that the reform of the House of Lords is no longer a practical political issue for this Session. It may be in the near future, but so far as we are concerned now the reform of the House of Lords is not being dealt with. I express satisfaction at that, because, in the first place, as I said last week, I do not think, and my colleagues do not think that that would be a step in the right direction now; and, in the second place, because we do not think that the country gave us any mandate to deal with the House of Lords in that way.
  I heard the statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the quotation he made from the speech of Sir Henry Camp-bell-Bannerman two years ago in introducing his Resolution, and with all due respect I would point out to the right hon. Gentleman that there is no inconsistency in the view I have just put and the statement of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman. We know that even when the veto is abolished so far as finance is concerned,

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  and when the veto is limited so far as legislation is concerned, we are not even then satisfied with the House of Lords. We are not satisfied to leave 600 gentlemen, or whatever the number may be, simply because they are sons of their fathers to have any legislative control over the people of this country, and, therefore, after having done the immediate practical business that lies before us, we are quite willing at the right time to give consideration to anything that may be put forward with a view to still further clipping the wings of their lordships. I am glad therefore that that part is removed from the arena of practical discussion, and that we are now discussing the veto pure and simple in the two aspects I have mentioned. I want, however, to dissent from the view put forward as to Resolutions versus a Bill. I do not suppose we shall be able to influence the Government in the attitude they have assumed. We are told in explicit terms that Resolutions are to be submitted to the House on 29th March, and that we are then to discuss these Resolutions, and that they will afterwards be sent to the House of Lords. I regret that, because, in my humble judgment—I speak only as a layman, without any knowledge of constitutional law—there are dangers lurking in that particular method which I will try to put before the House.
  In the first place, a week or ten days ago when the Government may have had a comprehensive scheme in their mind for dealing with the House of Lords, including reform of the House of Lords, there may have been need and justification for these Resolutions. The Government may have very well argued that they wanted to get the mind of the House of Commons upon a few Resolutions. They may have said, "We may have these Resolutions altered, varied or amended, therefore we want the opinion of the House upon them, so that, having got the mind of the House of Commons, we can then frame our Bill." I could understand that to be a sensible view of the situation when the Government had in their minds the carrying forward of a great scheme, including not only abolition and limitation of the vetoes, but the reform of the constitution of the House of Lords; but when the Resolutions are shorn of the proposal for reform the matter assumed a much simpler character, and it seems to me we might have had the whole poposals put into a Bill and have got to the discussion of that Bill instead of the Resolutions.
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  What guarantee have we when the Resolutions are adopted that the House of Lords may not say, "We are not called upon to deal with Resolutions. Produce your Bill, and when you produce your Bill we will give our opinion upon it!" That seems to me, I will not say a reasonable view, because I do not want to be put into the position of defending the House of Lords for a single moment, but, at all events, there may be some justification for that view of the House of Lords if Resolutions are submitted to them. It does seem to me that Resolutions cannot by any possibility have the same importance as a Bill. They cannot have the same constitutional or legislative value as a Bill, and, therefore, if we are going to rise to the position, as I gather the Government are, of reaching this acute constitutional stage on Resolutions instead of a Bill, the Government may find themselves in this position, that a higher authority may say, "I am not called upon to deal with the constitutional issue or to exercise my Prerogative on a Resolution, but only upon a Bill." If, in spite of all that, we shall be sent to the country, the country will be confused and bamboozled by these constitutional issues, and they will be told, "You are not called upon to express your mind upon a Bill—the Bill has never passed the House of Commons or the House of Lords"—and, therefore, I say there are dangers lurking in these proposals; and it seems to me that we may suffer in an electoral sense by the substitution of these Resolutions for the Bill, which, I still think, would be the workmanlike and straightforward way of getting on with the business.
  There is one further point, although I admit that the statement made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer has very largely cleared the ground so far as it is concerned. I was deputed by my colleagues to press for some more explicit statement on the part of the Government than that made by the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister, as has been stated by the hon. and learned Member for Water-ford (Mr. John Redmond), is generally pretty explicit in his terms, but he used a lot of vague and general words this afternoon which conveyed no very intelligible or clear idea of what was to follow in the event of rejection of the House of Lords of the Resolutions. I understand, however, now that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has said on behalf of the Government that in the event of the House of

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  Lords rejected the Resolutions and not complying with the wishes of this House, in that event the Government will not continue in office. I take that to be a sufficiently explicit statement, and therefore with that in my mind my colleagues, as well as myself, can have no difficulty in voting with the Government.
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: May I make an appeal to hon. Members to let us have this Resolution as soon as possible because there is certain financial business which is absolutely necessary we should get through to-night. It is true we have left it to the last moment, but I am told the consequences will be very serious unless we get it through; therefore I shall be extremely obliged if hon. Members will let us get through the financial business as soon as possible.
  Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will take the opportunity of answering a question which I put to him as to what are the intentions of the Government with regard to the Budget. Is the Budget to be taken upon any date? Is it to be taken after the first of the Resolutions on the House of Lords, or are all the Resolutions to receive consideration first?
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: I thought the Prime Minister made it perfectly clear that we are not going to touch the Budget until the Resolutions dealing with the House of Lords have been disposed of.
  Mr. GIBSON BOWLES: My first words in this new Parliament will be words of congratulation to the Noble Lord the Member for Oxford University (Lord Hugh Cecil). We are the only two survivors of the Free Food party. We are only two, and we have lost, one a son and the other a brother who, if they had been allowed to remain in this House, might have done some Parliamentary service. But Birmingham insisted that there should be in this House at one time only one member bearing one of these two execrated names. My Noble Friend opposite cited the precedent of the impeachment of Lord Oxford for making twelve Peers. I am afraid, however, that the Noble Lord, probably from forgetfulness, failed to describe the true nature of that precedent. It was a precedent created by a Tory Prime Minister who created twelve Peers to form a Tory majority in the place at the
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  other end of the passage, and he did it in order to carry through that House the Free Trade Treaty of Utrecht—an object with which I am sure my Noble Friend will sympathise. If we need a precedent none better could be found than that one to justify the Government in creating Peers in order to carry a Free Trade measure or to defend Free Trade.
  The Noble Lord also forgot to tell us, with reference to the impeachment of Lord Oxford, that when it came to the point, and when Westminster Hall was filled with peers for his trial, the House of Commons refused to proceed with the impeachment, and that experience may be repeated on the present occasion. But I am not concerned either with the making of Peers or immediately with the prohibition of the veto. My concern to-night is solely and wholly with finance and with its bearing upon the three financial proposals now-made by the Government. I do not know whether the House appreciates the almost desperate state in which the country is financially at this moment. It is verging upon bankruptcy, and should nothing be done very soon Great Britain will go bankrupt on the 31st March for £21,000,000 and on the 5th April for another £21,000,000 representing the War Loan. As to the War Loan, let me remark that that is no part of the Budget of this year, and that the necessity for making it has not been created by any action in the House of Lords. That loan is one of the most shameful episodes of many shameful episodes that occurred some years ago, and when the proper time comes perhaps I may offer a few remarks upon it showing where the responsibility lies. The War Loan is not payable until 5th April next. The Prime Minister said he thought it had escaped attention, but it has not escaped my attention. Perhaps some hon. Members may remember that more than a year ago, in December, I recalled this very War Loan, and pointed out the gravity of the situation that would arise unless we had the money to meet it. This was published in one of those pamphlets which are very laborious to write, but which are perfectly harmless, because I never knew of anybody who ever read them.
  The other deficit arises from an insufficient collection of taxes. What are we asked to do to-night? We are asked to authorise the Government to borrow twice and spend indefinitely. But surely when you have failed to collect your rents and you are in a difficult situation the true

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  method, instead of borrowing, is to see whether you cannot get at those rents. Let the House consider what has occurred, and what is still occurring, during the present financial year. The Government have been collecting taxes without a semblance of authority. The Commissioners of Income Tax and the Commissioners of Customs are levying taxes for which they have no authority. Some doubt has been expressed as to whether they are demanding the Income Tax. I know they are, because I received last November one of those papers in which the Commissioners informed me that, acting under the authority of Act of Parliament, they required me to pay a very large sum, for me, in the shape of Income Tax before 1st January. That statement was entirely false, because they were not acting under the authority of any Act of Parliament, and they had no power whatever to require me to pay that tax, yet I paid it in order to relieve a distressed Treasury. There are, however, a great many persons who disregarded the illegal mandate made upon them. The result has been that an enormous number of illegal taxes have been levied, and the Government is in the position of receiving stolen property. A great number of persons have paid no taxes at all, or, at any rate, no Income Tax. That is a situation which seems to me to demand most urgent attention, and to be more pressing than constitutional reform and more pressing than borrowing. In my opinion, the first thing to be done in order to meet this deficit is to pass an Income Tax Resolution legalising the Income Tax that has already been collected, and legalising the demand for that much larger amount of £25,000,000 out of £39,000,000 which still remains to be collected.
  When you pass your Resolution, and, of course, your Bill, you will immediately get £25,000,000–that is the £21,000,000 deficit and £4,000,000 to spare. Speaking of those Resolutions, it has been stated that there is authority to levy the taxes which have already been levied because this House has passed authorising Resolutions. But that is not so. Those Resolutions, by usage, suffice for their ordinary purpose of authorising the collection of taxes during the month or two pending the passing of the Act, but they do not authorise the collection of taxes not for one or two months but for eleven months, and they do not authorise the collecting of taxes when the Bill not only has not passed but
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  when it has actually been rejected. Whatever authority those Resolutions may have given, I venture to say that at this moment—I am speaking in the presence of the Attorney-General, and with the greatest respect for him—no court would hold that the Government is authorised to levy taxes upon Resolutions when the Bill founded upon those Resolutions has been rejected. The most pressing need is to collect the amounts that are due to us before we begin borrowing and authorising to spend. What are we attempting to do? We are attempting to pass three Bills. One is to authorise temporary borrowing. I am not at all sure that is necessary, because I believe that the twelfth clause of the Exchequer and Audit Act gives ample power in this respect.
  The second Bill we are asked to adopt is one to provide for borrowing for the War Loan, and the third is authorising expenditure from the Consolidated Fund. Why are we proceeding in this way? Is it said that it is beneath the dignity of this House to go to the House of Lords with a Kill? But you are going to do it with three Bills, and if there is nothing derogatory in going with three there can be nothing derogatory in going with one. If you had your Resolution and your Bill making legal the collection of taxes which has taken place and giving authority to levy those not collected, I do not think you would want your temporary borrowing Bill at all. Is it reasonable to go to the Lords under present circumstances? You are practically going to the Lords and saying to them, "I cannot collect my rents and I want to borrow." This rather reminds me of the passage in which Sir Charles Surface proposed to sell his ancestors, when Careless, looking at the portrait of his uncle, said:—
  "He has an unforgiving eye and a damned disinheriting countenance."
  Are you to go to the disinheriting Lords and say, "We cannot collect our rents. Will you kindly back a bill that we may take to a gentleman in the City to borrow the money?" The Lords will be inclined to reply, "Why do not you collect your rents? The money is there? It is all in the City. They have it saved up for you, and only because you have no legal right to demand it they are lending you your own money at 2½ per cent.—money which, if you had the Resolution and the legal authority to demand it, you might have without any interest at all." I earnestly hope there may be still time to

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  consider the order of procedure, that there may be still time to set up in Ways and Means the Resolution and to carry this Bill, either in substitution for or in addition to the three others we are promised.
  I come to the Budget of 1909–10. In my opinion, and I speak purely financially, that Budget is dead and can never be revived. You are not to come to it in the financial year of 1909–10, but not till 1910–11. You are not even to bring it in till the financial year is ended. When it does come to this House, it will be a new Budget presented to a new Parliament, and you cannot refuse discussion of it, or pass it immediately. But there are other reasons why, in my opinion, it is dead. There are parts of the Budget which are not only dead, but which are really in such a condition that you may nose them as you walk up the stairs. There are parts of it that have, by efflux of time mortified, gangrened and fallen off the Budget. It is no longer possible to get a farthing of the land values in 1909–10 under the Budget Bill of that year, and the reason is simple. Not one of these land values is to be levied except upon occasions which are to arise only after the passing of the Act, and the Act itself manifestly cannot be passed till April. Take, again, the Super-tax of Income Tax. You will not get one penny of that this year, for the reason that it entirely depends upon returns which have not been and cannot be made. I am, under the Finance Bill, liable at this moment to a penalty of £50, and £50 per day, if the court so decides, because I have not made a return which I was bound to make by 31st December last. But those returns cannot be made, and those returns cannot be enacted by a Budget which is not going to be passed till April. You cannot put time back, even if you try with the best intentions, to make a Budget so retroactive as to impose a penalty in April for a thing which ought to have been done in the previous December. That is impossible. Therefore, I say you have no foundations in this Budget and in this year for any Super-tax whatever, and that neither from the land values nor the Super-tax, at least, can you hope to obtain one single penny. Therefore, when the Budget is introduced in April it will not be the same Budget without the change of a comma; there will have to be many commas, many semi-colons, and many lines changed; and it cannot be
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  passed without a certain amount of discussion.
  I have risen purely to put as far as I could the gravity of the financial situation before the House. I think it is measured by one fact alone. For years, for generations, this country has stood in the proud position of being able to borrow money cheaper than any other country in the world. Cheaper even than France, which comes next, and infinitely cheaper than Germany, of whom we are called upon to be afraid. The London and North-western Railway Company can borrow cheaper than Germany. Now a new thing has occurred. I took out on Saturday the prices of Consols and French Rentes, and I find for the first time since the days of Napoleon that France is now borrowing cheaper than England, so much has our credit suffered. My belief is that the damage to our credit is purely temporary. My belief is that it rises from the unfortunate series of circumstances which have deprived us of legal authority to collect our taxes, which has forced us to collect them illegally, and which will permanently deprive us of many of them; but the situation is such, and I do earnestly ask the attention of His Majesty's Government to my suggestion whether it is not possible before we ask authority to borrow and authority to spend, to embark upon what I think is the most pressing and urgent work of all—the collection of taxes, absolutely due, the collection of arrears of taxes not yet paid, and the justification and legalisation of the illegal conduct of those who, without warrant, have collected taxes up to this time.
  Colonel WILLIAMS: I will not detain the House very long, because the last speaker has said more forcibly and a great deal better many things that were in my mind, but I do want to call the attention of the Prime Minister and of the House to one sentence in the right hon. Gentleman's speech on the last day of the last Session, to which reference has been made this afternoon, and the promise contained in which ought, to my mind, to be carried out first of all. The right hon. Gentleman said:—
  "The result of a General Election, I trust, will be that the new House of Commons will assemble at such a time as to make it possible fur it to provide, both retrospectively and prospectively, for the needs of the current financial year. If we are fortunate enough to enjoy its confidence, its first Act will be to reimpose, as from tills week, all taxes and duties which were embodied in the Finance Bill."
  I was greatly disappointed on the first day of the Session to find that the Prime

