Sitting of 16 February 1911

Preamble
The House met at a Quarter before Three of the clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Private Bills (Standing Orders not previously inquired into complied with),—Mr. Speaker laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, that, in the case of the following Bill, referred on the First Reading thereof, the Standing Orders not previously inquired into, and which are applicable thereto, have been complied with, namely:—
London Electric Railway Bill.
Ordered, That the Bill be read a second time.
Port of London Authority Bill,
Read a second time, and committed.
Rotherham, Maltby, and District Railless Traction Bill,
To be read a second time upon Wednesday, 8th March.
Sligo Corporation Bill,
To be read a second time upon Thursday, 2nd March.
London County Council (General Powers) Bill (by Order),
Second Reading deferred till To-morrow.
Newcastle-upon-Tyne Corporation Bill (by Order),
Second Reading deferred till Thursday next.
Dover Corporation Bill (by Order),
Read a second time, and committed.
Irvine Burgh Order Confirmation Bill,
Paisley Corporation Order Confirmation Bill,
Ayrshire (Loch Bradan) Water Distribution Order Confirmation Bill,
Read a second time; and ordered to be considered upon Monday next.

STANDING ORDERS.
Mr. Ashton, Mr. Brace, Mr. Vaughan-Davies, Sir Thomas Esmonde, Mr. George Faber, Lord Claud Hamilton, Mr. Mildmay, Mr. William Redmond, Mr. Samuel
1206
Roberts, Mr. Eugene Wason, and Mr. John William Wilson were nominated Members of the Select Committee on Standing Orders.—[Mr. Ashton.]

TERRITORIAL FORCE (COUNTY ASSOCIATIONS).
Address for Return "showing the financial position of County Territorial Associations on the 31st day of March, 1910."— [Colonel Williams.]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.

  Spread of Plague (International Co-operation).
  Mr. GINNELLasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in view of the danger to unoffending nations from the spread of plague and other preventible diseases, he could see his way to initiating some international movement towards more general observance of the fundamental laws of health and sanitation; and whether British Consuls in the principal foreign cities will be asked to report on these subjects and on any precautions now being taken against plague?
  The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir Edward Grey): In 1903 an International Convention was concluded at Paris with the object of applying in a systematic manner the most modern methods of resisting the spread of plague and cholera. His Majesty's Government and most European countries are parties to this Convention, and it is open to any country which has not yet adhered to do so at any time. His Majesty's Consular Officers abroad always report the appearance of any case of plague, cholera, or yellow fever within their Consular district, and the special measures or regulations put into force for the purpose of checking the spread of the disease. During the continuance of any outbreak they are expected to furnish short telegraphic reports at least weekly showing the number of cases and deaths and the name of the locality affected; and in the case of the present epidemic in Manchuria reports are received almost daily.
  Mr. GINNELL: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether he will take any practical steps now with the object stated in the question?
  Sir E. GREY: The object of my answer was to show that practical steps have already been taken, that there is international co-operation, and the Consuls are already doing exactly what the hon. Gentleman asks that they should be instructed to do.
  Earl WINTERTON: Will the right hon. Gentleman see that these periodical cables or letters are communicated to the Press in order to alleviate public feeling on the subject?
  Sir E. GREY: I will look into that point; I cannot give a promise.

  Canada and United States (Tariff Agreement).
  Mr. PIKE PEASEasked what steps are being taken by His Majesty's Ambassador at Washington, in view of the new United States duties upon Canadian fish under the proposed trade reciprocity between Canada and the United States whereby free entry is given to Canadian herrings and mackerel, among other varieties, whereas the duty now imposed upon British and Newfoundland fish is one farthing per pound on herrings, one halfpenny per pound on mackerel, and three-eighths of a penny on other fish cured or preserved?
  Sir E. GREY: The whole subject is under the careful consideration of His Majesty's Government, and I am therefore not in a position to make any statement.

  Declaration of London.
  Lord NINIAN CRICHTON-STUARTasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he would explain why the Dominions and Colonies were not consulted as to the Declaration of London before it was signed?
  Sir E. GREY: The answer is that such a course was not practicable at the time.
  Lord NINIAN CRICHTON-STUART: Will the right hon. Gentleman not take into consideration its enormous importance to the Port of Cardiff in connection with British trade?
  Sir E. GREY: As to the question of the importance to British trade, it has, of course, been taken into consideration all through.
  Mr. PIKE PEASEasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, whether his attention had been called to the statement made by President Taft in his
  1208
  message to Congress in regard to the conclusion of an arrangement between Canada and the United States whereby the freight rates between the two countries would be considerably modified; whether he will lay the particulars of this arrangement upon the Table of the House; how the new freight rates will compare with those hitherto in force; and whether his Majesty's Ambassador at Washington has made any report as to the effect of this reduction upon the competition of British and American manufacturers in the Canadian market?
  Sir E. GREY: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. As regards the second part, a report has been drawn up by the Canadian and United States Delegates appointed to discuss the question of the control of the international freight rates, but this has not yet ben considered by either of the Governments concerned. I am not aware that any definite fresh freight rates have as yet been suggested.
  Mr. EYRES-MONSELLasked the Secretary for Foreign Affairs whether he had notified any of the foreign Powers who were signatory to the Declaration of London of his intention to declare the term l'ennemie in Article 34 of the Declaration to mean the Government of the enemy; and, if so, whether this interpretation of the term has been accepted by any of the Powers concerned?
  Sir E. GREY: The answer is in the negative, but a notification will be made as soon as His Majesty's Government announce that they are ready to ratify.
  Mr. LEE: Has the right hon. Gentleman any hope that by previous negotiations with foreign Powers an interpretation of this term satisfactory to all concerned may be arrived at?
  Sir E. GREY: So far I am not aware that anyone except in this country has expressed any doubt with regard to it. We shall notify other Powers when we are in a position to announce that we are ready to ratify the Declaration, but until then we cannot say what steps will be taken.
  Mr. EYRES-MONSELLasked the Secretary for Foreign Affairs whether he has any information to show that the Government of the United States of America have declined to accept as authoritative the Foreign Office official translation of

  1209
  the Declaration of London, as published in Blue Book 4554, and have had a fresh translation made; and, if so, can he state what is the translation of the word commercant, which appears in Article 34?
  Sir E. GREY: Correspondence on the subject of the translation is still going on with the United States Government, and pending its conclusion no statement can be made.

  Montenegro (British Representation).
  Colonel GRIFFITH-BOSCAWENasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he was aware that there is no British representative resident in Montenegro at the present time, although the other Powers are represented; that this was the case also in 1908, when Bosnia and Herzegovina were annexed by Austria; that on that occasion a special envoy was sent in a hurry after the event had taken place in order that British interests might be protected; whether his attention had been called to the fact that no consular report has been issued on Montenegro since 1898, although there is now a railway there and trade is being developed; and would he explain what are the reasons for this neglect of a foreign State which owes it present position largely to British assistance in the past?
  Sir E. GREY: There was formerly a permanent British Representative at Cettinje, but recently a Chargé d'Affaires has only been sent there intermittently. Now that the principality of Montenegro has been erected into a kingdom, the question of re-establishing the permanent appointment is under consideration.
  Colonel GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: May I ask whether, in view of the present critical state of affairs in the Balkans, will the right hon. Gentleman take steps to see that Great Britain is represented there immediately?
  Sir E. GREY: We cannot appoint a permanent representative immediately, but I think it exceedingly probable that it will be done soon. With regard to getting information with respect to present political matters, of course we do receive such information as is required.

  Hague Conference.
  Mr. BYLESasked whether His Majesty's Government will appoint a Commission to prepare proposals to be laid before the next International Peace
  1210
  Conference at the Hague and to make such other arrangements as may be necessary?
  Sir E. GREY: If the Hon. Member will refer to the Resolution passed at the Sixth Plenary Meeting of the Peace Conference of 1907, the text of which he will find in Parliamentary Paper No. 4, Miscellaneous, of 1908, he will see that the time is hardly ripe for a decision on the point raised in his question: which will, however, be carefully considered when the time contemplated by the Resolution approaches.

  Fortification of Flushing.
  Viscount WOLMERasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he would make any statement as to the views of His Majesty's Government on the proposed fortification of Flushing; and whether the existing treaties give Great Britain any right of intervention in the matter?
  Sir E. GREY: No statement of the views of His Majesty's Government seems called for upon measures taken by a foreign Government to fortify its own frontier, in so far as these measures are purely defensive. If any international Treaty rights or obligations were incidentally to be affected, the question would be one for friendly discussion between the Powers who were parties to the treaty before any of them could pronounce an opinion.

  German South-West Africa (Railway Disputes).
  Mr. JOHN LYTTELTONasked what compensation, if any, had been paid to the relatives of the Kaffirs (being British subjects) killed and the men injured in the recent collision between the railway officials and their employés in German South-West Africa; and whether any censure or punishment has been passed upon the persons responsible for calling in the military to shoot the British Kaffirs in German South-West Africa, without first making representation to the civil authority of the German Government?
  Sir E GREY: I have not heard that any compensation has yet been paid to the men injured or to the relatives of the deceased, and His Majesty's Government are not aware that any punishment has been inflicted on the persons responsible for calling in the military at Wilhelmsthal.

  1211
  A communication has recently been received from the Union Government in regard to the incident, and is now under consideration with a view to a communication being made to the German Government.
  Mr. JOHN LYTTELTONasked what number of German soldiers, if any, were injured in the recent attack upon the British Kaffirs employed by the German railway company in German South-West Africa?
  Sir E. GREY: I am not aware that any German soldiers were injured in the affray.

  Inspector of Lunatics (Ireland).
  Mr. O'SHAUGHNESSYasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether he was aware that the post of Inspector of Lunatics in Ireland was about to become vacant; and whether he could give an assurance that the position would be filled by the appointment of a person who has had long and residential experience in the treatment of the insane and asylum management?
  The CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Mr. Birrell): I am well aware and am daily reminded by applicants that the post of inspector of lunatics is about to become vacant. In filling the office due regard will be had to the experience of candidates in the management of lunatic asylums and in the treatment of the insane.
  Mr. MOORE: How many of these reminders came from the Nationalist party?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I do not think any.
  Mr. MOORE: Will the right hon. Gentleman look into that?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I am referring to the applicants themselves.

  Protestant Church of Ireland, Dublin.
  Mr. BRADYasked whether during the last two years any special force of Dublin metropolitan police have been posted outside a Church of Ireland church on Sundays to prevent disturbance; and, if so, whether the disturbance apprehended was from Roman Catholics?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The Chief Commissioner of Police informs me that it has been necessary occasionally to post some police outside one particular church
  1212
  belonging to the Protestant Church of Ireland in the hon. Member's constituency on Sundays, owing to a controversy as to the conduct of the service. This controversy was not of a kind to excite the least interest among Roman Catholics.
  Mr. MOORE: Is it a Standing Order of the Metropolitan police that a constable shall be on duty at each of the various churches during service every Sunday?
  Mr. BIRRELL: No; it is the habit of the police everywhere to be stationed out side all large congregations in order to secure them quiet during their service from noisy boys and other persons of that sort?
  Mr. STEPHEN GWYNN: Is there any ground for the statement publicly made in a review this month by the hon. Member (Mr. Moore) that Protestant churches in Dublin need to be protected against disturbance by Roman Catholics?
  Mr. BIRRELL: No. No policemen whatever are placed outside any churches in Dublin in apprehension of the congregation being disturbed by Roman Catholics.
  Mr. MOORE: I have seen them there. Are they placed there for ornament?
  Mr. BIRRELL: No; they are placed there in the ordinary course that policemen are placed wherever congregations of persons are likely to be called together.
  Mr. MOORE: Does the right hon. Gentleman state that in other parts of Ireland there are policemen outside Protestant churches during service?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I do not say anything as to that, but in all large towns in England, Scotland, and Ireland it is the duty of the police to pay attention to large congregations of people.

  Alleged Organised Violence (Dromore).
  Mr. J. P. FARRELLasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether his attention had been called to the circumstances under which a dance organised by Protestants and Catholics in the Town Hall, Dromore, had to be abandoned; whether it was a fact that because a few Catholics were included in the invitations threats were openly used by the local Orangemen to break up the gathering by violence; and whether, in these circumstances, any steps are being taken by the Executive to protect the social rights of the people of Dromore from such organised violence?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The police authorities inform me that a local publican organised a ball to be held in the Town Hall, Dromore, on 19th January last. Three Unionists joined the organising committee, but withdrew on ascertaining that the ball would be chiefly patronised by people of the opposite views. No open threats of violence were used, but rumours were circulated that Orange drumming parties would attend to oppose the ball being held, and it was therefore abandoned. The police will take any steps which may be necessary to preserve the peace in Dromore.

  O'Hara Trench Estate, King's County.
  Mr. REDDYasked what steps the Estates Commissioners had taken to acquire the untenanted land at Mullaghkrawn, near Banagher, King's County, on the O'Hara Trench estate; and, seeing that attempts were being made by eleven-months' graziers to get possession of this land, would immediate steps be taken to have it bought up and distributed among the deserving people in the district?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The Estates Commissioners inform me that the O'Hara Trench estate which was purchased by the Estates Commissioners under Section 6 of the Irish Land Act, 1903, comprises some 423 acres of untenanted land, of which 121 acres were situated on the town land referred to. This untenanted land has since been allotted. The Commissioners subsequently made an offer for the purchase of 224 acres on the same estate to be sold to them as untenanted land, but their offer was not accepted by the vendor.

  Untenanted Land (Ferbane, King's County).
  Mr. REDDYasked whether the Estates Commissioners have received a memorial from the tenants on the estate of Mrs. Fox, Ferbane, King's County, most of whose valuations are under £7, asking them to acquire the untenanted land, now let on the eleven-months system, for enlargement of their present holdings, and thus enable them to bring up their families in some comfort?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The Estates Commissioners inform me that the memorial referred to has been received, and a copy was referred to the solicitors who are administering the estate. They state the owners are willing to sell the land which the late owner had in her own hands, but point out the difficulty of dealing with this
  1214
  land unless the tenants on the estate agree to purchase their holdings. The matter is under consideration at present.

  Industrial Schools (Ireland).
  Mr. LARDNERasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland if he was aware that in several cases, where children and young persons have been committed to industrial schools under the Industrial Schools Act and the Children Act by courts of petty session in Ireland, children have, after a few days, been discharged from the school to which they were so committed, under direction from Dublin Castle, and without appealing against or setting aside in the usual way the order of the petty sessions court; will he now state by what authority the orders of the petty sessions courts were over ridden; and whether it is proposed to continue this practice?
  Mr. BIRRELL: Children ordered by magistrates to be sent to certified industrial schools have been discharged by my order under the provisions of Section 69 of the Children Act, 1908, on my being advised that the order made by the justices was irregular or was not justified by the circumstances of the case. In any case in which it appears that the illegality of the order is the result of a miscarriage the police proceed with the case again so that the children may be legally sent to the school and detained there.

  Royal Irish Constabulary Barracks (Cells).
  Mr. LARDNERasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland, if he was aware that in the case of many of the Royal Irish Constabulary barracks in Ireland the cells are small stone-paved rooms, unheated by any moans, without windows other than slatted ventilators open at all seasons, provided only with a plain wooden couch without mattress or covering, and that as these cells are occupied by persons who have been arrested and not tried he would see that greater regard should be had for the health of the occupants, particularly during the winter season?
  Mr. BIRRELL: A cell or strong room is provided in every Constabulary barrack in Ireland. The description given of the cells is substantially accurate. They are places of temporary detention only, and as a rule prisoners are usually detained for a few hours. There is no reason to believe that the health of the persons detained suffers under the existing arrangements.
  Mr. LARDNER: Is it not the case that persons are kept in the cells all night in the winter?
  Mr. BIRRELL: No, I am told that is very seldom, if ever.
  Mr. LARDNER: Will the right hon. Gentleman cause inquiry to be made?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I will make enquiry into it.

  Kilcorn Estate, Roslea.
  Mr. LARDNERasked when the tenants of the Kilcorn estate, near Roslea, Record No. 3,348, signed agreements to purchase their holdings under the Land Act, 1903; when the same was lodged with the Estates Commissioners; whether the estate has yet been inspected; and, if not, what is the cause of the delay and when is it likely to be inspected?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The Estates Commissioners inform me that the agreements by the tenants to purchase their holdings on the estate referred to were dated 1st November, 1905, and were lodged in the Land Commission on the 12th January, 1906. The estate has not yet been inspected because it has not yet been reached in order of priority on the principal register of direct sales. Having regard to its position on the register and the claims of other estates in priority to it the Commissioners cannot at present say when its turn will be reached, but when so reached it will be dealt with as rapidly as possible.

  Evicted Tenants (Ireland).
  Mr. LARDNERasked if he will state how many persons have been noted to date by the Estates Commissioners as suitable persons to be reinstated in their old holdings or provided with new holdings in lieu thereof; how many have been so provided, and how many are as yet in the list awaiting disposal; whether the names of any persons who were so noted as suitable persons were removed from the list, and, if so, how many; what are the reasons for removing the names; and whether such reasons were communicated to the parties interested?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The hon. Member will find that the information he asks for in the first part of the question is given in Table XXVII., appendix to the last Annual Report of the Estates Commissioners, which gives by counties and provinces particulars of all applications received to
  1216
  31st March last from persons seeking reinstatement as evicted tenants. As regards the concluding portion of the question it sometimes happens that the Commissioners on further consideration decide not to take any further action in regard to an applicaton provisionally noted for consideration, but they cannot say without a case to case examination whether any, and, if so, how many, cases were so refused. The provision of holdings is a matter which is dealt with by the Estates Commissioners in the exercise of the powers vested in them, and it is not their practice to state the reasons which actuate them in the exercise of their discretion in individual cases, but the hon. Member will find in paragraph 20 of the Commissioners' special report on evicted tenants, presented to Parliament in June, 1907, a detailed statement of the grounds on which after inquiry and report they reject applications.

  Poppy Growth (China).
  Earl WINTERTON (for Mr. Lloyd)asked the Secretary for Foreign Affairs whether he has any recent information respecting the decrease of poppy growth in China; and in which province is the decrease, if any, most marked?
  Sir E. GREY: Sir Alexander Hosie, who is now making a tour of inspection in the provinces of China, reports that so far as his information goes, poppy cultivation has ceased in Shansi, and has been reduced by 30 per cent. in Shansi, and under 25 per cent. in Kansu. In those parts of Szechuan which Sir Alexander Hosie has visited he reports that the suppression of the poppy cultivation appears to have been successfully carried out by the Chinese authorities.

  Tientsin (Sanitary Cordon).
  Earl WINTERTONasked the Secretary for Foreign Affairs if his attention had been called to the protest of the European doctors at Tientsin against the refusal of the foreign consuls to order a sanitary cordon round the European settlement; and if he would instruct His Majesty's Consuls at Tientsin and elsewhere to support the proposals of the foreign medical officers?
  Sir E. GREY: His Majesty's Government have not so far heard of the protest referred to; but His Majesty's Minister at Peking has been asked by telegraph for a report on the matter.

  Old Age Pensions (Ireland).
  Mr. O'SHAUGHNESSYasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland if he is aware that Mrs. Ellen O'Connell, of Knockbrack, Abbeyfeale, in the county of Limerick, was granted an old age pension by the local committee, but on the appeal of the pension officer the Local Government Board declined to sanction it; that owing to the parish register at Ardagh, where she was born, being destroyed she submitted a certificate of age of her brother, Michael King, who was then 77 years, with a statement that she was his junior by 2½ years, and a certificate of birth of her third-born child, dated 5th August, 1867, with a statement of an old man 81 years of age, who knew her all her life, to the effect that she was over 70 years of age; and whether, from these facts, he will take steps to see that she gets the pension?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The Local Government Board upheld the Pension Officer's appeal as it appeared that Mrs. O'Connell was only seven years old when the Census "was taken in 1851, which would make her now about sixty-seven. The only other evidence before the Board as to her age was her statement that she was next in age to her brother Michael, then in his seventy-sixth year, and that her eldest child, if living, would then be about forty-three years old. This child is apparently the one now alleged to be her third. She did not forward the documents mentioned in the question until the Board's decision on the appeal had been communicated to her.
  Mr. O'SHAUGHNESSY: How did the Local Government Board make out that she was not seventy years of age if her name was not in the Census?
  Mr. BIRRELL: She was in the Census of 1851 as seven years old
  Mr. SHEEHANasked whether the Chief Secretary is aware that the claim of Mrs. Nora Cronin, of Coolnacaghera, was considered by the Macroom (No. 2) pension committee; that every endeavour was made to find records of her birth in the parish register of Inchigeelagh and in the Census returns of the period, but without result; that she then procured the best available documentary evidence of her age, namely the sworn declaration of a man named Creed, of Ballingeary, himself seventy-three years of age and in receipt of a pension, who stated that he knew Nora Cronin when she was a little girl, and that she was older than he;
  1218
  whether the Macroom pension committee, on the production of this proof, unanimously supported Mrs. Cronin's claim; will he, therefore, state the reason why it was disallowed by the Local Government Board; whether, in view of their own regulations, this was eminently a case in which a pension should have been granted; and will he recommend that her claim should be allowed forthwith?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The Local Government Board inform me that Mrs. Cronin submitted a declaration by John Creedon, of Aharas declaring that he was seventy-one years of age and believed Mrs. Cronin to be two years older. The Board were not satisfied that she had attained the statutory age. They have no power to reconsider their decision. The Board do not know what regulation is referred to in the last part of the question.
  Mr. SCANLANasked whether the Chief Secretary's attention has been directed to the claim for a pension, under the Old Age Pensions Act, of Mrs. Anne Finnerty, Camphill, Collooney, county Sligo; whether he is aware that her claim, which was supported by documentary evidence that her oldest child was nine years of age on 13th March, 1871, and by the affidavits of two respectable people, known to be over seventy years of age, who testify that to their knowledge the applicant is over seventy years of age, was passed by the local pension committee, whose members are unanimously of opinion that she is qualified as to age; whether he will state on what grounds the Local Government Board disallowed the claim; and, whether, on a reconsideration of all the circumstances, he will order that the pension be paid to Mrs. Finnerty with arrears?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The Local Government Board have not now the papers relating to the case referred to, but the documentary evidence mentioned does not appear to have been before them when they gave their decision in August last. Mrs. Finnerty's name did not appear in the Census Return of her parents' family in 1841, and her age was recorded as only five years in 1851, so that she is now about sixty-five years old. The Board, having no satisfactory evidence before them to show that she had reached the statutory age, they had no option but to allow the question which the Pension Officer had raised as to her right to a pension. It is not open to them to reconsider this

  1219
  decision. Mrs. Finnerty, however, has submitted a fresh claim, which the Board are at present investigating.
  Mr. MEAGHERasked the Chief Secretary whether he was aware that the Castlecomer pension sub-committee, at their meeting held on the 16th December last, provisionally granted pensions of 5s. to, among other claimants, several inmates of the Castlecomer Union workhouse, that these pensioners have had their pensions appealed against since the decision of the committee was given, and that two of these inmates, namely, Margaret Curran and Anne Tracey, have been deprived within the present month of their pension books by the pension officer; and whether he will state on what authority the pension officer acted in thus depriving these pensioners of the benefits of the Old Age Pension Act, having regard to the fact that there was no appeal made against the decision of the local committee?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The Local Government Board inform me that the pension officer was presumably acting in accordance with the provisions of Article 2 (3) of the Old Age Pensions Regulations, 1910, under which if the person to whom a pension has been provisionally awarded as from a specified date does not appear likely to be entitled to a pension on that date the award does not take effect, and the claim has to be dealt with afresh as if it were a new claim. The Board have not received appeals in the two cases mentioned in the question and have no information on the matter.
  Mr. O'SHAUGHNESSYasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland if he can say why it was that Mrs. Johanna Quirk, of Kilconlea, in the parish of Abbeyfeale, in the county of Limerick, who was in receipt of an old age pension, was deprived of it, having regard to the fact that from the evidence adduced the local committee were satisfied that she was entitled to it; whether it is the fact that the pension officer, Mr. Erskine, stated to the Local Government Board that he was also satisfied she was seventy years of age; and whether, when she cannot through no fault on her part, her age not being in any census, produce documentary evidence, discretionary power ought to be given to the local committee and officer in such a case?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The Local Government Board upheld the appeal of the Pension Officer against the decision of the local pension sub-committee on the ground that there was no proof of Mrs. Quirk having attained the statutory age. The Board are unable to say definitely whether the pension officer reported that he was satisfied she was seventy years old, as they are no longer in possession of the papers, but they have no record of any such report. Mrs. Quirk's parents were traced in the Census of 1841, from which it appeared that they were married in 1837, and had two children when the Census was taken, one aged three years, and the other aged two. Mrs. Quirk's own name, however, did not appear, and it would therefore seem that she was not then born.
  Mr. KELLYasked why Dominick McMenamin, of Ballinacor, Killygordon, county Donegal, was deprived of his pension which was granted to him by the Stranorlar (county Donegal) sub-committee; were any fresh facts forthcoming to justify such action; and, if so, what were these facts?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The pension officer raised a question that McMenamin had not reached the statutory age, and the Local Government Board, having sent an inspector to investigate the case, allowed the question. The documents are not now in the Board's possession.
  Mr. LONSDALEasked for the number of persons in Irish workhouses who became qualified to receive old age pensions on 1st January last; the number of such persons who have received pensions; and the number, if any, who have relinquished them and returned to the workhouses?
  Mr. BIRRELL: According to the figures supplied to the Local Government Board by the clerks of the several unions, the number of paupers in the workhouses in Ireland at the end of last year who were over seventy years of age was 7,670, and of these 2,024 were awarded old age pensions by the committees. Appeals, however, against these awards have been lodged in some cases, and in others the claimants have returned to the workhouses, but the Board are not in a position to state the exact number.
  Mr. LONSDALEasked whether the Chief Secretary is able to state the total amount which boards of guardians in Ireland will be required to pay in the current

  1221
  financial year towards the cost of old age pensions granted since the 1st January to persons who were previously disqualified through having received Poor Law relief.
  Mr. BIRRELL: I must ask the hon. Member to await the proposals of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

  Labourers' Cottages (Ireland).
  Mr. LARDNERasked the Chief Secretary whether he will state if a scheme under the Labourers Act has been promoted in the county Monaghan by the Cootehill (No. 2) Rural District Council; and, if so, when was such scheme initiated; how many labourers were proposed to be provided for thereunder; what loan was applied for; what was the date on which it was made; and how many cottages have been erected by the Cootehill (No. 2) Rural District Council to date?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The last scheme of the Cootehill (No. 2) Rural District Council was made on 17th May, 1907, and a local inquiry was held into it in that year. The scheme proposed to provide fifty-one cottages, each with a garden allotment and twenty-three other plots, and the order confirming the scheme authorised the erection of twenty-five cottages, with allotments, and the provision of twelve other plots. The council applied on 6th August, 1909, for a loan of £4,970 to carry out the scheme as confirmed, and the Board sanctioned a loan of £4,800 in October, 1909. None of the authorised cottages had been completed up to 31st March last, but fourteen cottages bad been provided in the district prior to that date under a former scheme.
  Mr. SHEEHANasked the Chief Secretary if he could state the number of tenants of labourers' cottages in the Macroom rural district who sent in representations for the additional half-acre; when were these representations received by the clerk of the rural council; what action was taken upon them by the district council; and, seeing that the additional million will shortly be available for the sufficient financing of The Labourers (Ireland) Act, 1906, will he recommend that all schemes which have been hung up by district councils may be proceeded with so that the preliminaries necessary to the granting of a loan should be got through with the least possible delay?
  Mr. BIRRELL: It appears from the Minutes of the Macroom Rural District Council that they have received representations
  1222
  and propose to consider at an early date the question of formulating a new scheme, but the Local Government Board have no information as to the number of representations lodged either for cottages or for additional half acres, nor are they aware of the precise dates on which they were received by the council. I am bringing in the Labourers Bill to-day, and it is open to the district councils to consider whether they should proceed with any schemes which they may have hung up.

  Ballydonegan Pier.
  Mr. GILHOOLYasked the Chief Secretary whether he is aware that a grant was made for the erection of a pier at Ballydonegan, Castletown Bere, about seven years ago; that a portion of the grant was expended on the proposed work, but that nothing has been done towards its completion for the past five years; and whether he will give his attention to this matter with a view to having this pier constructed?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The Congested Districts Board approved of the construction of a landing place at Ballydonegan, subject to the local mining company making a contribution; but owing to the mining company changing hands, the promised contribution was not forthcoming. The Board, however, began the work at their own cost in October, 1901, but found it necessary in the following year to suspend their operations owing to the difficulty in procuring the necessary labour. Representations have been received from local people urging the Board to carry out the work, and last year the Board's engineer was directed to visit the place again to prepare revised plans and estimates. The Board have recently had the case under their consideration, and it has been arranged for some members of the Board to visit the place with their engineer.

  Reafforestation (Ireland).
  Mr. SHEEHANasked the Chief Secretary if he can state the extent to which the Department of Agriculture has put into actual operation schemes for re-afforestation; in what counties are they at present doing any work under this head, and what is the area embraced in each instance; what powers are possessed by county councils or other public bodies for levying a rate in aid of afforestation; and has the Department sought, or does it propose to seek, the co-operation of these bodies in any efforts on a large scale for the replanting of Ireland?
  Mr. BIRRELL: A sum of £6,000 has been voted by Parliament in each of the years 1909–10 and 1910–11 for forestry work to be undertaken by the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for Ireland, and planting and other operations are in active progress at five centres where lands have been acquired by the Department under the terms of the Irish Land Acts. The total area being dealt with amounts to nearly 4,000 acres and is distributed as follows:—County Galway, 1,277 acres; county Tipperary, 1,197 acres; county Wexford, 646 acres; county Cavan, 405 acres; county Londonderry, 254 acres. In addition to these areas, there are 800 acres of forest lands in county Wicklow and county Wexford utilised in connection with the Department's forestry school at Avondale, county Wicklow. Forestry is one of the purposes to which county councils may apply the proceeds of rates, not exceeding in all 2d. in the £, which they can levy under the Agriculture and Technical Instruction (Ireland) Act, 1899, and the Technical Instruction Acts, 1889 and 1891. In addition, the Irish Land Act, 1909, prescribes that the instalments of the purchase annuity in respect of any parcel of land purchased by a county council or by a rural district council shall be raised as a county at large or as a district charge, as the case may be. The Department are co-operating with county councils with regard to forest areas suitable for being dealt with by these bodies. Forestry schemes approved by the Department are in operation in two counties, and the adoption of schemes in other counties is under consideration.
  Mr. SHEEHANasked the Chief Secretary whether he is aware of the amount already expended by the Department of Agriculture in connection with the work of afforestation undertaken by it, how many men are permanently employed in this connection, and what is the average weekly wage paid to them; is any of this labour of an expert kind, and, if so, where has it been recruited and how is it remunerated; and what steps, if any, are being taken to impart education in forestry at the agricultural stations under the control of the Department?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The expenditure of the Department in regard to forestry in 1909–10 amounted to £4,133. In January last sixty-eight persons were employed by the Department at forestry work exclusive of the staff at the Department's forestry school. The figure mentioned included unskilled
  1224
  labourers. The number of such labourers employed varies according to the season. The wages of unskilled labourers are regulated by the rates for such labour current in the districts where they are employed. The average weekly wages of persons engaged in skilled capacities was 29s. Some of the work is of an expert kind, and positions requiring expert skill are filled, as far as possible, by persons who have taken out satisfactorily the full course of training provided by the Department in connection with their forestry school at Avondale. The persons employed in expert capacities are paid at rates ranging from 20s. to 46s. per week. A school exclusively for the training of working foresters has been in operation for some years at Avondale, county Wicklow. A higher course in forestry is provided at the Royal College of Science, Dublin. It is not proposed to include instruction in forestry in the course provided at the Department's agricultural stations.

  Police Administration, Ulster.
  Mr. J. P. FARRELLasked the Chief Secretary if he will state the amounts charged during the years 1909 and 1910 to the counties of Down, Antrim, and Armagh, in respect of extra police imported into these districts to preserve order during the months of July and August respectively; whether these amounts are charged to the grants payable to the respective county councils or are paid by the councils themselves; and whether, in view of recent threatenings in these counties, it is proposed to station any permanent force of extra police there for the protection of life and property?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The accounts of extra police expenses are not rendered monthly, but half-yearly. The amounts charged in the half-years to 30th September, 1909 and 1910 respectively, are as follows: Half-year to 30th September, 1909, Antrim, £13; Armagh, £687; Down, £85. Half-year to 30th September, 1910, Antrim, £4; Armagh, £157; Down, £85. With the exception of the claim for £85 against the county of Down, the various sums charged have been paid by the county councils concerned. A meeting of the County Down Council has not been held since the claim referred to was furnished. The Constabulary authorities have no reason to anticipate any necessity for a permanent increase in the number of police serving in the counties mentioned.
  Mr. MOORE: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman if there is any means of discriminating between the expense of the police in connection with the Unionist celebration in July and the expense of the police in the disorderly Nationalist demonstration in August?

  Reeves Estate, West Clare.
  Mr. LYNCHasked the Chief Secretary whether his attention has been called to the delay in dealing with the Reeves estate in West Clare, Ireland; and whether he can state definitely what obstacle has arisen, or, if there be none, whether this matter will be expedited?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The Congested Districts Board have submitted to the land judge a proposal to purchase the estate in question, which is still pending before him. No avoidable delay has occurred in dealing with the estate.

  Knight of Glin's Estate, County Limerick.
  Mr. O'SHAUGHNESSYasked the Chief Secretary if he can say whether the Estates Commissioners have taken any steps to include in the sale of the Knight of Glin's estate at Glin, in the county of Limerick, the town holdings; and whether, as those tenants are paying a ground rent for their holdings, the Commissioners will not complete the sale of this estate without including them in it?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I have nothing to add to the reply given on my behalf on 7th April last to the question on this subject addressed to me by the hon. Member?

  Commission of the Peace, County Londonderry.
  Mr. GORDONasked the Chief Secretary whether Mr. Peter Devlin, of Money-more has been appointed a magistrate for the county of Londonderry; whether Mr. Devlin was at the time of his appointment, and still is, the owner and licensee of two public-houses, one in Moneymore and one in Magherafelt; whether there is any rule or practice against the appointment of licensed publicans to the commission of the peace; and, if so, why it was departed from in this case?
  Mr. BIRRELL: Mr. Peter Devlin, of Moneymore, was when appointed and is a farmer and owner of house property and also the proprietor of a hotel at Money-more. The licensee of the hotel is his sister, and she also carries on a licensed business at Magherafelt. The general
  1226
  practice of the Lord Chancellor is not to appoint to the commisison of the peace persons holding publicans' licences.

  Captain Eyre Jevers' Estate, Limerick.
  Mr. O'SHAUGHNESSYasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he can say whether the Estates Commissioners received communications from the tenants on the estate of Captain Eyre Jevers, situate at Dromdeveene and Glenduff, in the county of Limerick, requesting them to declare the estate a congested one within the meaning of the Irish Land Act, 1909; whether he is aware that there are thirty-four tenants on this estate and that the total valuation of it is only £120; and whether, under these circumstances, the Commissioners will send down an inspector to inquire into and inspect it with the object of seeing the poor condition of the tenants and putting the compulsory provisions of the Act of 1909 into operation there?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The Estates Commissioners inform me that the memorial referred to has been received, but on inquiry it appears that Capain Jevers holds these lands under a lease for forty-one years, and is not, therefore, within the class of persons who can sell under the Land Purchase Acts. The tenants have been informed that they should place themselves in communication with the head landlord on the subject.

  Askeaton Town Tenants, Limerick.
  Mr. O'SHAUGHNESSYasked the Chief Secretary if he could say whether the Estates Commissioners received a copy of a resolution passed by the town tenants of Askeaton, in the county of Limerick, asking to have the remainder of the town holdings there included in the sale of the Hewson estate, and, further, that as the town tenants enjoyed the right to a share of the 200 acres of untenanted land on that estate adjacent to the town for a number of years, requesting that they get a portion of this land now as accommodation plots, to enable them to grow food stuffs to support themselves and their families; and if he can say what action the Estates Commissioners propose to take in the matter?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The Estates Commissioners inform me that a copy of the resolution referred to has been received and will be considered by the Commissioners, who propose to approach the vendor with a view to the purchase of the untenanted lands.

  Agricultural Rates Act.
  Mr. BARNSTONasked the Prime Minister if it is the intention of His Majesty's Government to include the Agricultural Rates Act in the Schedule of the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill?
  The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Asquith): It would be premature at this stage of the Session to give a definite pledge on a matter like this, but it is the present intention of the Government to include the Act in question in the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill.
  Mr. JAMES HOPE: May I take it that the right hon. Gentleman does not now regard this Act as involving an unjust subvention to the landed interest?
  The PRIME MINISTER: No, Sir.

  Questions to Ministers.
  Mr. DOUGLAS HALLasked the Prime Minister, whether, in view of the fact that the Government proposes to take all the time of private Members up to Easter and the few opportunities private Members now have of bringing before Parliament important matters affecting their constituents, he will consider the advisability of proposing alterations in the Standing Orders of the House and extending the time for Ministers answering orally questions put to them?
  The PRIME MINISTER: No, Sir, I cannot see that any useful purpose would be served by the adoption of such a course as the hon. Member suggests.
  Mr. LEE: With regard to the latter part of the question, is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the fact that the questions addressed to the War Office have come last every day of the week except one, and as a result the affairs of that Department are withdrawn from criticism?
  The PRIME MINISTER: I will look into it.
  Mr. WEDGWOOD: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether it is not a fact that during the whole of the Session questions were not completed in the three-quarters of an hour at the disposal of Members, and whether steps cannot be taken to remedy this by extending question time up to four o'clock, so long as private Members' time is taken from them by the Government?

  Midwives Bills.
  Mr. ROBERT HARCOURTasked the Prime Minister whether it has been brought to his notice that there is a growing feeling of opposition to certain provisions in the two successive Midwives Bills introduced by the Government last Session, notably the proposed importation, for the first time, of the machinery of the Poor Law, and the proposed annual renewal of the midwives' registration; whether, with a view to securing the much-needed amendment of the Midwives Act, he will consider the desirability of omitting the provisions to which so much objection is taken; and whether it is intended to introduce any measure on the subject during the present Session?
  The PRESIDENT of the LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. Burns): My right hon. Friend has asked me to reply to this question. I understand that the President of the Council has a Bill ready for introduction, from which it is proposed to omit what is known as the annual renewal of midwives' registration. The provisions of the Bill dealing with the payment of medical men called in at the suggestion of midwives were included in the Bill in order to give to the doctors some security for their fees, and I should expect that the omission of the provisions would cause disappointment to the medical profession.
  Mr. ROBERT HARCOURT: Is it to be understood that the provisions on the latter point are the same as in the last Bill?
  Mr. BURNS: I am not in a position to state that definitely. I have received two or three deputations on this very point.

  Town Planning Appeals.
  Mr. NEWDEGATEasked the Prime Minister whether representations have been made to the Government that the Local Government Board are not a suitable court of appeal from the decision of local authorities under the Housing and Town Planning Act, 1909; and, if so, whether he will cause a Bill to be introduced to amend the Act by substituting a judicial tribunal for the Local Government Board as the appeal court?
  Mr. BURNS: My right hon. Friend has asked me to reply to this question. Representations to the above effect have been received by the Local Government Board from fifteen local authorities in all out of over 1,800 in England and Wales, and also

  1229
  from Messrs. Rubinstein, Nash, and Company, Solicitors. Since the Act came into operation there have been fifty-two appeals to the Board, and in all eleven inquiries have been necessary. It is significant that none of the local authorities making the representations have had any experience of the Board's inquiries into appeals under the Act. I may mention that of the appeals to the Board, twenty-six were withdrawn, or for some other reason did not proceed. In seven cases the appeal was allowed. In eight other cases the appeal was dismissed. The question of making the Local Government Board the Court of Appeal in these cases was very fully discussed on many occasions when the Bill for the Act of 1909 was before Parliament, and there does not seem to be any good reason for altering the Act as suggested. The latest figures available—those to 31st March, 1910—show a material increase in the activity of local authorities in regard to closing orders, and I have every reason to think that this very salutary increase of activity will be shown to have been maintained when the figures to March, 1911, are available.
  Mr. CHARLES BATHURST: Is it the invariable custom of the Department to charge costs against an unoffending landowner, even in cases in which the order against him has been quashed after inquiry by the Local Government Board?
  Mr. BURNS: That depends upon many circumstances, the reasonableness or otherwise of the costs incurred.
  Mr. C. BATHURST: Is not it the fact that in every case that has occurred so far where the order was quashed the owner has had to pay the costs?
  Mr. BURNS: Not in every case. In the particular case which I presume my hon. Friend has in his mind there were exceptional reasons to justify the wise decision of the Local Government Board.

  National Defence.
  Mr. MURRAY MACDONALDasked the Prime Minister whether he will give two days for the discussion of the whole subject of the defence policy of the country before the Motion that the Speaker leave the Chair on either the Army or Navy Estimates is taken?
  The PRIME MINISTER: I am afraid we cannot afford two days, but I think the request for a joint discussion is reasonable, and that a day should be given for the purpose.
  Mr. MURRAY MACDONALD: If the right hon. Gentleman is unable to give the two days will he consent to a suspension of the 11 o'clock rule on the one day which he will give?
  Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: In what form does the right hon. Gentleman propose to give this opportunity to the House? Will it be on the Vote which includes the Defence Committee, the Prime Minister's salary, or what other occasion?
  The PRIME MINISTER: I would rather like to consider the matter further. The important substantial point is the discussion.

  Payment of Members.
  Mr. OLIVER LOCKER-LAMPSONasked the Prime Minister if he intends to establish payment for Members of Parliament in this Session; and, if so, at what date?
  The PRIME MINISTER: I cannot at present make a definite statement on this subject.
  Lord HUGH CECIL: It would be very convenient to know what our salary is going to be?
  The PRIME MINISTER: The Noble Lord must wait.
  Mr. HARRY LAWSON: Will such a measure be retrospective so far as this Session is concerned?
  The PRIME MINISTER: I hope so.

  Imperial Conference.
  Mr. OLIVER LOCKER-LAMPSONasked the Prime Minister who will officially open the Imperial Conference; and whether any changes are contemplated in the opening ceremony?
  The PRIME MINISTER: The procedure at the Conference is still under consideration.
  Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the question of inviting the Leader of the Opposition and the Leader of the Nationalist party to be present at the initial ceremony of the Imperial Conference?
  The PRIME MINISTER: I would like notice.
  Mr. HAMERSLEYasked whether His Majesty's Government has formulated a list of subjects to be submitted for the

  1231
  consideration of the Imperial Conference to be held in London in May of this year; and, if so, whether such list of subjects has been forwarded to the respective governments of the dominions overseas, and has His Majesty's Government received from the governments of the said dominions or any of them a list of subjects to be submitted by them for consideration at the said Conference; if so, from which governments and what are the subjects proposed?
  Mr. HARCOURT: Certain subjects have been suggested by His Majesty's Government and communicated to the Dominion Governments. These subjects and the subjects suggested by these governments will be seen from the papers as to the agenda of the Conference which will be laid this week.

  Land Purchase (Ireland).
  Mr. GILHOOLYasked whether a few of the tenants on the Bantry estate of the Earl of Kenmare have not purchased their holdings owing to difference as to prices and for other reasons; and whether the Estates Commissioners will, before advancing the purchase money to the landlord, adjust the difference between him and the tenants?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The Estates Commissioners inform me that when the estates referred to is being dealt with in order of priority the cases of any tenants who have not signed agreements for the purchase of their holdings will be inquired into and considered by the Commissioners.
  Mr. WILLIAM O'BRIENasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether he would put down a Supplementary Estimate that will make it possible for the House to discuss the present position of land purchase in Ireland?
  Mr. BIRRELL: No, Sir. I cannot undertake to put down a Supplementary Estimate which is not in fact required.
  Mr. W. O'BRIEN: Can the right hon. Gentleman not hold out some hope of giving us some opportunity for the discussion of this very urgent question during the very considerable portion of time that the Government propose to appropriate?
  Mr. BIRRELL: So far as I am concerned there is nothing I would like more than a discussion upon this subject. If my hon. Friend can make any impression on the Prime Minister I shall be glad.
  Mr. W. O'BRIEN: I will just try my hand. I put it to the Prime Minister whether it is not reasonable and just that there should be some opportunity for discussing a matter of such imperative importance at some reasonable time to be determined?
  The PRIME MINISTER: I think that that is a very reasonable request.
  Mr. W. O'BRIEN: Will the right hon. Gentleman grant it?
  The PRIME MINISTER: Yes.
  Mr. FFRENCHasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland, whether he is aware that the tenants of Mrs. Biddulph Colclough, Tintern, signed a purchase agreement some years ago; and if he can say when the Estates Commissioners hope to complete the sale by granting a vesting order?
  Mr. BIRRELL: Having regard to the position of this estate on the principal register of direct sales and the claims of estates in priority to it, the Estates Commissioners cannot at present say when its turn will be reached, but when so reached it will be dealt with as rapidly as possible.

  Brackensdon Estate, Fermanagh.
  Mr. CRUMLEYasked what steps, if any, have been taken by the Estates Commissioners to have John M'Manus, son of an evicted tenant, of the Brackensdon estate, Florencecourt, county Fermanagh, restored to the farm from which his father was evicted or provided with a farm of equivalent value?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I would refer the hon. Member to my reply to his similar question on 13th instant, to which I have nothing to add.

  National School Teachers (Ireland).
  Mr. W O'BRIENasked whether provision has been made in this year's Estimates for the payment of national teachers' salaries monthly; and when monthly payments will come into operation?
  Mr. BIRRELL: Provision has not been made in the Estimates for 1911–2 for the monthly payment of salaries of national school teachers. The proposed change from quarterly to monthly payments would involve an immediate charge of over £285,000 to meet the acceleration of the

  1233
  dates of payment while the increase in the cost of administration would be over £5,000 per annum.

  Boxwell Estate, County Wexford.
  Mr. FFRENCHasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland, whether he is aware that the Boxwell evicted tenants are anxious to commence farm operations on their farms before the spring is too advanced; and if he can state approximately at what time the Estates Commissioners propose to give them possession.
  Mr. BIRRELL: The Estates Commissioners inform me that the appeal referred to in the answer to the hon. Member's question for 24th November last was dismissed on the 1st December last, and the Estates Commissioners are at present arranging for the disposal of the lands.

  Local Government Ireland Act (Poor Rate).
  Mr. SHEEHANasked the Chief Secretary whether his attention has been drawn to the clause in the Local Government (Ireland) Act, 1898, which compelled occupiers of premises of £4 valuation and under, who were previously exempted from all local taxation, to pay the poor rate; whether he is aware of the effect of this clause upon the poorest class of the working and cottier population and to the addition caused by it to the burdens of the general ratepayers, inasmuch as it has been found in practice an impossibility to collect these rates, with the result that there has been an accumulation of arrears each year which public bodies must provide and estimate for; whether he will consider the desirability, in the public interest, of providing that owners of holdings and houses who were formerly assessed for local rates should have their liability in this respect restored; and is it the intention of the Government to introduce or support legislation with this object?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The hon. Member refers to Section 52 of the Local Government (Ireland) Act, 1898. Some difficulty has been experienced, especially in urban districts, in collecting the Poor Bate from small occupiers, but it is not correct to state that it has been found an impossibility to do so. The collection of the Poor Kate throughout Ireland has shown a steady improvement since the passing of the Act. I understand that the Local Government Act of 1898 was founded upon the principle that the occupier should be
  1234
  rated, and the Agricultural Grant was given upon this understanding. In the circumstances I am not prepared to recommend any Amendment of the Act in the direction indicated by the hon. Member.

  Labourers' Cottages (Ireland).
  Mr. ELLIS DAVIESasked how many labourers' cottages have been built in Ireland under the Labourers Acts; and what was the average cost thereof?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The Local Government Board inform me that up to the 31st March, 1910, 29,186 cottages had been provided under the Labourers Acts, and the average cost including garden allotment was about £167.
  Mr. ELLIS DAVIESasked how many cottages with half an acre or more of land have been provided in Ireland under the Labourers Act; and what is the average weekly rental of such cottages with land?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The Local Government Board inform me that up to the 31st March, 1910, the latest date to which their returns are made up, the number of cottages provided with plots not half a statute acre or less was 14,411, the great majority of these plots contained half an acre. The number of cottages provided with plots exceeding half, but not exceeding three-quarters of an acre, was 1,077, and the number with plots exceeding three-quarters of an acre was 13,698. The Board are not in a position to state with certainty the average weekly rent of a cottage with half an acre or more land attached thereto, but the average weekly rent of all the cottages and plots provided under the Acts is about one shilling.

  Reinstatement Application (Goleen, County Cork).
  Mr. LONSDALE (for Mr. Charles Craig)asked what steps have been taken by the Estates Commissioners to provide a holding for Mrs. Mary A. Daly, of Goleen, county Cork, whose husband was evicted from his farm?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The Estates Commissioners inform me that the holding formerly occupied by Mrs. Daly's husband is in the occupation of another tenant, who is unwilling to surrender, and with whom the Commissioners have no power to interfere. Her name has been noted for consideration in the allotment of such untenanted land as the Commissioners may be able to acquire.

  New School, Hilden, County Antrim.
  Mr. LONSDALEasked when the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland expect to be in a position to obtain the usual grant towards the cost of erecting a new school at Hilden, county Antrim, from the Board of Works?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The Commissioners of National Education inform me they are unable to state when they may be in a position to make a grant towards the erection of the school referred to. The preliminary investigations in connection with the case have been completed, but the funds placed at the Commissioners' disposal for the erection of vested school houses having been exhausted it will not be possible for them to sanction a grant in this case until additional money is forthcoming.

  High Sheriff of Cavan.
  Sir HARRY VERNEYasked the Chief Secretary whether he can state the circumsances under which the appointment was made of the High Sheriff of the county of Cavan for the current year?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The present High Sheriff of the county of Cavan was appointed in the usual way. The Judges going the Summer Assizes in Ireland in each year return a list of gentlemen eligible to serve the office of High Sheriff for the several counties in Ireland. The name of Frederick Paul Smith, Esq., D.L., was returned by the Judges first on the list of gentlemen eligible to serve the office for the county of Cavan, and Mr. Smith having expressed his willingness to undertake the duties of the office, he was accordingly appointed.
  Mr. MOORE: Does the right hon. Gentleman suggest that this name was returned in any list in the year 1910?
  Mr. BIRRELL: Yes; the suggestion I make is that it was returned at the head of the list of names, on the occasion when it became necessary to make the appointment, and his appointment is perfectly legal.
  Mr. MOORE: Is it not a question for the High Sheriff for the year, who has the sole power of returning the three names, and I ask the right hon. Gentleman distinctly to say if this gentleman's name was on the list of high sheriffs in 1910?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I am told that the judges, going the summer assizes, in each year return a list, and this name was at the top.
  Mr. MOORE: Will the right hon. Gentleman inquire whether Mr. Smith's name was on the list returned in 1910, because the answer given carefully omits that vital fact?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I dispute that it is a vital fact, or that it has been carefully omitted. However, I will inquire.

  Pauper Lunatics (Ireland).
  Mr. LONSDALEasked if the Chief Secretary is now in a position to state whether the Government will make good to the county authorities in Ireland the deficiency in the grants for the maintenance of pauper lunatics and other Poor Law services?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I am not yet in a position to make any statement in this matter.

  Attack on Irish Magistrate.
  Mr. LONSDALEasked, what are the circumstances under which Mr. Edward Westropp, J.P., was fired at and wounded on 1st February; whether cattle drives have recently taken place on Mr. Westropp's property; and whether any arrests have been made in connection with this outrage?
  Mr. BIRRELL: About 9.30 o'clock p.m. on the 31st ultimo, while Mr. Edward Westropp, J.P., was cycling home from Askeaton two gun shots were fired at him from behind a wall seriously wounding him. His life is not in danger. Mr. Westropp is a large grazier, and two cattle drives have taken place on his property, one on 6th January last. No arrests have been made.

  Arms Traffic at Muscat.
  Mr. LLOYDasked the Under-Secretary of State for India, whether any recent negotiations have passed between this country and France, with regard to the arms traffic at Muscat; and, if so, whether such negotiations have had a successful issue?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. McKinnon Wood): Negotiations have taken place, but no settlement has yet been arrived at.
  Mr. LLOYD: Can the hon. Gentleman give an undertaking that the matter will be pressed further at an early date?
  Mr. McKINNON WOOD: I do not think I can add anything to my answer.

  Development Board (Vice-Chairman).
  Mr. DOUGLAS HALLasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will state at what date Sir Francis Hopwood ceased to be the Permanent Under-Secretary to the Colonies, and on what date he was appointed Vice-Chairman of the Development Board; and if at any period he was drawing a salary simultaneously in respect of each of these posts?
  The SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Mr. Harcourt): Sir F. Hop-wood ceased to be Permanent Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies on 1st January this year. His appointment as Vice-Chairman of the Development Commission dates, for purpose of salary, from the same day. He has, of course, at no time drawn the salary for both offices.
  Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider, in view of the great services which Sir Francis Hopwood has rendered at the Colonial Office, and the extremely important character of the duties which the Permanent Under-Secretary at the Colonial Office has to discharge, whether it would be worth while to secure the services of Sir Francis Hopwood at that office for the same salary which has been offered to him?

  Emigration to Canada.
  Mr. INGLEBYasked whether there was any plan under consideration by the Home Government and the Government of Canada for emigrating to the latter any part of the employable surplus population of this country; and whether this question will form one of the subjects for discussion at the forthcoming Conference?
  Mr. HARCOURT: The answer to the first question is in the negative. The general question of emigration will be discussed at the Conference on a resolution of the Commonwealth of Australia.
  Mr. WEDGWOOD: Will the right hon. Gentleman discuss with the representatives of Australia the advisability of colonising our own country by taxing land values?

  Release of Convicts on Licence.
  Mr. BOTTOMLEYasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether letters from the Prison Commissioners to convicts released upon licence
  1238
  are posted in envelopes bearing upon the outside thereof the words "Convict Supervision Office"; and, if so, whether, in view of the hardship inflicted thereby upon ex-convicts who are endeavouring to lead honest lives, he will give instructions that the practice shall be discontinued?
  The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Churchill): I am informed that communications sent to convicts on licence from the Convict Supervision Office are already sent in plain envelopes. There is no need for issuing fresh instructions on the subject.

  Westmoreland and Cumberland Police.
  Mr. BOTTOMLEYasked whether the Home Secretary is aware that the Cumberland and Westmoreland Standing Joint Committee has made its condition of granting a weekly day of rest to the members of the constabulary in the two counties that they shall spend at least two hours of such day in a place of public worship; and whether this regulation has received the sanction of the Home Office?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: The regulations on the subject of leave in county police forces do not require Home Office sanction, and do not come before me in any way. I have, however, made inquiry, and find that no such regulation as the question suggests has been made. I understand, however, that officers on duty on Sunday are now allowed two hours' special absence if they desire to attend a church or chapel.

  Boys in Prison (Manchester).
  Mr. HAWORTHasked whether upwards of 250 boys, between the ages of sixteen and eighteen years, passed through Strangeways Prison, Manchester, during the year 1910; and, if so, how many boys between those ages were convicted and dealt with otherwise than by fine or imprisonment?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: The number of cases of boys between sixteen and eighteen received in Manchester Prison was 247. I am endeavouring to obtain the information asked for in the second part of the question, but this involves inquiries at no less than forty-five different courts, in some of which the records of age are imperfect, and I fear it will take some time to obtain complete information. When I have obtained it, it will probably be best to give it in the form of a Return.

  Motor Trial Runs.
  Mr. BOTTOMLEYasked whether it is the custom for motor manufacturers and agents to send out for trial runs in the streets of London chassis which are not equipped with horns or other means of giving warning; whether such a chassis was recently responsible for the death of a pedestrian; and whether he will give instructions to the police to take proceedings against the owners and drivers of such defectively equipped chassis?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: I am aware that at a recent inquest on a lady who was killed by being run over by a motor chassis the driver is reported to have made the statement referred to by the hon. Member. So far as my present information goes, no such custom as alleged exists, but I am making inquiry. The law is quite clear in requiring all motor-cars to carry horns or other means of giving warning of their approach; and if any breach of this regulation comes to the notice of the police proceedings would be taken against those responsible.
  Mr. BOTTOMLEY: Perhaps he would inquire if the law applies to unfinished cars?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: Yes.

  Prison Officers.
  Mr. HUDSONasked the Home Secretary whether he can modify Prisons Standing Order 727 with a view of allowing prison officers to hold one general meeting each year, if desired, seeing that such freedom would contribute to good feeling amongst the staff without injury to good discipline, and (2) whether he will amend Prison Rule 115 (1) and Standing Order 725 to the extent of giving a more full opportunity to subordinate prison officials to represent their grievances to the Prison Commissioners and the Secretary of State?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: I have no reason to doubt that prison officers have at present ample opportunities for bringing to my notice, or to that of the Prison Commissioners, any matters which they think require attention. The Standing Orders were revised only a year or two ago in order to make clear what are the rights of the prison officer in this matter, and I do not consider that either the Rules or the Standing Orders need further amendment in this respect.

  Electricity in Mines.
  Mr. WEDGWOODasked the Home Secretary whether he proposes to introduce legislation based on the Report of the Departmental Committee on the Use of Electricity in Mines; and, if so, when?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: It will not be necessary to introduce legislation: the rules proposed by the Committee can be established as special rules under the procedure provided by the Mines Regulation Acts; and I will consider whether steps for this purpose can be taken at once.

  Safety Lamp Tests.
  Mr. MARKHAMasked whether the estimated cost of carrying out a full test of safety lamps under Government supervision would exceed a cost of £500; and whether any application has yet been made, and, if so, on what date, to the Treasury for a grant for this specific purpose, what was the amount asked for, and was the money granted or not; and (2) whether, seeing that Sir H. Cunynghame, on 26th July, 1906, stated before the Royal Commission on Mines that the Home Office were prepared to test safety lamps in the same way as explosives are tested, he will say what experiments, if any, have been carried out at Woolwich since this date to ascertain the safety type of lamp; and whether, seeing that the jury found in the case of the Pretoria explosion that this disaster was due to a defective safety lamp, he will say what steps he proposes taking to ensure miners having a safe type of lamp?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: The Royal Commission on Mines recommended that the law should be amended so as to permit the use only of safety lamps of such types as had passed a Government test, and I am proposing to give effect to this recommendation by a provision in the new Mines Bill, which is now in course of preparation. In order, however, that no time might be lost in bringing the provision into force when it had become law, it was decided, with the approval of the Treasury, to proceed at once with the construction of the necessary station and apparatus and with the determination of the nature of the test to be applied. The Woolwich station and apparatus, to which the hon. Friend refers, were designed for the testing of explosives, and would not have been suitable for the testing of lamps. A provisional sum was accordingly taken in the Estimates for the present year, and a

  1241
  Departmental Committee was appointed by me last June to consider the nature of the test. The general arrangements as regards the station have now been settled, and it is hoped that the station will be ready by the summer. The total cost will probably amount to not quite £1,000, and the necessary further provision is being made in the Estimates for the new financial year. When the station is ready, the experiments for settling finally the details of the test will be proceeded with at once.
  Mr. BOOTH: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the advisability of having representatives of the miners present when those tests are taken?

  Assistant Mines Inspectors.
  Mr. THOMAS RICHARDSONasked the Home Secretary whether he is now in a position to indicate the chief qualifications which the Home Office will impose upon the proposed new assistant mines inspectors?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: I am not yet in a position to make a final announcement.
  Mr. THOMAS RICHARDSONasked whether any decision has yet been come to as to the number of assistant mines inspectors which it is proposed to appoint and the grade which they are to occupy in relation to the chief inspectors?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: I would refer the hon. Member to the statement which I made on the subject of the new class of sub-inspectors in reply to a question on 23rd November last.

  Mining Accidents (Public Subscriptions).
  Mr. MARKHAM (for Mr. William Edwin Harvey)asked the Home Secretary whether he will lay upon the Table a Return showing the amount of money subscribed by the, public during the past fifty years in aid of the widows and dependants of miners killed by explosions in the United Kingdom, and what surplus fund still remains undistributed?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: The Home Office has no official information on the subject, but I will see whether the particulars can be obtained—at any rate, as regards the relief funds raised in recent years.

  South Wales Coal Strike (Police Imported).
  Mr. POINTER (for Mr. Keir Hardie)asked the Home Secretary whether he can state the total number of police imported into the Rhondda and Aberdare Valleys in
  1242
  connection with the recent trade dispute therein, the districts from which they were drafted, and the number from each?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: The total number of police sent into the Rhondda and Aberdare Valleys from other districts at different times during the strike amounted to 1,499, drawn from the following eleven forces:—

  Name of Force.

  Number.

  Metropolitan

  …

  …

  902

  Glamorganshire

  …

  …

  216

  Carmarthenshire

  …

  …

  45

  Monmouthshire

  …

  …

  41

  Gloucestershire

  …

  …

  26

  Breconshire

  …

  …

  11

  Cardiff City

  …

  …

  101

  Bristol City

  …

  …

  63

  Swansea

  …

  …

  43

  Merthyr Tydfil

  …

  …

  31

  Newport

  …

  …

  20

  Total

  …

  …

  1,499

  Of this total, the highest number engaged on duty at ony one time was 1,301, on 15th and 16th November. The number at present on duty is 312.
  Mr. POINTER (for Mr. Keir Hardie)asked whether additional allowance, graded according to rank, is to be made to all the police imported from other districts into the Rhondda and Aberdare Valleys, in connection with the trade dispute therein, similar to the allowances being made to the members of the Metropolitan police who were so employed; and whether he will recommend a grant to be made for this purpose from the Imperial Exchequer to the local authorities affected?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: I have no information as to whether additional allowances, similar to those made to the Metropolitan police, are to be given to members of other police forces who were engaged on special duty in connection with the strike in the Rhondda and Aberdare Valleys; the matter is one for the local police authority who lent their services. The answer to the last part of the question is in the negative.
  Mr. REMNANT: Have all the Metropolitan police been brought back?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: Yes.

  Civil Service Commission (Assistant Examiners).
  Mr. GEORGE ROBERTSasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether, with regard to the Supplementary Estimate of £3,535 for assistant examiners in the Civil

  1243
  Service Commission, he can state the number of assistant examiners, the number of candidates who attended examinations, and what increase is represented by this number?
  The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Hobhouse): The Assistant Examiners under Subhead B are paid by fees, and not by salaries. The increase is not in the number of Assistant Examiners occasionally employed, but in the amount of fees payable for setting and examining candidates' papers. The number of candidates who presented Orders for examination in the year 1910–11 to the 27th January was 32,382, an increase of 9,569 over the number presented to the same date in 1909–10.

BILLS PRESENTED.
  CRIMINAL LAW (MITIGATION) BILL.
  "To mitigate the Criminal Law," presented by Mr. LLEWELYN "WILLIAMS; supported by Mr. George Greenwood and Mr. M'Curdy; to be read a second time upon Thursday, 2nd March.
  SHOP CLUBS ACT (1902) AMENDMENT BILL.
  "To amend The Shop Clubs Act, 1902," presented by Mr. WILLIAM THORNE; supported by Mr. Bowerman, Mr. O'Grady, Mr. Parker, and Mr. Lansbury; to be read a second time upon Friday, 26th May.
  INTESTATE HUSBAND'S ESTATE (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  "To amend the Law relating to the share of Intestate Husband's Estate falling to the widow in Scotland," presented by Mr. JOHN HENDERSON; supported by Sir Henry Craik, Mr. Sutherland, Mr. Eugene Wason, and Mr. Younger; to be read a second time upon Monday, 27th February.
  LICENSING (IRELAND) BILL.
  "To amend the Intoxicating Liquors (Ireland) Act, 1906," presented by Mr. CLANCY; supported by Mr. Field, Mr. Brady, and Mr. Hayden; to be read a second time upon Monday, 20th March.

  CIVIL BILL COURTS (DUBLIN) BILL.
  "To improve the procedure and make better provision for the discharge of the business of the Civil Bill Court of the city of Dublin and of the business discharged therein of the Kilmainham Division of the county of Dublin," presented by Mr.
  1244
  CLANCY; supported by Mr. Field; to be read a second time upon Monday, 20th March.

  TRADE UNIONS BILL.
  "To legalise political action by Trade Unions," presented by Mr. LEACH; supported by Mr. Stephen Collins, and Mr. Glanville; to be read a second time upon Friday, 12th May.
  MERCHANT SHIPPING (SEAMEN'S ALLOTMENT) BILL.
  "To remove certain doubts as to the true interpretation of the Merchant Shipping Acts, 1894 to 1906, in respect of the payment of Seamen's Allotment Notes," presented by Mr. HOLT; supported by Mr. Crooks, Mr. Furness, Mr. Joyce, Mr. Mitchell-Thomson, Mr. Molteno, Sir Gilbert Parker, Mr. Walter Ilea, and Mr. Shortt; to be read a second time upon Wednesday next.
  LABOURERS (IRELAND) BILL.
  "To amend the Law relating to Labourers in Ireland," presented by Mr. BIRRELL; to be read a second time upon Monday next.
  PUBLIC LIBRARIES (IRELAND) BILL.
  "To amend the Public Libraries (Ireland) Acts, 1855 to 1902, as respects the provision of art galleries in county boroughs, and for other purposes incidental thereto," presented by Mr. BIRRELL; to be read a second time upon Monday next.
  DUBLIN POLICE BILL.
  "To amend The Dublin Police Act, 1837, and other enactments relating to the police district of Dublin Metropolis," presented by Mr. BIRRELL; to be read a second time upon Monday next.
  DAYLIGHT SAVING BILL.
  "To promote the earlier use of Daylight in certain months yearly; and for other purposes relating thereto," presented by Mr. ROBERT PEARCE; supported by Sir William Bull, Mr. Fenwick, Sir Henry Norman, Sir Walter Nugent, Mr. Pirie, and Sir Edward Sassoon; to be read a second time upon Thursday next.
  CALENDAR REFORM BILL.
  "To reform the Calendar, fix Easter, and other and more bank holidays, and for other purposes in relation thereto," presented by Mr. ROBERT PEARCE; supported by Sir William Bull, Mr. Robert Harcourt, Sir James Dalziel, and Sir Albert Spicer; to be read a second time upon Thursday next.

MESSAGES FROM THE LORDS.
Mr. PICKERSGILL: I desire, Sir, to address to you most respectfully a question respecting a proceeding which took place on Tuesday. In the early part of the Sitting you communicated to this House a Message from the Lords suggesting that a Joint Committee of the two Houses should be appointed to consider a question of the adjustment of the financial relations between two local authorities when their areas are altered. I think I was out of the House at the moment. I was not aware that a Message, or any Message, had been communicated, and at the time nothing further was done Just before the rising of the House a Motion was moved from the Treasury Bench that the Lords' Message should be considered, and that having been adopted, my right hon. Friend the Member for Battersea further proposed that this House doth concur with the Lords in the said Resolution, and that was carried. I was actually in the House at the time, but there was some noise and confusion, as is not unusual owing to hon. Members leaving the House, and I was under the impression that it was merely a Message from the Lords that was being communicated.
I am perfectly aware that according to the ordinary practice of this House Amendments of public Bills brought from the Lords are ordered to be considered forthwith; but I submit that a Message of the nature indicated is a totally different thing, and a totally different consideration. I have referred to the authority which we usually consult, and I find that so far as the precedents are concerned they are totally different from the order or course that was taken on Tuesday night. I do not know that any harm has been done in this case, but the principle is important. It would be inconvenient that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Battersea (Mr. Burns) should commit this House to concurrence with the Lords without the unofficial Members of this House having any knowledge of what was being done. My specific question to you, sir, is whether, when a message from the Lords is communicated requesting or suggesting that there should be a Joint Committee of the two Houses, the practice has not been that the Motion to take the Lords' Message into consideration be deferred to a future day.
Mr. SPEAKER: I am afraid I cannot answer directly the question the hon. Member has put to me. I will simply
1246
observe that in this case no effective action has been taken by the House in agreeing to the Message which came down from the Lords. The effective action would be taken by this House when the committee is appointed and the members are nominated. That cannot be done without notice. The President of the Local Government Board will have to give notice of the names of those Members whom he proposes to form part of the Joint Committee. Then, of course, the House will have full opportunity of considering them, and if they do not approve of the setting up of the Joint Committee they will have an opportunity of placing their views on record and refusing the appointment of the Committee. Therefore no harm was done, and the rights of Members are not being injuriously affected in any way. The hon. Gentleman is, of course, quite aware that at certain times, especially towards the end of the Session, Messages came down from the Lords and are considered forthwith, without any notice, and there is no necessity for giving notice. If I had thought that the rights of Members were being in any way affected I would not have permitted the Motion to be made.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
Mr. AKERS-DOUGLAS: May I ask the Prime Minister what is to be the course of business for next week?
The PRIME MINISTER: Monday, Resolutions in Committee of Ways and Means.
Tuesday, the Parliament Bill will be introduced, and on that evening we intend to ask the House to suspend the 11 o'clock rule;
Wednesday, Report of Finance Resolutions and Supplementary Estimates;
Thursday, Finance Bill; Second Reading;
Friday, Supplementary Estimates.
On Monday week, we hope to begin the Second Reading of the Parliament Bill.
Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: The question I am about to put is unusual, I am aware, but our position in regard to the Budget for the current year is also an unusual one. Will it be possible for the Government to give us notice of the Resolutions which the Chancellor of the Exchequer will move? That is not usually done, because, under normal circumstances, the Chancellor of the Exchequer

1247
makes his Budget statement, which discloses for the first time the financial proposals of the year. But we have dealt with the levying of taxes for the current financial year; therefore, there can be no injury to the public interest by the disclosure of these Resolutions. We are really in great difficulty, because we do not know what Resolutions the Government are holding over on their own account. I am aware that my request is an unusual one.
The PRIME MINISTER: I think it is a reasonable one, and I will do my best to comply with it.
Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Will you put the Resolutions on the Paper?
The PRIME MINISTER: Or circulate them.
Lord HUGH CECIL: Does the right hon. Gentleman hope to get the first reading of the Parliament Bill in one day?
The PRIME MINISTER: Certainly.
Lord HUGH CECIL: Is he aware that the Home Rule Bill, which was certainly not more important than the Parliament Bill, was discussed for four days in 1903 on first reading?
The PRIME MINISTER: It had not been before the country at a General Election.
Mr. JAMES HOPE: Does the right hon. Gentleman suggest that the Home Rule Bill was not before the country in 1890 at all?

NOTICES OF MOTION.
Mr. G. H. ROBERTS: On going into Committee of Supply on the Navy Estimates, to call attention to Navy expenditure; and to move a resolution.
Mr. MARTIN: On going into Committee of Supply on Civil Service Estimates, to call attention to the administration of the Small Holdings Act; and to move a resolution.
Mr. J. M. HENDERSON: On going into Committee of Supply on the Army Estimates, to call attention to the inadequate opportunities granted to this House for the discussion of the details of the national expenditure on the Army and Navy; and to move a resolution.
Mr. CHARLES DUNCAN: On going into Committee of Supply on the Army Estimates, to call attention to the question of War Office contracts; and to move a resolution.
Mr. GOLDSTONE: On going into Committee of Supply on the Civil Service Estimates, to call attention to the administration of the Poor Law; and to move a resolution.
Sir WILFRID LAWSON: On going into Committee of Supply on the Navy Estimates, to call attention to the victualling of the Navy; and to move a resolution.
Mr. PAGE CROFT: On going into Committee of Supply on the Army Estimates, to call attention to the standard of efficiency in the Territorial Force; and to move a resolution.
Mr. BLACK: On going into Committee of Supply on the Army Estimates, to call attention to the question of voluntary enlistment; and to move a resolution.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
The PRIME MINISTER The PRIME MINISTER Moved, "That the Proceedings upon the Motion giving precedence to Government Business, if under discussion when the Business is postponed this day, be resumed and proceeded with, though opposed, after the interruption of Business."
The House divided: Ayes, 262; Noes, 142.

Division No. 10.]

AYES.

[4.0 p.m.

Abraham, William (Dublin Harbour)

Balfour, Sir Robert (Lanark)

Booth, Frederick Handel

Acland, Francis Dyke

Barlow, Sir John Emmott (Somerset)

Bowerman, Charles W.

Addison, Dr. Christopher

Barran, Sir John N. (Hawick B.)

Boyle, Daniel (Mayo. N.)

Agar-Robartes, Hon. T. C. R.

Barry, Redmond John (Tyrone, N.)

Brady, Patrick Joseph

Alden, Percy

Barton, William

Brigg, Sir John

Allen, Arthur Acland (Dumbartonshire)

Beale, William Phipson

Brocklehurst, William B.

Allen, Charles Peter (Stroud)

Beck, Arthur Cecil

Bryce, J. Annan

Anderson, A. M.

Benn, W. W. (T. Hamlets, St. Geo.)

Burke, E. Haviland-

Ashton, Thomas Gair

Bethell, Sir John Henry

Burns, Rt. Hon. John

Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbert Henry

Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine

Byles, William Pollard

Baker, Harold T. (Accrington)

Black, Arthur W.

Carr-Gomm, H. W.

Baker, Joseph Allen (Finsbury, E.)

Boland, John Pius

Cawley, Sir Frederick (Prestwich)

Cawley, H. T. (Lancs. Heywood)

Hughes, Spencer Leigh

Power, Patrick Joseph

Chancellor, Henry George

Hunter, W. (Govan)

Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)

Chapple, Dr. William Allen

Jardine, Sir John (Roxburghshire)

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

Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S.