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  Minister had apparently forgotten that, or, at all events, that he was so interested in party fortunes as to have put aside the financial condition of the country for the time being and to deliberately announce the intention of borrowing ten or twelve or twenty millions extra, when by carrying out his own pledge he could perfectly well have got them within a very few weeks. We know from what has passed in another place that the result of the General Election has been that the House of Lords will consider that they have got a mandate from the country to pass the necessary taxes, even more from what Lord Lansdowne said on the first day of the Session. Therefore, it is quite clear that the Government have nothing to fear whatever from the House of Lords in thinking first of the financial condition of the country and trying to put that as straight as possible.
  If the Government had come to this House and had said, "It is above all things necessary to maintain the finances of the country on a firm footing, it is above all necessary to avoid borrowing as far as possible," if they had come down to us with a proposal to legalise the taxes which are non-contentious and which are really going to bring in revenue, they would have found no opposition, I think I may say, from either side of the House, because the question before the country is no longer the Budget or the land taxes or the licence duties, it has shifted to the House of Lords. The House of Commons has been returned without a mandate on either side to do anything, and the country wants to express its opinion about the House of Lords; and, in spite of what has been said by the hon. Member for Water-ford (Mr. John Redmond) first of all, and echoed from the other side, I for one do not care how soon the country is asked its opinion, but I am quite sure it will be in favour of a firm and stable Second Chamber and that the question of the veto of the House of Lords will be relegated to that limbo from which it will not very easily return. I do ask the Prime Minister if it is now too late to suspend the Standing Orders, if necessary—he will get no objection to that from either side of the House—bring in a Bill and pass it through all its stages in this House in one day. He could then send it up to the House of Lords, where it could be passed through in one day, and within three days the taxes could be legalised, and a great deal of bother saved. I see that does not altogether
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  win favour on the Government Bench, but it was the proposal of the Government themselves that if they were returned with sufficient majority the Budget should be so treated. They have not been returned with sufficient majority to carry the whole of the Budget, but I think this is an occasion on which all parties might unite so as to give the country the taxes they want, and avoid borrowing further.
  Mr. BELLOC: I only rise to point out what I fear has been pointed out too often, and what therefore I shall point out with the utmost brevity—the real question before the House, the question which is being debated by everybody who cares about the present political situation of the country, and the question on which every journalist in London is fighting on one side or the other, and on which he is preparing his article. It is whether the declaration we have just had from the Chancellor of the Exchequer makes the situation which was unreal real again or no. After listening carefully to that declaration, I say that so far as I can judge—and I say it with deference, for I know what a confusion of issues is now raised—the situation remains as unreal as ever. The only thing that has been saved to-night, and perhaps the only thing it was intended to save, is the thing or the name, "the party system." I hope I yield to no one in respect for the talent and the accuracy of the hon. Member for King's Lynn (Mr. Gibson Bowles) where finance and statistics are concerned, and he is perfectly right when he says that from a technical or, if you please, a legal point of view every day that passes introduces greater confusion into finance, but that is not the real issue upon which we are met, and that is not what the people who sent us here are concerned about. There are twenty ways in which that might be met, from a Resolution passed without debate to a Bill in one form or another to be rapidly passed by general consent of this House. I am somewhat suspicious that these arguments about the financial condition of the country are introduced mainly—and they are introduced with a wonderful unanimity by both Front Benches—in order to cut us off from the real issue, which is this: Shall legislation, if it passes this House, which I think is doubtful, against the veto of the House of Lords become law or shall it not? Those who wish that it shall become law have put their reasons so often and in such detail before the House during

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  the last two days that I shall not recapitulate them, but I would appeal to the Noble Lord the Member for the University of Oxford (Lord Hugh Cecil). When he says our majority is composite and that we have no real mandate, let him think for a moment of what the situation is. Ever since the men of my age were boys—twenty-five years—democratic legislation—and by that I do not only mean the legislation which is technically or pedantically called democratic, but legislation heartily demanded by the voice of the people—has been blocked by the presence of what I have called the committee of the plutocracy under which we live. If desired, I will give one example—Fiscal Reform. Another example is to be found in the action of the last Parliament in contemptuously refusing the principle of one man one vote. A further may be quoted in the contemptuous rejection of the Land Valuation (Scotland) Bill, and still another in the refusal to treat a voter in London in exactly the same manner as he would be treated in any other great constituency. The Noble Lord has asked where is our mandate. May I point out that, so far as we here are concerned, that question is not germane. We may be a small minority, but we are certainly here to carry out our mandate. If there be a majority against us, let that majority form its own Cabinet and take up its seat on these benches, and we will sit in opposition Let me say a word to the Opposition about the position of parties in this House. We have, to begin with, as has been frequently stated, the figures 124. If you do not believe that is the majority, try to govern yourselves without it. I wish those who call themselves our leaders—a phrase singularly meaningless to me—had given you that task. I think you would have failed. Remember that that majority of 124 was gathered in spite of the fact that it cost, roughly speaking, £1,000 to stand as a candidate for a seat in the British Parliament. It was gathered together in spite of the fact that plural voting still obtains. It was gathered together in spite of the fact that of every two adult males only one has a vote. It was gathered together in spite of the fact that you have such anomalies as University representation—seats which are sometimes called fifteen-pounders. If I had paid £15 I should have had yet another vote. In spite of all these anomalies and absurdities, in spite of everything that makes
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  the electoral system of Great Britain quaint, beautifful, and historic, but not representative, in spite of all this we have got 124 majority. But the Government have not used it. After the declaration of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, there are many who may think that the situation has been made real again, and that we are coming to a decision on this matter, sometime in the remote future—April, I believe, is now the date when we shall give a vote, not upon hops but on the Lords. But I venture to suggest to the Chancellor of the Exchequer that that is not sufficient when one considers the psychological temperament and frame of mind of the electors. I admit that if every man had a vote, and if it were possible to solely concentrate political interest on the subject for a few months the question of the House of Lords might be made the dominating issue. Then there would be some logical ground for the position taken up to-night. But all the world knows it is not so. All the world knows that long before April the elector will be led every passing day to believe that he is being bamboozled, that he is simply being taxed by men who are paid high salaries but do nothing for the people. The longer the election is deferred the more this canker and spirit of despair will enter into the minds of the electors. I confess I did vote in January, but I very much doubt if now, after what has occurred, I shall take the trouble to vote in April. And that feeling is probably shared by many others. In fact, I fear that the state of things still remains unreal. I sincerely hope opportunity will be given for many of us—but for the Opposition it would be most of us—to express the opinion, which is certainly the opinion of Liberals throughout the country—I say I hope the opportunity will be given us to express our opinion by vote in this House to-night. If the Front Bench as at present self-constituted will give no pledge they will not lose. The Government will be carried on, and we shall not become bankrupt by 31st March, because the Government will be saved by the Opposition. But those of us who are not organised, who do not call ourselves a party, will be heartily glad the country should know that there exists a condition of compromise.
  Mr. WEDGWOOD: I confess I do not take quite such a despondent view of this afternoon's work as my hon. Friend who last spoke. I think we have gained certain definite points as a result of very hard

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  work on the part of some of us. Let me recapitulate what we have gained. We have gained that the issue before the country is to be the veto of the Lords and not the reform of the Lords. For myself, I am strongly in favour of reforming the House of Lords and making it a completely elective Chamber, but not now. Our second great gain has been that on 29th March next the veto Resolutions will be introduced, that they will be sent to the House of Lords, and that if they are not accepted the Government will resign—of course in the event of being unable to get the guarantees asked for. There you have a great point gained, because now we shall have the country understand that this is a pledge made explicitly in this House by the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer that this shall be the main business, and that we shall have these guarantees, or else His Majesty's Ministers will resign. The third great gain, one unexpected by some of us, is that the Government will not touch the Budget until the House of Lords have dealt with the Resolutions on the veto. There has been no more anxious defender of the Budget than myself, no one could have been more anxious to see it passed into law; my one fear has been that it would be thrown out. Now it will not be thrown out; it will be kept alive. Everybody knows that at the present time there is a majority in the House against the Budget, everybody knows also that were it introduced it would be defeated, and therefore the very fact that we are not introducing it on 29th March, but that we are introducing instead a measure dealing with the House of Lords, means the actual salvation of the Budget. When we go to the country again on the veto of the House of Lords I do not think hon. Members opposite need have any doubt that we shall get a majority on that question.
  There are three points upon which I should like to get some extra assurances—or, at any rate, I should like to put before the House what is, I hope, the only intelligible reading of the situation. In the first place both the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer referred to the non-acceptance by the House of Lords of these Resolutions as the criterion on which the Government would base their demand for guarantees. I presume that that covers the case in which the House of Lords declines to consider the Resolution
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  until a Bill has been sent up. It is most important that this matter should be made absolutely clear. The point I want to be quite clear about is that the Government shall not try to ride off, on the explanation that the Lords have only deferred the Resolutions and not rejected them, from their demand for guarantees or resignation. I do not think it possible that they would do so, but I want the point to be placed before the House. The second point I want to be made clear is this, that there shall be no introduction of the Budget a day or two before the rejection by the House of Lords of the Resolutions in order to get the defeat of the Government on that issue, and not on the Resolutions, and in order to avoid the necessity of going to the Crown for guarantees. It is always possible for the Government to get themselves defeated on an issue other than the House of Lords, and I want to make it certain that they will make the veto of the Lords the real and only issue at the next General Election.
  Mr. SEDDON: I simply want to ask a question. I claim the same right as other speakers to get information on a point in which I am myself concerned. I am interested in the passing of the Budget, but I am also interested in getting, if possible, from the Prime Minister some information as to the Departmental Bills which are to be dealt with. Last year, on 4th August, the then Home Secretary (Mr. Gladstone) introduced a Bill dealing with shop hours in this country. He stated that it was introduced for discussion in the country. Since then we have had a General Election, and the union with which I am associated has interviewed most Members of this House and has secured an overwhelming expression of opinion in support of the view that some time should be given this Session to the discussion of this question. I ask the right hon. Gentleman, when he is formulating his plans for Departmental Bills to be discussed this Session, to bear in mind the honour of a colleague who is no longer a Member of this House, and to give some assistance to a question which certainly deserves consideration.
  The PRIME MINISTER: I will certainly consider that.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Ordered, That up to and including 24th March, Government business shall have precedence at every sitting.—[The Prime Minister.]

  TREASURY (TEMPORARY BORROWING).
  Considered in Committee.
  Resolved, "That Mr. J. H. Whitley do take the Chair as Deputy-Chairman."—[The Prime Minister.]
  (IN THE COMMITTEE.)
  [Mr. J. H. WHITLEY, Deputy-Chairman, in the Chair.]
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  8.0 P.M.
  "That it is expedient:

  (1) To authorise the Treasury to borrow any sums which they have power to borrow under the Consolidated Fund (No. 2) Act, 1909, and the Appropriation Act, 1909, and any sums which may be required for the payment of Treasury bills already issued under those Acts, or hereafter issued, by the issue of Treasury bills, the date of the payment of which shall be a date not later than the thirtieth day of September, nineteen hundred and ten, instead of the thirty-first day of March, nineteen hundred and ten.

  (2) To authorise the suspension in part of the New Sinking Fund for the financial year ending the thirty-first day of March, nineteen hundred and ten."

  Sir FREDERICK BANBURY: I am surprised that the Financial Secretary to the Treasury has not condescended to inform the House what is the meaning of this Resolution. Fortunately, knowing the customs of the House and of the Government, I obtained from the authorities a copy of the Resolution, and I venture to say that there is not a single man in this House, except myself and the right hon. Gentleman opposite, who really knows what is in this Resolution. It does two things. First of all, it authorises the Government to borrow any sum of money, which they were authorised to borrow under the Consolidated Fund Bill of 1909. Then it authorises them to borrow, in addition, sums of money which may be required for the payment of Treasury bills of the 1909 issue. Then it does what I think is a very important thing—it suspends the Sinking Fund for the year 1909–1910 altogether, and I hope to be able to say a few words upon that later on. I think I am right in saying that the Consolidated Fund (No. 2) Bill of 1909 empowered the Government to borrow up to seventy-five millions of money. That is a very large sum of money, and I think this
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  House should pause before they give such enormous powers to the Front Bench opposite as to borrow such a sum. But I understand this Resolution goes very much further than the seventy-five millions, because it apparently perpetuates the powers granted under the Consolidated Fund Bill, 1909, and it goes very much further, and enables the Treasury not only to borrow seventy-five millions, but to use the powers under which they have already borrowed under that Act. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will tell the Committee the extent to which those powers have been used.
  Mr. HOBHOUSE: £29,800,000, or in round figures £30,000,000.
  Sir F. BANBURY: That £30,000,000 under the Consolidated Fund (No. 2 Bill) of 1909 will have to be perpetuated, as it was only authorised to be borrowed for a certain time, so that under this Bill not only the £75,000,000 are to be authorised but the £30,000,000, which should have been repaid. Therefore what really takes place under this Resolution is that the Government has power to borrow £105,000,000, or, rather, to continue the £30,000,000 already borrowed under the Act, and to extend it to £105,000,000 instead of the £75,000,000, which they were authorised to borrow when the Act was introduced. That seems to me to be a very large power to come down and ask this Committee to give them, and I think, in view of the fact that the Government are deliberately omitting to collect taxes to the amount of £25,000,000, they are asking too much. It is quite correct to say that the Government are borrowing their own money, and the taxpayer is paying interest for the people who have not yet paid their taxes in order that they may borrow their own money. I have paid my Income Tax—or, rather, a large portion of it—and I am afraid that I am rather foolish in so doing; but why, when some of us have paid our taxes, should other taxpayers be let off? The Radical papers say that large sums of money will have to be borrowed to carry on the business of the country, as a considerable amount of increased expenditure would have to be paid, and the Government come down and propose to perpetuate a system which they themselves and their financial supporters formally denounced.
  At the end of the Resolution it authorises the suspension in part of the new Sinking Fund for the financial year ending the 31st March, 1910. That, I believe, is a novel