Johnson, William

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

Clancy, John Joseph

Jones, Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea)

Pringle, William M. R.

Clough, William

Jones, Edgar R, (Merthyr Tydvil)

Raffan, Peter Wilson

Clynes, John R.

Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)

Rainy, A. Rolland

Collins, Godfrey P. (Greenock)

Jones, Leif Stratten (Notts, Rushcliffe)

Raphael, Sir Herbert Henry

Collins, Stephen (Lambeth)

Jones, William (Arfon)

Rea, Walter Russell (Scarborough)

Compton-Rickett, Rt. Hon. Sir J.

Jones, W. S. Glyn- (T'w'r H'mts, Stepney)

Rea, Rt. Hon. Russell (South Shields)

Condon, Thomas Joseph

Joyce, Michael

Reddy, Michael

Corbett, A. Cameron

Kellaway, Frederick George

Redmond, John E. (Waterford)

Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

Kelly, Edward

Redmond, William (Clare, E.)

Cotton, William Francis

Kennedy, Vincent Paul

Redmond, William Archer (Tyrone, E.)

Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth)

Kilbride, Denis

Richardson, Thomas (Whitehaven)

Crawshay-Williams, Eliot

King, Joseph (Somerset, North)

Roberts, George H. (Norwich)

Crumley, Patrick

Lambert, George (Devon, S. Molton)

Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs.)

Cullinan, John

Lardner, James Carrige Rushe

Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradford)

Dalziel, Sir James H. (Kirkcaldy)

Lawson, Sir W. (Cumb'rld., Cockerm'th)

Robertson, John M. (Tyneside)

Davies, Ellis William (Eifion)

Leach, Charles

Robinson, Sydney

Davies, Timothy (Lincs., Louth)

Levy, Sir Maurice

Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke)

Davies, M. Vaughan- (Cardigan)

Logan, John William

Roche, John

Dawes, James Arthur

Lundon, Thomas

Roe, Sir Thomas

Delany, William

Lyell, Charles Henry

Rose, Sir Charles Day

Devlin, Joseph

Lynch, Arthur Alfred

Rowlands, James

Dickinson, W. H.

Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester)

Rowntree, Arnold

Dillon, John

Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs)

Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter

Donelan, Captain A. J. C.

MacGhee, Richard

St. Maur, Harold

Doris, William

Maclean, Donald

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

Duffy, William J.

Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees)

Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness)

M'Callum, John M.

Scott, A. M'Callum (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

Edwards, Enoch (Hanley)

M'Curdy, C. A.

Sheehy, David

Edwards, Sir Frank (Radnor)

McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald

Sherwell, Arthur James

Edwards, John Hugh (Glamorgan, Mid)

M'Laren, H. D. (Leices.)

Simon, Sir John Allsebrook

Elverston, Harold

M'Micking, Major Gilbert

Smith, Albert (Lancs., Clitheroe)

Esmonde, Dr. John (Tipperary, N.)

Markham, Arthur Basil

Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.)

Esmonde, Sir Thomas (Wexford, N.)

Marks, G. Croydon

Soares, Ernest Joseph

Essex, Richard Walter

Martin, Joseph

Spicer, Sir Albert

Falconer, James

Mason, David M. (Coventry)

Strauss, Edward A. (Southwark, West)

Farrell, James Patrick

Masterman, C. F. G.

Summers, James Woolley

Fenwick, Charles

Mathias, Richard

Sutton, John E.

Ferens, Thomas Robinson

Meagher, Michael

Taylor, John W. (Durham)

Ferguson, Rt. Hon. R. C. Munro

Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.)

Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

Ffrench, Peter

Meehan, Patrick A. (Queen's Co.)

Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)

Field, William

Menzies, Sir Walter

Toulmin, George

Flavin, Michael Joseph

Molloy, Michael

Trevelyan, Charles Philips

France, Gerald Ashburner

Molteno, Percy Alport

Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander

Gelder, Sir W. A.

Money, L. G. Chiozza

Verney, Sir Harry

Gill, A. H.

Mooney, John J.

Walsh, Stephen (Lancs., Ince)

Glanville, Harold James

Morgan, George Hay

Walters, John Tudor

Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford

Munro, Robert

Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent)

Goldstone, Frank

Murray, Capt. Hon. Arthur C.

Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton)

Greenwood, Granville G. (Peterborough)

Needham, Christopher T.

Wardle, George J.

Guest, Major Hon. C. H. C. (Pembroke)

Nicholson, Charles N. (Doncaster)

Warner, Sir Thomas Courtenay

Gulland, John William

Nolan, Joseph

Wason, Rt. Hon. E. (Clackmannan)

Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway)

Norman, Sir Henry

Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

Hackett, John

Norton, Capt. Cecil W.

Wedgwood, Josiah C.

Haldane, Rt. Hon. Richard B.

O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

White, Sir George (Norfolk)

Hall, F. (Yorks, Normanton)

O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

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

Harcourt, Rt. Hon. L. (Rossendale)

O'Dowd, John

White, Patrick (Meath, North)

Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)

Ogden, Fred

Whittaker, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas P.

Harmsworth, R. L.

O'Kelly, Edward P. (Wicklow, W.)

Whyte, A. F. (Perth)

Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, West)

O'Neill, Dr. Charles (Armagh, S.)

Wiles, Thomas

Haslam, James (Derbyshire)

O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

Wilkie, Alexander

Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)

O'Sullivan, Timothy

Williams, Llewelyn (Carmarthen)

Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry

Palmer, Godfrey Mark

Williamson, Sir A.

Haworth, Arthur A

Parker, James (Halifax)

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

Hayden, John Patrick

Pearce, Robert (Staffs., Leek)

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

Helme, Norval Watson

Pearce, William (Limehouse)

Wilson, John (Durham, Mid)

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

Pease, Rt. Hon. Joseph A. (Rotherham)

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

Henry, Sir Charles S.

Phillips, John (Longford, S.)

Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

Higham, John Sharp

Pickersgill, Edward Hare

Wood, T. M'Kinnon (Glasgow)

Hinds, John

Pirie, Duncan V.

Young, William (Perth, East)

Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H.

Pointer, Joseph

Holt, Richard Durning

Pollard, Sir George H.

TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Master of Elibank and Mr. Illingworth.

Horne, Charles Silvester (Ipswich)

Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.

NOES.

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

Balcarres, Lord

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

Aitken, William Max.

Baldwin, Stanley

Bigland, Alfred

Astor, Waldorf

Banbury, Sir Frederick George

Bird, Alfred

Bagot, Lieut.-Colonel J.

Baring, Captain Hon. Guy Victor

Boscawen, Sackville T. Griffith-

Baird, John Lawrence

Barnston, Harry

Bottomley, Horatio

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

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

Boyle, W. Lewis (Norfolk, Mid)

1250

1251

Brassey, H. Leonard Campbell

Hambro, Angus Valdemar

Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William

Bridgeman, William Clive

Hamersley, Alfred St. George

Paget, Almeric Hugh

Burgoyne, Alan Hughes

Hardy, Laurence

Parker, Sir Gilbert (Gravesend)

Burn, Colonel C. R.

Harris, Henry Percy

Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington)

Campion, W. R.

Harrison-Broadley, H. B.

Peel, Hon. William R. W. (Taunton)

Carlile, Edward Hildred

Helmsley, Viscount

Perkins, Walter Frank

Cassel, Felix

Henderson, Major H. (Berks., Abingdon)

Peto, Basil Edward

Castlereagh, Viscount

Hickham, Colonel Thomas E.

Pole-Carew, Sir R.

Cecil, Lord Hugh (Oxford University)

Hill, Sir Clement L.

Rawson, Col. Richard H.

Chaloner, Col. R. G. W.

Hoare, Samuel John Gurney

Remnant, James Farquharson

Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. A. (Worc'r)

Hope, Harry (Bute)

Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)

Chambers, James

Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield)

Ronaldshay, Earl of

Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry

Horne, Wm. E. (Surrey, Guildford)

Rothschild, Lionel D.

Clay, Captain H. H. Spender

Horner, Andrew Long

Rutherford, John (Lancs., Darwen)

Clive, Percy Archer

Ingleby, Holcombe

Samuel, Sir Harry (Norwood)

Clyde, James Avon

Jardine, Ernest (Somerset, East)

Sanders, Robert A.

Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S.)

Kerr-Smiley, Peter Kerr

Sandys, G. J. (Somerset, Wells)

Craig, Captain James (Down, E.)

Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement

Smith, Harold (Warrington)

Craig, Norman (Kent, Thanet)

Kirkwood, John H M.

Spear, John Ward

Craik, Sir Henry

Lawson, Hon. H. (T. H'm'ts., Mile End)

Stanier, Beville

Crichton-Stuart, Lord Ninian

Lee, Arthur Hamilton

Staveley-Hill, H.

Croft, Henry Page

Lewisham, Viscount

Stewart, Gershom

Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

Lloyd, George Ambrose

Talbot, Lord Edmund

Eyres-Monsell, Bolton M.

Locker-Lampson, G. (Salisbury)

Thompson, Robert (Belfast, North)

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

Locker-Lampson, O. (Ramsey)

Thynne, Lord Alexander

Falle, Bertram Godfray

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

Touche, George Alexander

Fell, Arthur

Long, Rt. Hon. Walter

Tullibardine, Marquess of

Fetherstonhaugh, Godfrey

Lonsdale, John Brownlee

Valentia, Viscount

Fletcher, John Samuel (Hampstead)

Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. A. (Hanover Sq.)

Ward, A. S. (Herts, Watford)

Forster, Henry William

Lyttelten, Hon. J. C. (Wor. Droitwich)

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

Foster, Philip Staveley

Mackinder, Halford J.

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

Gardner, Ernest

M'Calmont, Colonel James

Willoughby, Major Hon. Claude

Gastrell, Major W. Houghton

M'Mordie, Robert James

Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E. R.)

Gilmour, Captain John

Moore, William

Winterton, Earl

Goldman, Charles Sydney

Morpeth, Viscount

Wolmer, Viscount

Goldney, Francis Bennett-

Newdegate, F. A.

Wood, Hon. E. F. L. (Ripon)

Goldsmith, Frank

Newman, John R. P.

Worthington-Evans, L.

Gordon, J.

Newton, Harry Kottingham

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

Goulding, Edward Alfred

Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield)

Yate, Col. C. E.

Greene, Walter Raymond

Norton-Griffiths, J. (Wednesbury)

Gretton, John

O'Neill, Hon. A. E. B. (Antrim, Mid)

TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr. Lane-Fox and Mr. C. Bathurst.

Guinness, Hon. Walter Edward

Orde-Powlett, Hon. W. G. A.

Hall, D. B. (Isle of Wight)

Bill read the Third time, and passed.

The PRIME MINISTERMoved, "That, up to and including 13th April, Government Business shall have precedence at every Sitting."
It is always a matter of regret—and this is not merely a conventional expression—when the Leader of the House has to ask fellow Members to surrender for the time being some of their normal and traditional privileges. The other day, when this matter was broached on the question of the ballot, which was then under consideration, the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition—whose absence we all regret—protested with indignation against the course proposed, and said that I was going to ask the House to make an unexampled invasion into the rights of private Members. I ventured in reply to point out that we had made a precisely similar request last year. To this the right hon. Gentleman retorted with still stronger indignation that the precedents which we had made were precedents that he did not recognise. I have looked into the matter a little more carefully since then, and I have found what I almost expected to find, that in the palmiest days of Conservative and Unionist administration
1252
we had precedents far more drastic than the course we are asking the House to take. In 1887—the first of the Jubilee years, as this is a Coronation year—I remember it well because it was the first or second Session during which I had a seat in this House—the House was led by a very eminent man, the late Mr. W. H. Smith, who was not, I should have said, by temperament or by tradition, a man prone to revolutionary innovation. Immediately at the conclusion of the Address—to give the exact date, 17th February, 1887—Mr. Smith moved:—
"That the consideration of the proposed Rules of Procedure——
I shall have something to say on that in a moment—
"have precedence of all Orders of the day, and Notices of Motion on every day on which the consideration of these Rules is set down by the Government."
What were these Rules of Procedure? They included in the very forefront—their very essence and core was—that Rule, which, when we are in opposition, we are in the habit of describing as "the gag." That Rule is the Rule of Closure under which our Debates are now conducted, and which has formed, from that day to this,

1253
one of the most efficient additions to the armoury of the Governments of the day. That Motion to take the whole time of the House to the exclusion of private Members days, either for Bills or Motions, so long as these rules were set down—that Motion in support of which and in pursuance of which private Members sacrificed and surrendered their time in order that the House might devote the whole of its time to the fabrication and forging of this most powerful instrument for the use of future Governments—that Motion was carried without a division. In those days we had a public spirited and patriotic Opposition. It was not an indifferent Opposition; it was led by Mr. Gladstone and Sir William Harcourt, but recognising the exigencies of the occasion, they gave to the Government of the day, without protest or division, although there were amendments to accept particular Bills, that power which the Government, as I remember very well, for I was a Member of the House at the time, proceeded ruthlessly to exercise in pursuance of Mr. Smith's Motion. The Rules of Procedure and particularly that Rule which established Closure practically in its present form was carried after fourteen nights of discussion, and then what happened? We are told we are a Radical, innovating Government, which is making an invasion hitherto unexampled in the privileges of private Members. Consider what happened! These charges are made by people who have not the most elementary acquaintance with Parliamentary procedure. As I have said, after fourteen nights, during which private Members surrendered the whole of their rights, the Rule was carried as a Standing Order on the 18th March. Then what followed?
In the interval, the right hon. Gentleman, the Leader of the Opposition, succeeded to the office of Chief Secretary for Ireland, and his first act in that capacity was to propose for the acceptance of this House a Bill which had a very stormy Parliamentary history, but which subsequently passed into law, and which is generally known as the Coercion Act. In contemplation of the introduction and prosecution of that Bill, Mr. Smith, having taken the whole of private Member's time up to the 18th March for the passing of his Closure Rule, proceeded on the 22nd March to move this Resolution: "That the introduction of the several stages of the Criminal Law Amendment Ireland Bill"—that was its official title—"have precedence of all Orders of the Day and Notices
1254
of Motion, including the Rules of Procedure whenever the Bill shall be set down by the Government as the business of the day."
The Opposition of the day opposed that Motion strenuously, but it was carried by a large majority, and during the whole of the time from the beginning of the Session after the conclusion of the debate on the Address until the House rose at Easter on the 7th April, the whole of the time of Parliament was occupied first of all with the Rules of Procedure, and then with the Coercion Bill, and private Members never had a look in from beginning to end. The House rose for the recess on the 7th April, and up to that time there was not one single opportunity for private Members to introduce a Bill. I notice that that announcement is received in silence.
Sir FREDERICK BANBURY: It would not be polite to interrupt.
The PRIME MINISTER: I thank the hon. Baronet for his courtesy. He will have an opportunity of replying, but what becomes of the charge the other day, by the Leader of the Opposition, that this is an unexampled invasion of the rights of private Members. The precedent of 1887 goes, at least as far, if not farther, than we go. I quite agree that these differences about precedents between the two Front Benches are minor matters. I do not think it matters very much what the precedent is. The real question is whether a case is made out in existing circumstances for the policy which has been pursued by the Government. How do we stand? At this moment, when the Debate on the Address has concluded, counting to-morrow (Friday) and all Fridays for the purposes of this enumeration as half-days, there are between now and the 13th April thirty-five full Parliamentary days. Under normal conditions, if this Motion was not made, there would be available for private Members, out of these full thirty-five days eight Fridays, eight Tuesday evenings, and eight Wednesday evenings. I will call this twenty-four half days, though, as a matter of fact, Tuesday and Wednesday evenings are not equal to half-days, but I will call them, against myself, half-days. Twenty-four half-days makes twelve full days.
Viscount HELMSLEY: The right hon. Gentleman is not counting Friday, 14th.
The PRIME MINISTER: No, our Motion does not extend to that. I think I am right, but at any rate it is a small point. I call it twelve full days, so that what the

1255
Government are proposing is, that out of thirty-five full Parliamentary days which are available between now and 13th April that twelve full days which under normal conditions belong to private Members should be appropriated to the Government.
Let us see first of all how we stand in regard to compulsory business and how we stand in regard to other business. By compulsory business I mean business that has to be transacted and got through before 31st March, the last day of the current financial year. First of all, I will take that part of the Estimate which is not peculiar to the present year, but which is normal and inevitable. It includes, of course, Supplementary Estimates, getting the Speaker out of the chair upon Army and Navy Votes, Vote A and I of the Army and Navy Votes, the Vote on Account for the Civil Services, the reports of the Votes granted in Committee and the different stages of the Consolidated Fund Bill, and to these we propose to add, as I said at question time, one further item, namely, a joint discussion upon the expenditure of the Army and Navy. To that voluntary addition, to what I am calling the compulsory normal business, which has to be transacted between now and 31st March, we propose to give thirteen-and-a-half days.
Then, as to the second stage—I am still dealing with what I call compulsory business before 31st March—we have a special claim upon our time and attention this year in the second stage of the Finance Bill, the first stage of which was passed in the last Parliament. I promised because we proceeded to carry through our drastic form of Closure in regard to the first stage—that on the whole of the part which actually dealt with the imposition of taxes—there should be a reasonably full and adequate opportunity for discussing the other clauses and for raising on Second Reading all the questions which are properly raised with regard to finance. In redemption of that pledge we have first of all to introduce, as we shall on Monday, by resolution or by a series of resolutions in Committee of Ways and Means, that which will lay the foundation on which we have to prosecute the Bill through its various stages, and we propose to give for these purposes six-and-a-half days.
The House will therefore see, as regards compulsory business of finance, which has to be brought to a close before 31st March, not before Easter, we are giving thirteen-
1256
and-a-half days to what I might call the normal business of Supply, and six-and-a-half days to this exceptional business, namely, the second stages of the Finance Bill of last year—that makes twenty days.
Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Can the right hon. Gentleman say how many Parliamentary days there are before the 31st March?
The PRIME MINISTER: Yes; twenty-seven-and-a-half days, counting Fridays as half-days, between now and the 31st March, of which we propose to give twenty to what I have described, and properly described, as compulsory financial business. I pass on. Up to the 13th April, that is the day before Good Friday, and which is the day named in my Resolution, there is remaining, after taking these twenty days from the twenty-seven-and-a-half days, up to the 31st March, fifteen Parliamentary days, and if private Members retained their normal privileges, it follows, from what I said at the early part of my observation, that twelve days out of these fifteen would fall to them. The result would be that the Government would only have three Parliamentary days between now and the 13th April for the transaction of other Government business. Putting the matter shortly and plainly, we ask private Members to give up these twelve days; to allow us, in other words, to have them in addition to the twenty days which I have already described as necessary for compulsory financial business; to give up those fifteen days between now and the 13th April for our business. Why do I make that request If the second stage of the Finance Bill had not been a necessary incident in our Parliamentary activity in the early part of this year it might, and I think would, be possible to show a little more latitude and indulgence to private Members' rights, but in that respect we are bound by the pledges which we gave. Assuming that to be common ground, is it an exorbitant thing for the Government to ask at least fifteen days between now and the 30th April? I suggest it is not. The circumstances this year are very exceptional, far more than the year 1887, to which I have already referred.
This year is the year of the Coronation of our Gracious King. That must take place in the third week in June, and inevitably must lead to a certain amount of dislocation of the distribution of Parliamentary activity. Everybody admits that. In this Coronation year we find ourselves

1257
charged with the responsibility of carrying through Parliament a measure for which we appealed at the General Election, and in support of which we were returned to this House with a majority which, we believe, to be both adequate and enthusiastic. I think we should be grossly wanting in our sense of responsibility, having regard to all the circumstances of the last fifteen months, if we did not press on the new House of Commons as its first duty the exclusion and sacrifice of the particular interests in which private Members are naturally concerned, and to make it the first most urgent and most responsible duty to devote the forefront of the Session to carrying through the House of Commons a measure which they were returned to support. We believe that by the expenditure and distribution of Parliamentary time, which I have indicated, we shall be able, without any undue curtailment of Debate at any of the stages of the Parliament Bill—if the House approves of that Bill—to send it to the House of Lords comparatively early in the month of May, so that the House of Lords may have full opportunities of discussing it and coming to their decision upon it before the date of the Coronation. Whatever view may be taken on either side of the House as to the merits or demerits of this Bill, and of the controversy of which it will be the embodiment, I think we shall all agree that in the public interets it is desirable that that issue, however it is going to be decided, should if possible be decided before the Coronation. Of course, we here have no control of any sort or kind over what may take place elsewhere. That rests with powers for which we are not responsible and over whose proceedings we exercise no influence; but so far as the House of Commons is concerned we have power to declare for ourselves what shall be the course of our own procedure and how we shall allot our own time. I believe, and at least I hope at any rate, that I am expressing an opinion which is held not only on this side of the House, but also by hon. Members opposite, when I say that our duty to our constituents as well as our regard for the general interests of the community requires us to record our decision, after full opportunity for argument and debate on this Bill at as early a moment in the history of the Session as the exigencies of time and circumstances will allow. It is upon that ground primarily and substantially that I ask private Members up to Easter to curtail their ordinary rights and opportunities, in the hope
1258
and belief, and with the intention that when the Parliament Bill has passed through this House, and we resume our proceedings after the Easter Recess, private Members may have their normal and natural opportunities. Sir, I think I have said all I have to say either in regard to precedent or the necessities of the occasion, and I now make the Motion which stands in my name.
Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: As I listened to the speech of the Prime Minister I was irresistibly reminded of a conversation I once had with a Member of the Civil Service, in which I agreed in admiring the speech of a certain Minister who shall be nameless. I ventured to say that I could not sufficiently admire that Minister's skill in concealing from the House the extreme badness of the case he was arguing, and, what was more remarkable, that he did it with such good temper and in such a tone of sweet reasonableness that I believe he carried the House with him. The gentleman I was addressing said: "That is just it. When he is most reasonable, most sweetly reasonable, you may be sure his case is most bad." The Prime Minister has introduced in his most moderate speech a most immoderate proposal. He adumbrated his proposal a few days ago, and founded himself upon a precedent of his own creation. To-night he has gone back twenty-three years, to 1887, in order to find what he thinks a parallel instance. Last night the Government and their allies were imploring this House not to rake up the ancient history of 1886, and they were asking what possible bearing that could have upon our proceedings to-day. As the Prime Minister has done so, let us look at his precedent. What was it? Mr. W. H. Smith at that time was Leader of the House, and he asked for the whole time of the House. For what purpose?—
"In order that the House might devote itself to the discussion to its own Rules of Procedure, and in order to secure the dignity, honour and capacity of the House to discharge the duties it has undertaken in coming here."
Then he went on to speak of the gross obstruction which has lately been shown in Parliament, and he mentioned, as enforcing the necessity of the course he was pursuing, the fact that they were then on the first day of the fourth week of the Session, and had spent sixteen days on the Address. The Prime Minister has not thought fit to offer private Members sixteen days on the Address this Session, and that is the patriotic Opposition that took

1259
sixteen days over the Address. So scandalous is the state of things that, as the Prime Minister said, the Opposition of that day did not seek to defend what had taken place, and Sir William Harcourt, who led them, said:—
"He offered no opposition to this proposal for he agreed that nothing could be more urgent than to restore the command of this House over its own time by restoring dignity to its proceedings; and the only complaint he had to make of the proposals which the Government put forward was that they did not go far enough."
Is that any precedent for taking away from private Members the time of the House in order to discuss, not a revision of the procedure of the House, which was required alike to maintain Government rights as well as private Members' rights, not in order to do something upon which both sides of the House were agreed, but in order to do something on which there is the sharpest division of opinion in the House, and which has nothing whatever to do with the character or the dignity of the House.
Let me pursue the Prime Minister's references to 1887 one step further. He said that at that time a further demand was made upon the House for all the time, in order to pass what we call the Crimes Act and what the right hon. Gentleman calls the Coercion Act. For what purpose? Could there be anything more urgent or could any private Members' rights be as urgent as the restoration of law and order in Ireland, or indeed in any portion of the United Kingdom, when it was gravely menaced. Does any hon. Member deny that law and order was gravely menaced at that time? We were then told that Irishmen were waiting in open rebellion in Canada, and there was open war in South Africa. At that time the Government had to put down what was little short of civil war in Ireland. Do those facts give you any right to claim that as a precedent for taking up the time of the House in order to destroy the Constitution? I do not think the precedent of the Prime Minister helps him. In point of fact, it helps him even less when you consider what has taken place in the intervening time. In 1902 the Rules of Procedure were again revised, and private Members were asked to sacrifice a proportion of the rights which they had theoretically held before that time in order that what remained should be made more secure to them, and in order that they might have a more effectual exercise of them. From that time, when
1260
the rights of private Members gave them certain days, and portions of days, right through the Session and in the early part of the Session, no attempt was made by the party that sits on these benches as long as they were in power to intrude upon the right so reserved to private Members, and it was left to this Government, who complained that we did not pay enough attention to the rights of private Members, to make the first inroad on those rights. The Prime Minister has not been fortunate in his precedents. Probably the right hon. Gentleman has not looked at the speech he made last year upon this question. I think he was well advised not to mention the precedent of last year. What did he say last year:—
"I certainly should not make this demand except under the stress of absolute necessity.
Those are strong words, and the Prime Minister never uses such words lightly or without meaning them. The right hon. Gentleman went on to explain what the absolute necessity was. He surveyed the financial situation, and I must say at this stage that his Motion then only extended up to the end of the financial year, and did not go one day beyond, whereas on this occasion he proposes to go further. In the same speech the Prime Minister said:
"I think that that shows it is impossible between now and that date (the 24th of March), to introduce any other matters for the consideration of the House, than the necessary financial measures of the country which have to be carried into effect, if things are not to come to a standstill."
Therefore, the precedent of last year, an inroad as it was upon private Members' rights, and, novel as it was, was strictly limited to taking so much of private Members' time as was required in order that the necessary financial business might be done in the legal time and that the law might not be broken, and the Prime Minister said that, except under that pressure of absolute necessity, he would never have made such a Motion. Never, no never—not till twelve months later. Never means a short time when it places a disability upon Ministers in making inroads upon private Members' time.
The right hon. Gentleman on this occasion has not shown the slightest necessity for the course he has pursued. He has got a good deal of financial business to do, but it is his own fault he has got to do it. It is the fault, not of him personally, but of the Government and himself among them. In the first place, why were we not allowed to finish the Budget at the proper time, and, in the second place, why does this Government of financial purists produce

1261
no less than twenty Supplementary Estimates? The Prime Minister was not aware of it, but there are twenty. Minister after Minister on that bench denounced the presentation of Supplementary Estimates at all as being a sure sign—I think I am using the Prime Minister's words—of sloppy finance. They said the presentation of Supplementary Estimates was a confession of incapacity on the part of the Government, and deprived the House of Commons of any real power to review the finances of the year because they never had the finances of the whole year before them. Here is the Government with no less than twenty Supplementary Estimates. May I ask the Prime Minister to tell us whether we are yet in possession of all the Supplementary Estimates?
The PRIME MINISTER: So far as I know.
Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Perhaps the Prime Minister will make certain if he does not know. I do not want to press him for an answer across the floor of the House at this moment if he will answer in the course of the Debate. I want to know whether there is any Supplementary Estimate for the Army and Navy, and with regard to the Civil Service, whether there will not be a necessity for a further Supplementary Estimate.
The PRIME MINISTER: I was wrong. I am told there is an Army Supplementary Estimate.
Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will revise the time he is allowing to Supplementary Estimates as this has come as a surprise to him as well as to the rest of the House. The time he thought adequate, and no more than adequate, for the Civil Service Supplementary Estimate is not adequate for an Army Supplementary Estimate as well.
The PRIME MINISTERmade a remark which was not audible in the Press Gallery.
Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Will the right hon. Gentleman give it to us at all?
The PRIME MINISTER: I will see.
Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: I will wait and see. The special financial difficulties of the Government are of their own creation, but, when you have allowed for their financial difficulties, there is no
1262
necessity for this Motion, none whatever. If I followed the right hon. Gentleman rightly, he has before the end of the year enough time for all the necessary financial business of the year without intruding upon private Members' time at all. In any case, he does not confine himself to taking such time from private Members as he proposes to allot to financial business. The whole object of his Motion is not to facilitate financial business, but to facilitate the Parliament Bill. With what purpose? In order, he says, that it may get through this House as rapidly as possible, and be presented to the Lords at such a time that they may arrive at a conclusion about it just before the Coronation. I confess I do not think that is a particularly appropriate moment for bringing a constitutional crisis to a head, and I should have thought the Government, if they had any regard for the loyal feelings of the nation or for the comfort of the Crown, would have done everything in their power to avoid producing a crisis at or about that time, instead of deliberately aiming at bringing it about. I think it is a most unfortunate choice that the Government have made. But in any case there is no urgency except their own convenience about the passage of the Bill. If a decision is taken upon it in the ordinary course of the Session during the ordinary duration of the Session that is time enough, as it has been in the past, for the greatest of all Bills, and time enough now for this Bill. And when I say if it is brought to a conclusion within the ordinary limits of the Session, those are very elastic limits. The Session used to end on the 12th August or thereabouts, but we are now accustomed to have the ordinary Session go on until December. The Government, therefore, have the whole year before them. There is no necessity for depriving private Members of their rights in order that a decision may be arrived at within the Session. There is ample time if the Government will use it, and I think it is an outrage upon the House and an outrage upon the country that, in order to force through a most revolutionary change in our Constitution, placing exorbitant and uncontrolled power in the hands of this House, that the Government, as a first step, should arrogate to themselves complete control over the whole proceedings of this House. What a light it casts upon single chamber government. Not only is this House to be supreme in the Constitution, but the Government are to be supreme in this House. Not only is this House to be the

1263
sole effective House, but the Government are to be the only effective House of Commons for all time. If precedents are against them, they do not count. It is not precedents, says the Prime Minister, which are of importance. No precedent or custom is to restrain their action. This House is to be made supreme in order that Ministers may be supreme over and through this House.
We see no such necessity for haste in a measure of this kind, and we shall offer the strongest opposition we can to the exorbitant demands of the Government. I would ask hon. Gentlemen opposite and hon Gentlemen below the Gangway: are they going to support the Government in making this inroad upon private Members' time when there is admittedly no necessity for it, when all the financial business can be done and the law can be kept without the Motion, and when the Bill itself, to force through which this Motion is made, has ample time in the ordinary course of the Session without the Motion at all for full consideration? Are they going to support the Government in the arbitrary action which they are taking? I suppose they are. The Prime Minister says that he does not attach much importance to precedent, but precedents remain, and will be followed. Hon. Gentlemen will not always form part of a majority in this House. The time will come, and come sooner than they think, when they will cross the floor of the House and will sit in a minority. I give them fair warning. Those of them who vote for this Resolution will forfeit all right to claim any consideration for private Members. Those of them who help to make the majority thus to override and ride down the present minority will forfeit all right to consideration when they are in minority themselves. As they make their bed so shall they lie upon it.
Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD: On one point at any rate I propose to follow the two speakers who have preceded me, and that is on the point of precedents. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister quoted a precedent which struck me as being very much to the point. There were certain doubts and difficulties about it, but I am bound to confess that as soon as the right hon. Gentleman opposite dealt with the same precedent he removed all those doubts and difficulties. What did the precedent establish? He told us that the justification for that precedent was
1264
that the dignity, the honour, and the capacity for work of this House should be maintained. That is precisely the position to-day. The Labour party is going to support the Government because the Government is asking for time for the purpose of maintaining the dignity, the honour, and the capacity of this House for doing work. The right hon. Gentleman said he could not discover in what respect the dignity of this House was involved in the Parliament Bill. The only doubt he left in my mind, after having heard that observation, is what he meant by the dignity of the House. Surely, if this House has any dignity at all it is the dignity of being the voice of the sovereign will of the people of this country. The Parliament Bill is going to establish the principle—not for the first time, but for the first time in our lifetime—that when a progressive Government, whatever name it may call itself, is sitting on these benches a section of the Constitution shall not block all its business and make its intentions almost abortive. The light hon. Gentleman told us, in words of somewhat mechanical passion, that the meaning of the Resolution was that the Government were asking to be supreme ever this House, and at the same time were asking that this House should be the supreme branch of the Constitution. Supposing that is a true description, what is it but a description of what actually happens when there is a Conservative Government in power. It is all very well for them to-day to come and deliver panegyrics about the rights of private Members, but I am bound to say that the only thing of which the speech of the right hon. Gentleman reminded me was that old adage which says, and shows a vast amount of wisdom in saying, that—
"When the devil is sick, the devil a saint would be."
If the right hon. Gentleman was on this side of the House it would not require the vote we are to give this afternoon in support of the Government to induce him to take away our rights if it happened to be convenient to him to take them away. The rights of private Members raise, undoubtedly, questions that must have been present in the minds of everybody who has sat in the last two or three Parliaments in this House.
5.0 P.M.
It seems to me that hon. Members belonging to the Irish party and ourselves are getting into the unfortunate position of being the only two parties in the House who

1265
are really concerned in the protection of the rights of private Members. When right hon. Gentlemen opposite cross the floor they will suit their own convenience and take as much of the time of private Members as they desire. The Liberal Government will very likely do the same. The only thing we are concerned with this afternoon, therefore, is to answer conscientiously and honestly the question, are the reasons assigned for this resolution adequate and sufficient to justify us in supporting it? What are those reasons? So far as we as a Labour party are concerned, we asked our Constituents at the last two elections to send us back here to do two things immediately. We asked them to send us back here to support the Parliament Bill, and, moreover, to try and have some justice restored to Trades Unions, which are suffering under a gross injustice consequent on certain decisions of the Law Courts. We are not prepared to abandon for one single moment any of the rights of private Members unless we can secure both these aims. I am perfectly willing to take the Government at its word with reference to the Trade Union Bill. We have been told, and I am not going to cast any suspicion on the statement, that the Government mean to introduce a Bill on this subject. We have accepted their word, and I have no doubt that their action will justify us in so doing. Then comes the Parliament Bill. The right hon. Gentleman opposite told us in the precedents that have been discussed to-day there were certain particular features, and one of those features was that, before Mr. Smith moved his Resolution, four precious weeks of the time of the Session have been taken up, and that that was his justification for moving it. What is the position now? Nearly two years of precious time of this House have been taken up, and we have had two elections on the Parliament Bill—the first in January last year and the second in December last—and the question of the position and constitution of the other place was then clearly and definitely before the public. There is not a single Member of this House who was returned in January and again in December but knows that simply in the form of a general proposition in January and in the form of three definite and precise resolutions in December he had to discuss with his constituents the position of the House of Lords in the constitution of this country. The delay would not have been justified had it not been for the melancholy
1266
event which led to a truce. Nobody can say for a moment that it was anything but proper and human that the truce should occur, and I for one have never criticised the fact that it did take place. But it has now passed. We have had our election in January with the mandate it gave us, and we have had the December election with its mandate also, and the Government would not be worth five minutes of support unless it showed its determination, without loss of time, to press on, without delay of any kind, with the settlement, so far as this House is concerned, of the Parliament Bill. It is because, after carefully going through the time-table, after carefully going through the time available for the business of this House, we are convinced it is not only wise, but necessary, for the Government to ask us to surrender our rights that we have come to the conclusion to give their proposal our support.
I have already said that the Labour party is very keenly alive to the fact that the rights of private Members are in jeopardy at the present moment. But that is not the question which at the present moment is in the mind of the Opposition. The object they have in view is the method of delaying business so far as the Parliament Bill is concerned. I hope I am not misinterpreting their complaint, but I do suggest that they are inspired by party considerations rather than by national considerations in the opposition which they are offering to this proposal. I admit it is beginning to be the ordinary method of political fighting—that the consideration of party is far too frequently being put in front of the consideration of the national well-being. Everybody sees that from the outside. It is becoming a fashion, and an exceedingly bad fashion, and I hope some of us will do our best to prevent its development.
Lord HUGH CECIL: It depends on whether your party is right or wrong.
Mr. MACDONALD: I associate myself with what has fallen from the Noble Lord, and I wish he would apply the adage to which he has just given utterance to his own vote this afternoon. It recalls to my mind a circumstance in yesterday's Debate. The Noble Lord gave the House a very amusing extract from Boswell's "Johnson," and he told how a certain clansman had remarked about his chief, that if that chief directed him to cut a man's throat he would do it; in fact he would cut his

1267
own throat if ordered to do so. The Noble Lord said that that was the mirror in which the Government would find its face imaged. When the Noble Lord told that story it entered into my mind at once that it would be very apropos of to-day's position, and I am certain that the Noble Lord will turn the story over again in his mind and hold it up as a mirror, he will see himself in it—he will realise that it is very much to the point of the present situation. As a matter of fact, the Labour party is going to support the Government, not because it desires to keep the Government in office, not because it has come to any bargain with it—because neither of those two motives are in existence—but it is going to support the Government because it wants this Parliament Bill to be decisively and practically dealt with, and because, after careful examination of the time available for the Government, it has come to the conclusion that the Government can do nothing else. We are prepared to fight for our private rights in other ways and under other circumstances. But to-day we are going to carry out the pledges we gave to our constituents when we said that the first and most energetic business to be undertaken by this Parliament was the settlement of the outstanding difficulties between this House and the other.
Mr. LAURENCE HARDY: We have gathered one or two very interesting things from the words which have fallen from the last speaker. One is we are learning that the issue at the last elections was different to the one we have always been told it was. We always understood that the issue in January last was the Budget. Now we learn that it was the Parliament Bill. Whether that be so or not, I do think, if private Members are only to trust to the advocacy of the party which stands behind the hon. Member for Leicester, they will not retain that which, at any rate, is at the bottom of my heart. The Labour party claim to be the one which is in future to look after the rights of private Members. Yet they are a party which is absolutely compelled in every vote it gives in this House to act, not on its own free will, but on the will of those over whom it has no control.
Mr. MACDONALD: I am sure the hon. Gentleman would not desire to misrepresent anything I have said. That statement of his is not quite accurate.
Mr. HARDY: I should be glad to hear in what way it is not accurate. Certainly it conveys the impression which has been given to us by the Debates which have occurred, and by the discussions of a recent day, which showed that there was not altogether unanimity among the hon. Gentleman's own followers as to the extent to which their pledges bind them. At all events I desire on this occasion to call to the attention of the House a matter which has not, I think, been dealt with in any of the speeches up to the present time. The speeches we hear on these Resolutions that come up again and again are undoubtedly impeded in their influence by the fact that everybody knows that both Front Benches are to some extent tarred by the same brush. When they have been in office they have been under the necessity of taking certain action, and when they have been in opposition they have had to take other action; therefore, on ordinary occasions, there is, I think, a lack of genuineness in the arguments put forward by the occupants of the Front Benches. It is consequently the back benches that on these occasions should come to the rescue. This is a very peculiar occasion, because we now have, at all events, a right to claim the support of our Front Bench, because they are responsible for the new condition of things that came into existence in 1902. It is absurd to go back to the precedent of 1886. Everybody who has any knowledge of the Debates that occurred week after week over the new Rules knows that matters entirely changed in 1902, and in nothing more than in connection with the question of the time of private Members. So far as we are concerned, the final settlement arrived at was a concordat. It was stated again and again in the most decisive terms by the Leader of the House at that time that if private Members gave up that which had no doubt been their privilege, although it was a privilege they were very seldom allowed to use, the Government would make their bargain with them, and it should be a bargain which would stand in the future.
So far as that Government and the Parliament of 1906 were concerned that bargain, which is the one the Prime Minister has to go back to for a precedent, was never broken. It is unfair, therefore, to go back to years in which an entirely different condition of things prevailed. What were the statements that were made by the Leader of

1269
the House on that occasion again and again? In February, 1902, he said:—
"Under the existing system private Members never know when the Government may come down and take their time for public business. Every Government has found that necessary for the last twenty-five years, but that system we hope to put an end to."
On another occasion in April he admitted that it was a great interference with the nominal privileges of individual Members, but he contended that their real privileges would be greatly extended, because in future they would have fully secured all the time that was given to them. If it is said that this bargain was not accepted from the other side, if hon. Members refer back to these Debates, they will find that the very position which is now taken by us was put forward at that time. There was at that time a doubter. The hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) threw doubts upon the good faith of the Government, in connection with this matter, and it was in consequence of those doubts that the statement was made by the Government that they felt that they were absolutely bound to the House in this matter, and it would not lie in them as long as they retained office, whoever succeeded the right hon. Gentleman, to take away the small limits of time of private Members which had been secured for them under these rules. I must say that the hon. Member for the Scotland Division did very accurately prophecy. He said:—
"What would be the action of a Liberal Administration—there were such things as Liberal Administrations—who desired to pass a great deal of legislation. He ventured to say that Members of the House would live to see the day when other Members of the House would desire to pass measures which hon. Gentlemen opposite would think were against the constitution of the country. And what would happen? Why, they would take away the time which was now contracted to be given to private Members."
That was what he suspected, and I am sure that he showed a very good knowledge of what was likely to happen. On this side of the House no breach has been made in regard to that bargain. The only precedents that can be used are the precedents of last year, and let us compare the two sets of circumstances. First of all, last year there was, as everybody knows, a late General Election, which had taken place within the year. The opening of Parliament was somewhat delayed, and Easter was abnormally early. Undoubtedly, the Prime Minister came down and showed that it was somewhat difficult, especially as the first duty of the Government was to pass the Budget, which had been rejected by the Lords in the previous Parliament—
1270
it was rather difficult for them to get through their financial arrangements—and he accordingly asked for the time of the House. He asked for a precedent—namely, the first interruption of the established rule of 1902. What was the result? The time was not taken for financial business. It was devoted, some of it, to the Veto Resolutions. The time was not required for the financial business of the Government. Everybody who turns back to the memory of last year will know that again and again, hours in the course of an evening, could have been spared to private Members' business, because the business of the Government was concluded comparatively early in the evening. It was not, therefore, even with the overwhelming case which was then stated, and which is a very much better case than that set up this afternoon; even under those conditions the Government could not support the contention which they laid down when they asked for the time of the House. But this is a very different period. We have got a very large amount of time before Easter. We have ample time, even on the showing of the Government themselves, when every piece of financial business can be brought forward—even including their extra Budget, which we have to deal with this Session. Therefore, there can be no possible arguments put forward except in regard to forwarding legislation which they hold dear, but which this side of the House does not value.
The Government say that private Members must submit to the sacrifice of issues in which private Members are concerned, but do let us remember the use for which private Members are given this time. The whole of this time is not given to Bills, and two or three of the occasions during the week, when private Members are given time, are for the purpose of Motions. These Motions are undoubtedly, in the main, in criticism of the Acts of the administration. The idea of giving up the issues in which private Members are concerned means that the Government are going to get out of, at the beginning of a new Parliament, any of those criticisms which can be launched against the various deeds or acts of administration in connection, with the various Departments of the Government. That is the opportunity which has been taken away, that is the issue for the sacrifice of which we are asked. That is not a sacrifice of anything that we have to do with; it is a sacrifice by private Members of that natural and necessary criticism of the Government

1271
which it is the duty of the Opposition to bring forward and which the country requires from them. The Government, therefore, in taking away from private Members this time is really only saving and relieving themselves from the danger of having these criticisms made upon them. Let us just think only of the conduct of business during the present week. Will anybody in this House get up and say that if the discussion on Local Taxation had taken place on a Motion instead of on an Amendment to the Address that the Government would not have had to have treated it very differently to what they did. We are limited to the occasions given to us by Amendments to the Address to bring forward great questions which we think require to be discussed. We bring them forward, therefore, under a great disadvantage, for we know that behind them the Government have the solid support of their party, in order to insure the defeat of an Amendment on the Address. It does not matter whether they make a good case or not, because they know that on that occasion they are bound to have the support of their party; but if it were the case of a Motion, everybody is a great deal freer to act according to what he thinks is right, and we should have had a very different attitude taken up by the Government, and we should not have ended the Debate in the manner in which it was brought to a conclusion.
I think it is very necessary for private Members to remember their rights, and a great many of the private Members in this House were not in it under the old condition of things. They do not remember the time when there was more freedom, and they see the Government, again and again, coming on the scene and taking away rights which we, on this side, as far as possible, safeguarded, and which the then Leader of the House safeguarded permanently as far as possible. But I do think that even on this occasion, perhaps I myself would be willing to yield to the Government's recommendation, if any right hon. Gentleman on the Government Bench would get up and say that if this extraordinary demand which is now made upon private Members to give up their time to the Government is granted, they will, on their part, undertake that in no time of this Session, will they make use of those other powers by which great legislative measures are carried through by the present Government. If they will give a promise
1272
that on no occasion will these other powers be made use of, then, I think, it may be possible for this House to grant them the extra time desired; but we have seen again and again in past Sessions, whenever they have obtained the grant of the time of the House, and the sacrifice of all private privileges, that time has been used, not to give that full liberty of discussion which is our right in regard to great legislative measures, but we have only had an opportunity of discussing them which has been very much curtailed and we have discussed them, under very different circumstances than those which ought to prevail in regard to a great constitutional question. That is really where the difficulty comes, that this time, when the Government has possession of it, it will not be used to secure greater liberty of debate in this House. I oppose this measure, and do hope that on this occasion private Members will use their privileges, as on the occasion when the Rules were framed, and when Members on both sides of the House united to bring their influence on the Government of the day, in regard to the framing of the new procedure resolutions, so that they should form a contract with the House and come to a permanent bargain under it. I hope that hon. Members on both sides of the House will unite on this occasion so that we may not see this curtailment of our rights.
Mr. BOTTOMLEY: I shall endeavour, in a humble way, to emulate the example of the Prime Minister and avoid the use of exaggerated language, but I cannot resist the conclusion that this Motion is the apotheosis of governmental tyranny. It is the negation of the doctrine of popular representation. Under it the idea that we private Members of Parliament are here to exercise any check over the Executive or any control over the public purse is reduced to the level of a screaming farce. I recognise, as every Member of the House recognises, that the King's Government must be carried on, and even if the reason for this demand were the fault of the Government as alleged by the right hon. Gentleman opposite, and they are in arrears with the old Budget, still, whatever the reason we must get rid of these financial arrears and deal with the current financial requirements of the country. I would willingly support whatever remnants of freedom and responsibility private Members still possess in the House, but I go further and say that I recognise that

1273
under the Party system under which we live, the Ministry of the day is entitled to make a liberal use of Parliamentary machinery to secure the passage of its own central measures, whatever may be their merits or demerits. From that point of view, however, when the Prime Minister, with his unique Parliamentary experience and the great responsibility of his office, deliberately repeats to-day that fantastic prophecy which he indulged in a few days ago, that there is an expectation in the mind of the Government that this Parliament Bill may be passed into law, and got out of the way before the Coronation, then I say, with great respect, that unconsciously and unknowingly he is trifling with the intelligence of the House. What is the position of the Bill? We have not yet had the First Reading. We are told that such freedom of debate as will of course be necessary in the case of a measure of this importance will foe allowed. Then comes the Second Reading. Then there comes the Committee Stage. I can well imagine the ingenuity with which opponents, whatever be the merits of the measure, will not be lacking in placing many perfectly orderly and legitimate Amendments on the Notice Paper. Then there comes the Report stage, when, under our present procedure, we shall go over the Committee stage again, Then there comes the Third Reading, and then the Bill goes elsewhere, and it is possible to conceive that the other House will give it a respectful consideration. The other House may carefully consider it, taking a not unreasonable period in regard to the importance of the measure. They may send it back with amendments, with conditions, and with modifications, which will entitle them to be considered with respect and consideration in this House. The Bill may come back again, and on that occasion this House, having expressed its temper on the measure, the other House may have no alternative but to submit to the opinion of this Assembly or to reject the measure. One must, as a practical politician, face these contingencies. In that case these much discussed assurances and guarantees must be expressed and converted and translated into terms of living peers. Then the new peers have to be found—not the least difficult step in the process of the passage of this measure. Having been found, probably some time will elapse while their party fidelity is being insured at Lloyd's, and when that operation has been successfully carried
1274
through they have to be created. Then having been created the measure undergoes another course of consideration in the other House. And to tell us that all this can be done within three Parliamentary months, when we have been told already that twenty days out of the thirty-five between now and Easter are allocated to financial business, is not paying a very high compliment to the sagacity of the Members of this Assembly.
I am more concerned, however, with another phase of this matter, which was referred to by the hon. Member (Mr. Laurence Hardy). I want to know what the private Member is here for in these days. We seem to have become Parliamentary jellyfish, with no real live existence at all. Those of us who come here from time to time in our humble capacity when we get the opportunity to plead for the rights of private Members speak as people in the wilderness, with scarcely any support from the orthodox Members of the Government party. I remember an experience which rather shocked me. A few days ago a Member of this House sitting on this side, relatively an old Member of the House, paid me the compliment of consulting me as to the form of a question which he desired to address to a Minister. He thought I might possibly have some special information which might be of use to him. We adjourned to the Lobby outside, and carefully went through the question and I gave him such poor assistance as I could, and having got it into shape I walked with him round the Lobby expecting to see him go to the Clerk at the Table and hand the question in. To my horror and surprise, he said, "I must first go and show it to the Whip." That is typical of the condition under which the private Member of this House discharges his Parliamentary duties. I do not complain of the frequency with which the Leaders of the parties, as they are called, take part in our Debate; I do not complain of the fact that the two principal Leaders have already addressed the House about twenty times this Session. I agree with the hon. Member (Mr. Laurence Hardy) that both front benches are tarred with the same black brush in regard to this matter. The sympathy of any right hon. Gentleman on either front bench in this case is like the sympathy of that gentleman of whom we have heard who, seeing a poor beggar on the other side of the road eating his last crust, crossed over the road

1275
and shared it with him. It sounds very sympathetic at first, but there is not very much in it.
I suggest to private Members that they should follow the example of the Gentleman who found himself recently a party to some legal proceeding in one of the American States in which he was accused of some act of moral backsliding. The evidence was overwhelming but after, in accordance with the law of the State, the Judge asked him whether he would like to say something to the jury before the verdict was given, he said, as many of my hon. Friends are in the habit of saying, he was a nervous retiring man who did not care for public speaking, but he would like to write a note to the foreman of the jury. Permission was granted, the note was passed, and to the astonishment of everyone in court a verdict of acquittal followed. When the Judge came to look at the note, as he insisted upon doing, he read with astonished eyes this simple message:—"Don't you think it time we married men stood by each other?" I think it is time we private Members, married or single, stood by each other against the common enemy, against the jury on one Front Bench or the other. I am astonished to see how the idea of the impotence of Parliament under the present system is permeating the public mind and the public press. Looking at my copy of "The Church Times," I think it was, I was struck by a most important leader on the present condition to which this Government system has reduced us. I will read this extract because it has a most important bearing upon the discussion, and, of course, the authority is so high that one need scarcely apologise for quoting it. It says:—
"Speeches, for example, might under the present arrangement be dispensed with. They are really only wanted for 'Hansard' and the local papers, It would be the simplest thing in the world to hand in typewritten copies to the Whips, who would select those suited for imperishable record in 'Hansard.' The writers might make their own arrangements with the Press. Again, why continue the waste of time involved in Divisions? All that is required is for the Whips to compare notes and hand in to the clerk a statement of the numbers at their disposal. Indeed, there might be a permanent arrangement borrowed from the democratic precedent of the Trade Union Congress, and each Member might be credited for the Session with a certain voting power. An approach to a commonsense method has already been made in pairing. Why should not the process be extended? It would be quite simple, for example, to pair the whole Liberal party against the whole Opposition, their numbers being exactly equal, and the House might then be left to the Nationalists and the Labour party and Mr. Bottomley, the result being just what it is under the cumbrous system now in force. Indeed, we do not see why even these gentlemen should be kept dancing attendance on the Speaker. Mr. Bottomley, of course, must be there since he stands for himself, and
1276
pleasantly claims to be the sole representative of London, the Ministerial and Opposition Members for which exactly balance each other. Poor London."
That is the view of so dignified and sedate an authority as "The Church Times," and it is finding expression throughout the land. I wish to make one recommendation to private Members. Our powers are being taken away day by day, and we are gradually being reduced to a position of absolute impotence, and I want first of all in their name, so far as I can speak for private Members, to put before the Prime Minister this argument, which, I think, is the argument which tells most in the country in connection with this Constitutional crisis. Some of us are busy people. We appreciate very highly the honour of being here. But we come here not for the sole purpose of registering the designs and wishes of the Government, but of trying to do a little work on our own account and trying to achieve some sort of political honour, however slight and trivial it may be. I ask private Members to adopt a motto, one which some of them may have heard before, and it is called in Latin solvitur ambulando. I am told on high classical authority that it means walking in the light of common sense in the domain of reality. That is a position which has never occurred to a private Member in these days. We walk not in the light of common sense in the domain of reality. We walk in the darkness of party servitude in the domain of party hypocrisy, and I ask that we may be relieved of it. My last words are again to commend that maxim to Members of the House—Solvitur ambulando.
Mr. W. R. REA: I do not rise to say anything in opposition to the Amendment, though we feel on this side of the House, at any rate, that the circumstances are so exceptional as to justify even the strong step that has been taken by the Government. But I feel that we are bound to offer just a word of warning that it may be realised that we do appreciate the magnitude of the sacrifice which we are asked to make, and especially because it is the second year in succession that we have been asked to make that sacrifice. It is perfectly true, and it is as equally inevitable, that the sacrifice should be made last year. Things which are inevitable twice running have a habit of becoming inevitable every year, and some of us are certainly afraid that the Prime Minister may have been only too correct when he described the rights

1277
of private Members as being traditional. I fear in years to come that there may be nothing traditional to sacrifice. We feel that at any rate in this Session it may be justifiable—in fact it is not only justifiable but inevitable—that no time should be lost in putting forward the Parliament Bill. But many of us feel that the privileges of Parliament are, after all, something which we can call upon the Government to defend. I do not know that it is possible to say one is paying too heavy a price for the liberty we are asking under the Parliament Bill, but I ask that it should be taken into consideration whether we are not injuring the Parliamentary machine by this constantly growing practice of asking private Members to subordinate themselves entirely to the convenience of the Government. It is mischievous in that it is very apt to drive out of Parliament a class of Member whom it is most desirable to retain in this House, even though he has no opportunity and no desire to sit upon either of the two Front Benches. My own experience of Parliament has been short, but even in my own time I can remember men of the stamp of Mr. Lever, Sir Owen Philips, and Mr. D. A. Thomas, amongst the most influential of our private Members, and perhaps the best of our business Members, who have found it not worth their while to remain in this House because they were not prepared to sacrifice their lives as mere voiceless voting machines. It will be recollected that when many of us first came here in 1906 we made this protest to the late Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, and he promised us definitely that steps should be taken to find work for private Members, so that they shall feel they are doing something to represent their constituents beyond simply walking through the Division Lobbies and sitting on these benches without having any opportunity of doing more useful work than could fee carried out by mere automatons. It appears to me that the Government are risking—I admit that the risk is one which this Session is justifying—the establishing of a dangerous precedent. I am quite aware that hon. Gentlemen opposite do not care very much for precedent, but, after all, if the time ever does come when they will cross the floor of the House and occupy the Treasury Bench, it may prove useful to Members of the Liberal party that there should be opportunities for private Members to bring subjects before the House. I was not a Member of the House
1278
at the time, but I have a vivid recollection of the Fiscal Debates in the Parliament which was elected in 1900, and which were so excessively inconvenient to the Government that their supporters left the House. It was due to the initiative of private Members that these Debates took place, and in these Debates a number of Members made their reputations as statesmen—made the reputations which they have since consolidated.
We recognise to-day that the Motion which the Prime Minister has brought forward is absolutely inevitable, and we who have been returned as supporters of the Government welcome it with our whole hearts, because we believe it shows that the Government is in earnest about the Parliament Bill, which it is our desire to place on the Statute Book at the earliest possible moment. I am not going to cry over any small injury done to the privileges of private Members on this occasion. I have only risen because I wish to draw attention to the fact that we do appreciate that we are making a sacrifice, and that we may be called upon to make that sacrifice more often in the future. I ask the Government not to be satisfied with this Resolution to-day, but to look a little bit forward and consider whether it is not possible to devise some means by which the work of private Members can be placed at the service of the State. Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman promised it, and we have not found it. It appears to me that it is merely because the work of Parliament is so congested that private Members have nothing to do. It is not a healthy state of affairs, and it is not one that ought to continue. I ask the Government to take a longer view and consider whether they cannot work out a new scheme for the entire readjustment of the duties and privileges of private Members, so that without in any way interfering with the work of the Government, which we all desire to push forward as far as possible, men will still consider it an honour to come into this House, because they will feel that they are doing something to forward the good' of the people and not acting as mere machines which count for something in the division lobbies, but which otherwise are of no account.
Mr. HARRY LAWSON: The plaintive appeal of the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. W. R. Rea) would be more effective if he were to walk in what the hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. Bottomley) called the domain of reality, but we know perfectly well that though he has cried

1279
considerably, he will vote with the Government this time, next time, and all the time. We know he is there as a voting machine. He says so himself, and therefore I do not think his agonies will be quite so pathetic in the view of the House as he tried to make out. I am well aware that in the arbitrary temper of this Government, no First Minister has ever treated the House in so arbitrary a way as the right hon. Gentleman. It is absolutely useless to try to resist this Motion by speech, and just as useless to do so by the dumb show of the division lobby. But I am less concerned to rail at the hon. Member than I am to emphasise what has been so well illustrated by my hon. Friend opposite, and that is that this is a long step in the progressive, or perhaps I should say, the "degressive" degradation of this House as a place for free discussion and as a deliberative assembly. No one pointed that out better than the Prime Minister in the last Parliament but two. The Prime Minister in 1904, when the Licensing Bill was under discussion, said that there was great risk of making this House a mere machine for registering the edicts of a transient majority. I might add now "and an uncertain majority." The phrase impressed itself so much on me that I actually learned it. The truth is the position of the private Member is a different thing now from what it was when I entered the House twenty-five years ago. Then he counted for something, now he is a mere cypher. It is true that there has always been the trite saying that if he was of very little positive utility so far as measures go his influence was felt. Now it is not felt, and I am bound to say I think we are becoming exactly what the late Lord Salisbury said we should become—blind machines here, for, as the Prime Minister said, registering the edicts of the Government. The hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. Ramsay Macdonald) told us that his party stood for the protection of individuals. That is just exactly what they do not stand for. They stand for groups, and groups can take care of themselves. They apply the same rules as in their own unions, and they raze a Member very quickly if he shows any signs of independence. Groups will always be protected, but what the House is losing is the sturdy and robust independence of the private Member as he existed even up to the elections of this century, and I quite agree that that is a
1280
very serious loss. Of course, the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. Ramsay Macdonald) says we are partisans because we oppose this Resolution, and that they are patriots because they support it. Well, that is hardly worthy of him. That is always the cant of those why try to find extenuating circumstances for a vote which they know they ought not to give. He is particularly unhappy in his illustrations. He says the Labour party are supporting this Resolution because it would enable the Government to carry through the Parliament Bill which had been discussed for two years in the country. Let me point out that the Home Rule Bill was discussed for six years in the country. It was the subject of two elections, and yet no such procedure was proposed in regard to that Bill as is proposed now. I have some right to speak, because, as a matter of fact, I was engaged with the Prime Minister in those days in fighting on the same platform. I have reason to know that no detail escaped criticism in the second election except the possibility of the presence of Irish Members in this House. That was the only detail of the Bill not discussed on the platform before Mr. Gladstone introduced his second Home Rule Bill in this House.
The Prime Minister, in seeking precedents, went back to 1887. I was in that Parliament with him, and I think the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. J. A. Pease) will bear me out, whether those sharing his views agree to it or not—that the plea was that we were in a state of public danger, that the State was in danger, and that that alone justified the extreme measures proposed for carrying through the business of the House. No such reasons can be alleged now. The Coronation is alleged as a reason, and that is a great ceremony, but after all it is a great ceremony only. There is not now such a condition of things as was alleged to exist in 1887 as an excuse for what was undoubtedly an arbitrary exercise of Ministerial power in the House. I venture to point this out because I hold that the Resolution now before the House is taking us very quickly down the steep and slippery slope which will lead to the extinction of Parliamentary liberties in the proper sense of the term. We are fast becoming a mere bureaucracy here, and I wonder so many of us trouble to come back to the House where those who do not belong to the official gangs have small consideration and are able to do little work.
Mr. ELLIS GRIFFITH: I desire to approach the consideration of this question from rather a different standpoint from that of the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Lawson). I quite agree that the time of private Members is more and more entrenched on year by year. Somehow there is always ready an excuse for taking that time. I think this is an occasion out of common precedent, and I wish to explain to the House why I, and those with whom I am associated in this House, are prepared to support the Resolution. We think this Resolution is necessary in order to pass the Parliament Bill, and we take the view that the Parliament Bill should be passed this Session, because it is the basis and beginning of all progressive legislation in the country. But we take the view also that a measure in which we are intimately concerned has only a chance of being passed by the Veto of the House of Lords being abolished. At the same time, we want to make our position perfectly clear. We have pledges of the Prime Minister in 1909 and 1910, and our view is that these pledges still stand. We take the view that this Resolution is necessary, because without it the Veto Bill might be jeopardised. We take the view that we vote for this Resolution relying on that double pledge and upon the fact that Welsh Disestablishment will be carried through this House in one or other of the first two Sessions of this Parliament, because if it is not so passed it will not get the advantage of the Veto Bill. I want, on my own behalf and on behalf of those with whom I am associated, to make it perfectly clear that we support the Resolution, relying on these, promises, and I am perfectly confident that the promises will be carried into effect.
Mr. PICKERSGILL: I intend to oppose the Motion, and, therefore, I naturally desire not to give a silent vote. This Motion has been supported by the plea that the circumstances are exceptional. No doubt they are exceptional. It is always in exceptional circumstances that bad precedents are established. For instance, there is that institution colloquially known by the name of the guillotine, which every true old Parliament man simply loathes, I care not in what part of the House he sits. I remember the circumstances under which the guillotine was introduced. Probably there are not more than half a dozen on this side of the House who are in a position to remember it.
1282
6.0 P.M.
It happened twenty-four years ago, but still I can remember as if it were yesterday, when the late Mr. W. H. Smith, the then Leader of the House, brought forward this proposal, and he said: "We are faced by a condition of circumstances absolutely unparalleled in the history of Parliament." That was opposed by the Liberal party in this House at the time. But when the Liberals came into power they also found no difficulty in satisfying themselves that they also were faced by a condition of circumstances absolutely unparalleled, and they adopted that odious instrument which the other side had invented; and the use of it has become an established practice in this House. Therefore, when I am told that the circumstances are exceptional, having that experience before me, it is not an argument which carries any weight with me. But when an advance is made from the proposition that the circumstances are peculiar or exceptional to the further proposition that this Motion is necessary, then I traverse that proposition. The Government took the time of unofficial Members last year, but after they had taken their time, again and again they moved the adjournment of the House at an abnormally early hour, and I heard new Members lately come into the House who were amazed at this method of conducting public business, rise from their place and make strong, but, of course, absolutely fruitless protests. Further, I ask, did the sacrifice which unofficial Members had to make last year prove successful? Was it fruitful? What did it lead to? Only to a Dissolution. I dare say right hon. Gentlemen who are drawing salaries of £5,000 a year, paid quarterly, can face the cost of an Election with a cheerful countenance. But two Elections within twelve months impose an intolerable strain upon the resources of unofficial and independent Members who happen to be poor men. We were bitterly disappointed last year. It is possible that we may be disappointed this year. If the Prime Minister is not in a position to do more for us after the last Election than he was in a position to do for us after the last Election but one, this Parliament will probably be short.
In these circumstances it seems to me to be the part of wisdom to seize the flying moments as they pass. Let us at all events secure something out of this Parliament. Something can certainly be secured. Good work can be done by means of legislation, initiated by unofficial members.

1283
My right hon. Friend (Mr. Pease) says something about such bills being frustrated through opposition in another place. I think that the particular constitutional process in which we are engaged would tend rather to facilitate those Bills initiated by private Members, than to secure their rejection. I say, therefore, that these are really not days when Radicals can afford to abandon any little privileges which may still remain to them. In my own time—I think this is revelant to the subject which we are discussing to-night, and upon previous occasions you, I notice, have allowed some latitude—the ranks of the official Members of the House have been greatly swollen, not only by the creation of new paid offices, but also by bringing into existence an entirely new category—I mean the Parliamentary private secretaries of Ministers. The creation of these appointments has been carried to extreme under the present régime. Every Minister, every sub-Minister, every deputy sub-Minister has got now his Parliamentary private secretary, and the Home Secretary—the public Press on Tuesday last gave advertisement of the fact—has two hon. Gentlemen dancing attendance upon him. This very strange character did not exist when I entered the House. That hon. Members should be so insensible to the dignity of the great position of a Member of the House of Commons as to advertise themselves in "Debrett" as proud to fetch and carry for Ministers does amaze me as an old Parliamentarian. That is a matter which on one side concerns simply themselves and their own sense of what is due to themselves. But there is another side to this which touches the public interest, because these appointments do undoubtedly tend to undermine, or at all events influence, the personal independence of Members of this House.
I for one, at all events, feel that it is high time to protest. Perhaps I should have taken a stand before, but at least I have exercised independence during all the time I have been in this House. But we are now in this position that the inroads upon the privileges and upon the dignity of unofficial Members of this House have increased, and are increasing, in what I may call a kind of geometrical progression. I will go further and say this. Even the great object of curbing the power of another place, which no one desires more ardently than I desire it, might yet be purchased too dearly if
1284
it were purchased by destroying the independence, and by breaking the spirit of the House of Commons. I do not know how it may be with other Members, but for myself, the electors of South-West Bethnal Green have not sent me here for twenty years and more to be merely a voting machine, to register the decrees of the Government, or to speak only with the kind permission of the Government licenser. I had rather, and I say it deliberately, go out of Parliamentary life altogether than subject myself without protest to these humiliating conditions. When I first entered Parliament there was a number of men who, while they were prepared to give a general support to any Liberal Government, did not, and would not, swallow holus bolus everything that was put before them by the Cabinet of the day. It is not for me to celebrate the praises of those men, but this I do say, that in those days, in the opinion of most thoughtful men, the class of Member whom I have described did play a useful and valuable part in the life of the House of Commons. Now that Sir Charles Dilke is gone, I believe that I am the only surviving Member in this House of that old school of Radicals, and so long as I have the honour to sit here I shall maintain, unequally it may be, yet to the best of my power, the old tradition.
Earl WINTERTON: We have all listened to the very eloquent speech just made by the hon Gentleman (Mr. Pickers-gill) with a considerable amount of interest, because it is not unjust or unfair criticism to make that he represents a school of independent thought on the opposite side of the House which, unfortunately has become too rare. My Parliamentary experience now goes back some seven years. Even in that period, certainly since the election of 1906, there has been a very considerable declension of independence on the opposite side of the House. I am not referring to the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy Burghs (Sir Henry Dalziel), because he, fortunately, still remains, or the hon. Member for New-castle-under-Lyme (Mr. Wedgwood). But there are many hon. Gentlemen who, on these occasions, used to make eloquent and very vehement protest against seizing the time of private Members by the Government. Where are they now? Some are on the Front Bench, some have gone to the judicial bench, and others have either compulsorily or voluntarily sought more congenial occupations

1285
outside. Very few are left. As to those who are left I do not altogether agree in finding fault with their reluctance this afternoon to protest, having regard to the opportunity of honours that will exist about the middle of next June.
The seriousness of the position with regard to private Members' time cannot be exaggerated, and this afternoon the whole question has hardly been fully gone into. During the last six years the considerable amount of liberty hitherto enjoyed by private Members has largely disappeared under Resolutions similar to that which we are now discussing. There used to be a time when opportunities of moving the Adjournment of the House at question time were frequent, and private Members in that way had an opportunity of airing their grievances. That opportunity in recent years has been practically non-existent. In every direction the opportunity of private Members for airing their grievances, or putting forward their views, is becoming less and less, and threatens to become still more diminished in the future. That is a serious condition of matters from the point of view of private Members. It is also a serious position from the point of view of the House as a whole. It is becoming customary in the public Press to regard the private Member as a more or less insignificant personage, and his cause does not appear to be dear to anyone except, perhaps, his constituents. But the private Member is, after all, an integral part of this House, sent here by his constituents—the people about whom right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite show so much regard. Just as some people imagine that in hunting it is possible to get on without the hounds, so some hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on both Front Benches seem to think it possible to get on without private Members. The dullness of the Debates in this House would be vastly increased if the whole time were taken up by hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on the Front Benches banging the box on either side of the House, and saying what they have to say well by reason of saying it often, the cheers of humble individuals like myself helping them on. But, apart from the fact of the dullness or otherwise of the House, this, after all, is a deliberative assembly, and the right to make his voice heard by one Member or another is nominally, at any rate, supposed to be equal to that of any other Member of the House, whether he sits on a front or back bench.
1286
Another point in connection with this Resolution is that the whole trend of this sort of Resolutions which we have had recently, and of which this one is such an admirable example, is to put Members of the Government on a higher level of usefulness than the average private Member. That would be all very well if Members of the Government were recruited from a special class noted for its eloquence, brilliance, and usefulness in public service. I am bound to say some hon. Gentlemen do possess those qualities. I am quite willing to admit that many Members of the Government, whatever position they filled, whether in business or in this House, would have attained to greatness. But is it not a fact that some hon. Members on that bench have obtained their places rather by fortuitous coincidence than owing to any other circumstance. We see an interesting phalanx on the back benches above the Ministerial Front Bench, and I cannot help thinking that there are some hon. Gentlemen there as well qualified to fulfil the position of Under-Secretary as some hon. Gentlemen present on the Front Bench. I know the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Wedgwood) agrees with me, and I really had him in my mind as much as anybody, and also the hon. Baronet the Member of Kircaldy Burghs (Sir Henry Dalziel) when I made that statement. I do not think the mere fact of sitting on the Front Ministerial Bench entitles hon. and right hon. Gentlemen to be put on so much higher a plane than the average private Member, who is so greatly affected by a Resolution of this kind. Hon. Members opposite profess a great deal of regard for the voice of the people; but they evince precious little regard for them when their views come to be expressed through their representatives in this House. After all, it is a curious state of affairs, which makes us all pause to consider to what we are coming in this so-called democratic age. We are told that the democracy is ever moving forward, but when the democracy is in power it seems afraid to trust its representatives to speak. We are rapidly approaching an oligarchy in this House, and we are rapidly approaching a time—I daresay we shall approach it by the end of the year if the Government carry out their intentions—when the other Chamber will be silent for effective purposes. We shall then reach the point—and some hon. Gentlemen opposite might pause before they support it—when we shall have this House at the absolute

1287
mercy of a dictatorship, the Government depriving Members of all rights of deliberation in order to make itself independent, and this while the other Chamber will be silent. That may commend itself to some hon. Members, but it ought not to commend itself to any hon. Member who values freedom of Debate.
Mr. WEDGWOOD: I think myself it is somewhat unfortunate that the Government have brought forward this Motion because it gives a valuable opportunity to hon. Gentlemen opposite to attack, as the Noble Lord has done just now, the Liberal party. It will not do for us to be in this position. The Veto power of the House of Lords has gone; at the same time the Government are obliterating the private Member from the House of Commons. It is a damaging position to put us in, and I must honestly say that it would require a very great inducement to force me to back up the Government in that particular matter to-day. They have told us that it is absolutely essential if the Veto Bill is to be carried before the Coronation that private Members' time should be taken. If that be so, I shall go into the Lobby with them to-night. If that be shown, I will do so. But it strikes me it is not the fact, and that there are obvious alternatives. One would be to suspend the eleven o'clock rule, and to sit on Saturdays. Everyone who is in this fight, and who wishes to see the fight to a finish, is prepared to sit up all night and on Saturdays if necessary.
Mr. MARKHAM: No, we are not.
Mr. WEDGWOOD: On Saturdays people in the country are doing work just as on every other day in the week, and I think we ought to be prepared here to sacrifice the Saturday holiday in order to get our work done. The Debate, so far as concerns the Front Benches, has gone on the question of precedent. I must say I would rather the Liberal Government did not take a precedent from the Administration of 1887, because, however good it may be as a weapon against the Front Opposition Bench, it is not a very good precedent to take in order to persuade us to vote with them. The Coercion Act of 1887 is not a proper precedent for the Veto Bill destroying the power of the House of Lords. It is not a very happy precedent, and I certainly say that this method of taking a precedent in order to
1288
score off the Front Opposition Bench, or off the Front Government Bench, as the case may be, is rather overdone, when it is brought in to deal with private Members, who under such circumstances are suspicious of the action of the two Front Benches.
I am by no means an extremist in many matters, and I am quite prepared to vote with the Government of the day if they can give me one of any three promises or assurances. The time of private Members is being taken up to 13th April. What is left to private Members is question time only. The questions have been very numerous this Session. We have had 148 questions down on the paper to-day, and by dint of curtailing the supplemental questions we got through ninety-eight in the three-quarters of an hour allowed. It is perfectly possible for the Government to amend the Standing Orders of this House, and to give us an extra quarter of an hour for questions so long as the time of private Members is taken. That is not very much to ask; it would only be temporary, and, of course, it is in no way an equivalent for the time taken from or surrendered by private Members. It would be something, and I beg the Home Secretary to give us this chance of saving our face, and at the same time preserving to some extent the rights of private Members. I think myself that a great deal can be done at Question time by the cross-examination of Ministers. The short time allowed for questions not only concerns the number of questions, but also the number of supplemental questions. After all, the original question is of small importance and very little value to the private Member. It is the supplemental questions which are of real value in eliciting the opinion of Ministers in regard to specific lines of policy. The answer to the original question is drafted in the office with all the skill that the permanent officials provide. The supplemental questions are the true test of the Ministers, and they enable us to find out what they are really thinking and not merely what the permanent officials are thinking. I think this question of private Members' time is one of enormous importance to them. That is one assurance I should like to get from the Government, namely, as to an extension of the time for questions. Another question is one in which I think other Members are also interested. It relates to committees of private Members to deal with the Estimates of different Departments. That would give private