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  proposition without precedent in a Resolution of this kind. We have already sanctioned the suspension of the Sinking Fund by, I think, three and a half millions, but, as my hon. Friend below me points out very appositely, if you are going to do this, it has the result of perpetuating a part of the last year's Budget, and that is taken at a time when there is no Nationalist Member in the House, and many other Members who champion the veto before the Budget, are absent. I trust this proposal is not brought forward in the hope that it will elude the vigilance of the hon. Gentlemen, and I should like to ask whether it is possible to introduce into a financial Resolution part of a defunct Budget, and if that can be done why a Resolution that the Income Tax should be collected should not also be included? I should be inclined to propose an Amendment if I were in order, but I cannot, of course, as a private Member, propose a charge, but if I could move such a proposal I would do so, and it is only a technical rule which prevents me. Why should the Government ask the House to authorise the suspension of the Sinking Fund in part, and why do they not tell us how much is going to be suspended? Three and a half millions was the amount which the Government in the last Parliament determined to suspend, as first of all, if I recollect correctly, they asked for the suspension of three millions, and then, finding that their new taxes were bringing in so little, they found that they would require more money, and asked for the suspension of another half million, but this Resolution does not mention any sum.
  The new Sinking Fund amounts to seven or eight millions, I think, and under this any part of it may be suspended provided only, say, £10 is left. If the Government say in the Resolution "in part," and leave £10, they may suspend the whole of the rest of it, and I would ask the right hon. Gentleman if he would state to the Committee how much he proposes to take. I think I shall have to move an Amendment—at any rate limiting the amount which he proposes to take—and I think that could be done by adding on the words "not exceeding" so much at the end of the Resolution. Before I do that, however, I should like to hear a word of explanation from the right hon. Gentleman upon this matter, and I want to point out to him the very serious effect a proposal of this sort will have at the present moment upon the financial state of the country. The total abolition of the Sinking Fund,
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  which is possible under this Resolution, coming at a time when the right hon. Gentleman is going to borrow money, and at a time when he is going to renew the War Loan, the suspension of the Sinking Fund in this wholesale manner must act upon the price of securities. The Sinking Fund is one of the factors which helps to keep the price of securities at something like a fair level in the market at the present moment, and as no doubt there will be a considerable deficit in the next financial year, there is nothing to protect those securities if it is part of the plan of the Government to totally suspend the Sinking Fund. Such a course must have a very bad effect on the finances of the country at the present moment. I hope I have made my remarks clear to the right hon. Gentleman, but I will tell him that I mean to move an Amendment later on unless I can get some satisfactory reply.
  Mr. GIBSON BOWLES: I am sorry to find myself, on my first day in this House, still confronted by what I consider to be an invasion, although a customary one, of a Standing Order in these words, "When any Motion is made for a charge in this House it shall not be immediately proceeded upon but adjourned to a further day and then taken in Committee." I have always considered the reason of that to be that the House shall be possessed of the proposals which are made, and then shall have a day or two to think over them, but, as a matter of fact, now that we are in Committee, we have no means of knowing the exact form of the question which will be put from the Chair by the only certain method of knowing anything—that is by seeing it in black and white. We have to rely upon what we can catch when you, Sir, read it from the Chair. But I submit that this system, at least, should have this alleviation: that slips containing the Resolution might, without any infringement of usage, be printed and distributed to those three or four Members who take some interest in finance. I do not see, so far as I can catch from your reading, that there is any limit whatever to the borrowing powers given by this Resolution. I do not see that there is any limit whatever to the amount of the Sinking Fund that may be diverted from its purpose. If that be so, I think the Resolution is couched in the most improper form. No Resolution ought to be put in Committee of the House unless there is some limit to the engagements it incurs, and I hope some

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  limit may be introduced upon this occasion. I presume that the Sinking Fund for the year, or, rather, the balance of permanent fixed charge which would go to form the new Sinking Fund, would be something like £8,000,000. Are you going to take the whole of that £8,000,000? If you are it is a very serious matter, and it will seriously affect the price of the debt. I observe that this is called a Temporary Borrowing Bill, but it enables the Government to borrow funds which are not to be repaid, as I understand, till 30th December.
  Mr. HOBHOUSE: September.
  Mr. BOWLES: That certainly is a little better, but even that is rather a long time to make a temporary overdraft for, but still it is better than 30th December. The hon. Baronet rather complains of any Resolution or Bill of this sort being introduced at all. I am afraid that some measure of this kind has become quite inevitable. Had it not been for the action taken in the other House this Bill would not have been necessary, nor would a great many other things be required which will have to be done. The Government find themselves no doubt in a very difficult situation. I myself am sorry for this Bill. I believe the £21,000,000 for which this will provide might have been, and would better have been, obtained by enforcing the payment of the arrears of Income Tax. But still it is very difficult for a private Member to speak with confidence on these matters, because in order to be quite certain of what one is saying one must have at hand information which is only possessed by the Government. I regret the Bill, and I regret that it will increase once more that debt which they so admirably and so largely diminished; but I recognise that the emergency is pressing and that almost any expedient might be adopted in the difficult position in which they are placed.
  Sir F. BANBURY: I thought the amount of the borrowing was excessive, but I did not say that they ought not to borrow it. I admit that they are in a very difficult position, and that something must be done to get the Government out of it; but what I objected to was the indefinite manner in which they ask for power to suspend practically the whole of the Sinking Fund. That is what I am going to move an Amendment to.
  Mr. HOBHOUSE: The hon. Baronet, in opening the Debate, rather took exception to my hesitation to enter upon a discussion at this stage of these proceedings, but in so waiting until the later stage of these proposals to discuss the matter fully, I was only following the precedent which was observed, I think, in the case of the Cunard agreement, and also of an earlier proposal which dealt with the capital account, both in the year 1904, under the auspices of the late Government. Therefore, if I so hesitated, I did it, not because I was unwilling to enter upon the discussion or afford to the house any information, but rather because I wished to follow the usual practice and custom of the House in these matters, and it is very dangerous indeed to depart from precedent in these very delicate matters of finance. This Resolution, if carried, will enable the House to borrow money under the two Acts which are mentioned, namely, the Consolidated (No. 2) Bill and the Appropriation Bill, and if the hon. Baronet will compare these two Bills he will see that the extreme amount which, in some extreme case not contemplated by us, might be borrowed under this Resolution in subsequent Bills would be limited to the sum of £126,000,000. That is the power of borrowing already possessed at this moment by the Government. There is no proposal to extend these powers or to do anything unwonted or unprecedented, but merely to continue, for the convenience of the market in which the hon. Baronet is interested, and for the safety of the Exchequer, the powers which would expire on 31st March unless they were renewed and prolonged by the Resolution now before the House. The date to which they are prolonged is 30th September, that is to say six months, and that is not an unusual currency to give to Treasury Bills. It is a reasonable and proper length of time. There is a point raised by the hon. Member (Mr. Bowles), and repeated, I think, without full cognisance of the fact by the hon. Baronet, namely, that the credit of this country has sunk lower than the credit of France.
  Sir F. BANBURY: I did not say so. I said I was glad my attention had been called to the fact.
  Mr. HOBHOUSE: The statement is not accurate, because I find by comparison of the prices to-day that the yield of Consols is £3 1s. 2d., and the yield of French Rentes is £3 1s. 3d., so that—if you are going into minute particulars it is as well

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  to be accurate—there is an equality, and not an inferiority, and even a slight superiority in the credit of Great Britain at this moment, which is, after all, well worth noting. There is a reason why we should get this Resolution at no distant date and the Bills with which the Resolution is connected at as early a date as possible. We have Bills falling due to the amount of £4,500,000. I am not sure that we need renew the, whole of that. We have Bills falling due on 10th March, and unless we get this Resolution through in reasonable time before that, we shall have some difficulty in raising the money; in fact it would be impossible to raise the money except on three weeks' bills, and that, as the right hon. Baronet knows, is an undesirable course for the Exchequer to pursue.
  Then as to the amount of the Sinking Fund which it is proposed to reduce, the hon. Baronet made an extraordinary statement, and, coming from him, it is a very strange statement to be made, for he is usually so accurate. He suggested that the Resolution revives or continues the Finance Bill of last year. It has nothing to do with the Finance Bill of last year at all. The amount of the Sinking Fund is not dealt with by the Finance Bill of that year. It is dealt with by the Finance Act of 1905, and any subsequent alteration in the amount set aside for the Sinking Fund is merely an augmentation or decrease for the particular year to which it refers. The Sinking Fund as a whole and the permanent amount is settled by the provisions of the Act of 1905. It is entirely governed by the provisions of that Act, which fixes the Sinking Fund at £28,000,000. It is quite clear that in a time of financial stress and difficulty you could not profitably, to the market or to the country, insist upon paying off debt on the one hand and creating fresh and new debt on the other hand. It is, therefore, very much better to reduce the provision for the Sinking Fund by all except the amount which we must provide in order to meet statutory obligations, and we propose by the Bill to be introduced at a later date to suspend the payment for this year for the Sinking Fund by everything except the amount of £1,000,000, which is due for what are called in the City the lottery bonds. They are Exchequer bonds which were raised by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Worcestershire when Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Austen Chamberlain), and which have to be drawn. The amount so suspended will not be £8,000,000, but £6,300,000, making a total of £7,300,000,
  666
  less the £1,000,000 to which I have already alluded.
  I think that is an adequate explanation of the Resolutions as they at present stand. The whole of the subject can, and will, be discussed in the usual course, namely, on the Second Reading of the Bill, following the two precedents I have quoted to the House.
  Sir F. BANBURYmoved, at the end of the Question, to add the words, "Such suspension of the Sinking Fund not to exceed £3,500,000."
  I am very much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman. He has made an important announcement in a clear and courteous manner. He is going practically to suspend the whole of the Sinking Fund. I venture to say most humbly to the right hon. Gentleman that he has not realised the vast importance of what this Resolution is going to do. The right hon. Gentleman tells me that I am wrong in thinking that the Budget had anything to do with the Sinking Fund or the suspension or alteration of the Sinking Fund.
  Mr. HOBHOUSE: What I said was that the Resolutions were not necessarily connected with the provisions in the Budget. If there had been no Budget last year, and if it had been proposed to vary the Sinking Fund, some alteration would have had to be made this year in order not to come into collision with the Act of 1905.
  Sir F. BANBURY: It is difficult to find out actually everything that takes place on a Resolution of this sort, which, as the hon. Member for King's Lynn (Mr. Bowles) has pointed out, has not been printed, and which is concealed in your desk, and which can only be obtained from that desk. I will not go into that again. We went into it in last Parliament, and read quotations from speeches by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Hobhouse) and others, in which they strongly denounced that practice when they were in Opposition. However that may be, it is impossible to make oneself accurately informed of all that is in a Resolution of this sort, having heard it for the first time only five or six minutes ago. Although it is quite true that the Chancellor of the Exchequer fixed the amount of the service of the Debt any sum which may be over after the payment of the interest on the debt constitutes a new Sinking Fund, it is quite true that that was fixed at £28,000,000 in 1905, but it was varied by the Prime Minister in 1906 or 1907.
  Mr. HOBHOUSE: Only for the year.
  Sir F. BANBURY: Exactly. But it was varied again in the Budget of last year
  Mr. HOBHOUSE: Only for the year.
  Sir F. BANBURY: Only for the year, but in the Budget powers were taken to vary the sum set aside for the service of the debt. I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Clapham (Mr. G. D. Faber) will agree with me that the proposal of the Government to suspend the whole of the Sinking Fund, with the exception of £1,000,000, is one of very great gravity, and a very bad thing for the finance of the country. The right hon. Gentleman says the Government are only providing for the renewal until the end of September next of short bonds in existence now, and which would become due at the end of March. What I am afraid of is that the Government are getting into a bad habit. They are always helping themselves by borrowing. That is a bad course, whether in private life or anywhere else. A man goes to a money-lender and takes a short bill. When that is due he says exactly what the right hon. Gentleman said: "It is so very nice to renew for six months more; there is no further trouble, and when that time is up we shall see whether something will not turn up; whether the House of Lords will not be abolished, or something else happen, to enable us to pay off the bill." I am afraid that when September comes we shall have the same answer. While all this is going on the Sinking Fund will be abolished altogether. Does the right hon. Gentleman think when you are borrowing money that you must not repay your debt at the same time. Those were his very words. As the Government are going to borrow money for a very long time, if they remain in office, the repayment of debt will be delayed for a very long time, and, therefore, this project which was sprung on an empty House is of a very serious nature.
  The object of my Amendment is to put the Government in exactly the same position that they would have been in if the Budget had passed. I think that is a very patriotic thing to do on the part of a Member of the Opposition. As one who took a certain part in opposing the Budget last year, I should be quite prepared to deal with the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Healy) if he said that I was now helping
  668
  to keep the Government in office. I am quite prepared to admit that the finances of the country must go on, and I do not wish to add to the embarrassment of the Government—not out of consideration for them, but out of consideration for the taxpayers. And, therefore, I desire to do my best to preserve the finances of the country in as efficient a manner as it is possible after they have been administered by such an extremely bad set of administrators as the present. I trust that the right hon. Gentleman will consider seriously my Amendment, in view of the great merit that was claimed by the Prime Minister in 1906–07 for the share he had taken in paying off debts, a share that was really owing to the exertions of the Unionist party in the preceding Parliament, because all that the right hon. Gentleman did was to take the taxes and to use the surplus in paying off just as if his predecessors had remained in office. I am sure if he were in the House now he would be inclined to vote with me on this subject. I am sure he would not wish to throw over all his protestations, and do away with all the good that he had done by practically abolishing the Sinking Fund. I therefore beg to move my Amendment.
  Mr. GEORGE FABER: This subject is one that interests me enormously. I am under some disadvantage as I did not hear the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, but I understand that it is proposed to suspend the Sinking Fund altogether. If it were merely proposed to borrow money temporarily out of the Sinking Fund there might be a great deal to be said for that in the exceptional circumstances of the case, but to suspend the Sinking Fund altogether gives rise to a much more serious consideration. It is worth while to remind the Radical party of their past in this matter. Ever since the days of the late Mr. Gladstone they have always been against any tampering with the Sinking Fund. Ever since I have been in this House any proposal to touch the Sinking Fund was to the Radical party always like a red rag to a bull. Circumstances appear to alter cases, and what was absolutely wrong when the Conservative Government was in office now becomes right, when the immaculate present party are in control, not of the power, but of the simulacrum of power in this House.
  So it was we saw last year that the new Sinking Fund of twenty-eight million

  669
  pounds a year established under the Act of Parliament of 1875 was reduced to twenty-five million pounds. Some of us said at the time that appetite grows by what it feeds on; so it was not altogether a surprise, though it came on us with an unpleasant shock on the 22nd October last, when the Chancellor of the Exchequer came down and said that the three million pounds he had spoken of in his Budget speech were not sufficient and he must have a half million more. That was three and a half millions altogether off the twenty-eight millions. Now we learn that that is by no means sufficient and that the whole of the twenty-eight million pounds which remains after performing the services of the National Debt—I think it comes to something between eight million and ten million pounds—is to be taken away by the Government and used for the financial purposes of the year, except one million pounds. To fling that at an empty House during dinner-hour is not, I think, treating with respect and consideration that portion of the House which is interested in finance.
  On 7th May, 1908, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, the present Prime Minister, announced to the House of Commons in his Budget speech that there were £14,411,000 applicable to the reduction of the debt. It was made up in this way: The surplus applicable under the old Sinking Fund produced £4,726,000, and the new Sinking Fund £9,785,000, or £14,411,000 in all. When the Chancellor of the Exchequer made his Budget speech last year, that memorable Budget speech, in which he introduced the People's Budget on 29th April, last year, it turned out, from what he said, that the £14,411,000, which the present Prime Minister referred to in his Budget speech in 1908, had not been applied to the reduction of the Debt. The custom, as I understand it, although the matter is not without complication, is that, when a certain sum has been realised at the end of the financial year, either out of the old Sinking Fund or the new Sinking Fund, that sum becomes applicable to the reduction of the Debt during the
  succeeding year. The present Chancellor of the Exchequer did not apply the whole of that sum, which I think he ought to have done, to the reduction of the Debt. No less a sum than £5,750,000, which remained—
  The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member is travelling wide from the matter before the House, which is a Resolution put from the Chair as to borrowing to meet the present emergency.
  Mr. FABER: I feel somewhat at a disadvantage, as I came in after the speech delivered by the right hon. Gentleman. I thought I was at liberty to go into the manner in which the Sinking Fund had been dealt with during the last year. If that is outside the scope of the Resolution, then I shall not for a moment attempt to argue the point. I understand your ruling in the matter to be that I am limited merely to this question, whether it is a right, fair, and proper proceeding to suspend the Sinking Fund for the present financial year. On that matter I have said all I have got to say. I think the proceeding is novel and dangerous. I should like to know whether that is your ruling, Sir, before I resume my seat?
  The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: That does seem to me to be the only subject before the Committee.
  Mr. FABER: Before I sit down I only wish to reiterate that I consider this startling and novel proceeding is not called for by the exigencies of the case, and it would have been much better to have borrowed the money required for the service of the financial year rather than suspend the Sinking Fund, which may form a startling precedent leading up to still more startling innovations in the future.
  Question put: "That those words be there added."
  The Committee divided: Ayes, 95; Noes, 186.