1289
Members of this House a good deal more influence with the public departments and the permanent officials than they at present possess. We do want committees to go carefully into the accounts of the different departments, to see that they are on businesslike lines, and they should go into the accounts, not after, as do the Public Accounts Committee, but before the expenditure has been incurred. That would be of great importance to us as private Members who are really anxious to do good work in connection with the various departments.
There is a third question, which would also perhaps, though not of so great importance to the private Member, be a distinct improvement. I daresay most Members have read that excellent book by a recent Member of the House, Mr. Hilaire Belloc, called "The Party System." In that he gives a most amusing account of how two private Members, fired with enthusiasm from a General Election, came to the House and tried to bring the question of the Duke of Battersea's concessions before it. He tells how they put down an Amendment to the Address, and how promptly the official Opposition put down several Amendments, and how Amendments, moved by the official Opposition, and Amendments moved by the Irish party, and Amendments moved by the Labour party, were all taken and discussed night after night, and how finally the private Member's amendment at the end of the time was closured out. This time we have seen exactly the same thing. We have had had three or four official Amendments from the Opposition and an Amendment from the Labour party. We have not had an Amendment this time from the Irish party. The official Amendments, approved by the party Whips of the Labour party and of the Conservative party, have been taken and considered at a length lasting for several days, while of private Amendments to the Address there was not a single one. Hon. Members with whom I am associated put down several Amendments. This would be all very well if we had had time for a general discussion on the Address. On the first day the Debate opened about six o'clock, and the two Front Bench people occupied the time until eleven o'clock. On the second day we have about three-fourths of the day occupied with one subject and the remainder of the day taken up with a question about South Wales, so that there was no opportunity for independent discussion, or for what is grandiloquently called the
1290
national inquest, which simply did not occur. It does seem to me we have a chance here of getting something back for private Members. At the beginning of the Session we ballot for private Members' Bills, and ballot for Resolutions. I think we might also ballot to see who should have a chance of moving Amendment to the Address.
Mr. SPEAKER: This is not relevant to the Motion now before the House. It would require a new Standing Order to carry that out. Whether that might be desirable or not, this is not the time to discuss it.
Mr. WEDGWOOD: I was trying to show a way in which private Members could get an equivalent for the liberty they are surrendering to the Government. It is perfectly well-known to the House that the Standing Orders could only be altered if the Prime Minister and the Government are agreeable thereto. If they would undertake to alter those Standing Orders then they would do something in the direction which I am urging upon the Government and on the House. Since private Members are asked to surrender a considerable portion of their time I think they are justified in asking the Government in turn to do something for the private Member. This afternoon, the right hon. Gentleman, the Member for East Worcestershire (Mr. Austen Chamberlain), tore his passion to tatters over the iniquities private Members are suffering from the Government, but he himself on this very Address, on which you would think he might have facilitated the question, moved the Closure upon me.
Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member knows quite well he is not entitled to go back on that Motion. The Closure was the action of the House, and there is nobody to be blamed in that matter except the House itself.
Mr. WEDGWOOD: I was speaking as to the putting of the Closure. The Closure was the act of the House, but surely I am entitled to criticise the fact that an hon. Member moved it.
Mr. SPEAKER: Under a well-known rule of the House, the hon. Member is not entitled to go back and criticise the act of the Closure, and therefore, I must ask the hon. Member not to do so.
Mr. WEDGWOOD: I will not say anything more about it, except to urge that hon. Members opposite who have made such touching appeal to hon. Members on

1291
this side to be independent for once in that particular, should remember the old adage that "dog does not eat dog." I hope the Government will not press this Amendment without giving some assurance to private Members on those three points which I have mentioned.
Mr. TOUCHE: As one who is new to the Debates, I claim the indulgence of the House. I venture to intervene because I I am a new Member. It seems to me that this is a matter of very special interest to new Members. The older Members of the House have had their opportunities; those opportunities, no doubt, have been growing less and less, but it has been a process of gradual encroachment. With us new Members, however, there is no such gradual encroachment. We come up to the House filled with great enthusiam and high regard for the traditions of the House, and some of us—I am not one of them—perhaps with our pockets bulging with beneficial measures. What do we find? We find on the very threshold of the House that we are gagged, and that the old powers and privileges of the private Members are taken away. We come inside, and we find that the proposal to take away those rights and privileges is being supported by an aggregation of gentleman who are private Members themselves. It is true that a certain number of them, on the other side of the House, have stated that they do not approve of this kind of thing as a general rule, but almost without exception they find that in this particular year, and in this particular case, there is a justification for it. I was very pleased indeed to hear that one hon. Member on the other side, the hon. Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Mr. Pickersgill) was not only going to protest against this restriction but was actually going to vote against it. I hope that all the other hon. Members on the other side of the House who cheered that statement will join him in voting against it. I am, however, not at all sanguine that he will receive a very large measure of support from the other side of the House. I confess I was somewhat hopeful about the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Wedgwood), but I observe that he, too, began to make excuses and to seek to find a way by which he also could support the Government on this occasion in taking away or restricting the rights and privileges of private Members.
1292
It appears to me that it would be very much better in some respects if the private Members were to take the time of the Government rather than the Government should take the time of the private Members, because it seems to me that the Government do not make very good use of their time. They do not employ it to pass their own measures. They have not used it in the past to get their own Budget through. They have no programme, so far as we can see, that is likely to be at all beneficial to the people. I think, therefore, that the Members even on the back Benches could probably conduct the affairs of the House quite as beneficially as the Members on the first Ministerial Bench. It is quite possible that sufficient time might be found for Ministers and private Members alike if something could be done in the direction of shortening Debates. The hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme said that this proposal would not be necessary if the House sat on Saturdays. I think it might not be necessary if speeches were somewhat shortened. There was a time when we used to hear a great deal from the other side on the subject of economy of money. They never practised it, but they often preached it. They might do something in the way of practising economy of time. It is undoubtedly true that it is more difficult to make a short speech than to make a long one. A good many people have not the capacity for marshalling the information they wish to communicate in brief compass, and if a restriction were put on the length of speeches those gentlemen would probably remain silent. In the short time I have been in this House I confess I have heard some speeches that have bored me, chiefly from the other side of the House, I think I may say almost exclusively from the other side of the House. As a new Member, I venture to say that I cannot feel very great pride in being a Member of the House if it is to become merely an automatic machine for the purpose of registering the decisions of the Government for the time being. It seems not only is that the position in which hon. Members are being placed, but that the Government themselves are little better than an automatic machine for the purpose of registering the decision of the group with the casting vote. It is because of the regard which I have for the traditions of this House, long and honourable traditions, and for the dignity of the House, that I venture

1293
most humbly, but most emphatically, to join my feeble voice in protest against the measure it is now proposed to put in force.
Mr. PIRIE: I must say that, after hearing the words which fell from the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Wedgwood), I doubted for the first time in my life, either his Radicalism or his common sense. Here is a man who professes indignation with the proposal before the House to curtail the time of private Members. I must say, on this occasion, that I never gave a vote more gladly than I do at the present time to curtail the rights and privileges of private Members in view of the consideration of the object the Government have in view. What is the object the Government have in view? The present Motion is far from curtailing private Members' rights in the long run. The rights of private Members, whether under one Government or the other, are curtailed by nothing more or less than the congestion of business, which, year after year, takes place in this House. The Government now say: "We have a paramount object in view, we have before us the obligation and duty of removing an obstacle which has stood in the path for once and all, and giving real Parliamentary Government to this country, by the creation of a fresh field and not only one fresh field, but several fresh fields for the proper exercise of the rights of private Members and for the Parliamentary government of this country by its representatives in Parliament." That, after all, is one of the main objects the Government have in view in dealing with this matter, namely, to do away with the rights of a House which has always been an obstacle to progress. I cannot understand any Member who values freedom and the rights of private Members objecting for a moment to sacrifice every opportunity, not only up to Easter, but, if necessary, for one or two years, in order to sweep away what has been an anomaly and a curse to the country. I strongly advocate and gladly support the Resolution before the House.
Mr. STUART-WORTLEY: It is no doubt rather difficult to discuss this Motion without discussing the larger spectre which is behind it. If we base ourselves upon precedent, I would invite the House to consider in what manner former precedents were used and what objects were achieved by them. With regard to the precedent of 1887, I have a preliminary
1294
observation to make. The guillotine was not invented by Mr. W. H. Smith in 1887; it was invented by Mr. Gladstone in 1881. The principle at the heart of what was then done was that of a time limit on debate, on the one hand, and, on the other, the establishment of the principle that decision without debate is better than debate without decision. Further, in regard to the precedent of 1887, in what way were the powers used. The full extent for which they were used was to take away from private Members no more than three Wednesdays—Wednesdays at that time fulfilling the function which Fridays now fulfil, of providing an opportunity for the passing of private Members' Bills—and three Tuesday evenings, which were the evenings for private Members' Motions. But of the whole nineteen days over which alone the operation of the precedent then established extended, no less than five were given to Supply, which in those days even more than now gave opportunities for private Members to air the special grievances of their Constituents. Let me ask the House to consider not only the object, but also the effect of what was being done. The object and effect were to emancipate further and to give greater freedom not only to the Government and the House as a whole, but more especially to private Members, for the business to be expedited was the establishment of the Closure rule as we know it now, in substitution for the older Closure rule, which had proved insufficient. Under the old rule you could get no decision without, first, the initiative of the Chair, and secondly, a qualifying minimum of two hundred Members in the division. Mr. Smith's Motion was to establish the principle that no longer should the initiative of the Chair be necessary, and that one hundred members should be the minimum sufficing to pass the Closure. Under that rule more private Members legislation has been given an opportunity of passing than probably could have been passed in double the time under the old system.
We must not discuss to-night the real Object for which this Motion is being passed. We must not now discuss the Parliament Bill, but what we are entitled to discuss is the manner in which it is being pressed forward. In that connection we are entitled to ask two questions First, is it altogether in good taste, and is it otherwise judicious, to bring into this matter the question of the Coronation? Secondly, what is the reason for all this unseemly haste? With regard to the

1295
Coronation, the Prime Minister has gone as near as it is safe to go to the forbidden thing of introducing the Sovereign's name into Debate. [Several HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] I say as near as it was safe to go. If the Coronation is to be employed as a kind of time limit upon the Debates in another House which you cannot otherwise control, I say that the Government's proceeding falls under the same kind of censure under which would fall that other act to which I said it came so dangerously near. After all, if you are to have a kind of time limit applied, what does our experience show? Is that the way to obtain harmony? Do any time limits on Debate ever promote harmony? Do they make minorities better pleased at having their wishes over-ridden? Do they make it easier to arrive at a compromise? Will this Resolution make it easier in this present year to do any of the many things by which you might arrive at that result at which I do not believe you wish to arrive, and at which you certainly will not arrive, namely, a result which shall be permanent because it is based on the consent of all. That, I believe, is not the desire of the Government, and that, I believe, is the reason for these abnormal and extremely injudicious methods. I asked just now what is the reason for all this haste? What are you going to get by your proceedings? You are going to get an arrangement by which in two years at the least, and three years, if you like, you can translate into legislative action pretty well the whole of that programme of measures for which you pretend you have popular authority, but no one of which you are willing to submit by itself to the vote of the people as a whole. In these circumstances I am not surprised that the Ministry proceed by these abnormal and totally unprecedented methods to show the House what is really the mark of their own conviction, that, if they do not make this haste, they will not be able to keep their places even so long as three years, because even in that short period the power to do this bad work would be found to be stripped from them.
Mr. BARTON: The right hon. Gentleman opposite has just declared that the Prime Minister has shown unseemly haste in the Resolution before the House. In my judgment, if the Prime Minister had not taken this course, the whole of his followers throughout the country would have
1296
been grievously and justifiably disappointed. What is the position of Members like myself? Elected for the first time in January of last year, we came here to do specific work, the main feature of which was to abolish the unlimited Veto of the House of Lords. The history of the last Parliament is known to us all. We cams here month after month, and just as we were approaching what appeared to be the climax of our labours, the sad event happened which put an end to those labours for the time being. We all realised that we had arrived at a point when bitter party controversy was totally unsuited for the circumstances of the day. Both parties met together to try to accommodate the difficulties before the nation. That attempt failed, and an election ensued, as the result of which we are here to discharge a specific business, that business being to abolish the unlimited Veto of the House of Lords. I contend that, under these circumstances, the Prime Minister is taking the only course open to him, consistent with his and our pledges to the people of the country. It has been said that in politics it is the unexpected that happens. By natural inclination and bias I should have been delighted to have joined my fellow private Members on this occasion in appealing for and supporting their rights; but it appears to me to show a serious lack of the sense of proportion to assert those rights under present circumstances and conditions. The main object of this Resolution is to give effect and potency to the rights of private Members in this House. What use is it for us to come here to support legislation and carry it through this House if we have not a free road to put it on the Statute-book? In my judgment the people of the country are not concerned at this moment with the rights and privileges of the private Members of the House of Commons. What they are concerned with is the right of the people as a whole to have their wishes placed in legislative form on the Statute-book. I am delighted that the Prime Minister has taken the straight course, the vigorous course, and the course which I feel sure will commend itself to his followers throughout the country.
Mr. LANE-FOX: The assumption underlying most of the speeches to which we have listened from the other side appears to be that, unless this Motion is passed, the Parliament Bill cannot get through this Session. I want to know whether

1297
there is not some stronger or better reason than the Government have yet given for insisting upon this Motion. Certainly hon. Members opposite have contented themselves with getting up and asserting their undying fidelity to their party, while even the Leader of the Labour party told an astonished House that that party were actually going to support the Government on this occasion with a docility which is already beginning to make some of their supporters considerably uneasy, and is likely to make them still more uneasy in the future. Why is it so absolutely necessary that this Motion should pass now I What is it the Government have really got up their sleeve? Think what the position is. If the Parliament Bill can be forced through early this Session what are we going to do during the rest of the Session? What are we going to do in the month of July? Is it not fairly obvious that there cannot be any real reason, except the one I am about to suggest, for insisting on getting the Parliament Bill through right on top of the Coronation, with an apparent desire to show extraordinary consideration to the Sovereign, and to those delegates from all parts of the Empire who will be assembled to celebrate that great event. Surely that is a most extraordinary moment to force a constitutional crisis, and to exhibit to these gentlemen from all parts of the world this country in the throes of a strenuous political crisis. If there is one moment more than another when we ought to avoid the appearance of political differences, it is at the time of the Coronation. Therefore that cannot be the reason. But look at what the position will be if the Parliament Bill can be got through Parliament in this Session. That Parliament Bill, first of all, provides that the House of Lords is to have the power of delaying legislation for three years, and it also provides that Parliament shall not exist for more than five years. Does not that then come to what the Govern-really wants? Is it not obvious that if introduced they can pass a certain number of measures in the three years after we have done with the Parliament Bill? That I believe to be their reason. None of the other reasons they have given us are adequate. The reason is that they can smuggle some of these measures through, and pass them into law. So they will be able to secure even that with three years' delay, by the operations of their Bill, an advantage when they go to the country; to suffer what I hope will be a very different result at the hands of the electorate at
1298
the next General Election. I believe that to be the real object of the genesis of this Motion that we are having thrust upon us. We have heard a great deal from the other side about the rights of private Members, and of a desire to protect them. I quite admit it is more difficult for hon. Members opposite to show that independence that it is very easy for us on this side to preach. But there are, I am glad to say, one or two just men still left who are prepared to sacrifice their party feelings for the sake of their principles. This is an occasion when, in view of the protests which have been so frequently uttered, one begins to wonder whether it is worth while for the House to sit at all. The hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. Bottomley) said: "Why not have the whole thing registered, and leave the Government to govern; why not let us go back to our comfortable homes; why should we walk to London so that we may be voting machines 'for' and 'against,' and have no effective power of bringing before the House those subjects that the party whips do not wish to see discussed?" I do not believe the reason the Government has given is the real one. I believe the reasons I have mentioned are the real ones, and that makes me all the more determined and ready to oppose this Motion.
Mr. TOULMIN: I do not think it is necessary to search very deeply for the reasons of the Government for bringing forward this Motion. It is that they may take Parliamentary measures against the campaign of delay which may be proclaimed against this Bill in the place where the popular will has no means of entrance. Unless I mistake my reading of the Parliament Bill the reason which the hon. Gentleman opposite gave in regard to the three years' delay is not quite correct. It is not necessary that there should be a three years' delay; but one not less than two years. With regard to the observations of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sheffield (Mr. Stuart-Wortley), the House knows his great knowledge and experience of precedents, and recognises when he speaks on such matters that he is to be listened to with very great respect. But I cannot agree with him in the slightest degree in his criticism of the Premier. I do not consider that the Premier went anywhere near infringing the rule which the right hon. Gentleman spoke of against introducing the name of the Sovereign for the purpose of influencing the decision of the House.

1299
We are parties to the Coronation, and if this great Constitutional question can be settled before the time of the Coronation, it would be a matter very pleasing to a great many of the inhabitants of the Empire. We will be able to rejoice then with minds free from disturbance on the great Constitutional crisis. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I suppose hon. Members on this side of the House will be entitled to rejoice just as much as Members on the other side in that great event in the country's history. As to the criticisms on our own side in regard to this Motion, I do not disagree with everything that the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Wedgwood) brought forward; but I am going to support without any conditions the Motion of the Prime Minister. If I mistake not the hon. Gentleman last year was one of those who were foremost in demanding the Veto—"Veto first." It does not appear to me that twelve months' delay has done anything to lessen, but has rather increased the necessity for enforcing that demand. The Opposition has treated this rather too much as a party Motion—a question of the Opposition versus the Ministry. Really, as it affects the private Members of this House it is a question of the Private Member versus the Two Front Benches. I would like to draw the attention of those Members who cheered very loudly the simulated indignation of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Worcestershire, that his remarks are double-edged. We were told that as we made our beds so we should lie on them. Well, according to him, as the bed is made, he any his supporters will have to lie on it when, and if, he crosses to this side of the House. Inwardly the right hon. Gentleman was apparently rejoicing that a precedent was made for him to take away the rights of those who would be behind him then. This Motion is to be justified because in a time of war the habits and customs of peace have to be superseded. This House is repelling an attack upon itself, its honour, dignity, and efficiency. It has to do so as a House divided against itself. It has to do so, as it were, with a hostile garrison established within itself. Treating this measure as martial law, I take it as an advisable one in order that the crisis may not be prolonged, but may be brought absolutely to an issue. The eclipse of the private Members of the House, which seems to be accepted by
1300
both sides, is no light matter, and it is not because I consent to that that I assent heartily to this Motion. It is not merely a question of Bills and Motions wherein the private Member is robbed of his rights. There is also the effective criticism of votes. It is part of the argument for this Motion that there is to be sufficient time granted for financial business. But it is not merely in taking the time of private Members in regard to Bills and Motions in exceptional circumstances that the dominance of the executive is so dangerous. It is a general reduction of the power of criticism of the private Member which is the most serious question. I do not know whether I should be going too far to say that there is a kind of creeping paralysis of the critical faculty of the House owing to the fact that both Front Benches, in turn, when they are in office, treat every detail of every Estimate as a vote of confidence. That is partly assisted by whichever party is in Opposition treating the Estimates more than otherwise as an opportunity for a party score, or for the propaganda of some policy. The control of this House over expenditure is unsatisfactory owing to the fact that it is not gone into with the detail that is desirable. If the hon. Members on the other side who are at the present exalting the dignity of the private Member would find some method of curing that I am sure they would find great support on this side. For the present this vote is a vote of confidence, and it is strictly in accordance with all I have been able to gather of the feelings of the constituencies that I shall support" the Ministry both now, and in any other subsequent steps which they may find it necessary to adopt to bring to as early a conclusion as possible the Parliament Bill.
Sir F. BANBURY: The hon. Gentleman who has just sat down, so far as I understood his remarks, suggested that it would be a great advantage to private Members if they were encouraged to speak more frequently on the Estimates, but he held that in doing so that the vote subsequently given should not necessarily be taken to be a vote of no confidence. That is what hon. Members opposite are always doing. That is what the Labour party is always doing. They are very courageous if the result of their action is going to lead to nothing. But the moment there is any

1301
chance of their action resulting in any-ting, then, like the hon. Gentlemen opposite, they begin with one accord to find excuses.
Mr. TOULMIN: May I ask the hon. Baronet if that is not the case whichever party is on these benches?
Sir F. BANBURY: No, certainly not! If the hon. Member looks back to the year 1902, when the new Rules, which are really the foundation of this question, were passed, he will find that not only Mr. Gibson Bowles, who sat then on the other tide of the House, myself, and several ether members of the Conservative party, objected on several occasions to them, and voted against the Government. The hon. Gentleman who spoke last but one, the Member for Oldham, I think, says he is going to vote for this measure, because, he says, that at the last election there was a mandate for the Parliament Bill. Therefore, he says, the first thing he has got to do when he conies down to this House is to sacrifice the rights of private Members in order to help forward this Bill which has a mandate. What' will happen in the future? Is there never going to be any mandate for any other Bill? We know perfectly well that after every General election there will be a mandate on a Bill, and the result will be that private Members' rights will vanish altogether. Of the three or four hon. Gentlemen who have recently spoken, with one or two exceptions, every one of them have demanded pledges as the price for their vote. The hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme demands certain pledges. Is he going the right way to get those pledges if he starts by saying: "Nothing will induce me to vote against you"? What value does he think his action will have, or what amount of pressure does he think he can put upon the Front Bench? The Front Bench knows perfectly well that all these requests for pledges are to be put forward. There is not one of the hon. Members opposite, except perhaps the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and the hon. Gentleman the Member for Hackney, who have the courage of their opinions and will do something to show that their desires are to be carried out The Prime Minister when he introduced this Motion this afternoon talked about precedents which had occurred, and he went back to 1887. Let me point out, especially to hon. Members opposite, who have not been in the House very long, whether or not the 1887 precedent is a good one.
1302
Supposing the old state of affairs remained, as it does not remain. In 1902, when certain rules were made, there was a distinct pledge given that if the House accepted the proposals then made there was a certainty that private Members' rights should not be taken away from them. That pledge was alluded to by no less a person than Lord Wolverhampton (then Sir Henry Fowler). Speaking on 18th February, 1902, he said he attached great importance to the unofficial Members and their Motions, and, referring to the speech made by an hon. Member, he said that hon. Members seemed to think the alterations would deprive unofficial Members of what they then possessed, and he went on to say:—
"I do not quite read the proposals of the Government in that light. I think they form a sort of contract between the Government and the House of Commons for securing that a larger portion of time should be placed at the disposal of unofficial members."
That was the contract entered into between private Members of the House and the then Government, which was endorsed by Lord Wolverhampton, speaking from the Front Bench; and it has been observed with scrupulous care ever since it was entered into in 1902, and the first person to break that rule was the present Prime Minister, who broke it last year, and is now going to break it a second time. The hon. Member for Scarborough said, though he commenced his speech in order that there might be no black mark put against his name for criticising the proceedings of the Government, he commenced by saying that it must be understood he supported the Government, "but that what was done once might be done again." It will be done again. When you introduce Motions of this kind in two years, what is it that may not be done when there is no Second Chamber and when the supreme control rests in the hands of right hon. Gentlemen on the Government Bench. We are going back to the days of the Tudors. It reminds me of the time when the then Speaker of the House of Commons went to Sir John Pickering, the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, in 1592, and asked for the privileges of discussion for this House. Sir John Pickering then said, and I can quite understand the Prime Minister saying the same thing to-day:—
"You must know what privilege you have; not of speaking everyone what he listeth, or what cometh to the brain to utter. All your privilege is 'aye' or 'no.'"
That is the privilege of the Liberal party and of hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway. They may say "aye" and "no,"

1303
but not always quite as they like. They must consult at the door which aye or no they may get leave to vote from the whips. That is what the present Government are reducing the once great House of Commons to. The issue is a very plain and simple one. Are private Members, having already given up much of their time, going to give up more of their time with the certainty that this precedent created twice in two years will be continued, and with the certainty that the more they surrender their rights to any Government or to any Front Bench, it does not matter which it is, the more the certainty that that Front Bench will ultimately become the dictators of the House. I appeal to hon. Members to pause before they give their votes in favour of this Motion. I do not wish to say anything that may in any way be considered offensive, but I venture to say that the arguments brought forward that this course must be taken in order that the Parliament Bill may pass are utterly absurd. I see the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy present. He has very great knowledge of the discussions in this House, and he is a good judge of them. I have often admired him, and he knows the Parliament Bill. Does he suppose that the Parliament Bill can take up an enormous amount of time?
Sir HENRY DALZIEL: The hon. Baronet is a better authority than I am.
Sir F. BANBURY: I do not think so. If the hon. Member wants my opinion I am prepared to give it to him. I do not think there is any possibility of the Parliament Bill taking five or six months. We are only now in February. For eight hundred years we have had our Constitution. Why is it to be abolished in two or three months? Our Constitution may be right and it may be wrong—it would not be m order to go into that now—but why are you going to destroy something which has been in existence for 800 years and under which the glory and prosperity of our country has gone on? Why do you want to destroy it in two or three months, when two or three years would not foe enough? It is only an illustration of what I said that the Front Bench consider any plan they choose to bring forward must be accepted at once. Discussion is not to be allowed, and if hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway opposite venture to discuss this matter, in all probability they will not be made one of the 500 peers.
Mr. JOSEPH MARTIN: One of the first votes I was called upon to give in this House was upon a Motion of this kind. After having voted to take away the time of private Members, I came here day after day and often found the House adjourned at seven or eight o'clock, sometimes at four or five o'clock in the afternoon. Then I regretted very much that I had voted for such a Motion, because it was clear that the demand the Government made that they required the time of the House for the business then in hand was not justified, and had I known that beforehand I certainly would not have voted for taking away the time of private Members. With regard to the Motion which is now before the House, I take the same position that other hon. Members on this side have taken, namely, that the subject for which this time is asked is of such transcendant importance that I am in favour of assisting the Government in every possible way to get all the time they require, not only to put the Parliament Bill through this House, but also to put it through, as the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister suggested he would do, before the Coronation adjournment. But I was very much alarmed indeed at one sentence which fell from the lips of the right hon. Gentleman. He said that this House had no control over the procedure of the other House, and would have no control over this Bill, which he hoped would pass early in May, after it left this House and got to the other House. Of course, ordinarily that is quite correct, but I had understood from the right hon. Gentleman himself and from other Members of the Government that that was not the attitude they intended to take with regard to this particular Bill. I am not alluding now, of course, to what has been suggested as to what is to follow the rejection by the House of Lords of the Bill, but I am alluding to the manner in which the House of Lords are to deal with the Bill when it goes up to them. I may have misunderstood the Prime Minister, but I understood him to say that while he would get the Bill through this House early in May we would have to leave the matter absolutely in the hands of the House of Lords as to what they would do with the Bill. My understanding of the matter in that light, has been further justified by the speech of the hon. Member for Hackney in which he detailed the numerous ways in which the House of Lords could delay the passing of this Bill by making Amendments and by discussing it at great length, and there has been no

1305
other statement from any right hon. Gentleman on the Treasury Bench denying that that will be the course followed. That was not the understanding last Session, and it seems to me that the position of the Parliament Bill ought not to be worse now than it was last Session.
Mr. SPEAKER: The future course of the Parliament Bill is hardly relevant to the Motion now under discussion.
Mr. MARTIN: Probably I did not make myself understood. I am hesitating whether to vote for this Motion. I am willing to vote for this Motion if it is going to have the result of forwarding the passage of the Parliament Bill through the whole Parliament.
Mr. SPEAKER: These reasons, the hon. Member must wrangle out with himself, but the reasons he must submit to the House on this occasion are reasons strictly relevant to the Motion now before us.
Mr. MARTIN: It seems very relevant to me, Sir, whether my voting for this Motion will effectuate what the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister said the Government intend to do. If the Government can assure me that I have misunderstood the right hon. Gentleman's statement made in this Debate, and which he intended to influence Members in bringing on this Motion, I would vote for the Motion. I am adhering strictly to the right hon. Gentleman's statement with a view to endeavouring to get an explanation.
Mr. SPEAKER: It is not relevant to the Motion now before the House what eventually will happen to the Parliament Bill when it goes to another place. That has no relevancy whatever as to why the time of private Members of this House is to be taken up to Easter. That is the whole pith of this question.
Mr. MARTIN: I do not want to trespass unduly, but the ruling just given makes a great difference to me. The Prime Minister made a statement in this House of what he intended to do in order to prevent the House of Lords from delaying the Parliament Bill, and not dealing with it as it is. Subsequently, when the Government introduced the Bill into the House of Lords they announced their intention that the Bill was not to be amended, and that the House of Lords would either have to take the whole Bill or not deal with it at all.
Mr. SPEAKER: Those are all very interesting considerations, but they are not relevant to the Motion before the House. They may be relevant to the Parliament Bill when we reach it, and I daresay the hon. Member will be given an opportunity then of raising these interesting topics. The only question before the House now is whether the time of private Members shall be taken for the purposes of the Government up to Easter.
Mr. MARTIN: I think I have succeeded in making my point clear, and unless I receive an assurance from the Government that they intend to pursue the same course which they have mapped out before I shall not vote for this proposal to give private Members time for purposes which, to my mind, will not have any effect in putting the Parliament Bill through the whole Parliament.
Mr. SAMUEL ROBERTS: I am glad to hear from the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Martin) that under certain conditions he will vote, as we propose to do on this side, against this Resolution. The proposal of the Government is a serous encroachment on the rights of private Members of this House. We all know how difficult it is for a private Member to do anything on his own in this House. He has to go through many difficulties in the first place, to get a place in the ballot. Then he has to get his Bill read a second time on a Friday. After that his measure goes up to the Grand Committee, where it is liable to be obstructed by other Bills which come after it. When the Committee stage is over, the private Member's Bill has to come down to this House, where it is again liable to be obstructed in the same way. What will happen this year? If this Resolution passes, the private Member is going to be restricted to three or four Fridays after Easter. Therefore the difficulties are very much enhanced indeed, because each Friday there will be more Bills put down, and, therefore, more hon. Members will be interested in stopping any Bill getting through in front of theirs. As a matter of fact, it would be almost impossible this year for a private Member to get any Bill through at all. The Prime Minister told us this afternoon his reasons—not very fortunate ones, I think—for making this proposal. He said that, first of all, the compulsory business—that is, the Estimates for the year and so forth—must be carried, and we quite agree. Then he said he must make a special appeal because of the delayed

1307
Finance Bill of last year, which would take six days and a half; but whose fault is it that the Finance Bill is left over till the present time? Surely the Government ought to have got that measure through last year, because they could have done. Therefore it is their fault that they are asking us now for six days and a-half for the old Budget Bill.
I come now to the more serious part. The Prime Minister has asked for fifteen days for other business. He has asked for this at a most unfortunate time and during the crisis when this Bill will be before the country in another place. Surely the Prime Minister himself must regret it if at the time of the Coronation the Parliament Bill is at its crisis in another place. On this side of the House we rather wonder what has driven the Government and the Prime Minister to make such a proposal. Many suggestions have been made. We know what drove them on last year—it was hon. Gentlemen sitting on the Benches below the Gangway, who would not allow the Government to pass their Budget, but forced them on with their Parliament Bill. The Prime Minister knows that very well.
The PRIME MINISTER: I know nothing of the kind.
Mr. SAMUEL ROBERTS: The first business last year was the Budget, and why did they not proceed with the Budget? Because hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway said: "No; we must get the Parliament Bill through, and we will hang up the Budget Bill." The Prime Minister knows that that is perfectly true.
The PRIME MINISTER: I do not.
Mr. SAMUEL ROBERTS: We were told that the Budget was to be passed first, but they could not pass it, and it had to be hung up, with the result that the finances of the year were disorganised. Is the same thing going to happen now? Are hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway now going to say, "We will not allow you to proceed with the Budget unless we have the Parliament Bill first"? I very much suspect the same conditions are operating as operated last year. In conclusion, I wish to make another protest against private Members' time being taken away from them, as is proposed by this Resolution. If it is passed it will be a precedent, and every Government when they come into office will say they have some important Bill which they consider necessary for their existence. They will say, "It is
1308
important we should get this particular measure through quickly and expeditiously, and we have a Resolution to take up the time of private Members. Therefore, we are establishing a most dangerous precedent, and one which I hope the House will not adopt in view of the very great difficulty there is in the way of private Members doing anything on their own, because, year after year, the Government of the day will more and more monopolise the time of this House.
Mr. GEORGE THORNE: I intervene in this Debate to say that I entirely disagree with the view which has been expressed by my hon. Friend on my right (Mr. Martin). I intend to support heartily the Motion which the Government is making, and, in expressing that view, I believe I am expressing the view of my Constituency, who have elected me to take my part in helping the Government to pass the Parliament Bill. The hon. Gentleman who has just sat down (Mr. Samuel Roberts) says this Motion is creating a most dangerous precedent under which any subsequent Government will be able to take away the time of private Members. I draw a distinction between the Bill on behalf of which this Motion is submitted and other Bills which we shall have to consider in the future. This Bill is a Constitutional measure to enable other Bills to be passed in the future, and, unless we take this step now to have the Parliament Bill passed into law there will be little chance, in our view, of the other measures to which I have alluded, being promoted and carried. Therefore there is a complete and absolute distinction between the character of the Bills to which I have alluded, which seems to me to completely answer the objection taken by the hon. Member for the Ecclesall Division of Sheffield. Another hon. Member opposite made the remark that if we went on much longer in the way we are going it will be very little use for a private Member to come to this House at all, and it would be better to remain at home and not come to a place where he could be practically of no service. During the short time I have been in this House I have come very largely to that conclusion, because when I have taken my part as a private Member in supporting Government business, and night after night and month after month have registered votes which have proved absolutely abortive owing to the action of another House, I have concluded that it is no use coming here unless some efforts are made to alter that condition of things. Therefore I think it is in the

1309
interests of private Members to support the course the Government are taking by means of the Parliament Bill to get our work done. I have further concluded that if it be impossible, as has been proved by our recent experience of the action of another place, to get Government measures through, how is it possible for private Members to get any measures through? The first thing we have to do is to make sure that the business of the Government is achieved, and there will be a better chance for private Members taking their part. Instead of this Resolution operating in the long run in limiting the rights of private Members, in my opinion it will ultimately enlarge those rights. The right hon. Gentleman who spoke a moment ago referred to my distinguished predecessor in the representation of the Constituency which I have the honour to represent. He stated that Lord Wolverhampton, when he was a Member of this House, desired that there should be larger opportunities for private Members instead of smaller. I am entirely in agreement with the view he then expressed, and it is because I believe that the passing of the Parliament Bill is absolutely essential to maintain and enlarge those rights that I shall most heartily support the course which the Government are taking. This constitutional issue is the supreme matter before the country and I believe the Government would have failed in their duty if they had not taken the course which they have done. Instead of criticising the action of the Government, I thank them for moving this Resolution. I hope they will continue in the course they have started. As a private Member, I am prepared to support them in any measure they may take to get the Parliament Bill passed. This is not only my own desire, but I am satisfied that it is also the desire of my constituents that the Parliament Bill should be passed into law at the earliest possible moment.
Lord HUGH CECIL: I desire to ask the Home Secretary one or two questions upon points which are not perfectly clear to me. To begin with, I do not quite understand what progress it is hoped to make with the Parliament Bill during the period of time the Government are taking. We were told at question time that the Government hope to get the first reading of the Parliament Bill in one day—a tremendous aspiration—but we were not told how much time was to be given to the remaining stages of the Bill.
1310
The right hon. Gentleman said that the time would not be unduly curtailed. That is a phrase we have heard quite recently. The time of the debate on the Address was not to be unduly curtailed. We know, therefore, what it means. The assurances of the right hon. Gentleman are like the scroll of the prophets, "Sweet in the mouth, but bitter in the belly." It sounds more attractive to say that your opportunities for debate will not be unduly curtailed, but experience goes to show that the views of those who desire to take part in the debate and the Minister in charge of the measure, are quite different as to what constitutes undue curtailment. I should like to know, with a little more detail therefore, what the plan of the Government is in respect of the different stages of the Parliament Bill. The right hon. Gentleman quoted a precedent in 1887. I could give him a great deal better precedent than that. That is a very remote precedent, and one which is not really important, because when you are considering procedure, it is natural, of course, that that should take precedence of all other business. It is manifest that until the procedure is put right this House cannot do business, and naturally, therefore, discussions on procedure precede discussions on any other matters. The hon. Member' for Leicester (Mr. Ramsay Macdonald) seems to think that similar considerations apply to changes in the Constitution. The theory apparently is that if the Parliament Bill is not passed early in May the House of Lords between May and July will do something to some measure which it is very desirable they should be prevented from doing; otherwise, there is no meaning in the theory that it is necessary to press on with the Parliament Bill in the same sense as with a Procedure Resolution. It is obvious whatever may be done with regard to the business in this House, it does not apply to the business likely to take place in the other House following the present time and going on to July.
A similar answer may be made with regard to coercion. Suppose you think it necessary, it is perfectly plain you cannot allow any delay about that. It is perfectly plain, if life and property are in danger, every moment is of importance. What conceivable analogy is there between a Bill of that kind and the Parliament Bill? We are told that the Parliament Bill ought to pass, and must pass, before the Coronation, and that, therefore, this

1311
Resolution is necessary. Why does it make any difference to the Parliament Bill whether it passes in May or July? What conceivable difference is there from any point of view, from the point of view of hon. Members who have all along treated this Bill as though it were a very fragile thing, and as though if it were not managed with the greatest care it would break? Is that the language of those who are conscious of a great national mandate behind them? Do they really think the prospect of national support is so feeble that the Bill will pass into law if it gets through this House in May, and that it will not pass into law if it gets through this House in July? Surely it is plain you are only justified in putting forward a constitutional change of this kind if you have an overwhelming predominance of opinion behind it, a predominance much too great to be affected by any difference between May and July. All this nice calculation, and all these words worthy of a sharp attorney for getting an advantage of a few days here, or a few weeks there—all these things are quite inappropriate to carrying a great change in a great country, and I am quite confident it is not by that method you will carry it. Either the Parliament Bill will not pass or it will, but it will not make the slightest difference whether it passes through this House in May or in July.
I suspect the Government have some other apprehension in view. I suspect they are not thinking merely of passing the Parliament Bill, but of preventing some other measures which may be in the hands of private Members not only passing but being discussed in this House at all. The Government attach urgent importance to not discussing Women Suffrage, and I suspect also the Osborne Judgment. They, therefore, propose to take as much time as they can. They see that awkward questions are coming up, and I can imagine the Prime Minister coming down after Easter, and, with his wonderful direct and innocent manner of stating things simply, being all the time the subtlest of all the beasts of the field, proposing to deprive the private Member of all further time. If in earlier days the right hon. Gentleman had undertaken the work of the tempter he certainly would not have been so injudicious as to take the shape of the serpent, but he would have appeared as a retired archangel of moderate progressive opinion, and in that guise no doubt he
1312
would have achieved remarkable success. The reason I am principally opposed to this Motion is that it is part of a tendency for which undoubtedly the Leaders of both parties are responsible, to constantly subordinate the independence of the House of Commons to the convenience of the Government of the day. That is a very serious danger. I am not sure that the danger of a bureaucracy and of the growing powers of the Executive is not even from the point of view of convinced Radicals the greater danger of the two. The Prime Minister made one of his most admirable speeches, in point of form, in the spring of 1905, on a Resolution shortening the Debate by what is called the guillotine. He stated in very eloquent terms the danger that threatened the House of Commons. New Members often ask what sort of style they should adopt in speaking to the House of Commons. They could not do better than speak in the style of this extract from the speech of the Prime Minister. He said, speaking of this measure:—
"It is a step in a series. It is another stage on the journey which has marked, and is marking, the degradation of the House of Commons—I speak in all seriousness—from a deliberative to a dependent body, and which, if it is allowed to go on, will transform the House into a mere automatic machine for registering the will of the Executive of the day. This is not a party question. Majorities and ministries come and go. Before very long we may be sitting on that side of the House, and the party opposite on this——"
Less than twelve months it was so—
"But there is one thing which hitherto, at any rate, has always remained behind and above all as a constant and continuous factor in our constitutional life, and that is the authority of the House of Commons That authority, many outside observers tell us, in these days is dwindling. Sir, the House may be certain that it cannot survive, and that it does not deserve to survive, habitual acquiescence in humiliation such as this. We are here as representatives and spokesmen of our constituents. We are here also, most of us, zealous and faithful party men. But we all share in whatever quarter of the House we sit in, the responsibility of a higher and a larger duty the duty of preserving and perpetuating the unbroken identity of a free Parliament."
Since that time the right hon. Gentleman has moved a great number of guillotine resolutions, and he has to-night moved a resolution taking the time of the House, though, as has been said, I think by the hon. Members for Kent (Mr. Laurence Hardy) and Sheffield (Mr. S. Roberts), the very purpose of the last reform of procedure was to make these Motions unnecessary. The Labour party are going to support the Government. The independence of the Labour party is very much like the jam in "Alice in the Looking-Glass "—
"It is always jam yesterday, jam to-morrow, but never jam to-day."

1313
It is always independence yesterday, independence to-morrow, but never independence to-day. I would really ask them to consider whether they think in what they are going to do they are really consulting the interests of labour, and whether they are really acting as the representatives of poor men. Let us be sure of it. These guarantees which are treated so lightly, the guarantee of a Second Chamber, and the guarantee of free opportunities of discussion in this House, are most of all important, like all the apparatus of liberty, to the poor working classes of the country. The Labour party for the moment, it may be, see some advantage they are going to get out of the proceedings of this Session. I am not sure they will not be disappointed, because under the grotesque Constitution going to be set up Parliament is going to be like the pool of Siloam, and only those matters are going to be passed which are first immersed in the waters. The opportunity will soon pass, as the Nationalist and Welsh parties appear to have already mortgaged the two vital Sessions of which the House of Commons will be absolute masters. I am not sure the Labour party will get as much as they think. Sooner or later there will be a reaction, and they will be face to face with a Parliament strongly devoted to preserving the interests of property, capital, and industrial organisation. The Constitution which has been rigged in one sense will then be rigged in another. What will happen to liberty of debate in this House then? What protection in those days will the Labour party have? Be sure of it, rich men, people with money at command, are in a sense independent of Constitutions and the guarantees of liberty. It is not so with poor men. The Labour party will certainly not be able to complain if the majority of that time use their powers in the most arbitrary manner. This House has steadily gone down. What the Prime Minister said in 1905 is much more true to-day; it has steadily sunk in authority. The opportunities of private Members are growing smaller and smaller. That opportunity of raising discussions, valuable precisely because it is often vexatious to the Government of the day—and which is one of the few powers the House can sometimes usefully and effectively exercise under modern conditions—is destroyed by means of this Motion. I am sure the Labour party and all those who value liberty, whether on this side or on that, are making a profound mistake in
1314
subordinating the interests of the House of Commons to the advantage of party. If there is anything I care about in the Constitution, it is the preservation of liberty. I am quite sure free Parliamentary discussion is a vital matter. I have always disagreed with high authorities who have deprecated the tendency of this House to talk. I remember a very distinguished man, Lord Selby, saying in my hearing that he did not want the House of Commons to become a talking shop. I thought that an unwise and mistaken observation. To complain of the House of Commons becoming a talking shop is like complaining of a grocer being a tea dealer. It is the business of the House of Commons to talk. Of course, if the politician is quite sure the Government are right, and that none of their proposals ought to be altered, the less talk the better, but in that case why have a House of Commons at all? If you do no£ have discussion, a great deal that is most faulty will pass into law, and the interests of those who cannot bring pressure to bear upon the Government, not, perhaps, the great organised unions, but the genuine poor, who, having many friends, they suffer most of all.
8.0 P.M.
I think it is a great pity that the Government are not only destroying the Second Chamber this Session, but they are continuing what has been going on for a good many years, the process of subordinating the House of Commons to the authority of the Executive. There never has been, in the history of any free country, such authority as is now exercised by the Cabinet. They sit in secret and they are apparently agreed, whatever may be the differences of opinion in their ranks, on a party system which they force on the House of Commons, by guillotine and by closure, so that there is really little free discussion. We are face to face, therefore, with the danger of having a supreme bureaucracy, chosen, no doubt from time to time, by the electorate at large, but one which once chosen is supreme, and has at its disposal the property and well being of the nation. That is sheer tyranny, and I hope that hon. Members will reflect on what they are doing. I hope they will remember that each step is a step downwards, and that we are getting nearer and nearer to the final danger which threatens us. I hope they will resolve, if not now, at any rate at some future time, to combine together to put an effective check on the growing power of the Executive and to set

1315
back the tide now flowing with such overwhelming power, and so make the House of Commons once again the home and citadel of free discussion.
Mr. JOHN WARD: The Noble Lord says that if we support as a general policy measures of the description proposed by the Executive the day may come when, the political pendulum having swung in the opposite direction, we shall find that the powers we are giving to a party, which we believe to be legislating in our favour, may be used for the purpose of destroying some of the special privileges and advantages we may possess to-day. We quite recognise that danger. I do not think there is a single Labour man on these benches who does not recognise the danger that, if you give authority to a party which usually represents your views those extraordinary powers that are asked for to-day, may in the time to come be used to upset a policy which we believe to be of great advantage to the community. We recognise the danger, but then we are obliged to remember the history—the later history—of the democratic movement in this country and its struggles to get recognition in this House. We have to decide whether, under the old system, we are likely to get the greatest advantage, or whether we shall attain it under the proposals now before the House. We recognise the danger just as the Noble Lord does of the power we are giving to the Executive to-day being possibly used against us to-morrow, when the swing of the pendulum takes his party into power. We are asked by the Noble Lord what protection we shall then have. We meet that question with another, and we inquire What protection have we had hitherto? What protection have we had against the legislative machinery of the country being largely used for bolstering up interests which we consider to be inimical to the best interests of labour? We have found one branch of the Legislature absolutely out of touch with our aspirations, and, knowing nothing of our ideals and requirements, trying now and again to solve some of the problems that press on our class so heavily, but really understanding almost nothing of the circumstances of our lives and daily occupations. When that sterile position with reference to the legislative machinery of the State is considered, and when we balance it against the possible advantages to be secured by the proposals of the Executive to-day, we unhesitatingly
1316
decide in putting our vote and voice in favour of the new policy. We think it would be to our advantage—not merely to the advantage of the working-classes of the country, but to the advantage of the democracy in general—and that is why we are supporting proposal" even to the extent of curtailing discussion in this House.
The hon. Member for Stepney asked us to consider this from the point of view of the realities of the situation. What are those realities? There is not the slightest doubt that if the swing of the pendulum anticipated by the Noble Lord should by some means transfer him and his party to this side of the House, even more drastic proposals than those suggested by the Premier to-day would be enthusiastically supported by the Noble Lord and his friends. That is a reality of the situation. If you happen to be in opposition to the policy of the Executive Government, and they want to go on with that policy because they believe the country has approved it, you call it the "gag," and I dare say if I were on the other side I should under such circumstances shout "Gag!" as loudly as anyone. But if you put yourself in the other man's position, and are in favour of that which the Executive are fighting for, then it does not appear to be the gag. You consider it only business. It is the hypocrisy of the situation which strikes one who, like myself, has been in this House for four or five years. Take, for instance, the speech delivered by the hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury) this afternoon. He appealed to the Labour Members and to all that was best in their nature to oppose this policy—the policy of the curtailment of discussion on private Members' proposals in this House. But of all men in the world why should he make such an appeal. Everybody knows that whenever the Labour party or even an ordinary private Member gets a chance to Debate a Resolution the hon. Baronet endeavours to talk out the business and to defeat the object of the private Member secured by the chances of of the ballot. I must give him credit for impartiality in reference to this matter. He not only snuffs out Labour Members and others politically opposed to him, but he even snuffs out at times his own friends, and, time after time, I have heard him deliver speeches in this House, after a full discussion on a Friday, declaring that he does not consider it right that a private Member should be allowed to bring forward

1317
important proposals, and that it was the duty of the Executive Government to deal with matters of that description. If the hon. Member for Stepney wants a reality of the situation I present that to him. It is exactly the situation which we see to-day. The point is—are we prepared to give the powers suggested to the Executive Government in order to carry out a policy which we believe has been affirmed by a majority of those who have the opportunity of electing representatives to this House. We quite admit the possibility that by the swing of the pendulum the powers we are now proposing may be used against us on some future occasion. I confess to that were I in the position of the Noble Lord I should use an occasion such as this Resolution affords to obstruct, delay, oppose, and destroy a policy in which I did not believe. But to pretend that that is an infringement of the privileges of private Members is absolutely absurd. The first thing that every private Member of this House wants to do in his capacity, both as a public representative and a private Member, is of course, to pass the Veto Bill, and to pretend it is an injury to us to use the forms of this House for that purpose is ridiculous. We think we are entitled to use forms which have been forged by the party opposite for purposes of this nature. We are using them in order to press forward a policy accepted by the majority of the people, and if the Government thought fit to propose that the Parliament Bill should pass through this House within a week from now we should support them. I tell you frankly that if they would give three days to it I should still say we were consistent as private Members in voting as we now propose to do.
Lord HUGH CECIL: Then why discuss it at all?
Mr. JOHN WARD: We simply want to get the Parliament Bill out of the way.
And it being a quarter-past Eight of the clock, and there being Private Business set down by direction of the Chairman of Ways and Means, under Standing Order No. 8, further Proceeding was postponed without Question put.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

  WARRINGTON CORPORATION BILL (SUSPENDED BILL). (BY ORDER.)
  Order for Third Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the third time."
  Mr. BOOTH: I wish to draw the attention of the House to two clauses of this measure which in my opinion make it the duty of hon. Members to reject it. Clause 22 deals with one of those vicious proposals which are now becoming more and more frequent, whereby a local corporation and their officials encroach upon the liberties of the subject, and particularly upon those of the poorer classes. I would like to ask hon. Members whether it is reasonable or proper that humble working-men, who all their lives have been accustomed to give notices to terminate their tenancies verbally, should be compelled by letter to bring to an end their contract with the corporation for the supply of gas and use of gas, meters. I am not prepared to challenge clauses considered by the Private Bill Committee, particularly those referring to the finances of Warrington, but the clauses to which I object were apparently not considered by the Committee nor referred to by the counsel engaged in the case. Clause 22 provides that at least twenty-four hours' notice in writing shall be given to the corporation by every gas consumer before be quits the premises, and if he does not give that notice he will be mulcted in all kinds of costs. It seems preposterous to me that poor people in humble tenements should be compelled to write letters in order to end their contracts with regard to a gas meter. The custom in this great district of Lancashire to which this Bill applies is that almost all contracts, particularly in the cotton trade, are settled by word of mouth, and vast sums change hands and a very great deal of business is done without any written document at all. In this Bill no verbal notice is provided for, and if a working-man passing the Town Hall were to communicate that he is about to change his address, such action would be of no value. These privileges in the hands of a private firm may be waived, but such is the petty tyranny in regard to these matters of Corporation officials that there is no chance of such consideration as would be shown under those circumstances being displayed by corporations. The object of the Bill professes to be to place a large bridge over the Ship Canal, and the Committee gave careful attention to many parts of the Bill, but the clauses about which I am speaking were pushed into a large measure in order to escape scrutiny. Then I come to Clause 49, which, I think, has become standard or stereotyped amongst local authorities. But with all the

  1319
  emphasis I can command I wish to press upon the House that it is time that clauses of this character should cease to be incorporated in private Bills.
  The clause in question provides that no manufacturer, vendor, merchant, or dealer in ice cream or any similar commodity shall within the borough manufacture or store it in any sleeping room, or in any place which is likely to make it injurious to health, or in which there is an inlet or opening to a drain. No one wants to consume ice cream made under those conditions, but it does seem to me that if they prevail in the borough it is a standing disgrace to the health authorities of Warrington. They have sufficient powers to make their will operative, but I regret to inform the House that there is much insanitary property in many parts of Warrington, and I would like to draw the attention of the municipality to it. It seems to me that their ordinary powers are quite sufficient, and it will not meet the case to prosecute some ignorant Italian under these conditions. If the buildings remain in that state why should children be brought up in such rooms. One difficulty of getting rid of such premises is that in too many cases the men who draw the rents from them sit on the local authorities, and the inspectors of health—the sanitary inspectors—dare not touch certain properties belonging to their employers. In many cases what you would do by this clause is to prevent the poor Italian from manufacturing ice cream, but it seems to me that the larger matter should be dealt with in such a spirit as would reflect credit upon the town of Warrington. I apologise for drawing the attention of the House at this stage; I cannot imagine that the hon. Member who has recently been elected for Warrington, can introduce himself into public life by defending such clauses as these; and I ask to be forgiven for taking advantage of the only opportunity of calling attention to this matter. I cannot conscientiously either in this or any other Bill, pass such a clause as this without protest, but having made it I leave my case in the hands of the House.
  Mr. HAROLD SMITH: As the representative of the Borough which is to find so much money for promoting this Bill in Parliament perhaps the House will allow me to make a few observations in reply to the hon. Member who has criticised it. I should like at the outset to say that I do
  1320
  not quarrel with the tone of his criticism, nor do I complain that he levels criticism at the Bill, nor that he chooses this particular stage of the measure in order to level it. I quite admit that the hon. Member is disinterested, and that he has had no opportunity of criticising the measure to which he takes exception save on this occasion, but may I remind the House of the somewhat laborious history of this Bill. Ever since December, 1909, it has been slowly winning its way towards a place on the Statute Book. Since that date it has passed, in July last, all the necessary stages in this House. It has passed the necessary stages in another place, and owing, if I may say so, to a mere technical rule, it is necessary for the Bill to come again before this House owing to the fortunate or unfortunate Dissolution which occurred at the end of last year, according to the view which hon. Members take of the occurrence. I may say, therefore, that it is somewhat of a formality that it has again to pass through this stage. Under these circumstances I feel that the hon. Member will pause and will consider that perhaps he may withdraw the objection which he has made. I do not speak as to the merits of his case. I for one offer him, for what it is worth, my sympathy. If I were at any time sitting on a Committee discussing such a Bill, and the hon. Member raised the points which he has called attention to, I certainly would be glad to support him, and my poor services, such as they are, are entirely at his disposal at any time when he wishes to raise the points which he has brought forward this evening. May I refresh the memory of the House? The hon. Member's point is that it is oppressive of a Corporation to insist on its tenants, who hire its gas-meters, giving notice in writing to the Corporation. With that criticism I am entirely in agreement. It is unjust to ask poor and illiterate tenants to give in writing a notice to the Corporation of their intention to give up the use of the meter. I put it to the hon. Gentleman that, under these circumstances, and considering the fact that the Bill has been through so many laborious stages, and the fact that the Borough of Warrington has spent a very large sum and a considerable amount of time in promoting the Bill, and owing to the fact that the Committee appointed by this House has spent many days—one might say months, in considering the Bill in its every detail, and offering, as I do, the sympathies certainly of myself and, I believe,

  1321
  of many Members if not all of this Committee in the point to which he objects in this particular Bill, I suggest to the hon. Member that it would be a graceful act if he withdrew his opposition on this occasion, and I pledge myself to support him, whenever I have the opportunity, whenever he chooses to make a similar criticism on a Bill which has not reached what one may describe as such a final stage as this. I make my appeal on behalf of the borough to the hon. Member to withdraw his objection.
  Mr. BOOTH: In response to the hon. Member's appeal, and in deference to the history of the Bill, I have great pleasure in acceding to the hon. Gentleman's wishes.

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDER (No. 13) BILL.
  Order for Consideration, as amended, read.
  Question proposed, "That the Bill, as amended, be now considered."
  Mr. STAVELEY-HILLmoved to leave out the word "now" and at the end of the Question to add the words, "upon this day six months."
  Before I refer in detail to the point which I shall have to deal with as to my reasons for moving my Amendment, I think, speaking in what is after all a new House, one is more or less obliged to go back. What is the history of this measure? My hon. Friends and myself have to account for our position on 6th July and our position to-day. It will be remembered that when this Provisional Order Bill was before the House in that month for Second Reading, a motion for its rejection was put down by several hon. Members, and when it came to my lot to move this rejection I felt that the position was one of very great difficulty. The Prime Minister had just made a statement of very great importance, a statement to which I must draw the attention of the House, because upon it our conduct on the Bill was altered entirely. Many of us for a long time, owing to the increasing desire of boroughs to extend their boundaries, had asked that the question of compensation should be put upon a fair and a sound and a permanent basis. We had asked for a Committee to inquire into these principles,
  1322
  and the Prime Minister, speaking a few days before this Bill came up for Second Reading in the House, said:—
  "The Government are prepared to accept the Motion for a Joint Committee which is being moved for in another place. In so doing they rely on the County Councils concerned with the three Provisional Order Bills for the extension of boroughs, which are now before this House, consenting to withdraw opposition to the Bills as far as relates to the question of compensation for loss of rateable value, subject to the insertion in the Confirming Bills of a clause to the effect that if the Joint Committee recommend the payment of compensation for such loss, the adjustments between the boroughs and counties concerned shall be on those lines. I understand there is good ground for hoping that this course will be taken, and I am sure I can rely on my hon. Friend using his best efforts to that end."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th July, 1910, col. 1325.]
  With that before us, as I say, it would have been illogical to divide the House. We made our protest and we reserved on all future stages of the Bill our right to oppose it. We take this opportunity tonight of exercising those reserved rights, and to a large extent we are exercising them—not entirely, but to a large extent—because we understood from the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. John Burns) that the Committee promised in that statement by the Prime Minister would be set up at an early date. I am not going to put into the right hon. Gentleman's mouth words which he did not say, but I think from the statement which he made on 6th July, it implied that it was his intention, at any rate, to do his best to set up that Committee at once, because this is what the right hon. Gentleman said:—
  "I can assure my hon. and learned Friend, that, to the best of our ability we will try to secure—and I am not alone the arbiter in this matter as he knows—that the Select Committee to consider this and the other two Bills, should sit and act concurrently with the Joint Committee in considering the question of compensation, if any, that the Councils are to secure."
  We thought, and we hoped, at any rate, if the right hon. Gentleman was not the entire arbiter, he would at any rate have considerable influence in securing what he told us he desired. It is a long distance in time since July 6th. The Committee may have been set up, but the names of the Committee are not known to my hon. Friends or myself, and we are not prepared with the Clause in the Bill which we, of course, are familiar with, to let it go through, until we have before us some further idea as to what the Committee think about it. We thought when the Parliamentary Committee reported, we should have contemporaneously the Report of the Joint Committee. Upon that, we withdrew our opposition last July. It is in the absence of that, that we bring our opposition here to-day. It is perhaps as well that the House should remember

  1323
  what the duty is, that is thrown upon the Committee which the right hon. Gentleman is setting up. Its duty is to ascertain what Amendments may be required in the Local Government Act of 1888 and 1894, and what changes are necessary to remove the friction which at the present moment, unfortunately exists between boroughs and counties. There is no doubt about it, however much one may deplore it, that the present condition of things between boroughs and counties, where boroughs are endeavouring to enlarge their boundaries, is an unpleasant one and is causing a considerable amount of friction. If you go back to the Act of 1888, and the Act of 1894, administrative counties and county boroughs were set up. By Section (32) of that Act equitable adjustment was provided respecting the financial arrangements between the county and the county borough, or, failing agreement, by Commissioners appointed. There was the Commission known as Lord Derby's Commission, which adjusted matters for a period of time, and from 1889 to 1894 compensation was given to all counties for the area transferred. Then comes on the scene the legal decision in Caterham Education, which was the cause of all the trouble under which we labour. The result of that decision was that financial adjustments must not include compensation from one body to another. That is the reason why we ask for a Committee to put this thing on a permanent basis. That it is not at present on a permanent basis is quite clear, because, subsequent to the decision to which I have referred, other boroughs, whose names I could give—though possibly it is not worth while—have carried out this object by agreement. But that is not what we want. Agreement is not permanency, and it is for permanency we ask. On this particular Bill I am only entitled to speak for that county, a part of which I have the honour to represent. My hon. Friends who represent Worcestershire, Warwickshire, will put their case as regards their counties in their own way. Staffordshire is in an unfortunate position. That county has recently lost a very large rateable area in what is known as the Potteries, to which I will in a moment or two refer. But before I give the details which actually affect Staffordshire, I will ask the House to look at this Bill. Hon Members will see that it is not an
  1324
  ordinary borough going out a few miles and taking in a suburb. You have here a huge scheme for the extension of the city of Birmingham. Please do not think that I myself or any of my hon. Friends who are opposing this measure are actuated by any hostility to the city of Birmingham in any shape or form. Hon. Members who support the scheme are acting in the true sense of representatives of the people who elected them, and we, on the other side, are endeavouring to look after the interests of our Constituents. This scheme is going to make Birmingham four times as large as it is at present. It is going to add 30,241 acres. It is going to add a population of 330,000, and it is going to add a rateable value of £1,336,291. The result of the extensions of these boundaries will be to make Birmingham 43,718 acres with a population of 895,000, and a rateable value of £4,270,221. The extended city will be practically ten miles across. That is a noble ideal. Let Birmingham be pleased with it, but do not expect those who are asked to come into the city to be equally pleased. Handsworth is the only part of Staffordshire affected, and it has throughout from the very suggestion of the scheme opposed it. The people there oppose it because they believe they can govern themselves better than Birmingham could govern them. The President of the Local Government Board, or some other supporter of the scheme, will probably say that Handsworth is afraid to take a poll. It is true that the people of Handsworth did not take a poll, but they did what is perhaps more effective than taking a poll; they passed resolutions by enormous majorities at meetings held throughout the whole of their district. The resolutions were to the effect that they disapproved of annexation. It is common ground between us—and my hon. Friend the Member for East Birmingham will not contradict me—that during the whole of the Committee stage no attack was made on the management and the efficiency of Handsworth. It was admitted that the administration was good, even by the witnesses called in favour of the annexation scheme. When in July the Second Reading Debate took place the President of the Local Government Board said that Handsworth had recently had an election after the Local Government inquiry and that both parties agreed that they would make this one of the issues of the election, and that the candidate who was in favour of absorption by Birmingham

  1325
  was elected by nearly four to one. The right hon. Gentleman made that statement naturally in good faith, but I would point out that it was a bye-election to which he referred. It took place in one of the five wards, and the unsuccessful candidate secured, I am informed, 27½ per cent. of the votes. To a large extent that particular election was fought on political lines, but if there was any other ground which was introduced, other than politics, it was not the question of annexation to Birmingham, but some question in connection with a tramway system to Birchfield. I believe that had an enormous effect in turning the election, and the right hon. Gentleman knows, as well as I do, how trifling a thing turns an election which is dependent on a larger issue. The first and main objection I have to this Bill is that you are going to give the management of 900,000 persons to one authority. I thought it was generally said that a population of 500,000 was about as much as could be managed. You are taking population from an efficient area and handing them over to an area which will be absolutely unwieldy. My second objection is that the administration of so large a body of persons in so enlarged an area will be left mainly to officials. In such a large area and population the ratepayers' control over local expenditure is very much reduced, and there is a difficulty in organising combined action. The people would not have the voice in such matters as the people of Handsworth have now. Let us look at what experience has taught us in Staffordshire. I spoke just now of the Federation. Whether it is the fault of the Federation or not, the result has been that in all the six places that have been federated the rates have gone up by leaps and bounds. In Burslem, where they were 8s. 1d. in 1907, they are now 10s. 1½d., and in Longton, where they were 8s. 5d., they are now 10s. 1d.
  Naturally other places are frightened because similar results will happen to them; and when they have been considered before a Parliamentary Committee as being capable of managing their own affairs we see no reason why they should be placed in the hands of others who are going to make a profit out of them. I will make good those words "going to make a profit out of them," because the County of Stafford makes a profit from Handsworth of between £5,000 and £6,000 a year. If this Committee does not report in favour of compensation, and, in the absence of such report, if there is to be no compensation,
  1326
  then this £5,000 or £6,000 is to be handed over to the friends of the Member for East Birmingham (Mr. Steel-Maitland) without paying anything for it. Birmingham is going to secure that full amount for nothing. During the Second Reading Debate my Noble Friend the Member for West Bromwich (Viscount Lewisham) was the only successful person, and he succeeded in keeping the union outside Birmingham, and, therefore, it still remains in West Bromwich; and under these changed circumstances, if the circumstances do change, Handsworth will be in the West Bromwich Union and not in the Union of Birmingham at all. It will be suggested that Handsworth has been made by Birmingham, that the trams have run out there from Birmingham, and have made Handsworth what it is. I have yet to learn that the trams have been run for philanthropic purposes. The persons who travel in the trams pay for so doing, and so assist the municipal enterprise. But that constitutes no claim that they should come within the borough. It is often suggested that the people of outlying districts come and shop in Birmingham, but they pay for their goods, and thus are assisting those persons to pay the rates in Birmingham. They walk in the parks and use the streets of Birmingham; but the people from the towns come out to the country and use the lanes and hedges, and sometimes do considerable damage, yet no one asks that they should pay rates for that. I think that there should be some reciprocity. It should not be all one way. I appeal to those representatives from counties who will very likely suffer from a similar measure before long. This gradual encroachment having started is not going to end there. Bath, I believe, is shortly going to suffer. Reading has, if I mistake not, already somewhat suffered. Cambridge is looming in the distance. It may be that if a basis of compensation is arranged these matters may be settled amicably, but in the absence of that compensation and in the absence of any such basis I say we are more than amply justified in refusing to allow, so far as in us lies, the further consideration of a measure which is going to deal very detrimentally with the three counties until we know that we have absolutely secured fair compensation for those who live in those counties. I am actuated by no desire to do any harm to Birmingham, but solely by the desire to protect those whom I have the honour to represent.
  9.0 P.M.
  Mr. BALDWIN: On the occasion of the last appearance of this Provisional Order in this House I had the honour of speaking after my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Kingswinford (Mr. Staveley-Hill), and making a few remarks, explaining, as far as I was able, the special point of view as affecting the towns I have the honour to represent. I do not propose to repeat what I said on that occasion. Most Members present to-night are sufficiently familiar with the details of this Bill to know that my county is the one that suffers most in loss of population of area and of rateable value; and not only that, we are the county which of the three counties concerned can least afford to lose either area or population or rateable value. But while I remember quite well that we withdrew our opposition on the undertaking of the Prime Minister, I remember also, as my learned Friend has reminded me this evening, that we reserved the right to criticise and oppose, if necessary, this Provisional Order at a later stage. I do it to-night more freely because since the passing of the Second Reading there has arisen a new point which to my mind materially affects, or certainly may materially affect, the ratepayers in my own county of Worcester. The rock on which this Provisional Order might have split is the rock of finance. Finance is really at the bottom of the whole trouble. I know it is at the bottom of our position, and I believe if the truth were known it is at the bottom of the desire of Birmingham to get hold of our rateable area. But this subject by far the most important part of it has not been discussed or investigated. The Committee upstairs which dealt with the Bill had hardly anything to say on the financial question. They refused to discuss it, all such points being reserved for the consideration of this Joint Committee, which is still to be set up. But it prejudices the case of the county, because it has been impossible for us to throw any light before the Committee upstairs on certain aspects of finance which they think might have influenced the consideration of the Committee. But though they were unable to do it before the Committee it may not be within the knowledge of every Member of the House to-night that an action has been begun between a Birmingham ratepayer and the Corporation and Treasurer of the City of Birmingham with regard to certain financial dealings on the part of the Corporation. It is a matter of common knowledge that such actions as these have to be
  1328
  indorsed by fiat of the learned Attorney-General before any further action can be taken, and the granting of that fiat seems to me and all lay Members of the House as showing that a primâ facie case at least exists on the part of the person who is making the claim. The claim in question is in regard to the accounts of the Gas Committee. I do not propose to go into these matters in detail at all, because I do not believe that this is the place to do it, and the details of the case are not necessarily germane to my argument. The details of the case will be investigated in a court of law, and in due time we shall have a pronouncement of His Majesty's judges upon them. But the point that concerns me, as representative of Worcester county and the ratepayers of the county, is this: The allegation which has received the fiat of the Attorney-General is that the Corporation of Birmingham have received sums of the money which are bound by law to be kept solely for the purposes of capital expenditure; and that this money, which may legally only be used for such purposes has been used for items which should have been paid for out of the current revenue of the undertaking. Hon. Members who are interested in these matters will recognise that the whole case is very closely akin to one on which judgment has been given at no distant date in regard to the borough of West Ham. My point, and the ratepayers' point, is this: In commercial language there is a contingent liability hanging over Birmingham, a possible liability that may amount to something over £200,000. We have had no statement on this matter from any Birmingham representatives so far, and the inhabitants of the district which it is proposed to incorporate in this Birmingham scheme, have been living until quite recently in sublime ignorance of this charge that was hanging over their heads. How does it hang over their heads? It hangs over them in this way. If His Majesty's judges follow up the verdict given in the West Ham case, the corporation of Birmingham will have to make good all money that has been paid out of capital sums for items which should have been charged against revenue. In other words, it will have to raise a sum exceeding £200,000 in amount. There is no provision in the Order that this sum should be raised only on the Birmingham ratepayers as they exist to-day; which means that all the surrounding districts which are being brought in may be equally

  1329
  liable, subject only to the very small remedy they obtain in the matter of differential rating with the Birmingham ratepayers to make good the loss, the responsibility for which cannot by any stretch of imagination be said to rest upon them. I would not be doing my duty to-night as a representative of the county of Worcester, if I did not ask the House whether this is not a sound reason for postponing the operation of this Provisional Order until this very important question has been settled in the court of law. Or, if it is found impossible, owing to a certain impatience which has been manifested on the side of the promoters, to respond to our appeal to that extent, should it not be met by a Clause in the Bill that the responsibility for finding this money shall rest on the Birmingham ratepayers and not on Worcester and Warwickshire ratepayers, who may be included in the new area. I think that the one point which I have put before the House for consideration to-night is of very great weight, and should have influence with men of impartial mind in coming to a conclusion and in recording their vote on an occasion of this kind.
  Mr. RYLAND ADKINS: I only wish to point out very briefly to the Committee the point of view which is taken by the Association of County Councils, which has had a great deal to do with the case in both Houses last year, out of which arose the answer given here by the Prime Minister, to which the hon. and learned Member for Kingswinford referred at the beginning of his speech. I think that the members of the Committee, whether they represent boroughs or counties, would all be glad if some final and equitable settlement of this constant and recurring difficulty as to financial adjustment, financial compensation between boroughs and counties, could be effected. It is a real injury to local government in this country that changes of this kind, which are obviously desirable in many cases, should be accompanied by this additional and unnecessary sort of friction. Therefore I take it that this Committee, and I hope the Committee in another place, still are unanimous in desiring that this matter should be attended to, and attended to at once. I agree with the hon. Member who has just spoken that it is much to be regretted that the joint Committee could not have been appointed in the last Parliament and have worked pari passu with the
  1330
  Committee upstairs, which has spent so much time on this Birmingham Bill. I am only concerned here to-night with this question of financial adjustment. I do not interpose as to the domestic differences between Birmingham and its neighbours, although I am entitled to my opinion. I am dealing only with the question of financial adjustment, and I hope that it may not be necessary for this Committee to refuse the Report stage on this occasion, because I am bound to say that it is not in the public interests that this important Birmingham project should be unnecessarily prolonged in any of its stages. I rise chiefly to make a suggestion to my right hon. Friend the Chairman of Committees, and to my right hon. Friend the President of the Local Government Board—a suggestion which I hope may be agreed to. The Mover of the Amendment quite fairly referred to this Committee as not having been set up, but Members who are acquainted with what occurred in another place a few days ago will know that the Committee at the present moment is in process of being set up. While we have all at times quarrelled with the Government as to want of speed, or other human frailties, it is only fair that we should admit now that this Committee will undoubtedly in a very few days be agreed upon between the two Houses of Parliament. The suggestion which I respectfully submit to my right hon. Friends is this—that one or other of them shall give an undertaking that the names of those who compose this Committee, the names of Members of this House, shall be made public forty-eight hours before the Second Reading of the Bill is put down for consideration. If that were done, this Committee would know, and the House would know, who are those of its Members to whom this responsible duty is to be given. It would know that the Committee had been set up, and the extent of time which the Committee would take. The fortunes of this Bill in another place may, I think, be left to be dealt with there. Once that Committee is really appointed, and the Members are approved—I have no doubt they will be approved by the House—then the Third Reading in Debate may take place, and I make that suggestion now, in the interests not only of Birmingham, but also in the interest of the administrative county which really cannot wait much longer for the settlement of this important question. I think if that can be responded to by the