  Division No. 3.]

  AYES.

  [8.50 p.m.

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

  Bathurst, Charles (Wilts, Wilton)

  Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

  Adam, Major William A.

  Boyton, James

  Courthope, George Loyd

  Archer-Shee, Major Martin

  Brassey, Capt. R. (Oxon, Banbury)

  Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S.)

  Attenborough, Walter Annis

  Brotherton, Edward Allen

  Craig, Captain James (Down, E.)

  Baird, John Lawrence

  Bull, Sir William James

  Craig, Norman (Kent, Thanet)

  Baker, Sir Randolf L. (Dorset, N.)

  Carlile, Edward Hildred

  Croft, Henry Page

  Balcarres, Lord

  Cave, George

  Dalziel, Davison (Brixton)

  Baldwin, Stanley

  Clyde, James Avon

  Dickson, Rt. Hon. C. S. (Glasgow, E.)

  Barnston, Harry

  Coates, Major Edward F.

  Dixon, Charles Harvey (Boston)

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

  Hillier, Dr. Alfred Peter

  Peto, Basil Edward

  Duke, Henry Edward

  Hills, John Walter (Durham)

  Ratcliff, Major R. F.

  Dunn, Sir W. H. (Southwark, W.)

  Hohler, Gerald Fitzroy

  Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel

  Eyres-Monsell, Bolton M.

  Hope, Harry (Bute)

  Rawson, Col. Richard H.

  Fell, Arthur

  Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield)

  Rutherford, William Watson

  Fleming, Valentine

  Horne, William E. (Surrey, Guildford)

  Sanders, Robert Arthur

  Fletcher, John Samuel

  Horner, Andrew Long

  Sandys, G. J. (Somerset, Wells)

  Forster, Henry William

  Jardine, Ernest (Somerset, East)

  Stanier, Beville

  Foster, John K. (Coventry)

  King, Sir Henry Seymour (Hull)

  Strauss, Arthur

  Gardner, Ernest

  Kirkwood, John H. M.

  Talbot, Lord Edmund

  Gastrell, Major W. Houghton

  Knight, Capt. Eric Ayshford

  Terrell, Henry (Gloucester)

  Gilmour, Captain John

  Knott, James

  Tobin, Alfred Aspinall

  Geoch, Henry Cubitt

  Llewelyn, Major Venables

  Tullibardine, Marquess of

  Gordon, John

  Locker-Lampson, G. (Salisbury)

  Valentia, Viscount

  Grant, James Augustus

  Locker-Lampson, O. (Ramsay)

  Verrall, George Henry

  Gretton, John

  Mackinder, Halford J.

  Walrond, Hon. Lionel

  Gwynne, R. S. (Sussex, Eastbourne)

  Macmaster, Donald

  Wheler, Granville C. H.

  Hall, D. B. (Isle of Wight)

  M'Arthur, Charles

  White, Major G. D. (Lanc. Southport)

  Hamersley, Alfred St. George

  Magnus, Sir Philip

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

  Hamilton, Marquess of (Londonderry)

  Morpeth, Viscount

  Worthington-Evans, L. (Colchester)

  Harris, F. L. (Tower Hamlets, Stepney)

  Mount, William Arthur

  Henderson, H. G. H. (Berkshire)

  Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Sir F. Banbury and Mr. G. D. Faber.

  Hermon-Hodge, Sir Robert T.

  Peel, Capt. R. F. (Woodbridge)

  Hill, Sir Clement L. (Shrewsbury)

  Perkins, Walter Frank

  NOES.

  Abraham, William

  Grenfell, Cecil Alfred

  Parker, James (Halifax)

  Addison, Dr. Christopher

  Guest, Capt. Hon. Frederick E.

  Pickersgill, Edward Hare

  Agnew, George William

  Hall, F. (Yorks, Normanton)

  Pointer, Joseph

  Alden, Percy

  Hancock, John George

  Polland, Sir George H.

  Allen, Charles Peter

  Harcourt, Rt. Hon. L. (Rossendale)

  Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)

  Anderson, Andrew Macbeth

  Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)

  Price, Sir Robert J. (Norfolk, E.)

  Atherley-Jones, Llewellyn A.

  Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale)

  Priestley, Arthur (Grantham)

  Barclay, Sir Thomas

  Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, West)

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

  Barnes, George N.

  Haslam, James (Derbyshire)

  Pringle, William M. R.

  Barry, Redmond J. (Tyrone, N.)

  Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)

  Radford, George Heynes

  Beale, William Phipson

  Haworth, Arthur A.

  Raffan, Peter Wilson

  Bentham, George Jackson

  Hayward, Evan

  Rea, Walter Russell

  Black, Arthur W.

  Helme, Norval Watson

  Rees, John David

  Bowerman, Charles W.

  Higham, John Sharp

  Rendall, Athelstan

  Brace, William

  Hindle, Frederick George

  Richards, Thomas

  Brigg, Sir John

  Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H.

  Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

  Brocklehurst, William B.

  Hodge, John

  Roberts, George H. (Norwich)

  Brunner, John F. L.

  Hooper, Arthur George

  Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradford)

  Burns, Rt. Hon. John

  Home, Charles Silvester (Ipswich)

  Robertson, John M. (Tyneside)

  Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas

  Hudson, Walter

  Robinson, Sidney

  Buxton, C. R. (Devon, Mid)

  Hughes, Spencer Leigh

  Roe, Sir Thomas

  Buxton, Noel (Norfolk, N.)

  Johnson, William

  Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland)

  Byles, William Pollard

  Jones, Edgar R. (Merthyr Tydvil)

  Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees)

  Carr-Gomm, H. W.

  Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)

  Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel)

  Cawley, Sir Frederick (Prestwich)

  Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)

  Schwann, Sir Charles E.

  Cawley, H. T. (Lancs., Heywood)

  Jowett, Frederick William

  Seddon, James A.

  Chapple, Dr. William Allen

  King, Joseph (Somerset, N.)

  Shackleton, David James

  Clough, William

  Lambert, George

  Shaw, Sir Charles Edward

  Clynes, John R.

  Layland-Barratt, Sir Francis

  Sherwell, Arthur James

  Collins, Godfrey P. (Greenock)

  Lewis, John Herbert

  Shortt, Edward

  Compton-Rickett, Sir J.

  Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David

  Simon, John Allsebrook

  Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow)

  Low, Sir Frederick (Norwich)

  Smith, H. B. Lees (Northampton)

  Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

  Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester)

  Spicer, Sir Albert

  Crosfield, Arthur H.

  Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs)

  Summers, James Woolley

  Crossley, William J.

  M'Curdy, Charles Albert

  Sutton, John E.

  Davies, David (Montgomery Co.)

  M'Kenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald

  Taylor, John W. (Durham)

  Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S.)

  M'Laren, F. W. S. (Linc., Spalding)

  Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

  Denman, Hon. Richard Douglas

  Mallet, Charles Edward

  Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.)

  Dewar, Arthur (Edinburgh, S.)

  Marks, George Croydon

  Thomas, James Henry (Derby)

  Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness)

  Martin, Joseph

  Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)

  Duncan, J. Hastings (York, Otley)

  Masterman, C. F. G.

  Toulmin, George

  Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne)

  Menzies, Sir Walter

  Twist, Henry

  Edwards, Enoch

  Middlebrook, William

  Verney, Frederick William

  Elverston, Harold

  Millar, James Duncan

  Vivian, Henry

  Esslemont, George Birnie

  Molteno, Percy Alport

  Wadsworth, John

  Evans, Sir S. T. (Glamorgan, M.)

  Mond, Alfred Moritz

  Walker, H. de R. (Leicester)

  Fenwick, Charles

  Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall)

  Walsh, Stephen

  Ferens, Thomas Robinson

  Morton, Alpheus Cleophas

  Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent)

  France, Geraid Ashburner

  Murray, Capt. Hon. Arthur C.

  Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton)

  Furness, Sir Christopher

  Muspratt, Max

  Wardle, George J.

  Gelder, Sir William Alfred

  Neilson, Francis

  Waterlow, David Sydney

  Gibson, James Puckering

  Nicholson, Charles N. (Doncaster)

  Watt, Henry A.

  Gill, Alfred Henry

  Nuttall, Harry

  Wedgwood, Josiah C.

  Glanville, Harold James

  Ogden, Fred

  White, Sir George (Norfolk)

  Glover, Thomas

  O'Grady, James

  White, J. Dundas (Dumbartonshire)

  Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford

  Palmer, Godfrey Mark

  White, Sir Luke (Yorks, E. R.)

  672

  673

  Whitehouse, John Howard

  Williams, W. L. (Carmarthen)

  Wing, Thomas Henry

  Whittaker, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas P.

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

  Wood, T. M'Kinnon (Glasgow)

  Whyte, Alexander F. (Perth)

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

  Young, William (Perth, East)

  Wilkie, Alexander

  Wilson, John (Durham, Mid)

  Yoxall, Sir James Henry

  Williams, Aneurin (Plymouth)

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

  Williams, John (Glamorgan)

  Wilson, T. F. (Lanark, N. E.)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr. Fuller and Mr. Gulland.

  Williams, Penry (Middlesbrough)

  Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

  Question put, and agreed to.

  Resolution to be reported to-morrow.

  WAR LOAN (REDEMPTION).
  Considered in Committee.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That it is expedient to authorise the Treasury to raise by means of the issue of Exchequer bonds any sums not exceeding twenty-one million pounds which may be required for the redemption of War Stock and War Bonds created under the War Loan Act, 1900.
  "That any expenses incurred in connection with raising any such sums, or in connection with the redemption of the said War Stock and War Bonds and the principal of and interest on any such sums be charged on the Consolidated Fund, and, as to the interest, be paid as part of the permanent annual charge for the National Debt."
  Sir F. BANBURY: This differs from the preceding Resolution, because it is absolutely necessary that the obligation of the country should be met, and that the War Loan should be paid on 5th April. The only question that arises is what is the best method of achieving that object. The right hon. Gentleman proposes to do so by means of Exchequer Bonds, which will amount to £21,000,000. I want to know, first of all, what is the amount of the Floating Debt at the present moment, because that is a very important question when one remembers that this £21,000,000 to be raised by Exchequer Bonds will be added to the Floating Debt, and especially in view of the fact that we, by the Resolution which we passed a short time ago, authorised the Government to borrow on short term sums of money up to £126,000,000. It is quite true, as the right hon. Gentleman said, that no Government would use the powers which were given in that Resolution. An hon. Friend here says, "Would they not?" I have not very much faith in this present Government, and I do not know in the least what they would not do. I think they are capable of doing anything if they got the power
  674
  to borrow £100,000,000. I can see that with hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway opposite the very mention of such a thing inflates their desire for social reform. [An HON. MEMBER: "Who placed them in the position?"] Evidently they are not in a very good position. I would ask the right hon. Gentleman what is the amount of the Floating Debt? Is it something like £37,000,000?
  Mr HOBHOUSE: The total amount of the Floating Debt, including £21,000,000 which will not be added to the Floating Debt, is £66,000,000.
  Sir F. BANBURY: Then it is much worse than I thought. I should like to point out that, as the right hon. Gentleman probably knows, if you have a very large floating debt you destroy the amount of money which is floating in Lombard Street, and which is available for carrying on the ordinary business transactions of the country. That is an axiom which anyone who has any knowledge of the City will admit to be true. A floating debt is all right if it is not too large, and if the rate of interest is reasonable. No doubt at present the rate of interest is low, and, from that point of view, there is no objection to the repayment of this loan by Exchequer bonds, but the other, and by far the most important consideration, is to calculate the effect on the money in Lombard Street if you absorb all the floating capital. I see one or two hon. Gentlemen opposite who have some experience of business, and I think they will agree with me that these short bonds are not taken up by the investing public, but by the bankers and merchants, or what we call discount houses in the City, and to a certain extent by France, and I am not sure if by Germany. If you issue such a large amount of those bonds as to take up a large proportion of floating capital you deal a very serious blow to the industries of tie country, because you prevent the ordinary person who wants to discount a bill in Lombard Street. That is a way to make money dear. I would commend it to Lord Swaythling when he prophesies again. I would point out that it is his own party who are going to make money dear by absorbing the floating money in the City. Why does the Government proceed to