  1331
  Government that it might be well for the House to allow this Report stage to go forward so far as regards that general argument.
  I am not in any way intervening in the particular issue between Birmingham and the surrounding counties, nor do I intervene with regard to the interesting statements which were made by the hon. Member who spoke last. If this Committee is appointed at once I hope we shall not consider the reference to it of a clause to be inserted in a Bill after it has passed this House to be a precedent for future legislation. It is undoubtedly important that no clause in a Bill, and still less a clause of wide and general application, should be inserted in a Bill after it has passed from the cognisance of this House. I see the urgency, the very natural urgency, in this matter, of a great city engaged in an important undertaking, and equally the urgency of the county authorities, who feel their power of discharging their duties seriously affected by the present position. Therefore, under those circumstances, if we were now to know who the Committee are to be, and approved of the Committee of this House, I for one would not carry my opposition further. I do wish to enter that protest, as to this being made a precedent for future legislation. There is a matter I desire to mention. Before the Committee on the Birmingham Bill a clause has been drawn which professes—I do not mean the phrase discourteously—and which is intended, to deal with whatever may be settled by the Joint Committee. That clause, as drafted and passed by the Committee, is a clause which is open to grave doubt as to its meaning and as to its scope. I had some idea of putting down an Amendment to that clause. I refrained from doing so for two reasons. I do not think that the House, sitting on Report stage, is a good place in which to discuss the exact effect of a highly technical clause in law. For reasons I have already given I did not wish to delay the Bill unnecessarily on a point of that kind, if there was to be a real opportunity of the matter being considered.
  I do hope that the House will remember the words of the Prime Minister, as quoted by the hon. and learned Gentleman, and in the other House what was mentioned by Lord Crewe last year, and, and again mentioned by Lord Crewe a week ago. It was made perfectly plain
  1332
  that the real substance of the reference to the Joint Committee is not only to be that financial adjustment should not take place without compensation, but also compensation from one authority to the other, if and when the Joint Committee find such compensation is necessary for the equitable arrangement of matters between the parties. The only way, it seems to me, in which that can now be emphasised is by taking the opportunity of this Debate to remind the House of what has been definitely promised in both Houses of Parliament. Therefore, I am sure, if the Birmingham Bill, on other grounds, passes this House, and passes another House, if it comes back here with this clause altered in phraseology to meet the doubt which lawyers of eminence entertain as to its present meaning, then I am sure this House will feel it will be only carrying out the pledges of its Leader and the general agreement amongst Members if they adopt such Amendments as will be found to be necessary. I therefore took this opportunity of bringing that matter to the notice of the House. I know it is not a mere fad or fancy that the phrase adopted upstairs is not certain in its meaning. I believe that the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Pollock) feels very strongly that there is very great doubt as to the effect of the words chosen upstairs. We should loyally accept the promise of the Government as to the Joint Committee, and I hope to hear that the names of the Committee will be made public in a reasonable time before the Third Reading. I also, on this occasion, call attention to what the Prime Minister said before the Bill becomes law, if it is to become law, on the general merits, so that there shall be no ambiguity as to this particular clause, and so that under this Bill the boroughs and counties shall know that the determination of the adjustment between them was intended, as it is intended, to include the payment of compensation, should that be found to be equitable and right in any particular case.
  Mr. PARKES: I am sure the suggestion of the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken will receive a sympathetic hearing on the part of hon. Members from Birmingham, and especially with regard to the names of those who are to be on this committee of adjustment. As far as I am concerned, and I believe I am speaking for the other Members of Birmingham, we are quite willing that the Third Reading should not take place until the names of the Committee

  1333
  are before us. I understood from a considerable portion of the speech of the hon. Gentleman who moved the Amendment that his objection was financial, or as to the matter of adjustment, and I understood from the hon. Member for Bewdley Division (Mr. Baldwin) that it was a financial question. I was rather surprised to hear the hon. Member for the Kingswinford Division (Mr. Staveley-Hill) say that his main objection to the Bill was the increase of Birmingham to a population of 900,000. I should like to know if his objection was financial or against allowing Birmingham to grow into a larger town. I should be sorry if this Debate was to develop into a question of county versus borough. I think it is undesirable that it should. It is not a party question, or a question of county against borough. I think it stands on higher grounds. It stands upon the grounds of the desirability of the scheme itself, irrespective of whether it is a county or a borough measure. It stands upon the question of the desire of the inhabitants round these large towns as to whether they want it to become associated with the large town, or desire to remain as they are at present. With regard to the statement that this would lead to an increase of officials, I would say that the officials would be decreased. There would be the unification of the Poor Law, which is now under many authorities. It would be put under one administration.
  Since the Second Reading, and by the way this seems to be like a second reading over again, a great deal has happened in the progress of this scheme. The authorities have come round and agreed upon the scheme in a marvellous manner. The question is narrowing its limits, and is now in very small compass indeed. We have Erdington, Aston Manor, Kings Norton, Northfield, and Yardley in favour of this Bill. There is only one local authority which at the present time is really in opposition, and that is the Handsworth portion. Of course the counties of Staffordshire and Worcestershire are opposing. I think they are opposing it mainly from the county point of view. I think the opposition of Staffordshire is to a large extent taken away by Handsworth remaining in the West Bromwich area so far as Poor Rate is concerned. The local authorities are not manifesting the opposition they did before. Out of five districts, only one now stands out. What are the reasons for Handsworth standing out? I cannot exactly fathom them myself; but I believe that Handsworth itself is coming round to
  1334
  a large extent. There has never been a poll of the inhabitants taken, and I do not say that the majority of the local council are in our favour; but I venture to say that the local council do not represent the opinion of Handsworth as a whole upon this question. I will give several reasons why Handsworth should take the view that we do. The boundaries between Hands-worth and Birmingham are indistinguishable. Anyone wolking from one part to the other would not know when he left Birmingham, and when he arrived at Handsworth. A great deal was said in the last debate about community of interest. Is there community of interest between Birmingham and the districts which are sought to be incorporated? I say there is.
  Mr. STEPHEN WALSH: The districts in Worcestershire.
  Mr. PARKES: I say there is community of interest between the whole of the districts concerned. Birmingham supplies these districts with gas and water at equal prices to those charged in the Birmingham district. The drainage system in the Handsworth and the Birmingham districts is the same. It is said that about sixty per cent. of the male adult population of Handsworth find their occupation in Birmingham. These outside districts use all the great institutions of Birmingham—educational and scientific institutions, parks, baths, galleries, and University. There is complete community of interest; in fact these districts may be said to be the outgrowth of Birmingham enterprise. Although a poll of Handsworth has not been taken, I will give two indications shewing the opinion of Handsworth upon the question. There has been two elections in a certain ward in that district. Both candidates were annexationists. With regard to the first election, it was claimed that the tram question decided it; that is a matter of debate. But at the second election the candidate's only platform was that of annexation, and he was elected unopposed. I submit that that is an indication of the state of public opinion in the Handsworth district. The population of Handsworth is about 73,000; its rates are 7s. 7d. in the £, while the rates of Birmingham are 8s. 2d. Birmingham, however, offers Handsworth a differential rate of 6d. in the £.
  Mr JOHN WARD: For how long?
  Mr. PARKES: For ten years. Hands-worth will also have in her favour 4d. on the Poor Rate of her district. Hence she

  1335
  will be paying, under this arrangement, 10d. less in the £ than the Birmingham district. In other words, she will pay 7s. 4d. in the £ against her present rate of 7s. 7d., so that she will gain financially 3d. in the £. I certainly believe that such is the growing feeling in Handsworth that if a poll were taken at the present time there would be a large majority in our favour. With regard to the financial arrangement upon which so much stress has been laid, we have heard to-night that the Committee is to be appointed at once. I would appeal to my friends in this way. They know perfectly well that a Joint Committee will be appointed. I believe they have sufficient confidence in the Government to feel that it will be an impartial Committee. Birmingham is perfectly prepared to place itself in the hands of the joint Committee, and I hold that those who oppose the Bill should follow that example and place their confidence in the Committee. As the point which the hon. Member for the Bewdley Division has raised will come within the purview of that Committee's operations, it seems to me that the objection to the passing of this stage is somewhat illogical. It only remains now for Parliament to give its approval. The Bill has been hung up in Birmingham for something like two years. It is more than twelve months since the inquiry at Birmingham took place. A great many things are standing over waiting for the passage of the Bill. The people of the district, as a whole, are almost unanimously in its favour. The public inquiry was in favour of it. The House of Commons were in favour of it, with a few Amendments. The Second Reading passed without a division. Practically the whole of the districts with the one exception of Handsworth, are in favour of the proposal, and I do not believe there is any real objection in the case of Handsworth. If the financial adjustments of which our friends make such a great point are made—and I think our friends cught to have confidence in the Committee and submit themselves to it as we in Birmingham are prepared to do—the only valid objection will be destroyed. Therefore, I express the hope that this Parliament will not allow Birmingham to go on hanging up an important question like this, to the detriment of the town and against the wishes of the inhabitants. I certainly hope and believe that this House to-night will give us the Report stage.
  Mr. STEPHEN WALSH: I rise to speak upon this matter with some little feeling of melancholy, because it is very plain to be seen that the Report stage of the Bill is to pass. Hon. Members on the other side of the House, who ought to be fighting for the very existence of the communities they represent, will be taken in by the promise to speedily appoint a Joint Committee which will not report before the Third Reading of the Bill is passed. It seems to me that if that Joint Committee is appointed at all it is absolutely essential that the report of the Committee, even upon the financial adjustments necessary between the counties involved, should be made before the Third Reading is taken. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Yes, but you are going to be "fobbed" off by the promise of the mere appointment of a Committee, and you are asked to trust in the very good kind Government that will put desirable gentlemen upon the Committee. Well, if you are content with that you are not nearly so wise as I have given you credit for. But I rise to say a word or two upon an aspect of this question which has not been touched at all. The hon. Gentleman who has last spoken did in one sentence state what seemed to be the very basis of the case: "Is this thing desirable in the interests of good government; in the interests of the local life of the various communities that have to be absorbed?" Personally, I think, the cash connection is the lowest possible connection upon which this matter should be considered. It is not desirable in the interests of local government that small governing communities—not so small as to be unworthy of note, large enough to have an intelligent conception of public life, large enough to vivify and quicken the public spirit of the district, large enough to train men to take their part upon loftier councils—that it is not in the interests of the nation nor in the interests of the community that these places should be ruthlessly extinguished in the manner in which this Bill proposes. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Kingswinford (Mr. Staveley-Hill) stated what I think is admitted by everybody—that these communities have governed themselves well, that the health rate has been a good one, that technical education and the various departments of public life have been well administered, that there is no complaint of the lack of public spirit in these communities or on their governing bodies. It therefore seems to me that in the creation of these huge, bloated, apopletic corporations we are

  1337
  taking a step backwards. I am always sorry to ask the House to listen to me while I go back a few years, but to go back twenty-five years is quite a common thing now, and seems to be looked upon as up-to-date history. Even let me make a despairing appeal to the right hon. Gentleman, the President of the Local Government Board, to remember that in 1888, twenty-three years ago, the nation deliberately embarked upon the project of setting up county councils, and the taking in of smaller areas of administration than those hitherto existing. Six years later, too, in 1894, this House, with the consent practically of both sides, adopted an even smaller unit of administration. I do not think there is a single man who knows what local government life is in this country but who must admit that the setting up of urban district councils—indeed, in the smaller parishes the setting up of parish councils—has done a great deal to vivify and enlighten people upon matters upon which hitherto they have been in a state of profound ignorance. At a later date even, what was done? A Conservative Government—I will not say wisely or unwisely—thought that the centralised administration of London itself was too unwieldy. They broke up the Government of London into smaller areas, believing that by the provision of smaller areas, enabling people to bring a day-to-day contact upon the business of those areas, you would get a more efficient administration. I believe that has been the case. I am not one who says that you should never have extension. It would be ridiculous to argue from such a standpoint. But I do say there is reason in everything. When you have a vast community like Birmingham with a population, I think, of well over half a million, admittedly well-administered, a city which even the most reactionary Labour Member may be proud of—because great ideas have come from it, and fine men have come from it. Birmingham with its rateable value of practically £3,000,000, its population, rapidly increasing, of 600,000, and with its fine University—is too small for its people to administer? Does anybody seriously contend—I do not care how high he is—that there is a real call on the part of any community to take over 30,000 acres of land? They have nearly three times that area already. Is that natural and spontaneous growth? I refuse to believe it. On these grounds I think this House ought to reject the Bill on its Report stage. It is said, as indeed it is said in every one of these
  1338
  cases, "Why we have got the consent of the people about to be swallowed up." Yes, I know. I am reminded of the story of the man who was charged with having stolen a box of hams. The evidence was palpable. He was caught in open daylight. He went to the best lawyer in the district and said, "Look here, you have got to get me off if it is at all possible." With trepidation the lawyer took the case up, and to the astonishment of everybody in the Court except the jury the man was acquitted without a stain upon his character. Subsequently he met his lawyer, who fished for a compliment in the matter. The man said, "Oh, no, it was not your pleading, although that was well done. Before the case came on I saw every man of the jury and took care that they had a ham each." That is perfectly true! Many of the interests concerned are first of all seen—the permanent officials, the hundred and one fellows who "stand in," the people who manipulate the local public opinion—these have all been seen. The permanent officials know that the job is going to be a good one for them. They are to be compensated for the abolition of their offices. Then a great many of them make quite sure that they are going to have a duplication of officers under the new regime. There is another office to follow with increased salary in many cases: A small man hitherto becomes a great man. You have to pay heavily for that kind of thing. It may be said that this is a mean, unworthy view to take. There is not a man in this House who knows anythink of local self-government but knows that what I have said is really the case, and that immense payments for the abolition of offices and the duplication of offices that follows is in many cases the real cause why these changes take place. There is worse than that. You efface all that activity of local life which has hitherto prevailed in the smaller communities. The more and more government gets into the hands of the permanent official of these corporations the more you lose all the confidence hitherto possessed by the people themselves in the small governing bodies, and you place the management of these vast estates with their great intricacies in the hands of the permanent officials and efficient and responsible government comes down. I say that will be particularly the case under the conditions laid before the House to-night. There are cases which are perfectly natural, which spring to the mind's eye, as, for instance, the case of Manchester and Salford. There

  1339
  you have a perfectly natural growth. It would be well—I speak as an humble individual—if these two committees could join. You have also the case of Liverpool and Bootle, but what action was taken by the House when Liverpool made application in connection with Bootle. There seems to be the idea that Bootle, being a county borough, could not be swallowed up. It was held there was not sufficient community of interest between Liverpool and Bootle, Bootle having been created a county borough, yet here we have 30,000 acres running into two counties besides the county in which the borough itself stands. Worcestershire is to be deprived of about 28 per cent. of its rateable value, and a very large per cent. of its population. Staffordshire is to suffer very seriously in its rateable value and population, and thus you have the whole continuity of local government broken into. I believe that whatever report the Joint Committee make—even if that report were made in time to enable the Third Reading of the Bill to be taken—it would be found that the destruction of the local government life of these communities which this House has seen fit to create would not make for good government, but would destroy that vivid and living touch given to local government, and would have the effect of tending more and more to put into the hands of permanent officials the government of these communities. For these reasons, I will gladly support those gentlemen who have given their opposition to this Bill.
  The PRESIDENT of the LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. John Burns): The hon. Member has made, to use his own words, a vivid and forcible speech, but I submit his trend of thought and his ideas on municipal government, with all respect to him, would have come with greater relevancy when this Bill was before the House for Second Reading. I am not blaming the hon. Member for making his speech upon the Report stage after the Bill went through Committee, but in a new House after the speech made by the hon. Member, it is important that justice should be done both to the measure itself and to the city of Birmingham by giving the simple facts in connection with this great Bill, which for nearly two years has engaged the attention of Birmingham and the House of Commons. The Bill has been read a first and second time in the House of Commons, and it was debated on the occasion also when the Standing Orders
  1340
  were suspended. It has been for eleven days before a Committee when every aspect of the relationship between the five outstanding authorities and Birmingham itself was put with admirable force and businesslike capacity by some of the most trained counsel at the Parliamentary Bar. Beside that, this great project was considered for twenty-three days at the preliminary inquiry in Birmingham itself, and after twenty-three days of public inquiry last year, after eleven days before the Committee upstairs, where the principles underlying the hon. Member's observations were hardly discussed at all, the Bill comes down to the House of Commons practically unaltered, except upon one small Poor Law point. The Committee passed the Bill, with the exception of that Poor Law point, practically as it left the House of Commons upon the Second Reading. More than that has happened.
  When we were asked to consider the financial aspect of this particular measure which has occupied the attention of the House of Commons, what did we do? The Government, who had charge of this Provisional Order Bill, said to the outstanding authorities, "What is it you wish?" They said, "We object to being included." But since that there has been a change. The five local authorities first started out with the same objection, more or less, to inclusion in the city of Birmingham, but since then four out of the five have dropped away from that opposition and practically agreed to be included. And at this moment there is only one local authority standing out which originally opposed this scheme. It is important that that fact should be known, and that the only matter of vital difference between the city of Birmingham and the outstanding authorities was dealt with by the Government, if I may venture to say so, in a practical, just, and sensible way.
  Hon. Members who represented the original five authorities have said that special attention should be given to the financial relations between the city and the local authorities which were to be absorbed. And what happened? One of the gentlemen representing one of the four local authorities asked whether the Government would consent to a Joint Committee of both Houses being appointed to consider the financial details of this Bill, and whether we would appoint a Joint Committee of both Houses to consider these vital questions. At once the Government accepted the suggestion and adopted

  1341
  the reference from the four local authorities who had agreed to the appointment of the Joint Committee, and this agreement has been embodied in Clause No. 2 of the Bill as sent down to the House. What is the reference? The reference is this. It is contained in a message from the Lords to the Commons, agreed to the night before last, and is as follows:—
  "That it is desirable that a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament be appointed to inquire into the application of the provisions contained in the Local Government Acts, 1888 and 1894, and the Local Government (Scotland) Acts, 1889 and 1894, relating to financial adjustments consequent on the alteration of the boundaries of a local government area or an alteration in the constitution or status of the governing body of a local government area, and to report to the House if they are of opinion that any amendments in such provisions are desirable."
  That was put on the Paper in the House of Lords and similarly in the House of Commons, first at the instance of Lord Belper, acting for the County Council, and I at once agreed to it, and decided to appoint the section of the Joint Committee which the House of Commons was responsible for. I accepted that on 6th July last year. Some hon. Members are under the impression that we have been dilatory in carrying out our promise, but if they will look at my words they will find that, so far as I was the arbiter, I proceeded as swiftly as possible. As the House knows, a Dissolution intervened and a General Election took place. The House of Lords does not meet quite so frequently as this House. My access to them is not so frequent as would have enabled me to have kept my word to the House, but as soon as I had an opportunity of keeping my word, within ten days of the opening of the new Parliament, we agreed to the Lords' message, we accepted the Joint Committee, and all sides have agreed that the House of Commons representation shall be five in number on the Committee. In order to advance the matter another stage I may say that the names agreed upon are Colonel Bagot, Mr. Cameron Corbett, Mr. C. N. Nicholson, Mr. Sanders, and Sir Luke White. The House of Commons will see that we have done our best to keep our word.
  Another point has been raised. I have been asked to make another concession, and I am quite willing, because it is only
  1342
  by concessions of this character that public business of this magnitude can be advanced. The hon. Member for Middleton (Mr. Adkins) acting presumably for the County Council, asked if I would agree not to take the further stage of this Bill till at least forty-eight hours after the names of the Committee are published. I at once accede to that request. It is a perfectly reasonable one, and I at once close with it. My hon. Friend the Member for the Ince Division (Mr. Walsh) says he is against this Bill because he thinks these large municipalities are withdrawn from the public control and adequate supervision, and prevent municipal life being so vividly expressed and carried on as smaller areas enable it to be. There are two sides to that question. I notice my hon. Friend referred to parish councils, but I did not see the House, in fine frenzy rolling, endorse his view. He will pardon me if I do not accept his facts. What he suggested about county councils is against him, and when he quotes the London borough councils it is the other way. There many parishes were amalgamated into a few number of metropolitan boroughs, because as areas grow in density, and gas, water, light, and tramway undertakings are required it is much cheaper and easier for the whole of the community to be managed, and their affairs are more economically administered by the larger unit. The hon. Member for Birmingham asks why Birmingham, with its fine galleries, museums, and other municipal institutions, should not be content, and, in the next breath, he says: "I can understand Manchester being united with Salford, but I cannot understand why Aston Manor and King's Norton should be included."
  King's Norton is nearer to Birmingham than Salford is to Manchester. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no."] The people who live in Yardley, King's Norton, and other districts work in Birmingham to a greater extent than the people living in Salford work in Manchester. Those five areas are nothing but dormitories to Birmingham, and we want to enable these five struggling areas, without libraries, baths, galleries, and museums, and open spaces, to quarter themselves on the Birmingham Egyptian. Warwickshire does not object, but Stafford and Worcester do object. This objection has been met by the reference to the Joint Committee. [An HON. MEMBER: "No."] That is their view, and it was the only way in which their point

  1343
  could be met. They induced Lord Belper to put his reference down on the Paper of the House of Lords asking for a Joint Committee as the best way of considering their interests, and we agreed to it. Now they want to exalt their price and to advance objections to this Bill which they did not advance when first this measure was discussed. Those places agreed to the Joint Committee.
  Mr. POLLOCK: Yes, on getting financial compensation, but not without it.
  Mr. BURNS: Warwickshire agreed that their case should be remitted to a Joint Committee and Warwickshire was one of the agreeing parties, and it seems to be that they ought not to depart from that agreement. An hon. Member has asked that this Bill should be postponed until the Joint Committee has reported. There is strong objection to that course, because interests are being advanced, and if this Bill is still further postponed other interests will come into play, and the whole conditions for the five local authorities will be in the most unsatisfactory condition. As it is this Bill could not come into operation until November, 1911, and if it is still further postponed it would not become law till 1912, which, under the circumstances, we consider is absurd. The Joint Committee, if it gets to work, can assist, and I will do my best to accelerate it. We have given the names of the Committee. It cannot possibly decide until May or June or July, and if further delay takes place I want to put it to the House what is happening. Supposing a school is wanted on the borders of any of these areas. If the amalgamation takes place that school may be unnecessary, and if amalgamation did take place that particular school would not be charged on the special area, but it would be borne by the larger area. At this moment in the case of these particular districts whose interests are in the balance postponement will further jeopardise them. There are drainage, sewerage, and electric lighting schemes, street improvments, and bridge improvements which have been waiting long enough and ought not to wait any longer. We believe that further delay will lead to further complications. The experience of the Stoke Federation was that the length of the period between the promotion and the operation of a Bill was the measure
  1344
  of the expense to which all the localities were put. Delay in this matter is dangerous to the areas to be absorbed; it is inconvenient for the larger area to which amalgamation takes place, and I appeal to the House of Commons to support the Members for the Birmingham district in getting this great measure through. I ask the House of Commons to do that because four out of the five areas that originally opposed this Bill have come into the scheme.
  Mr. STAVELEY-HILL: The right hon. Gentleman has referred to four out of five areas, but four of those areas, I understand, were polled against annexation. Since then by the local authorities they have come in. Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us whether there has been another poll?
  Mr. BURNS: No, Sir; what suffices both for the Committee upstairs and for me is that not one of the four who originally opposed are appearing in opposition to this Bill, and there is no opposition or criticism of the terms of amalgamation. I do, therefore, ask that the Members for Birmingham should be supported. I ask that the four areas that originally opposed and that have now come to terms with Birmingham should be confirmed in their later and wiser course. These communities are in Birmingham, but not of it. They now realise the necessity of coming into this larger area. Birmingham, for its wealth and for its population, has been in the past comparatively a small area in mileage and extent. This particular addition to the jurisdiction of Birmingham will not render it difficult to manage. On the contrary, if hon. Members will do me the favour of reading an admirable article in the Royal Statistical Society's Journal they will find, what is demonstrably true, that in the sphere of municipal management, from the point of view of cheaper electric light, cheaper gas, and cheaper tramways, the larger unit is better than the smaller one. The whole of these details have been before the public in an inquiry for twenty-three days and before a Committee upstairs, and the only outstanding point with the consent of the outstanding area, is being committed to a Joint Committee of both Houses, which will in a few days be set up. I therefore ask the House to support the Local Government Board, in pressing this on to a settlement, because if it is not immediately done, the interests of the larger area will be damaged, and the interests of the lesser

  1345
  areas will be jeopardised. Harm will thus be done to the whole area, and it is to prevent that harm that I ask this House to pass the Report Stage and let the Joint Committee get to work. I am satisfied that when its deliberations are completed and its Report is presented to the House of Commons, all of us will find that, in passing this Bill, we builded better than we knew, and the Joint Committee's decision can be retrospectively and equitably applied to all the interests affected; and the result of our labours will be that a new community will rise up in the Midlands in this country of ours, with wider powers and more wealth, to develop the great communities that have been too long divided from each other. This Bill brings them into a homogeneous whole, and will enable the richer district to help the poorer in a manner which it would not be able to do otherwise.
  10.0 P.M.
  Mr. POLLOCK: The right hon. Gentleman has shown a great enthusiasm for this Bill, but we ask him to believe that those Members who are interested in the counties concerned have an equal enthusiasm for seeing that the whole basis on which they withdrew their opposition should be carried out. The right hon. Gentleman has stated many times that four out of five of the areas concerned has withdrawn their opposition, but it was on the terms that we should not only have this Committee, but that the Committee should make a report which would give us satisfactory compensation. It was in the hope and belief that this Committee will deal with the large question which constantly arises, and must be finally dealt with, that four out of the five areas did not continue their opposition in committee. They have, however, instructed and caused all their Members to attend here to-night in order to try and see their point of view is maintained, and that the Report Stage is not allowed to proceed without guarantees that the report will be forthcoming without any great lapse of time. The right hon. Gentleman told the House that a poll had been taken of some of these areas. It is quite true and it was against the Bill. Then, by reason of the right hon. Gentleman's happy intervention and of being ready to concede certain points, some of that opposition was withdrawn. But a poll was never again taken to see whether the population were prepared to take a different view from that which they had already taken, and which was in opposition
  1346
  to the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman has conceded something in telling us the names of the Members of this House who will be on the Joint Committee. He has also said he will not ask for the Third Reading until the Committee is fully established. We ask him, however, to say that he will not let this Bill finally go through until the House knows what it is legislating about and what is the Report of the Committee which it is setting up.
  May I recall what the position is? The question of taking large areas from the counties creates great disturbances in the system under which those counties are administered. We are all agreed upon that. For a long period of years compensation was granted when an extension of a boundary took place, but in 1907 we had the Hartlepool case, in which compensation had no lot or part. Then another method was adopted, and various Bills were brought in. There was the Burnley Bill, the Manchester Bill, and various other Bills in which a clause was inserted giving a sum in lieu of compensation in order to get over the difficulty which had been introduced by reason of the decision in the Hartlepool case. Again, as recently as in 1910 in the case of Eastbourne and the Sussex County Council, a clause was inserted giving this compensation. Naturally the areas concerned, Worcestershire, Warwickshire, and Staffordshire, were anxious to get the same terms. But instead of a clause being inserted we were promised that the matter should be dealt with on a larger basis. Speaking on behalf of Warwickshire—and from Warwickshire one-sixth of the whole rateable value is to be taken away, and a population of 114,000 is to be added to Birmingham, and over 5,000 acres are included in this scheme—naturally Warwickshire is anxious to see that some compensation shall be given for the serious inroad which is made in the structure of county administration by so large an area being taken from the county. How does the matter stand? The Act has been drawn so that we are to have an adjustment made on the terms of this Committee as and when? it shall report, and this Bill will leave the House with a clause the effect of which cannot be ascertained until the Committee has reported. It is a most unsatisfactory method of legislating, because the House cannot know the method of the adjustment to be adopted. It is all the more unfortunate because the want of opposition in Committee has been secured solely on terms that shall include

  1347
  any possible compensation. I have reason to doubt whether the Bill as drawn does give what I know the right hon. Gentleman means to give—an opportunity of some compensation being paid. Unhappily the word "adjustment" has been used, and it has been interpretated in two cases to exclude compensation. It will be possible, therefore, that under the Bill, as drawn, compensation will be excluded. That matter, however, can be dealt with on the Report stage. An Amendment of the Clause by the right hon. Gentleman may be possible, but, while his words are fluid, I do think we might take steps to exactly express what we mean to include and thus prevent doubt here and costly litigation hereafter between the area created and the counties from which the areas have been taken. That could be done by a simple alteration in the words of this clause. We are grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for having set up this Committee, but we regard the Report of that Committee as a very urgent matter indeed and a very important one, not only to the areas affected by this Bill, but to still wider interests. We are anxious for an assurance that the Bill shall not pass from this House until we have had the Report of the Committee, so that, if necessary, any new clause may be added on the basis of the compromise which has been arrived at. The right hon. Gentleman has told us that the Bill cannot be passed until November, or rather that the scheme cannot be inaugurated until then. Surely there is time before the Bill leaves the House to obtain a Report of the Committee, and even if the Bill does not leave the House before August it will still be possible to carry out the scheme by the following November or December. The Committee could be instructed to report as rapidly as possible. On this point we feel quite as strongly as the right hon. Gentleman feels in favour of the Bill. We have refrained from opposing it in Committee in order that we might give the right hon. Gentleman an opportunity of meeting our views. He has failed to appreciate the extreme importance to the counties concerned of having the report of this Committee, and I do ask from him an undertaking that the Bill shall not be permitted to leave this House until that report has been presented and we know exactly where we are.
  Mr. BURNS: The hon. Member has put a point to me to which I should like at
  1348
  once to reply. He must realise my difficulty in this matter. I accepted the terms of reference put down by Lord Belper on behalf of the County Councils Association and outside authorities with regard to financial adjustment. Those terms of reference, although accepted, have not gone through the House of Commons, and therefore I hesitate to vary them, seeing that they were put down by the opponents of the Bill. I am prepared to meet the hon. Member in a reasonable spirit. I cannot accept the words of which he has given notice, but I am prepared to accept other words, providing that financial adjustment shall be made to cover compensation to be paid. I accept the principle of it quite gladly, but I hope the hon. Member will not ask me to accept the ipsissima verba of this Amendment, because I have to consider the views of the other House.
  The CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES (Mr. Emmott): I would remind the House that this Provisional Order has not been to another place and that the interests the opponents of this measure desire to safeguard are certain to be safeguarded in that other place. If they do lose control in this House when the Bill has got its Third Reading here, it will still from their point of view be in safe hands. In the meantime the Joint Committee will be sitting and they will very likely have an opportunity of knowing what the decision of the Committee is before the Bill finally passes.
  Viscount MORPETH: I wish to safeguard the interests I represent in this House, and to see that justice is done here to the great undertaking which the right hon. Gentleman has described. The only point is the question of finance. No question as to the justification of the extension of Birmingham has ever been raised, except by the hon. Member for Ince (Mr. S. Walsh), who thought the opinion of persons inhabiting this district was to go for nothing because he said it had been manipulated by the officials. There is no person like the professed democrat to express contempt for public opinion when it does not agree with him, and when he states that, I say boldly, as having been conversant with local government all my life, that it is not my experience, and I regret to hear that it is his. The defence of the extension has been ample. The only question which is hindering the Bill at the present time is the question of finance, raised by my hon. Friend on my right. On the Second Reading my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswinford

  1349
  (Mr. Staveley-Hill) dropped a division and announced that he would not divide against the Bill. The reason he gave for doing this was that he was satisfied with the promise made by the Prime Minister, that a Joint Committee should be constituted to deal with the whole question of compensation for loss of rateable value. It is quite true that he said that he reserved his rights to oppose on Report and Third Reading if anything was done to prejudice the privileges which he represented. Nothing has been done prejudicial to his interests, and the only difficulty which has arisen is that the Government have delayed the appointment of the Joint Committee. It is quite true that the right hon. Gentleman told us that the fault rests with the House of Lords, and not with the Government, but all I wish to say is that the fault does not rest with the City of Birmingham, and if there has been delay it is the fault not of that city but of the authorities, and should not be visited upon us. An hon. Member said on that occasion that he was prepared, although not gladly, to make the sacrifice, but by surrendering the rights of Worcester to compensation he obtained this Committee. Birmingham accepted the Committee in the same spirit, and they accepted the clauses which is to act retrospectively and which imposes upon them any charge which this Committee might find they were liable for. If we are bound in Birmingham by the subsequent finding of that Committee, I hold that the county should be equally bound by the subsequent finding, and it is scarcely right that my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Pollock) should say that he ought to have a free hand to reject this Bill if he is not satisfied with the finding of the Joint Committee. We in Birmingham have frankly said we are prepared to abide whatever the result is, and stand by the Bill. That, I think, was the understanding come to on the Second Reading, and I hope the House will now maintain what was settled at that time and give Birmingham this Bill.
  Mr. MARKHAM: This is the most curious method of autocratic legislation which has come within my recollection, and I shall certainly vote against the Resolution of the Government if hon. Members on the other side go to a Division. Let me recall what the position is. This Parliament is being treated as the old Parliament. But we are a new Parliament, and it is perfectly ludicrous, as I contend,
  1350
  for the President of the Local Government Board to come down here and ask the House to pass legislation on the Report of a Committee of the last Parliament and when we have not before us the Report of the Joint Committee to which the consideration of the Bill has been sent. You are going to set up a Joint Committee to report, and the Third Reading is to be passed before the Report is ever laid on the Table of the House. Of all the curious methods of autocratic legislation which have come within my knowledge in the time I have been in the House this is certainly the most strange. But what is more strange still is that the Chairman of Ways and Means says the measure will be in safe hands, because after the Third Reading it will then be in the House of Lords. I have no use for a Joint Committee of the House of Lords at all. I have no confidence in any Joint Committee of the House of Lords to deal with a question of land, and the opponents in Warwickshire of this Bill have been squared by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Burns), who has now accepted the word "compensation" with the word "adjustment" on page 2 of the Bill we are now considering. That means that compensation will become payable by the borough area to the county area, because of the legislation passed by Joint Committees of the House. To set up Joint Committees is to grant larger compensation to landlords than they would otherwise have.
  I am interested in this question only indirectly, as being connected with Warwickshire, but I agree with every argument which has been used by the hon. Member. Here you have a large city, not content with the great work that Birmingham has done for its citizens, but wanting to destroy all those large areas outside and then the President says the Board has agreed. Why did they agree? They came to a compromise in committee during the last Parliament, because they knew they had to come to an arrangement, and they made the best financial arrangement they could. This is not a question altogether of finance. It is a question of the local life of our towns and cities and urban districts. The question of the parish councils I am not prepared to discuss with the President of the Local Government Board I do not think he will say these bodies, as a whole, have not done good work in the country, and have not improved local administration and local life. Then what is this Bill going to do? It is going to make one great administrative

  1351
  centre and it does make for centralisation in the hands of a bureaucracy, larger jobs and higher salaries, and divorcing the people themselves from that intimate association which they have under the urban district councils. I make this protest against this centralisation in the hands of officials in large centres, and I shall support the Amendment.
  Mr. NORTON-GRIFFITHS: I rise to associate myself with the mover of the Amendment, who I think has very clearly expressed the views which are held in regard to this Bill by people in my Constituency of all shades of political opinion. I take this opportunity of protesting very strongly against the passing of the Bill and doing all in my power to convince the House that it would not be in the interest of large masses of the working people in my constituency that it should become law. From the remarks of the President of the Local Government Board it would almost appear that the people in the whole of the area affected by the Bill were busily engaged taking tramcar rides to and from Birmingham. I do not think there are a handful of workmen in my constituency who are employed in Birmingham, and so far as that division is concerned the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman are not applicable. It is an undoubted fact that the annexation would increase the burdens on the workmen in the area affected. In the borough of Wednesbury, we have our own local life and organisation, and there is no desire whatever on the part of the workers to be brought into Birmingham. The workers there are all happy and contented in their local life, and they wish to remain as they are. From all quarters I have been asked to oppose this Bill to-night. The Handsworth district is now one of the most wealthy parts of Staffordshire remaining under the jurisdiction of the County Council. It is steadily growing in wealth, and consequently the rateable value is increasing year by year. It is largely on account of that fact that Birmingham is so anxious to embody it in this scheme. The county has already lost much of its rateable are a by Wolverhampton West and other districts becoming county boroughs. If Handsworth goes too, the rural districts will have to bear heavier burdens. If you increase the area of a great centre like Birmingham you increase its rateable value. People come out by motor-cars which tear up the country roads and no share of the
  1352
  expense of repairing these roads falls upon the great centre. In this case the cost would fall on the ratepayers outside. I appeal to hon. Members, and particularly the Members of the Labour party, in the interests of thousands of workmen who do not desire this Bill to pass to vote for the Amendment. I can quite understand the desire for the enlargement of great cities, and I am finding no fault with it, but I think that unless a clause making quite clear the question of compensation, so as to safeguard the interests of those whom I represent, is inserted, hon. Members should not allow the Bill to pass. After all, the Amendment is a safety valve. Six months will not ruin the scheme or hurt Birmingham. The great mass of those whom I represent are poor people who will derive no benefit from Birmingham, as they never leave their constituency, and in their interests I support the Amendment, so that the Bill may not pass until it is made perfectly clear what compensation is to be paid them for the loss which they will suffer.
  Mr. BOOTH: On behalf of the smaller urban authorities, I shall be compelled, if it goes to a Division, to vote against the Bill, because, according to my conception, the larger the authority the more dogmatic and tyrannical are the officials and invariably the smaller authorities are domineered over by them. It does cause me some astonishment to find some members of my own party belittling urban district councils and parish councils. It is no answer to a Member like myself to say that they will be taken care of in another place. I would ask how many Members of urban district councils are there in the other place? It may be that the county councils and the larger landed interests are represented there, but I have little faith in their taking care of these small urban authorities. On more than one occasion I have been elected president of the annual conference of the urban district councils of England and Wales, and I can testify to the very large expenses that the urban districts sustain who suffer from these large authorities on their borders. They are always ready to gobble them up and to exploit them. It is a most difficult thing for any urban district council to make any reasonable bargain with a large municipality. I would far sooner deal on behalf of an urban authority with a private company than with a large municipal

  1353
  authority. I speak from painful experience. The President of the Local Government Board is subject to a very fine and noble imagination, and dwellers in the Metropolis and large centres of industry are apt to be captured by visions of a huge municipality. But I would point out to the House that in this instance that Birmingham, if this Bill become law, instead of being regarded as a great commercial city, would be
  looked upon as the largest rural area in the kingdom. These large cities are seeking to incorporate huge areas of a purely agricultural nature in order that they may boast of being the second city in the Empire.
  Question put, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
  The House divided: Ayes, 249; Noes, 87.