  675
  repay debt in this way? I always thought that Sir Michael Hicks-Beach made a great mistake when, in the Boer War, he issued this loan for only ten years, and I wrote to the newspapers at the time suggesting that he would have done better to issue Consols, which he could have done at about 97½, because I did not believe that there was a favourable time in front of the country for the raising of capital. The only reason to my mind for providing for the redemption of the War Loan in this particular way is a hope that the credit of the country is going to improve, and that later on you will be able to issue permanent debt on better terms than you can now. No one would desire that the floating debt should be allowed to increase. Every financier of eminence whom I have known or whose life I have studied has held it to be necessary that the floating debt should be as small as possible, and that where obligations are likely to be permanent they should be put on a stable basis by their being made permanent at once. The reason is that you attract a very much larger class of persons to take up the debt than by the issue of short bonds, which are taken up by only a small section of the community. Has the right hon. Gentleman considered the effect on the money market of increasing the amount of the floating debt to such a large extent, in view of the fact that the Government must borrow by short bonds during the next five or six months? Is his reason for proceeding with the redemption of the War Loan in this manner that he hopes to be able to raise a permanent sum on better terms later on? If so, on what foundation does he build that hope?
  Mr. HOBHOUSE: The hon. Baronet takes a very deep interest in these questions, and particularly, I think, about dinner time. He has laid down the proposition that the redemption of this twenty-one millions of War Loan, and its subsequent reissue to the public, is an addition to the floating debt. That is not the case. I told him just now that there were sixty-six millions of floating debt, which included the twenty-one millions which will be reissued. It is, therefore, not an increase, but a renewal, of a part of the existing debt. We propose to raise this sum of money by means of Exchequer Bonds rather than, as in the case of the loan negotiated in 1900 by means of Exchequer Bonds and Stock, because there is an increasing demand in the City for short-dated securities. Firms and businesses
  676
  were so hard hit by the depreciation in Consols that there is a great desire in the City for a security redeemable at a comparatively short date, such as five, six, or seven years, preferably five, issued at a price on which, although they cannot make more than a small profit, there is no possibility of loss. It is to meet that demand for what, I believe, are known in the City as "floaters," that we propose to issue the whole of this twenty-one millions in five years' Exchequer Bonds. It would be premature, at a time so comparatively distant, to state the exact proposals that we shall make to the market in connection with the issue of these bonds. I trust the hon. Baronet, in view of this explanation, will not put the Committee to the trouble of a Division.
  Mr. WATSON RUTHERFORD: There are two grave objections to the course which the Government are pursuing. It is a very objectionable thing for a Government to take out of circulation such an enormous amount of the loose money available for the purposes of the City. The right hon. Gentleman, when asked the amount of the existing floating debt, said it was 66 millions, but he did not disclose the fact that that included the twenty-one millions of War Loan.
  Mr. HOBHOUSE: I said specifically that it was included in the amount.
  Mr. WATSON RUTHERFORD: I am sorry I did not hear it. At any rate, my objection is that the abstraction of £60,000,000 from the loose cash available for facilitating business in the City is a very serious matter. It is an amount out of all proportion to anything known in the past in connection with matters of this sort. I do not suppose that the Government of this country has ever before had much more than half of this amount represented by short loans in the City. There is another serious objection. Suppose anything unforeseen were to happen in the way of an European complication. Of course, we all hope that nothing of the sort will occur. But how serious it would be for the Government of this country if it found that it had £60,000,000 for which it was accountable at a very short date, and which it would then be practically impossible to replace with anything in the nature of a permanent security. What would be wanted in such an emergency would probably be to borrow a large sum of money. But the existence of over £60,000,000 of loose unfixed liabilities, represented simply by short loans, would be fatal to

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  the credit of the country. We on this side look upon the matter as one of the most serious description, which we are not justified in passing without making a most solemn protest.
  Sir F. BANBURY: Before that Resolution was put I should just like to say a word or two in answer to the statement made by the right hon. Gentleman. He did not reply to my question, which was whether he considered that he would have a more favourable time in the future for putting this loan on a permanent basis than he has now. He merely said he was carrying out the repayment in the manner he is carrying it out, because there was in the City at the present moment a desire on the part of people who had lost through investing in Government funds, owing to the depreciation of Consols, a desire to have a short bond which should be depreciated because it was going to be repaid in a short time. I do not quarrel with that; I think it is a fact, and a very serious fact. But I am not at all sure that the Treasury ought to encourage that feeling. What is going to happen to Consols if he is going to ask people who used to invest in Consols to feed their appetite with something different? The result will be there will be no buyers of Consols, and the depreciation in Consols must continue. There will come a time when the Bank rate may be 6 or 7 per cent., and what is the right hon. Gentleman going to do then with £66,000,000 of money in the floating market? Lord Swaythling's prophecy of 6 or 7 per cent. Bank rate will come in. What is going to happen then? If the right hon. Gentleman had ever been in business he would not have made so successful a man of business as he is a politician if he did not look in front of him before he entered into a bargain. He is not looking beyond his needs now; he is just considering the six months during which he thinks everything will be coleur de rose. What is going to happen when there is a revolution, when the House of Lords is abolished? The right hon. Gentleman must remember that when he has driven capital out of the country there will not be these sixty-six millions available for him.
  Mr. HOBHOUSE: There is no doubt that one of the advantages of a short-dated security of this sort is that you can take advantage of a falling in the general rate of interest if, and when, that very desirable state of things occurs.
  Resolution agreed to; to be reported to-morrow.

  SUPPLY.
  Considered in Committee.
  (IN COMMITTEE.)
  [MR. EMMOTT, Chairman of Ways and Means, in the Chair.]

  SUPPLY.

    CIVIL SERVICES SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES, 1909–10.—CLASS I.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a supplementary sum not exceeding £4,400 be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1910, for Expenditure in respect of Royal Palaces."
    Mr. WATSON RUTHERFORD: I think we are entitled to ask the right hon. Gentleman for some particulars as to this. We discover from the explanation in the printed estimates that it arises out of Hampton Court Palace and the excavation of the old moat and bridge, which was estimated to cost £3,500. I presume that £1,400 is the amount that has been spent in the current financial year. If so there will be £2,100 more to spend in connection with the excavation of the old moat and bridge, and, in addition, £1,400 is required apparently for the right hon. Gentleman to acquire certain property to preserve the amenities of the Palace. Some of us were under the impression that the amenities of the Palace would take very good care of themselves. I do not know why the Government under those circumstances should rush in and spend £3,000. When we have heard the explanation we may of course see that there were excellent reasons for this excavation of the moat and bridge, which has cost already £1,400, and which is going to cost another £2,100, and that there is also a good reason why some £3,000 should be spent in amenities. If additional property of a valuable character which is worth this £3,000 has been bought, and if the State is to get the advantage of holding £3,000 worth more property, and thereby preventing some other evil-disposed person from getting an increment from it that probably is an exceedingly desirable purchase. But I think the right hon. Gentleman should give us some explanation.
    The FIRST COMMISSIONER of WORKS (Mr. Harcourt): It was suggested to me by people with a knowledge of the history of Hampton Court last year that it was possible that the old moat which had been destroyed could be built up, and that

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    it was also possible that the bridge of which we know the existence from old prints of the time of Charles I. might not have been destroyed but buried in the process of levelling outside the Palace. I thought that was so interesting an antiquarian possibility, and that the work could be done at such a small expense, that I made some trial sinkings near where I thought the bridge ought to be. I found that the whole of the ancient bridge, the Wolsey Bridge, was intact with the exception of part of the parapet. I have not been able to find yet a piece of the original parapet, but the whole bridge, with the arches in a most wonderful state of preservation, has been uncovered. I found that the two walls of the original moat were in existence, and that the moat had only been filled up with rubbish, consisting largely of old clay pipes and broken bottles of the date, which have been temporarily preserved in a museum at Hampton Court. I also found other objects of antiquarian interest. I hope the House will not grudge the expenditure here foreshadowed for the reproduction of the old Wolsey Moat and the rediscovery of this very interesting bridge which is an interesting historic reminiscence not only from its time, but from the fact that the King first brought his Consort into Hampton Court across that bridge, as may well be seen in some contemporary prints.
    Mr. WATSON RUTHERFORD: May I ask this question? Will the £3,500 fully excavate the moat and repair the bridge?
    Mr. HARCOURT: Yes, that sum is the amount which will cover, so far as I can estimate, the whole cost of excavating the moat and of restoring the bridge. We will then have a proper entrance to the palace. I propose to remove the loose material and then to fill up the moat again to the water level with soil, and to sow it with grass. It would be impossible to introduce water again without doing damage to the palace, so that this is the best compromise we can arrive at in reproducing the old conditions. I may mention incidentally that in doing this work I have employed thirty or forty men who were going to be turned out of another job in the neighbourhood. I was anxious, even if I could not utilise the services of those actually unemployed, to utilise the services of those who were about to be unemployed for this work. You cannot
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    take the first man you meet for antiquarian work, because in the shifting of soil and so forth some care must be exercised. That is all that is necessary to say upon the question of the moat.
    There is another question as to the amenities of the palace. I discovered last year, but too late for an insertion in the Estimates at the time, that a meadow about seven acres in extent at the opposite side of the river to the palace, but within full view of the palace, was likely to be sold and utilised either for a pumping station with a tall chimney, or for a generating station with a tall chimney and other unsightly buildings. If the hon. Member is acquainted with the neighbourhood as well as I am he will know that this meadow is in close proximity to the London and South-Western station a Hampton Court. I feel that this country, which values Hampton Court as a national possession, and whose amenities depend upon its surroundings not being outraged and destroyed, would not grudge an equitable and economic purchase of such a piece of land. I was able to purchase that seven acres for £3,000. Immediately on the purchase of it I was able to let it on a lease for twenty-one years, at a rent of £100 per year, to a boat builder who will erect a boat-house subject to my approval of his design. He will lay out the rest of the grounds for gardens for house boats that may be moored there, and will devote the other part of the ground to a cricket and football ground for the locality. The boat-house which he is to erect will become the property of the Government, and therefore re-lettable at the end of the twenty-one years. I do not think on the whole that that has been a bad bargain for the public or for Hampton Court. And I am quite sure that we have saved a beautiful palace from an indignity that might have been inflicted on it.
    Mr. JAMES HOPE: May I ask the first Commissioner whether the question of e-version Duty might not arise. It seems to me in this case the Government are confiscating the tenant's improvement. It is a bad precedent. First I gather this land was undeveloped land, and being bought by the Government would be liable to Undeveloped Duty. The erection of these chimneys and works would, of course, have developed it, and it would not in that case be liable.
    The CHAIRMAN: This consideration evidently involves legislation, and it is out of order.
    Mr. JAMES HOPE: Does the agreement of the boatbuilder involve that he must expend a considerable sum on the boathouse which, at the end of twenty-one years, becomes the property of the Government?
    Mr. HARCOURT: I said the lease was for twenty-one years, and that the boat-builder having put up the house it will at the expiration of the lease become the property of the Government.
    Mr. J. D. REES: I raise no objection to the action of my right hon. Friend. On the contrary I agree with it, and thoroughly approve of what he has done. My only object in rising was to express the hope that when the Budget comes before the House again and I have to say something with regard to the preservation of the amenities of Harrow-on-the-Hill, he will agree with me.
    Mr. WATSON RUTHERFORD: I desire to thank the right hon. Gentleman for the explanation he has given me. I feel quite certain that in taking the course he has taken in regard to the moat and bridge he has acted wisely and properly.
    Vote agreed to.
    Question proposed, "That a supplementary sum not exceeding £5,500 be granted to His Majesty to defray the charges which will come in course of payment during the year ended 31st March, 1910, for expenditure in respect of Diplomatic and Consular building."
    Mr. ARTHUR FELL: Before we pass this Vote we should have some information with regard to the second item of £3,000. The charges are in connection with the transfer of a villa in Naples. I have seen some paragraphs in the newspapers with regard to this. I think we should have some explanation with reference to this building. I suppose it will have to be maintained, and that there will be a considerable increase in the annual Vote for the Consular Service in Naples. I think we should have some satisfactory statement in regard to this purchase, and I think we should be told why it was necessary to buy a villa of this kind. I have seen photographs of it, and it is a very beautiful place, but we should Boon get full information about it.
    Mr. WATSON RUTHERFORD: The two items in this Vote have been the subject of considerable discussion and inquiry. Up to the present there has been no
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    information of any sort from the authorities. I think the Committee is entitled to know why this Legation house has been bought. Why it should have been necessary to buy this villa, "Rosebery," at a cost of £3,000. Naples is not at present the capital of Italy or any portion of Italy. The place where Diplomatic and Consular Services are particularly wanted is not Naples so much as in Rome. If right hon. Gentlemen in charge of these Votes give us a little explanation as to what the necessity of the expenditure of this public money was I think it would certainly facilitate matters. It is our duty on this side of the House to demand these particulars. We do not do it with a view to wasting public time or with any hypercritical object, but simply because we are entitled to be informed on these points. If we did not rise and ask these questions the Vote would be passed without our getting any information whatever.
    Mr. HARCOURT: When information on any of these points is asked for I am always happy to give it. I have been asked why it is necessary to buy a Legation House at Petropolis. The Legation House at this place has in the past been hired, but it came to my notice last year that there was an opportunity of purchasing it at an advantageous price for the Government, and in pursuance of the policy we have followed, where the price was moderate and the house suitable, we desire to purchase the house and the freehold for the British Government. In consequence of this the allowance for house rent made to the Minister will be reduced by an amount representing the interest on the capital paid for the purchase. The country will not be a loser, but we shall have a certainty of a suitable house which has been tested by the occupation of the Minister, and which we believe will continue to answer its purpose in the future as it has done in the past. As to the Villa Rosebery it will form a summer residence for the Ambassador in Rome. Those acquainted with Rome know that diplomats take their holidays during the summer, but after their summer holidays there occurs in Rome a most undesirable time in the early autumn. This Vote will enable the Ambassador to live within the confines of the country to which he is accredited, though not actually in the capital, which may not be in the best condition. I desire to disabuse the minds of hon. Gentlemen opposite of the idea that we are buying this

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    villa. It is only owing to Lord Rosebery's natural modesty that a statement has not been publicly made on my part that Lord Rosebery has given these two villas and the whole of the land as a free gift to the British Government for the use of the British Ambassador in Rome. For this payment the country will secure this very valuable property, and, so far as I can estimate, the cost of the maintenance of these villas, with the whole of their grounds, will not amount to more than £500 a year.
    Mr. COURTHOPE: With reference to the Legation House at Brazil, the right hon. Gentleman says that part of the house rent will be saved. Why part of it?
    Mr. HARCOURT: The habit of Brazil is that the Minister occupies the Legation House for part of the year in one place, and for another part of the year he occupies a house in another place. We have not purchased one of these houses, but, as we have purchased the house in Petropolis, the amount will be deducted for the rent of one of these houses.
    Mr. GRETTON: I am sure the House will be gratified to know that this Debate has been the means of calling attention to a very magnificent and patriotic gift to the nation.
    Sir CLEMENT HILL: I wish to express the appreciation I feel of this magnificent gift by Lord Rosebery to His Majesty's Government. The only question I wish to ask is whether the Government is sure that the upkeep will not rather exceed the small sum which the right hon. Gentleman has just mentioned.
    Mr. HARCOURT: I cannot pledge myself that any estimate will not be exceeded. I may say, however, that in this case it is not a round figure roughly arrived at, but one which has been calculated by people I have sent out from my own Department to inquire, and I am giving the House the best information at my disposal.
    Mr. FELL: May I say that I had heard of this gift, but I could not refer to it in the short remarks I made for the purpose of ascertaining from the First Commissioner the nature of the charge until it was stated by the First Commissioner. If I had been able to refer to it as a gift of the Noble Lord's, I should not have used the remarks I did.
    Mr. J. D. REES: I had been anxious to refer to the same point for the purpose of making recognition of the generosity of Lord Rosebery. That having been done, I can only ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he will deduce from this fact that it is extremely dangerous to put unnecessarily high charges upon transfers of property which may come back upon the Government themselves to their discomfiture.

    CLASS II.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a supplementary sum, not exceeding £320, be granted to His Majesty to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1910, for the salaries and expenses in the Offices of the House of Commons."
    Mr. WATSON RUTHERFORD: Or course, if the whole of these items of increase, being £1,000 in the Department of Mr. Speaker, and the other items mentioned, less the appropriations in aid, are simply in consequence of the Session being so long last year over the period which was originally estimated for, then I presume I shall not be in order in referring to the accommodation which is given to Members of Parliament in this building. I take it that comes entirely within the purview of these Votes. These additional sums, of course, include some of the items. I desire to submit the matter to your ruling, because I do not wish in any way to refer to it if you should at the outset consider that in doing so I should be out of order.
    The CHAIRMAN: There is certainly nothing in the Supplementary Vote and nothing in the original Vote dealing with this question. It would come up on another Vote, and not on this at all.
    Mr. WATSON RUTHERFORD: If I understand these items, which are five in number, they are simply on the same scale without increasing any salaries weekly or monthly and are in consequence of the prolonged Session last year. If that is so, then, of course, I do not think there is anything to be said about them as long as we can be assured or informed that they were simply made up in that way. Of course, we passed the Estimates on the basis of the House sitting a certain period. If it simply sat for so many more days than even the Government anticipated

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    it would sit and this is the exact proportion of the increase, then, of course, there is nothing more to be said; but we should like to know whether that is the explanation.
    Mr. HARCOURT: I am not responsible for these items, which come under my right hon. Friend the Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Hobhouse), who will be here in a moment prepared, no doubt, to answer, but I have a sufficient acquaitance with the facts to say that I believe the whole of this excess is due to the very prolonged sitting last year. The Estimates for the House of Commons offices are prepared in December and presented in March, and it was quite impossible at either of those dates last year to imagine for a moment that the House of Commons would sit practically up to Christmas. The Estimates, therefore, were framed upon the normal scale of an ordinary although perhaps a rather prolonged sitting. Although I have no right to speak with authority, I have no reason to believe that any of the excess is due to anything but the prolongation of our sittings up to December last.
    Captain CRAIG: There is one question I should like to ask, and that is how this increase of £455 additional grant to the refreshment department arises? I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether it is not his experience that in nearly all catering concerns the longer the particular area of contribution is kept open the better pleased those are who have to charge their customers. I think it will be within the memory of every Member who sat in the last Parliament that we all paid for our meals and got them, no matter what the hours were, and I presume the charges were framed to cover the cost of the dinner, supper, or whatever meal you like to call that which we got in the early hours of the morning. I think there should be some explanation given to us as to how it is that under the circumstances it is necessary to give actually an increased grant over and above the very expensive grant already made towards this purpose. I am very sorry the Chairman of the Kitchen Committee, to whom I presume we should address our remarks, is not here. Items are very easily put down, but surely, when Estimates come on for extra expense, it is the duty of the Government to see that the proper Minister is there to explain them to the House. The right hon. Gentleman confesses he is
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    not acquainted with the Vote, and we would respectfully ask him who he is, and who is going to answer these questions? They may be small, but the duty of the Opposition is to inquire into these things, and see there is nothing wasteful. I therefore move to reduce this vote by £100 as a protest against the action of the Government on the first day when Supplementary Estimates are taken in not having the proper Minister present to answer questions.
    The CHAIRMAN: I will put the reduction if the hon Member wishes but the Minister is now here. Under the circumstances I do not know whether the hon. Member wishes to press it.
    Captain CRAIG: If the right hon. Gentleman answers satisfactorily, I will be delighted to withdraw.
    The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. C. E. H. Hobhouse): The hon. Member moved without giving me an opportunity of answering or commenting upon the eloquence with which he has favoured the House for the last ten minutes.
    Captain CRAIG: About four minutes.
    Mr. HOBHOUSE: I shall be very happy to substitute four. The question he has asked is a very simple one to which there is a perfectly simple and brief answer. The increased provision made by the Supplementary Estimate for the expenses of catering for this House during the long and last Session of the last Parliament was due to the representations which were made to me by the Chairman of the Kitchen Committee who succeeded Sir Alfred Jacoby, whose loss, I think, both sides of the House will deplore. When that Gentleman unfortunately died, his successor came to me and represented that the natural waste which takes place in every Department was greatly and unduly enhanced by the long Session, and he asked me to make a supplementary grant to that Department in order to meet the extra wastage, and I complied with his request. If the hon. Gentleman desires further information, I am afraid he must inquire of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Chairman of the Kitchen Committee, whose absence to-night I deplore. I was quite content—indeed I was bound, as indeed anyone standing in my place would be, to accept the word of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman that these expenses had been incurred, that

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    they were inevitable, and that they were reasonably accounted for by the length of the Session, it is only for that reason that the Supplementary Estimate appears upon the Paper.
    Mr. BYLES: I notice under Sub-Section B, the Department of Mr. Speaker, there is an additional sum required. The other day I came across an interesting newspaper paragraph, which enumerated several quaint privileges attaching to the office of the Speaker of the House of Commons. I am seeking information whether any of these are included in the Vote on Account. Obviously some cannot be, such, for instance, as the fat buck and plump doe received by him annually from the Royal preserves. It also appears that Mr. Speaker is entitled to £1,000 equipment money and 2,000 ounces of plate immediately on his election, as well as two hogsheads of claret and £100 a year for stationery.
    The CHAIRMAN: This Vote is explained on page 6, and, as far as I can see, there is only a question of increased charge due to the length of last Session on which a discussion can be raised.
    Mr. BYLES: Would it be in order for me to ask on what Vote these items fall?
    The CHAIRMAN: They do not apply to this Supplementary Estimate at all.
    Mr. WATSON RUTHERFORD: On looking at the explanation of the items on page 6 we find the extra cost of Official Reporting accounts for £1,000. We can quite understand that item. Not only was the Session unduly prolonged, but there were also a very large number of exceedingly late sittings, and, undoubtedly, a considerable amount of extra reporting was involved. That is fairly in proportion to the original estimate of £12, 763. But on the next item we find, for the delivery of votes and Parliamentary Papers an addition of £170, a sum which would seem to be on an altogether different scale of proportion to the other item. Then there is an item of £300 under Sub-head F. We have not been told whether that is simply an additional expense caused by the establishment of the Admission Order Office; if it is, perhaps I may be allowed, as a Member of this House of seven or eight years' standing, to say how very satisfactory it is, how great a convenience the Admission Order Office has proved, and what immense relief it has afforded to a
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    large number of Members who, under other circumstances, would have been obliged, at great personal inconvenience, to attend to the requirements of visitors. If the establishment of the office has only cost £300, I think we may say that it is a very moderate outlay for a convenience which we all very much appreciate.
    10.0 P.M.
    The next item is a sum of £455, an additional grant for the Refreshment Department. Is it solely confined to that, or does it include other items?
    Mr. HOBHOUSE: There are other items.
    Mr. WATSON RUTHERFORD: There are one or two things some of us would like to have said with regard to the Refreshment Department. We do not consider it altogether satisfactory, chiefly from the point of view of the food which, owing to the absence of any opportunity for going elsewhere, we are forced to eat in this place. If it were in order I would say more, but I will not continue this if I am out of order. I should, however, like to refer to our view that the waiters should be better paid. I do not agree with the amount of wages they receive. I think that the system of tipping in these rooms should be abolished, and the waiters should receive a fair and proper wage for their services.
    The CHAIRMAN: This is really an increase due to the exceptional length of the Session.
    Mr. WATSON RUTHERFORD: I am inclined to think so, and therefore I guarded myself by saying I did not wish to be out of order. I will not pursue that point now, but I will raise it on next year's Estimates. I think the convenience of Members is a matter which ought to be studied in every respect. The last item is a sum of £144 to the police. One thing strikes me in looking at these Estimates, and that is, that of those who have been called upon to do extra work, the messengers and the police have got next to nothing. The messengers have only got £170 for the delivery of votes and Parliamentary Papers, while the police get only £144 more for all the extra hours they stopped here at night and all the extra days on which they worked. It certainly does seem as if the poorer people get nothing like a proportionate sum to that paid to other classes of officials. We have had no explanation as to how much overtime

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    was worked by the police, but certainly the amount would lead one to think that the sum paid for it was very small indeed. I think we ought to have a little more explanation from the right hon. Gentleman. I asked him just now how that item of £455 was made up, and he says he is going to answer me directly, but he also indicated by a nod of his head, at all events, that the additional money for the refreshment Department did not account for the whole of that sum. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman, before we pass this Vote, will tell us what it does account for, because a number of my friends, as well as myself, want to know about these items. I think when we get a number of items of this sort all lumped together, with a more or less ambiguous statement as to what they are about and with a sort of intimation that the whole truth is not disclosed by the explanation supposed to be given, we are entitled to ask the right hon. Gentleman to give us some reasonable idea of what the whole of the items are so that we can deal with them. I should be glad if my hon. Friend behind me would move the reduction of this Vote, because I think it is one that ought to be investigated, but I hope the explanation of the right hon. Gentleman will be so full and the figures he will give will be so satisfactory that we may be spared that trouble. I can assure him, however, that if there is any difficulty about it we shall have a vote upon the question.
    Viscount HELMSLEY: I quite agree with the great value for the convenience of Members of this House of the Admission Office, but I think that its usefulness can be still further enhanced if the right hon. Gentleman will take some steps to have the fact of the Admission Office being in existence notified to the public at large, because I have reason to believe that a great many of the outside public are unaware that such an office exists. The consequence is that a great many Members get applications for admission to this House, which are really quite unnecessary, if the applicants themselves knew that there was this Admission Office to which they could go. I hope for the convenience of the House the right hon. Gentleman will take steps to have it further advertised.
    Sir F. BANBURY: I cordially agree with the statement which has just been made, and I should like to go a little further and ask the right hon. Gentleman if he could not extend the powers of the
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    Admission Office. At the present moment a large number of the public evidently do not know of the existence of this office, and they are still under the impression that in order to obtain admission to the Gallery they must write to a Member or go to a Member. On one occasion when I pointed out to a gentleman who called me out that there was an Admission Office I could see that he still thought that I could obtain the order, and that I was desirous of putting him off on to the office instead of getting it myself. I think in view of the great desire there is on the part of the public to go into the Gallery, and the great difficulty which arises on the part of Members getting orders, that the right hon. Gentleman should take steps to make the public understand what the object of the Admission Office is, so that they could go there and not go to Members, to be informed that it is impossible for them to gratify their desires. I do not know whether it is possible for the right hon. Gentleman to make any alteration in that direction, but I beleve if he could, a vast number of Members would be pleased at such an alteration. At the present moment all that a member of the public can do is to obtain an order from that office if the House is sitting, but would it not be possible to arrange that a member of the public could go to the office and ask for an order three or four days in advance? This would save Members of this House an infinite amount of trouble.
    Those who have their constituencies near this House receive many letters which they are bound to answer, and this takes up the time which ought to be spent in this House. [Laughter.] I am surprised that that remark should be received with laughter by hon. Members below the Gangway opposite, because I always thought they held that it was the duty of Members to be in the House, and it was only the old-fashioned Tory party who went away to enjoy themselves. As an old-fashioned Tory, however, I wish to be present in this House as much as possible, and I hope the right hon. Gentleman will take into account the suggestion I have made, which I am sure will be for the convenience not only of the public, but of Members. I want to ask another question about a sum of £300. I see that every item in this list has a footnote, which says that the additional expenditure has been caused by increased charges owing to the long Session, except this one particular item. It is therefore evident that this particular item of £300 has not been

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    caused by increased charge owing to the prolonged Session, and I should like to know by what it has been caused. Is it due to bad estimating of the Department in question, or is it found that the work is greater than was expected?
    I should like also to say one or two words upon the whole Vote, because we unfortunately on this side of the House do not regard a prolonged Session with anything like favour, and now we come down and find that as taxpayers we have to put our hands in our pockets for a long Session which we did not want. That is a very serious thing, and I hope right hon. Gentlemen opposite will bear that in mind as they are now entering upon a fresh lease of power, although that power will not be extended indefinitely or renewed from time to time as Treasury Bonds are. But in the interests of the taxpayers and of the Members we do not want any more prolonged Sessions, and if the right hon. Gentlemen will accede to my two requests and give more power to the Admission Order Office and have no more prolonged Sessions, then I think he will earn the gratitude not only of Members on this side of the House sitting behind me, but of Members on the opposite side.
    Mr. JAMES HOPE: What is meant by an Appropriation in Aid, and what is the reason for the increase in them? The second point I should like to put is on what principle this increase was given to the Refreshment Department? Was it on the same principle that grants are given to make up a deficit? That is a principle I object to altogether, because it means that there is indirectly payment of Members, owing to food being supplied below cost price. I object to an additional grant being given for that purpose, and to the extension of a thoroughly vicious system. Was the grant proportionate to the extra time of the Session, or was it to make up the actual loss and deficiency that occurred? No doubt it was asked for by the head of the Kitchen Committee, but it does not follow that the Treasury ought to have granted it.
    Mr. HOBHOUSE: The Noble Lord (Viscount Helmsley) raised a question with regard to the Admission Office and the general rules which govern the admission of strangers. The hon. Baronet followed the same line, and it was a very reasonable line, which would commend itself to hon. Members, who often get demands from constituents for admission which we
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    are not always able to comply with. Admission to the Strangers' Gallery is under the control of Mr. Speaker. My recollection of the Rules is that it is wholly within the control of Mr. Speaker to grant, withhold, or regulate the admission of strangers in any way which seems good to him, no doubt consulting the convenience and the desires of the House at large.
    Sir F. BANBURY: I think there was a Committee of the House appointed by Mr. Speaker to go into the matter.
    Mr. HOBHOUSE: No doubt there was a Committee, but my recollection is that it was an advisory, and not a mandatory Committee. It was to enable Mr. Speaker to ascertain the wishes of the House, and would have had no power to compel him to do anything which he thought was not desirable or generally desired by Members. Any suggestion which I should accept from the hon. Gentleman, or which I might make on my own initiative to Mr. Speaker, would have to be made with the reserve that it would only be accepted by him if he thought fit to take it into consideration and to accept the suggestions which have been made. I shall be very happy to convey to him those wishes and desires if it seems to be the general wish. The Supplementary Grant for the Admission Order Office is given not only in respect of additions to expenditure already incurred, but that a Supplementary Estimate may be presented in order to provide for some new service, and this new service has appeared in connection with this Admission Office. Old Members will recollect the disturbances which occurred in connection with the admission of strangers. For a very long time the Galleries were shut, and it was not until Mr. Speaker and the House both thought it was fitting that they should remain shut no longer, that, after consideration by a Committee of the House, the Galleries were thrown open. It was then felt that the time had come when a complete change might be made in the conditions under which they were thrown open to strangers, and, amongst other alterations which were made with the concurrence of the Whole House, was the opening of offices in the outer Lobby for the admission of strangers under regulations which were approved. That necessitated both the erection of places in which the officers appointed to superintend the admission of these strangers should be located and necessitated the appointment

    693
    of two gentlemen to these places, the printing of forms, and so forth. That is the explanation of this item of £300. It is not a Supplementary Estimate in the ordinary use of the term supplementary to that which was provided when the original Estimate was presented for a particular service. It was a new expenditure required by the new regulations, and, therefore, we have to present an Estimate for it after the event, instead of as in the usual case an Estimate of Expenditure which is to take place in the future. That is an explanation which I hope will satisfy the Noble Lord.
    Coming to the question raised by the hon. Member for East Down (Captain Craig), who asked what was the principle on which contributions to the Kitchen Committee are made, I understood that the hon. Member objected to these payments being made at all. Well, he is in a very small minority on that point. I have been some time in this House longer than the hon. Member, and I do not remember any other hon. Gentleman at any time objecting to a contribution from the funds of the House to the Kitchen Committee. I have no doubt he will find himself in a state of splendid isolation on this point. The principle on which a contribution is made, if I may use the expression, is no principle at all. The Chairman of the Kitchen Committee came and represented to me that serious expense had been incurred by the prolongation of last Session, and that he desired to replace the stock of china and linen. He stated further that the revenue of the Kitchen Committee had fallen off in respect of the sale of food to strangers. He also represented that it was necessary to make up deficiencies caused by breakages, and so forth, and to make good that profit which had not in reality accrued. That is the explanation of the principle on which contributions are made, and I think it is a reasonable explanation.
    Mr. SEDDON: May I ask whether the £300 is for salaries, and if so what are the salaries which are paid? I wish to know whether the men selected were ex-army officers?
    Mr. HOBHOUSE: That I know nothing about. It does not come under my control. I understand that the men are appointed by Mr. Speaker, and I have neither the right nor the wish to interfere in the matter.
    Mr. SEDDON: Is the item of £300 for salaries?
    Mr. HOBHOUSE: No. That is the whole thing.
    Mr. WATSON RUTHERFORD: The question asked by the hon. Member below the Gangway has not been answered. The question really is how much a year is the Admission Office going to cost? Is this item in respect of a year or six months? Does it consist of the expense for structural alterations? I think we are entitled to have a little more information from the right hon. Gentleman. In regard to the Admission Office there is not the slightest suggestion of any way interfering with the privileges of Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker has got absolute control over the admission to the Galleries, but what we are asking the right hon. Gentleman is that he should spend a little money if necessary, and take a little trouble to enable the advantages of the Admission Office to be made known generally to the public, and to enable the Members to communicate with all the people who approach us for orders to all the Galleries. We are asked to find seats in the Ladies' Galleries, for instance, which we cannot do now.
    The CHAIRMAN: The question of the Ladies Gallery does not arise under this Vote.
    Mr. WATSON RUTHERFORD: I wish to refer strictly to this Admission Order Office, which, by the way, does deal with the Ladies' Gallery. It is there that Members who draw tickets for ladies in the Gallery are able to exchange them with other hon. Members who can make use of them on other dates. It is very important at the opening of this Session that we should have some facilities given to us, which could be easily done by a printed card that could be sent to persons who write for seats. Such a card would explain exactly what can be done to obtain orders, and what cannot be obtained either from us or anywhere else. Members of the House of Commons are troubled day after day by being asked to provide strangers, male and female, with seats in the House, which we cannot do unless we happen to be successful in the ballot. If a little explanatory card were printed and available, it would save us a great deal of letter writing.
    I beg also to remind the right hon. Gentleman that I asked him to inform me, and he was good enough to say he would, but did not, whether this item G, £445, consists

    695
    entirely of a grant to the Refreshment Department, or whether it includes other items; and, if so, what other items are included, because the statement made here is "increase in cost by the prolonged Session and by the additional grant to the Refreshment Department." What is the other increase that has been caused by the prolonged Session, if there is any other? Unless we can get from the right hon. Gentleman explanations upon these points it would be our duty to move a reduction of this Vote, because we intend to persevere either to a Division, or until we can get the right hon. Gentleman to give us a civil reply.
    Mr. HOBHOUSE: The hon. Gentleman has asked me about the regulations in reference to the admission of strangers to the Galleries. The hon. Gentleman can obtain from the Vote Office as many copies as he wishes of the regulations under which strangers are admitted to the Galleries in this House by applying to the Vote Office for these regulations, which are already in print, notice of which, as I am informed, has been sent to every Member of this House. I shall be very happy to give the hon. Gentleman the copy which is now before me if my hon. Friend wishes it, I am sorry I did not answer the question addressed to me by the hon. Member for Sheffield with regard to the Appropriations in Aid. The Appropriations in Aid have been increased by the amount received from private Bills and Provisional Orders in excess of the Estimate. It is impossible to go into details. No amount of research or time would enable me to do that. With regard to the £455, to which reference has been made, part of it goes to the payment of messengers of the House who are under the control of the Serjeant-at-Arms. That was the other part of the expenses which are shown in this £455 under the Subhead G.
    Viscount HELMSLEY: Under Sub-head D there is £1,000 additional expenditure caused by increased charges for official reporting. Is that £1,000 simply owing to the fact that the Session was prolonged over and above the ordinary time or is it due to the alteration in the system adopted last Session? If any part of that expenditure is due to the altered system of reporting I should like to draw attention to the fact, which I remember some of us mentioned at the time this system was introduced, that we do not get the reports
    696
    of the other House, a circumstance which a great many of us much regret. At all events, from the fact that the reports of the Debates in the other House are not-included, the additional expenditure should have been equalised. I ask whether the extra expense is due entirely to the long Session or in any way due to the altered system of reporting?
    Mr. HOBHOUSE: The increased expenditure, with the exception of £250, is entirely due to the increased cost of reporting the Debates, consequent upon the length of the Session. The Noble Lord will remember that we had a contract based on the new system which came into operation at the beginning of last Session. That contract was in one particular not entirely satisfactory, I think, to the contractors. The contractors had reason in one particular to ask for, and they obtained from us, an increased payment on the contract. The rest of the payment, which is represented by a sum of £750 due to the increased cost of reporting, and in the speech which I made upon the occasion of the change taking place I indicated to the Committee of the House that if there was a long Autumn Session it would necessitate some increased pay. But part of that £1,000–I think the actual sum was £234–is due to the fact that it was impossible to obtain delivery of the copy to the contractors as early as it was anticipated. The consequence was that the contractors had to pay almost entirely for night shifts, instead of day shifts, to compositors, printers, and so forth. The expense to them was greater than was anticipated, and we, I think, very reasonably met the increased expenditure falling upon them. Hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House, and Ministers as well, were not, from one cause or another, able to deliver answers to questions as early as was anticipated they would have been to the printers. That caused a later setting up of material, and the employment of night shifts instead of day shifts, and increased expenses and increased payments to the contractors. That is a full explanation of this particular Vote. With regard to the House of Lords Debates, this question was raised, I think by the Noble Lord or some other Member, in the course of last Session, and I think I then gave an undertaking, subsequently carried out, that Members would be able to obtain copies of the House of Lords Reports, which are not issued by the House of Lords, over

    697
    whom we have no control, until two or three days after a Debate has actually taken place. They would not join with us in reporting the Debates of this House. They stood outside our arrangement. We of course have no control over them, and it is therefore impossible to deliver to hon. Gentlemen in this House reports of Debates in the House of Lords on the same day as we deliver the reports of the House of Commons.
    Viscount HELMSLEY: Can an hon. Member now get bound volumes of the House of Lords Reports?
    Mr. HOBHOUSE: Certainly, but application has to be made to the House of Lords. [An HON. MEMBER: "We never heard of it."] It has been stated in this House. You can obtain them from the Vote Office. A certain number of copies of the Debates in the House of Lords are placed in the Vote Office as they are received. More than that I cannot do. We shall be glad to make any representations, but the House of Lords have complete control over the reporting of their own Debates.
    Mr. W. REDMOND: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether it is not the fact that from the commencement of this new arrangement with reference to Debates the bound volumes of the Debates in the House of Lords were always available to every Member of this House, and always delivered to them. As a matter of fact, from the very commencement of this new arrangement I have regularly received the bound volumes of the Debates in the House of Lords, and, needless to say, I have never read a word of them.
    Sir F. BANBURY: If the hon. Gentleman had read them he would probably have added to the vast fund of information which he already possesses. In view of the explanation of the right hon. Gentleman, I wish to draw his attention to this fact, that the following is the foot-note:—"Additional expense caused by increased charges for the Official Reporting of Debates, owing to the prolonged Session, £1,000." That is incorrect, as the right hon. Gentleman has just told us that that was only £750, and that £250 is owing to the fact that they made a bad contract. I
    should like to know on whose authority a statement was put in the note circulated to Members, that is incorrect. The proper foot-note would be, "£750 owing to the prolonged Session, and £250 owing to the bad contract made by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury." Under those circumstances, I beg to move to reduce the Vote by £5, because I think a full explanation has not been given to the House.
    Mr. WATSON RUTHERFORD: In looking through D E F G and II it is curious to note that in each of the explanations given there is an error or misstatement of some kind or description. If the Treasury in furnishing these Estimates to the House cannot give honest, complete, and true statements as to what the items are for, it will be better to discontinue footnotes altogether and leave us to elicit the information in the regular way. It is not right that we should be—I do not say purposely deceived—but, at any rate, taken in by the statement that this money is due to additional cost for reporting, owing to the length of the Session. It now turns out that 25 per cent. of the sum is due to another matter altogether. With regard to the delivery of Votes and Parliamentary Papers, the right hon. Gentleman has let fall that a portion of the amount asked for was paid to messengers, in addition to the £170. In spite of my questions, the right hon. Gentleman has not told us how much was given to the Refreshment Department. The footnote says that the amount is due to the prolonged Session, incidental expenses in the Department of the Serjeant-at-Arms, and an additional grant to the Refreshment Department. What has the Serjeant-at-Arms to do with the Refreshment Department? When asked for particulars the right hon. Gentleman plays with the question in his usual eloquent manner, and ends by giving no information whatever. I am very glad my hon. Friend has at last mustered up courage to move a reduction, and I shall, with pleasure, support him in the Lobby.
    Question put, "That a sum not exceeding £315 be granted for the said Service."
    The Committee divided: Ayes, 103; Noes, 197.

    Division No. 4.]

    AYES.

    [10.45 p.m.

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

    Balcarres, Lord

    Bathurst, Charles (Wilts, Wilton)

    Adam, Major William A.

    Baring, Captain Hon. Guy Victor

    Beckett, Hon. William Gervase

    Archer-Shee, Major Martin

    Barnston, Harry

    Benn, Ion Hamilton (Greenwich)

    Baird, John Lawrence

    Bathurst, Hon. Allen B. (Glouc. E.)

    Bentinck, Lord H. Cavendish-

    Bird, Alfred

    Gordon, John

    Newton, Harry Kottingham

    Boyton, James

    Grant, James Augustus

    Perkins, Walter Frank

    Brackonbury, Henry Langton

    Greene, Walter Raymond

    Peto, Basil Edward

    Brassey, H. L. C. (Northants, N.)

    Gwynne, R. S. (Sussex, Eastbourne)

    Pollock, Ernest Murray

    Brassey, Capt. R. (Oxon, Banbury)

    Hall, D. B. (Isle of Wight)

    Proby, Col. Douglas James

    Brotherton, Edward Allen

    Hamersley, Alfred St. George

    Quilter, William Eley C.

    Butcher, John George (York)

    Hamilton, Marquess of (Londonderry)

    Rawson, Col. Richard H.

    Carlile, Edward Hildred

    Harrison-Broadley, H. B.

    Rice, Hon. Walter Fitz-Uryan

    Castlereagh, Viscount

    Heaton, John Henniker

    Renaldshay, Earl of

    Cator, John

    Hermon-Hodge, Sir Robert T.

    Royds, Edmund

    Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

    Hill, Sir Clement L. (Shrewsbury)

    Rutherford, William Watson

    Cecil, Lord Hugh (Oxford University)

    Hillier, Dr. Alfred Peter

    Sanders, Robert Arthur

    Chaloner, Col. R. G. W.

    Hoare, Samuel John Gurney

    Sandys, G. J. (Somerset, Wells)

    Coates, Major Edward F.

    Hope, Harry (Bute)

    Stanley, Hon. G. F. (Preston)

    Compton, Lord Alwyne (Brentford)

    Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield)

    Stewart, Gershom (Ches. Wirral)

    Cooper, Richard Ashmole (Walsall)

    Horne, William E. (Surrey, Guildford)

    Strauss, Arthur

    Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

    Horner, Andrew Long

    Talbot, Lord Edmund

    Courthope, George Loyd

    Jackson, John A. (Whitehaven)

    Tobin, Alfred Aspinall

    Craig, Captain James (Down, E.)

    Jardine, Ernest (Somerset, East)

    Tryon, Capt. George Clement

    Craig, Norman (Kent, Thanet)

    Knight, Capt. Eric Ayshford

    Valentia, Viscount

    Dalrymple, Viscount

    Llewelyn, Major Venables

    Walrond, Hon. Lionel

    Dixon, Charles Harvey (Boston)

    Lloyd, George Ambrose

    Wheler, Granville C. H.

    Duke, Henry Edward

    Locker-Lampson, G. (Salisbury)

    White, Major G. D. (Lanc. Southport)

    Eyres-Monsell, Bolton M.

    Locker-Lampson, O. (Ramsay)

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

    Faber, George D. (Clapham)

    Mackinder, Halford J.

    Willoughby, Major Hon. Claude

    Fell, Arthur

    Macmaster, Donald

    Wood, John (Stalybridge)

    Fleming, Valentine

    Meysey-Thompson, E. C.

    Worthington-Evans, L. (Colchester)

    Fletcher, John Samuel

    Mills, Hon. Charles Thomas

    Forster, Henry William

    Mitchell, William Foot

    Foster, Harry S. (Lowestoft)

    Morpeth, Viscount

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Sir F. Banbury and Lord Helmsley.

    Gilmour, Captain John

    Morrison, Captain James A.

    Goldman, Charles Sydney

    Morrison-Bell, Major A. C.

    NOES.

    Agnew, George William

    Evans, Sir S. T. (Glamorgan, M.)

    Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David

    Ainsworth, John Stirling

    Fenwick, Charles

    Low, Sir Frederick (Norwich)

    Alden, Percy

    Ferens, Thomas Robinson

    Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester)

    Allen, Charles Peter

    France, Gerald Ashburner

    Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs)

    Anderson, Andrew Macbeth

    Gelder, Sir William Alfred

    M'Curdy, Charles Albert

    Armitage, Robert

    Gibson, James Puckering

    M'Kenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald

    Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbert Henry

    Gill, Alfred Henry

    Manfield, Harry

    Atherley-Jones, Llewellyn A.

    Glanville, Harold James

    Marks, George Croydon

    Baker, Harold T. (Accrington)

    Glover, Thomas

    Martin, Joseph

    Barnes, George N.

    Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford

    Masterman, C. F. G.

    Barran, Sir John N. (Hawick B.)

    Greig, Colonel James William

    Middlebrook, William

    Barry, Redmond J. (Tyrone, N.)

    Grentell, Cecil Alfred

    Mond, Alfred Moritz

    Beale, William Phipson

    Guest, Capt. Hon. Frederick E.

    Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall)

    Bentham, George Jackson

    Gulland, John William

    Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen)

    Black, Arthur W.

    Haldane, Rt. Hon. Richard B.

    Morton, Alpheus Cleophas

    Bowerman, Charles W.

    Hancock, John George

    Murray, Capt. Hon. Arthur C.

    Brace, William

    Harcourt, Rt. Hon. L. (Rossendale)

    Muspratt, Max

    Brigg, Sir John

    Hardie, J. Keir (Merthyr Tydvil)

    Neilson, Francis

    Brocklehurst, William B.

    Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale)

    Nicholson, Charles N. (Doncaster)

    Brunner, John F. L.

    Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, West)

    Nuttall, Harry

    Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas

    Haslam, James (Derbyshire)

    Ogden, Fred

    Buxton, C. R. (Devon, Mid)

    Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)

    O'Grady, James

    Buxton, Noel (Norfolk, North)

    Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry

    Palmer, Godfrey Mark

    Buxton, Rt. Hon. S. C. (Poplar)

    Haworth, Arthur A.

    Parker, James (Halifax)

    Byles, William Pollard

    Hayden, John Patrick

    Pickersgill, Edward Hare

    Carr-Gomm, H. W.

    Hayward. Evan

    Pointer, Joseph

    Cawley, H. T. (Lancs., Heywood)

    Helme, Norval Watson

    Pollard, Sir George H.

    Chancellor, Henry George

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

    Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.

    Chapple, Dr. William Allen

    Higham, John Sharp

    Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)

    Clough, William

    Hindle, Frederick George

    Price, Sir Robert J. (Norfolk, E.)

    Clynes, John R.

    Hophouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H.

    Priestley, Arthur (Grantham)

    Collins, Godfrey P. (Greenock)

    Hodge, John

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

    Collins, Sir Wm. J. (St. Pancras, W.)

    Holt, Richard Durning

    Pringle, William M. R.

    Compton-Ricket, Sir J.

    Hooper, Arthur George

    Radford, George Heynes

    Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow)

    Hope, John Deans (Fife, West)

    Raffan, Peter Wilson

    Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

    Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

    Rea, Waiter Russell

    Crosfield, Arthur H.

    Hudson, Walter

    Redmond, William (Clare, E.)

    Crossley, William J.

    Hughes, Spencer Leigh

    Rendall, Athelstan

    Davits, David (Montgomery Co.)

    Johnson, William

    Richards, Thomas

    Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S.)

    Jones, Edgar R. (Merthyr Tydvil)

    Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoin)

    Dawes, James Arthur

    Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)

    Roberts, George H. (Norwich)

    Denman, Hon. Richard Douglas

    Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)

    Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs.)

    Dewar, Arthur (Edinburgh, S.)

    King, Joseph (Somerset, N.)

    Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradford)

    Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness)

    Lambert, George

    Robertson, John M. (Tyneside)

    Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne)

    Layland-Barratt, Sir Francis

    Robinson, Sidney

    Edwards, Enoch

    Levy, Sir Maurice

    Robson, Sir William Snowdon

    Elverston, Harold

    Lewis, John Herbert

    Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke)

    700

    701

    Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland)

    Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)

    Whitehouse, John Howard

    Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees)

    Tomkinson, James

    Whyte, Alexander F. (Perth)

    Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel)

    Toulmin, George

    Wilkie, Alexander

    Schwann, Sir Charles E.

    Trevelyan, Charles Philips

    Williams, Aneurin (Plymouth)

    Seddon, James A.

    Twist, Henry

    Williams, John (Glamorgan)

    Shackleton, David James

    Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander

    Williams, Penry (Middlesbrough)

    Shaw, Sir Charles Edward

    Verney, Frederick William

    Williams, W. L. (Carmarthen)

    Sherwell, Arthur James

    Vivian, Henry

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

    Shortt, Edward

    Wadsworth, John

    Wilson, John (Durham, Mid)

    Simon, John Allsebrook

    Walsh, Stephen

    Wilson, T. F. (Lanark, N. E.)

    Smith, H. B. Lees (Northampton)

    Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton)

    Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

    Spicer, Sir Albert

    Wardle, George J.

    Winfrey, Richard

    Stanley, Albert (Staffs, N. W.)

    Warner, Thomas Courtenay T.

    Wing, Thomas Henry

    Summers, James Woolley

    Wason, Rt. Hon. E. (Clackmannan)

    Wood, T. M'Kinnon (Glasgow)

    Sutherland, John E.

    Waterlow, David Sydney

    Young, William (Perth, East)

    Sutton, John E.

    Watt, Henry A.

    Yoxall, Sir James Henry

    Taylor, John W. (Durham)

    Wedgwood, Josiah C.

    Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

    White, Sir George (Norfolk)

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—The Master of Elibank and Mr. Fuller.

    Tennant, Harold John

    White, J. Dundas (Dumbartonshire)

    Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.)

    White, Sir Luke (Yorks, E. R.)

    Original Question put and agreed to.

    Resolutions to be reported.
    Motion made and Question put, "That a Supplementary Sum, not exceeding £42,000 be granted to His Majesty to defray the charges which will come in course of payment during the year ending on 31st March, 1910, for stationery and books for the public service, for the expenses of the Stationery Office, and for the cost of Reports of Parliamentary Debates."
    Mr. WATSON RUTHERFORD: If the right hon. Gentleman will tell us, and I assure him I ask him in all good faith, how much of this expenditure is in connection with the Stationery Office, how much of it has been incurred by the Labour Exchanges, how much by the Army, how much by the Admiralty, by the Post Office, the Inland Revenue, by Royal Commissions, and public services generally, he will be doing a great deal towards satisfying the curiosity of those of us upon this side of the House. We do not think it is reasonable to lump all these Departments together, and to ask for a sum of £42,000 without, at all events, telling us how much is on account of each Department. We have decided, unless we get this information, to take as many Divisions as there are Departments in the Vote in respect of which we have been refused this information. I think it is only fair to mention at once the information we want, and that will satisfy us if we can get it. I submit that we are entitled to it, and we now have to press the right hon. Gentleman to give us the separate figures for each of these Departments.
    Captain CRAIG: The right hon. Gentleman has given us an explanation with regard to the printing of the Debates of this House, and has pointed out that the
    702
    extra expense arises from the prolongation of the Session, and that the amount came practically to £170 for Parliamentary Papers, and also expenditure in connection with the new issue of our Debates sent out to each Member. In this Vote for stationery and printing we find an item dealing with the publication of the Parliamentary Debates and Records again. Surely this extra £3,000 requires some further explanation from the right hon. Gentleman. He gave us a full explanation as to the change in the Debates which showed that, owing to his want of foresight in arranging the contract for printing, the actual cost of the prolongation of the Session was £700 for the printing and publication of the Parliamentary Debates. Now he says, so far from that being the case, he still requires a sum of £3,000.
    The next inquiry I would like to make is with regard to the publication of the House of Lords Debates. The right hon. Gentleman said that he had nothing to do with them, and no control over them whatever, and that therefore it was impossible for hon. Members of this House to have the old system of the Debates under which they were bound together. Surely it would be possible to have one contract to cover both Houses, so that the two Reports might be bound up in one volume. When the Votes are placed before us in this manner it is only reasonable that we should ask for this information.
    The CHAIRMAN: The question of the Debates of the House of Lords and the House of Commons being bound together was settled in the original estimate, and it has nothing to do with this Supplementary Estimate.
    Captain CRAIG: I was under the impression that I could raise this point under Section K—
    And, it being Eleven of the clock, the Chairman left the Chair to make his Report to the House.
    Resolutions to be reported to-morrow; Committee also report Progress; to sit again to-morrow (Tuesday, 1st March).
    Adjourned at Two minutes after Eleven o'clock.

  Chinese Indentured Labourers (South Africa).
  Chinese Indentured Labourers (South Africa).
  Post Office Staff (Rates of Remuneration).
  Post Office Staff (Rates of Remuneration).
  Irish Telegraphic Interruptions.
  Irish Telegraphic Interruptions.
  Duty on Spirits.
  Duty on Spirits.
  Allowances for Obsolete Machinery.
  Allowances for Obsolete Machinery.
  Home-made and Imported Spirits (Duty Paid).
  Home-made and Imported Spirits (Duty Paid).
  Income Tax Appeals.
  Income Tax Appeals.
  Income Tax Allowances for Depreciation.
  Income Tax Allowances for Depreciation.
  Customs Statistical Office (Promotion).
  Customs Statistical Office (Promotion).
  Creation of Peers (Revised Return).
  Creation of Peers (Revised Return).
  Foot-and-Mouth Disease (Netherlands).
  Foot-and-Mouth Disease (Netherlands).
  Indian Army (Service in Royal Marines).
  Indian Army (Service in Royal Marines).
  Bombay Political Officers.
  Bombay Political Officers.
  Westmoreland and Cumberland Territorial Army Associations.
  Westmoreland and Cumberland Territorial Army Associations.
  Soldiers' Pensions.
  Soldiers' Pensions.
  Registration of Horses.
  Registration of Horses.
  First Sea Lord (Pay and Emoluments).
  First Sea Lord (Pay and Emoluments).
  Agricultural Rates Act.
  Agricultural Rates Act.
  Notification of Births and Infant Mortality.
  Notification of Births and Infant Mortality.
  Rupert Collum Estate.
  Rupert Collum Estate.
  Scotch Drawing Publications.
  Scotch Drawing Publications.
  Untenanted Lands in County Limerick.
  Untenanted Lands in County Limerick.
  An Evicted Tenant at Dromina.
  An Evicted Tenant at Dromina.
  Hereford Bull Sale.
  Hereford Bull Sale.
  Massereene Estate, County Louth (Evicted Lands).
  Massereene Estate, County Louth (Evicted Lands).
  Lane Joynt Estate, Aughanish, County Limerick.
  Lane Joynt Estate, Aughanish, County Limerick.
  Planters' Holdings, County Limerick.
  Planters' Holdings, County Limerick.

Preamble
The EARL of MACCLESFIELD The EARL of MACCLESFIELD—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his grandfather.
Several Lords Several Lords—Took the Oath.

The King's answer to the Address of Monday last reported by the Lord Steward (E. Beauchamp).

ABERTILLERY AND DISTRICT WATER BOARD BILL. [H.L.]
BANKERS GUARANTEE AND TRUST FUND INCORPORATION BILL. [H.L.]
BLACKPOOL IMPROVEMENT BILL. [H.L.]
CITY OF LONDON (TITHES AND RATES) BILL. [H.L.]
COVENTRY RAILWAY BILL. [H.L.]
GARNANT GAS BILL. [H.L.]
HANDSWORTH URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL BILL. [H.L.]
LEEDS CORPORATION BILL. [H.L.]
MALTBY AND TICKHILL WATER BILL. [H.L.]
MANSFIELD RAILWAY BILL. [H.L.]
MATLOCK BATH AND SCARTHIN NICK URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL BILL. [H.L.]
NOTTINGHAM CORPORATION BILL. [H.L.]
PADSTOW HARBOUR BILL. [H.L.]
SAINT MARY, STOCKPORT, RECTORY BILL. [H.L.]
STOKE-ON-TRENT BOROUGH (AMENDMENT) BILL. [H.L.]
THORNE AND DISTRICT WATER BILL. [H.L.]
TRENT RAILWAY AND BRIDGE BILL. [H.L.]
TYNEMOUTH CORPORATION BILL. [H.L.]
WIMBLEDON AND SUTTON RAILWAY BILL. [H.L.]
Presented, and read 1a.

AMMANFORD GAS BILL. [H.L.]
ASSAM RAILWAYS AND TRADING COMPANY BILL. [H.L.]
BAKER STREET AND WATERLOO RAILWAY BILL. [H.L.]
BISHOP'S STORTFORD, HARLOW, AND EPPING GAS AND ELECTRICITY BILL. [H.L.]
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY AND TOWN WATER BILL. [H.L.]
CAVEHILL AND WHITEWELL TRAMWAYS BILL. [H.L.]
CENTRAL ARGENTINE RAILWAY BILL. [H.L.]
CHARING CROSS, EUSTON, AND HAMPSTEAD RAILWAY BILL. [H.L.]
CHARNWOOD FOREST RAILWAY BILL. [H.L.]
CITY OF DUBLIN STEAM PACKET COMPANY BILL. [H.L.]
FARNHAM GAS AND ELECTRICITY BILL. [H.L.]
GAS COMPANIES (STANDARD BURNER) (No. 1) BILL. [H.L.]
GAS COMPANIES (STANDARD BURNER) (No. 2) BILL. [H.L.]
GAS COMPANIES (STANDARD BURNER) (No. 3) BILL. [H.L.]
GOWERTON GAS BILL. [H.L.]
GREAT CENTRAL RAILWAY BILL. [H.L.]
GREAT GRIMSBY GAS BILL. [H.L.]
HAVANT GAS BILL. [H.L.]
LIVERPOOL AND LONDON AND GLOBE INSURANCE COMPANY BILL. [H.L.]
LONDON ELECTRIC RAILWAY AMALGAMATION BILL. [H.L.]
LONDON UNITED TRAMWAYS BILL. [H.L.]
MERSEY RAILWAY BILL. [H.L.]
METROPOLITAN DISTRICT RAILWAY BILL. [H.L.]
METROPOLITAN RAILWAY BILL. [H.L.]
MORECAMBE TRAMWAYS BILL. [H.L.]
NATIONAL PROVIDENT INSTITUTION BILL. [H.L.]
NORTH EAST LONDON RAILWAY BILL. [H.L.]
PROVIDENT ASSOCIATION OF LONDON BILL. [H.L.]
READING AND DISTRICT ELECTRIC SUPPLY BILL. [H.L.]
SOUTH LINCOLNSHIRE WATER BILL. [H.L.]
SOUTHEND WATER BILL. [H.L.]
STRATFORD-UPON-AVON AND MIDLAND JUNCTION RAILWAY BILL. [H.L.]
WICKLOW GAS BILL. [H.L.]
YORKSHIRE ELECTRIC POWER BILL. [H.L.]
Presented; read 1a; and referred to the Examiners.

GARNANT GAS BILL. [H.L.]
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES informed the House that the opposition to the Bill was withdrawn.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL AND SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (THE EARL OF CREWE): My Lords, I understand that there is no business on the Paper for to-morrow or for Wednesday, and I propose, therefore, with the concurrence of noble Lords opposite, to move that the House do adjourn until Thursday next.
Moved, That the House do adjourn, except for Judicial business, until Thursday.—(The Earl of Crewe.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House adjourned at half-past Four o'clock, till to-morrow, hall-past Ten o'clock.