  Division No. 11.]

  AYES.

  [10.40 p.m.

  Acland, Francis Dyke

  Fenwick, Charles

  MacGhee, Richard

  Addison, Dr. C.

  Ferens, T. R.

  Mackinder, Halford J.

  Alden, Percy

  Ferguson, Rt. Hon. R. C. Munro

  Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

  Allen, Arthur Acland (Dumbartonshire)

  Fetherstonhaugh, Godfrey

  M'Callum, John M.

  Anderson, Andrew Macbeth

  Ffrench, peter

  M'Micking, Major Gilbert

  Armitage, Robert

  Furness, Stephen W.

  Malcolm, Ian

  Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbert Henry

  Gardner, Ernest

  Marshall, Arthur Harold

  Baker, Harold T. (Accrington)

  Gastrell, Major W. Houghton

  Mason, David M. (Coventry)

  Baker, Joseph Allen (Finsbury, E.)

  Golder, Sir William Alfred

  Mathias, Richard

  Balfour, Sir Robert (Lanark)

  Gibbs, George Abraham

  Meagher, Michael

  Barlow, Montague (Sa'ford, South)

  Gill, Alfred Henry

  Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.)

  Barran, Sir John N. (Hawick Burghs)

  Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford

  Meehan, Patrick A. (Queen's Co.)

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

  Goldney, Francis Bennett-

  Menzies, Sir Walter

  Barry, Redmond John (Tyrone, N.)

  Goldstone, Frank

  Molteno, Percy Alport

  Beale, William Phipson

  Greene, Walter Raymond

  Morpeth, Viscount

  Benn, Ion Hamilton (Greenwich)

  Greenwood, Hamar (Sunderland)

  Morrison, Captain James A.

  Benn, W. W. (T. Hamlets, St. Geo.)

  Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward

  Mount, William Arthur

  Bird, Alfred

  Guest, Major Hon. C. H. C. (Pembroke)

  Munro, Robert

  Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine

  Guinness, Hon. Walter Edward

  Murray, Capt. Hon. Arthur C.

  Bowerman, Charles W.

  Gulland, John William

  Needham, Christopher T.

  Boyle, Daniel (Mayo, North)

  Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway)

  Neville, Reginald J. N

  Brigg, Sir John

  Hackett, J.

  Norman, Sir Henry

  Brocklehurst, William B.

  Haldane, Rt. Hon. Richard B.

  Norton, Captain Cecil William

  Burdett-Coutts, William

  Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)

  O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

  Burns, Rt. Hon. John

  Harmswarth, R. L.

  O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

  Buxton, Noel (Norfolk, North)

  Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, West)

  O'Doherty, Philip

  Byles, William Pollard

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

  O'Dowd, John

  Cassel, Felix

  Haslam, James (Derbyshire)

  Ogden, Fred

  Castlereagh, Viscount

  Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry

  O'Grady, James

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

  Hayward, Evan

  O'Malley, William

  Chaloner, Col. R. G. W.

  Helme, Norval Watson

  O'Neill, Dr. Charles (Armagh, S.)

  Chancellor, Henry George

  Henderson, Major H. (Berks., Abingdon)

  O'Sullivan, Timothy

  Chapple, Dr. William Allen

  Higham, John Sharp

  Paget, Almeric Hugh

  Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S.

  Hohler, Gerald Fitzroy

  Parker, Sir Gilbert (Gravesend)

  Clancy, John Joseph

  Holt, Richard Durning

  Parker, James (Halifax)

  Clough, William

  Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield)

  Parkes, Ebenezer

  Clynes, John R.

  Horne, Charles Silvester (Ipswich)

  Pearce, Robert (Staffs., Leek)

  Collins, Godfrey P. (Greenock)

  Houston, Robert Paterson

  Pearce, William (Limehouse)

  Collins, Stephen (Lambeth)

  Hudson, Walter

  Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington)

  Cooper, Richard Ashmole

  Hunter, Sir Charles Roderick (Bath)

  Pease, Rt. Hon. Joseph A. (Rotherham)

  Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

  Hunter, W. (Govan)

  Peto, Basil Edward

  Craig, Norman (Kent, Thanet)

  Ingleby, Holcombe

  Pirie, Duncan V.

  Crawshay-Williams, Eliot

  Isaacs, Sir Rufus Daniel

  Pointer, Joseph

  Crichton-Stuart, Lord Ninian

  Johnson, William

  Power, Patrick Joseph

  Croft, Henry Page

  Jones, Edgar R. (Merthyr Tydvil)

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

  Crumley, Patrick

  Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)

  Pringle, William M. R.

  Dalziel, Sir James H. (Kirkcaldy)

  Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)

  Radford, George Heynes

  Davies, Ellis William (Eifion)

  Jones, Leif Stratten (Notts, Rushcliffe)

  Rea, Rt. Hon. Russell (South Shields)

  Davies, Timothy (Lincs., Louth)

  Jowett, Frederick William

  Rea, Walter Russell (Scarborough)

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

  Joyce, Michael

  Reddy, Michael

  Dawes, J. A.

  Kellaway, Frederick George

  Redmond, William (Clare, E.)

  Delany, William

  King, J. (Somerset, N.)

  Redmond, William Archer (Tyrone, N)

  Denman, Hon. Richard Douglas

  Kirkwood, John H. M.

  Devlin, Joseph

  Lansbury, George

  Richardson, Thomas (Whitehaven)

  Dillon, John

  Lardner, James Carrige Rushe

  Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

  Doris, W.

  Lawson, Hon. H. (T. H'm'ts., Mile End)

  Roberts, George H. (Norwich)

  Duffy, William J.

  Lawson, Sir W. (Cumb'rld., Cockerm'th)

  Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs)

  Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness)

  Leach, Charles

  Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)

  Edwards, Enoch (Hanley)

  Levy, Sir Maurice

  Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradford)

  Edwards, Sir Frank (Radnor)

  Locker-Lampson, G. (Salisbury)

  Robertson, John M. (Tyneside)

  Elverston, Harold

  Logan, John William

  Robinson, Sydney

  Emmott, Rt. Hon. Alfred

  Low, Sir Frederick (Norwich)

  Roch, Waiter F. (Pembroke)

  Esmonde, Dr. John (Tipperary, N.)

  Lundon, Thomas

  Roche, John (Galway, E.)

  Esmonde, Sir Thomas (Wexford, N.)

  Lynch, Arthur Alfred

  Roe, Sir Thomas

  Falconer, James

  Macdonald, J. Ramsay (Leicester)

  Rose, Sir Charles Day

  Fell, Arthur

  Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs)

  Rowlands, James

  Rowntree, Arnold

  Strauss, Edward A. (Southwark, West)

  White, Patrick (Meath, North)

  Runciman Rt. Hon. Walter

  Summers, James Woolley

  Whyte, A. F. (Perth)

  Rutherford, John (Lancs., Darwen)

  Taylor, John W. (Durham)

  Wiles, Thomas

  Rutherford, Watson (L'pool, W. Derby)

  Tennant, Harold John

  Wilkie, Alexander

  St. Maur, Harold

  Terrell, George (Wilts, N. W.)

  Williamson, Sir A.

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

  Terrell, Henry (Gloucester)

  Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E. R.)

  Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel)

  Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)

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

  Scanlan, Thomas

  Touche, George Alexander

  Wilson, John (Durham, Mid)

  Scott, A. M'Callum (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

  Toulmin, George

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

  Sheehy, David

  Trevelyan, Charles Philips

  Wolmer, Viscount

  Shortt, Edward

  Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander

  Wood, John (Stalybridge)

  Smith, Harold (Warrington)

  Verney, Sir Harry

  Wood, T. M'Kinnon (Glasgow)

  Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.)

  Wadsworth, J.

  Worthington-Evans, L.

  Snowden, Philip

  Walton, Sir Joseph

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

  Soares, Ernest Joseph

  Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent)

  Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George

  Spear, John Ward

  Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton)

  Stanley, Hon. G. F. (Preston)

  Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Master of Elibank and Mr. Illingworth.

  Steel-Maitland, A. D.

  Watt, Henry A.

  White, Sir George (Norfolk)

  NOES.

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

  Hambro, Angus Valdemar

  Orde-Powlett, Hon. W. G. A.

  Anson, Sir William Reynell

  Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashford)

  Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William

  Bagot, Lieut.-Colonel J.

  Harris, Henry Percy

  Perkins, Walter Frank

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

  Harrison-Broadley, H. B.

  Pickersgill, Edward Hare

  Banbury, Sir Frederick George

  Helmsley, Viscount

  Pole-Carew, Sir R.

  Barnston, Harry

  Hickman, Colonel Thomas E.

  Pretyman, Ernest George

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

  Hillier, Dr. Alfred Peter

  Ratcliff, Major R. F.

  Bathurst, Charles (Wilts, Wilton)

  Hope, Harry (Bute)

  Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel

  Beckett, Hon. William Gervase

  Horne, Wm. E. (Surrey, Guildford)

  Royds, Edmund

  Booth, Frederick Handel

  Hughes, Spencer Leigh

  Sanders, Robert A.

  Boscawen, Sackville T. Griffith-

  Kebty-Fletcher, J. R.

  Stanier, Beville

  Boyle, W. Lewis (Norfolk, Mid)

  Kerry, Earl of

  Starkey, John Ralph

  Bridgeman, William Clive

  Kilbride, Denis

  Stewart, Gershom

  Burgoyne, Alan Hughes

  Knight, Capt. E. A.

  Sykes, Alan John

  Burn, Colonel C. R

  Lane-Fox, G. R.

  Talbot, Lord Edmund

  Carlile, Edward Hildred

  Lee, Arthur Hamilton

  Taylor, T. C. (Radcliffe)

  Cautley, Henry Strother

  Lewisham, Viscount

  Tullibardine, Marquess of

  Chambers, James

  Lloyd, George Ambrose

  Valentia, Viscount

  Clay, Captain H. H. Spender

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

  Walrond, Hon. Lionel

  Craig, Captain James (Down, E.)

  Lonsdale, John Brownlee

  Walsh, Stephen (Lancs., Ince)

  Dalrymple, Viscount

  M'Calmont, Colonel James

  Warner, Sir Thomas Courtenay

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

  Markham, Arthur Basil

  Wedgwood, Josiah C

  Flannery, Sir J. Fortescue

  Martin, Joseph

  Wheler, Granville C. H.

  Fleming, Valentine

  Mills, Hon. Charles Thomas

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

  Foster, Philip Staveley

  Mooney, John J.

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

  Gilmour, Captain John

  Moore, William

  Willoughby, Major Hon. Claude

  Goldsmith, Frank

  Morton, Alpheus Cleophas

  Wilson, W. T. (West Houghton)

  Gordon, John

  Newton, Harry Kottingham

  Goulding, Edward Alfred

  Nield, Herbert

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr. Staveley-Hill and Mr. Baldwin.

  Gretton, John

  Norton Griffiths, J. (Wednesbury)

  Main Question put, and agreed to.

  Bill, as amended, considered; to be read the Third time upon Monday next.

GOVERNMENT BUSINESS.
Postponed Proceeding resumed upon Question, "That up to and including 13th April, Government Business shall have precedence at every sitting."—[The Prime Minister.]
Question again proposed.
Mr. JOHN WARD: When the Debate was interrupted for the purpose of taking Private Business, I was attempting to reply to the noble Lord opposite (Lord Hugh Cecil), who had asked what it was the Labour Members anticipated they would be able to secure for the objects which their presence serves in this Chamber by
1356
favouring the rapid passage of the Government proposals, as far as they relate to the other House. I was attempting to explain that we are not concerned with the position of the two parties in reference to this controversy, except in so far as it contains within itself many objects which are dear to us, and which we on these benches especially represent. There is the question of the unemployed, and a hundred and one other matters that we want dealt with; and we are supporting this Motion in order that the constitutional question may be removed from the path of these measures as quickly as possible. It may be urged that there is no proof that these matters might not be dealt with even without the passing of the Parliament Bill, for which, I understand, this Motion is particularly made. But painful experience in the past has shown us that whenever

1357
measures for the benefit of the working people, or to increase the opportunities and powers of the labouring portion of the community is under discussion in the other Chamber—as at present constituted—that most measures, even in their initiation in this House, suffer considerable mutilation, from the mere fact that they have to be prepared with a view to the possible opposition and prejudices at the other end of the building. In addition there is their possible destruction. We hope and believe that in this measure, the proposal before the House to expedite the business, to take the time that is usually at the disposal of the private Member, for the purpose of dealing with what is considered to be the first proposal of the present Executive, that by supporting the Government we are assisting to clear obstacles away from the measures that we are particularly interested in.
There are other reasons why it is not necessary that there should be a lengthy discussion over this constitutional question. The Parliament Bill, after all, is not a Bill of detail. The constitutional question is merely a declaration of constitutional principle. You either object to it, or you do not. The time the Government has set down for the business is only sufficient for the purpose they have in view. We quite admit that the Government must allow the time. If it was suggested that under the Motions that are now being made there is not time for full discussion, taking into account especially the discussions that have taken place on this subject before, then there would be something to be said for it. We want the Government to understand that when they take the time of the private Member that they have to use that time. If there are any qualms of conscience either in the case of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Bethnal Green, or any hesitation as to supporting this resolution by hon. Gentlemen on this side, it is largely because of what happened last year. Last year, when we agreed that the Government should take the time of the House, it was on the understanding that they used that time for the purpose which they demanded it. But it is an undeniable fact that after the time of the House had been taken for the special business of the Government, that night after night we retired at half-past four, five o'clock, six o'clock, and so wasted valuable time that ought to have been used—it seemed to many of us—for the many important matters that were upon the Government
1358
list, and many proposals that private Members were interested in ought certainly to have been taken, and the only thing that any of us have the slightest objection to, or any qualms of conscience about, in supporting this Motion is the fear that when the time is taken we may find ourselves unemployed for half the time, as we did on the last occasion.
If we could have some statement that if the time taken is not used for the purposes of the Government, that other matters of importance shall be allowed to be brought forward, I do not think there would be a great deal of objection to the proposal on this side of the House. It is essential, unquestionably, that the private Member should defend his interests to the best of his ability, and for that reason I am extremely sorry for the decision arrived at earlier in the day. I confess, as a new Member, that the hour at question time is, to my mind, one of the most interesting to Members of this House, though I dare say it is the most irksome to the Government. I expect that when one sits upon the Treasury Bench he thinks the heckler, and especially the Supplementary questioner, is most obnoxious to the chief of a Government Department; but so far as the ordinary private Member is concerned—and the condition of the House during question time shows it—the hour or three-quarters of an hour given to question time is of the most intense interest, and I think we would forego a lot to have that time extended, if only for a few minutes longer every day. I make that suggestion. So far as I am concerned, I intend to give the Government my assistance, or any assistance I can, towards the passing of this Motion, and chiefly because I believe the opposition, so far, to be unreal and not genuine. And for this reason. One of the most important opponents to this Motion to-day was the hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury). He deplored the loss of opportunity to the private Member; yet everybody knows that when we get a Friday, or a Tuesday, or a Wednesday to discuss any private Member's question, and if we get a Bill down with a prospect of being enabled to send it to a Committee upstairs, the hon. Baronet night after night absolutely destroys every opportunity for private Members, and deprives all his fellow Members of every opportunity of bringing before the House matters in which they are interested. For the hon. Baronet to deplore the loss of opportunity to the

1359
private Member of taking pant in the business of the House shows the utter hypocrisy of the whole opposition. That is the reason I intend to support the Government.
11.0 P.M.
Mr STANLEY WILSON: I assure the Member that our opposition to this Resolution is very real. I have listened to speech after speech from hon. Members opposite, and they have damned the Resolution with feint praise. If many hon. Members opposite were allowed to give an honest vote on this occasion I believe they would vote with us—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] Many of them have freely acknowledged it, and one hon. Member opposite has been courageous enough to say that he intends to express his opinion in the Division Lobby against the Government. The Prime Minister told us a very plausible tale about the vital urgency of the Government business. I have been ten years in this House, and during that time I have always found that Governments always have business of urgent and vital importance. This Resolution, however, is a new and a dangerous precedent, because the opportunities of private Members are growing smaller by degrees and beautifully less. What is going to be the end of it all? In the future are we to be deprived of every opportunity private Members have had up to the present moment? What is going to happen to the time of private Members after Easter? We have no guarantee that the Government will not take private Members' time after Easter. The Government during their five years of office have done more to destroy the opportunities of private Members in this House than has ever been done before in its history. Previous to 1906, when we had a Unionist Administration upon those benches, I remember well how the slightest interference with the rights of private Members caused a storm of indignation from hon. Members opposite, some of whom are occupying the Treasury Bench at the present moment. And yet those same hon. Members who are now sitting behind the Government benches will meekly follow the Government into the Division Lobby without a solitary word of protest against this Resolution.
There sits the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy (Sir Henry Dalziel), who in this House has fought harder in the interests of private Members than any other hon. Member in this Assembly. Why is
1360
it that upon this occasion up to the present moment his voice has been silent? Is it that he is satisfied with the present situation, or is it that that small honour which has been given him by the present Government has closed his mouth? [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh, oh!"] Perhaps the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy's name is upon that Scotch list of which we have heard so much, and in the near future he may become one of those gallant five hundred who are going to sacrifice themselves to destroy the Constitution in order to save their country. I cannot understand what are the reasons of the Government for this extraordinary haste. There is no necessity for any hurrying in this matter. After all, the present Constitution has lasted for many hundreds of years, and why should it not be allowed to last a few weeks longer? The Prime Minister has given us his reason, which is that he wishes to have the decision of the House of Lords before the Coronation. Can anyone think that that is a suitable date? It is in my opinion the most unsuitable date anyone could possibly ask for. A great event is to take place in the history of our country, and it is to take place while we are in the midst of one of the greatest constitutional crises that this country has ever had to face. No, it will not be over, I can assure you. At that moment we shall have representatives from all the principal Powers in the world. I venture to say, if the Government proceed with their present intentions, they will make themselves the laughing-stock of every other country. We on these benches have every reason to feel intensly dissatisfied with this Resolution, for this reason: Some of my colleagues on these benches happen to have been rather fortunate in the ballot for Private Members' Bills, but they are going to be deprived of their good fortune by this Resolution. With regard to the Labour party, I will say this: I think, if they had been equally fortunate in the ballot, and instead of having drawn somewhere about the No. 35, they had drawn first or second place, they would have been pressing the Government and saying, "Give us facilities for our measure." I quite agree they generally get from this Government whatever they want.
I have been seriously considering, since I came into this House this afternoon, what are the real reasons of the Government in depriving private Members of their privileges, and I believe I have really discovered it. Nobody else has mentioned it in this Debate. I cannot help thinking

1361
that it is that the Prime Minister is frightened of the women. The suffragettes are the reason of this Resolution. The Prime Minister, in one of his weakest moments, at the end of the last Parliament, gave his pledge that the Bill that is known as the Conciliation Bill should be given facilities during the present Session of Parliament. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I am exceedingly glad if it is not so, but I have always understood that all these ladies are saying at the present time they expect him to fulfil the pledge he has given. Therefore, he sees the only way of getting out of his difficulty is not to allow this measure to come on as a Private Members' Bill. That is the only reason I can see why the right hon. Gentleman is depriving us of our rights. With regard to my hon. Friends from Ireland, we know why they take no part in this complaint, and why they will not press the Government. They have received the Prime Minister's pledge that they are going to get Home Rule, and that satisfies them. They care no more what is going to happen in this Assembly. In two years these hon. Gentlemen hope to shake the dust of Westminster from off their feet. Otherwise, I venture to say they would be using the great influence, which they know better how to wield than anybody else in this country, upon the Government, to endeavour to make them allow private Members some opportunities of discussion. I am not one of those who make perorations in this House, but I will finish my speech by saying that I protest again most strongly against this gross interference with the liberties of private Members.
Sir HENRY DALZIEL: I have been complimented on the small services I have endeavoured to render to Parliament in the interest of private Members. It is true that in days gone by I did move an Amendment to the Motion submitted by the Government of the day protesting against the invasion of the rights of private Members, and at a still later period I also, with some of my colleagues, opposed the proposals of the Conservatives on the same ground. The hon. Gentleman who last spoke did me the honour to listen to me on those occasions. But did he give me any support? No. The hon. Member has just been performing the function which is really the only function private Members can now perform, and it comes with ill grace from hon. Gentlemen opposite when they condemn
1362
those of us to-night who propose to give their votes in favour of the Government proposals. Had private Members on both sides of the House, irrespective of party, united together and brought their powerful influence to bear on the Government of the day when the first great invasion was made on private Members' rights, we should have had no such proposal as is before the House to-night. What are the facts of the case? Both Front Benches are guilty of the most utter inconsistency with regard to this matter. Almost all the hon. and right hon. Gentlemen in the House have been guilty of that inconsistency. Is it not the case that it is really now a question of party how we vote with regard to these proposals? The Debate to-night has followed on the old lines; there has really been nothing new in it. We have complained of the taking of private Members' time. We have had the invariable list of quotations of speeches of right hon. Gentlemen as to the circumstances under which they made the Motion, and the reply thereto. But all that I regard as absolutely uninteresting from the point of view of useful and productive Debate. The position now is altogether different.
The only thing that is new with regard to this proposal of the Government is that it finally marks the death of the private Member as an independent force in this House. There is not much that is new in the character of the proposals, except that they are put forward at an earlier period of the Session than has hitherto been the case. Some of my hon. Friends console themselves with the idea that this is a special occasion which justifies them in voting for the proposal of the Government, and that therefore it does not establish a precedent. That position cannot be defended by reasonable men. This Motion, of course, is important, and of rather an exceptional character. We are returned to this House to support the passage of the Parliament Bill, and we are willing to make great sacrifices in order to do it, especially as some of us believe that by means of it a door will be opened for greater usefulness and greater opportunities for useful and successful democratic legislation. But do not let us vote in this Division in the belief that this is an exceptional occasion, because this is an important Bill. Next year I understand a Home Rule Bill is to be the first measure of the Government. Is that less important? If the Prime Minister comes down and asks for the time of the House at the period he

1363
is asking for it at present, will he not have a strong case when he is able to appeal to this precedent in support of that proposal? The whole thing turns upon the desire of the Government to pass legislation of an important character. If the right hon. Gentleman comes and asks for the time of the House at the same date of course he will get it. The same thing applies to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham, the ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer. He gave private Members small comfort this afternoon, for he said, "You may object to this Resolution, but if you vote for it I warn you when I come into office I shall pursue exactly the same policy."
Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: The hon. Gentleman did not exactly repeat what I said. It was, that I made an appeal to private Members sitting below the gangway or sitting here or there and that if they rejected that appeal and voted for this Motion they would be out of court when they were in a minority and pleaded for any privileges for private Members.
Sir HENRY DALZIEL: I do not think that I have incorrectly interpreted what the right hon. Gentleman says. He says they will be out of court. I do not understand that the ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer out of the kindness of his heart is going to increase the privileges of private Members and therefore I think it is a reasonable conclusion that the right hon. Gentleman indicated that when he came into office we need not expect any more consideration than the Prime Minister was giving us at the present time.
Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: They would not be entitled to it.
Sir HENRY DALZIEL: Well, private Members do not get anything they are not entitled to. What I wish to draw the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to is this, that this is really a question of what the idea and intention of the Government of the day is when they are going to take away the privileges of private Members. Therefore, it is not a question of the actual Bill. I can imagine a situation when the right hon. Gentleman would take away the time of the House for the first great and important Bill of a Unionist Administration. I presume it would be Tariff Reform. Suppose it was, he would be perfectly justified in asking for the time of the House from his point
1364
of view, because it was an urgent matter of public importance, and he would have a majority from the country in favour of it. There is, of course, the possible alternative that it might be a Referendum Bill, but it would be an important measure. I wonder how the noble Lord is going to plead for the rights of those who oppose Tariff Reform? The situations is this—that we have the same arguments brought forward in all these Debates. I speak my own impression, and it is that this Assembly as a debating assembly is greatly deteriorating, and that the possibility of independent work by ordinary Members is almost entirely done away with. We never hear now the impromptu Debates that we used to have fifteen or twenty years ago. Now Ministers have their private secretaries on the alert to tell them to come in when they are ready with their perorations, and so forth, and they are called according to custom at the very moment at which they like to take part in the Debate, and it is impossible, owing to pressure of circumstances, that every Member of this House can have what is regarded as a proper opportunity of taking part in the Debate. That is due to many causes. It is due, for example, to the extension of the franchise. A large number of people since 1885 have been induced to take an increasing part in our public affairs. It is due to the promises which have been made by candidates, and by leaders of various political parties. It is due also to the fact that there is a vast accumulation of arrears of legislation. All these circumstances point to the fact that this machine is overburdened, and that we are trying to do something which it is impossible for the machine to do. Therefore, we have to look in other directions than mere closure for the opportunity of putting the matter upon a business-like basis.
I regard this proposal of the Government as setting a precedent which will undoubtedly be followed. Therefore, I think we may say good-bye to our two evenings a week, and to our one day a week for private Bills. But it is the case that during recent years the opportunities which we have had for carrying private Bills have really not been very successful. I cannot recall at the moment any private Member's Bill of a really contentious character which has ever been passed through the House and been subsequently passed into law. [An HON. MEMBER: "Free Meals in Schools."] The usefulness of that Bill was practically taken away in another

1365
place. The only effect which the discussion of private Members' Bills or Motions has had in the past has been of an educational character, and I am by no means disposed to minimise its importance. The Eight Hours Bill, for instance, was due to the industry and enterprise of Labour Members. It was discussed year after year until they got a majority and subsequently it was passed into law by the aid of the Government.
I think the opportunities which we have for free discussion can still be utilised for purposes of an educational character, but owing to the rules which have been made, owing to the condition under which our Debates are now conducted, it is almost impossible to carry any Bill of great importance unless it is starred by the Government. We have still the opportunity at question time of cross-examining Ministers, and I hope the great privilege will be maintained because it is an opportunity of getting information which would not otherwise be obtained. It seems to me that the only proper way to deal with the situation as it is, is, as far as possible, to appoint more Grand Committees, to carry out devolution so that many great questions which come before the House may be dealt with locally. So far as this particular Motion is concerned, it is one which any hon. Member who is a supporter of the Parliament Bill, in my opinion, is fully justified in supporting. I consider that we can pass no Bill till that Bill has been passed into law, and the country today is looking to the Government to pass it into law, and they will support the Government in every way until it takes its place on the Statute Book of the realm.
Mr. CROFT: There has been, I observe, a marvellous inconsistency in all the speeches of hon. Gentlemen opposite who have been criticising the Government, but the hon. Gentleman (Sir H. Dalziel) has beaten all his colleagues. Even the hon. Member (Mr. J. Ward), who has a braver appearance than some of his friends, started by making us all hope he was going to vote as his convictions took him. Although the hon. Member (Mr. Wedgwood) and his colleagues began bravely, their tails gradually got lower, and, in view of the coronets we have heard so much about, in duty to the Government, they associated themselves with this muzzling order, confessing, apparently, that Members of this Assembly were suffering from hydrophobia. I think
1366
nobody can deny that the Government on this occasion are establishing a precedent which, as the hon. Member opposite said, it will be very difficult to depart from. The point in this Debate which seems to me to be the most important is the idea that the Parliament Bill must be rushed through before the Coronation. That seems to me to be the most futile advice that could possibly be offered when you consider that the Government, with the support of a majority of the electors in the United Kingdom propose to make these fundamental and revolutionary changes without consulting in any manner whatever the 400,000,000 citizens of the British Empire. I think that is a very good reason why we should wait until after the Colonial Conference before this question is put forward. Hon. Gentlemen opposite say that the position is different on this occasion, and that private Members' time must be taken. They say that the election was fought on the veto issue only. It is absurd to claim that the last election gave the Government so many mandates. Only last night we were told that Home Rule was the issue, and a few days before we were told our fiscal policy was the issue. Everybody knows that the veto proposal is only a sham, and that it is brought forward to please their Irish colleagues and Members below the Gangway. Everybody knows that they cannot possibly pass the Bill. Everybody knows that even if the Bill ever gets through this House, which is very improbable, it is doubtful if it will pass in another place. If it does not pass in another place, I am not sure that you can get 500 Liberals who will be ready to sell their self-respect in order to form a majority there. I think there can be very little excuse for this tied-house business which the Government has established in our proceedings. It practically comes to this, that the Government will introduce any question which they think popular, but that they cannot allow any private Member to introduce any question which is unpopular so far as they are concerned. I think this is absolutely disastrous to the future of this House. Hon. Members come here with a message from their Constituents, and they are not allowed to deliver it until it suits the Government. The Labour party are always ready to come to heel on these questions. When you get into the Lobby and talk quietly with them you will find that they are tired of the whole proceedings.

1367
It is suggested that this precedent will not be followed except on very rare occasions, but I venture to think that if by any chance the proposals for the reform of the Constitution were passed, the position of private Members in this House will become an absolute farce. The Prime Minister and his colleagues would then become dictators.
I think the Government should reconsider their position in regard to this Motion. The House of Commons is being reduced to a machine controlled by the Prime Minister. That that is a very bad position for the House to be in will, I think, be confessed by every Member. Last night we heard from the Chief Secretary for Ireland—the statement was not very flattering to himself—that practically nothing had been done for Ireland in recent years. Who is responsible for that, if not the Prime Minister, who has prevented private Members from Ireland bringing in their proposals in the last Parliament and in this? It is the same with the Scotch Members. I venture to think if only private Members had a proper opportunity of airing the grievances of the people in the places from which they come there would be none of this mad calling for devolution among those either from Scotland or Ireland. There are very many great constructive questions which many private Members desire to bring before this House, but which it is absolutely impossible to do—questions of great interest to many of us on these benches, which we would like to hear the Labour party introduce; questions with regard to Poor Law, which we on this side want to introduce; questions of Poor Law reform; charges with regard to Imperial matters, and some form or other of colonial representation in this country. All these questions are crowded out, and we have to sit still and watch the destructive methods of His Majesty's Government Front Bench
The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Churchill): I think that the House is now approaching the moment when it would wish to bring this general discussion to a close. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I hope that such may be the disposition which upon reflection will find favour with hon. Gentlemen opposite. I have listened to the whole of this discussion, and though we have had a long succession of short but excellent speeches, I venture to submit to the House
1368
that no serious attempt has been made to rebut the matter-of-fact statements, arguments, and circumstances which were adduced by the Prime Minister in making his Motion in justification of the special request which the Government now feel it their duty to submit to the House. I do not agree with what my hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy (Sir H. Dalziel) has said, that this proposal made to-night will be a precedent, and become a rule in future years. I do not believe that that is the case at all. If it should become the rule the fault will be with the private Members, who at any time have the power to correct a practice which, if it became general and consistent, would be very undesirable. [HON. MEMBERS: "How?"] By the simple process of voting. I quite agree with what the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy has said as to the fact that undoubtedly the march of intellect and the ever-widening distribution of the gift of the tongue do impose certain difficulties upon individual members in all the great legislative assemblies all over the world which are charged with the transaction of important business. And we on this bench agree most fully with him when he pointed to the truest remedy for such difficulties in a system of delegation to Grand Committees and devolution to local and national bodies. It is a fallacy to dwell so strongly as hon. Gentlemen opposite have done upon what is called the undue power and dictation of the Cabinet over the House of Commons. The Cabinet is the creature of the House of Commons. It springs from the House of Commons and dwells in the House of Commons. It is checked and corrected by the House of Commons, and by the shrug of the shoulder of the Private Members of the House the Cabinet can be scattered.
The fact that the catastrophe does not occur is not due to machinery for flouting and dragooning the House placed at the disposal of the Prime Minister, it is due to the fact, which all who look to the form and reality must see that his Majesty's Ministers defer to the opinions and wishes of Members by the process of intelligent anticipation. Much of the apparent strength and force of the Cabinet in the House of Commons, and among Members of the Government, is due to the fact that the proposals which they put forward are proposals which it has been ascertained beforehand will conform to the general wishes of the majority of the House, and which are in themselves the recognition of the influence and power of private Members

1369
of the House and of the Constituencies which are increasingly in touch with their Members. But if ever there was a question on which the private Members have a right to say that they have been consulted it is upon this question of the Parliament Bill, for the sake of which this serious sacrifice is demanded of them. There never was a Bill which was more effectively the child and product of the House of Commons. Why, three Parliaments in succession have approved the principle of this measure, and it has grown from the beginnings of Resolutions in this House steadily into strength and into definite outline under the constant pressure and shaping of Parliamentary opinion in the House of Commons. Three Parliaments have affirmed the principle of this measure. Two general elections have been fought at which it has been the principal issue. And the last general election was fought on the specific measure which will on Tuesday next be presented to the House of Commons by the Prime Minister.
The right hon. Member for the Hallam Division of Sheffield (Mr. Stuart-Wortley) taunted the Government with not daring to submit any of their measures to the electorate. This measure has not merely been affirmed by the electorate in the ordinary process of a general election, it is a measure which, over and above the ordinary affirmation which our Constitution provides, has virtually been confirmed by a special referendum. With such a measure and in such circumstances, there must be no delay. The right hon. Member for East Worcestershire (Mr. Austen Chamberlain) said the Government sought to produce a crisis upon the eve of the Coronation. We seek to produce no crisis. According to all the traditions of Constitutional practice there can be no crisis. After the passing of such a measure, when it has been formally and definitely submitted to the electorate, it is inconceivable that the House of Lords, judging it by every tradition which even that body has observed in former times, should dare to stand between it and the fiat of the people. If there be that crisis we shall not be responsible for it, and it will not be upon us the consequences of the crisis will fall. We have the earnest wish that this Constitutional strife and deadlock which has occupied and delayed us for the last two years may be resolved and settled before the Coronation of His Majesty the King. It is not that we imagine that the Colonies, when they
1370
send their representatives over here would be shocked to find the democracy of this country engaged in limiting the veto of the hereditary Chamber. Their nerves are quite capable of withstanding that.
Our desire, if it can possibly be achieved, is that this period of strife and bitterness and confusion and arrest of progress and development in which we have been struggling for the last two years shall be brought to a close before the period of National rejoicing and Imperial Unity. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Is the Coronation not a period of National rejoicing, and is not the gathering of the representatives of the Colonies a period of Imperial Unity? And is it not desirable to remove from that arena the Parliament Bill which the noble Lord refers to as the occasion of struggle, and to have this conflict upon which we have been engaged resolved before that period? The noble Lord (Lord Hugh Cecil), who made a speech of singular moderation and characteristic excellence, before dinner, upon this subject, said that the House of Commons must remain the home and citadel of free Government. Yes, Sir, that is a very important thing for the House of Commons to be; but there is a more important thing still, and that is that it should remain the centre of real events. The congestion of Parliament is a disease, but the futility of Parliament is a mortal disease. And, Sir, if the rights of private Members are important the rights of the people of the United Kingdom are also important. It is in the name of the people of the United Kingdom that the Government have brought forward their Motion, and it is in the name of those rights, insulted as they have been, that the supporters of the Government in the House of Commons, who for the third time constitute a majority, will unhesitatingly support the Administration.
Viscount HELMSLEY: I beg to move to leave out the words "13th April, Government Business" ["up to and including 13th April, Government Business shall have precedence"] and to insert instead thereof the words, "31st March, the financial Business which is required by law to be completed before the end of the financial year."
Certainly I think it is rather an interesting experience for the House to see the right hon. Gentleman, who, perhaps I may say, is an ex-filibuster in Parliament, and I say, I hope quite unoffensively, trying to defend such a Motion as this for taking

1371
away the time of private Members. Indeed, I was unable to find in the course of the remarks which he has just delivered any defence whatever for the Motion which the Prime Minister has put forward. In fact the right hon. Gentleman did nothing whatever but beg the whole question. He made a powerful speech in favour of the Parliament Bill, but I take it that that is not the question immediately before the House. It seems to me that whether we are in favour of the Parliament Bill or against it has really very little concern with the question as to whether you should take away the time of private Members. After all, nobody has shown during the course of the Debate that the passage of the Parliament Bill will be in any way jeopardised if it is not taken. That is really the whole point. I confess if the passage of the Parliament Bill was to be jeopardised I should be only too delighted, and I think all hon. Members on this side of the House would agree with that proposition. At the same time we shall have opportunities, which I hope will not be unduly curtailed, of discussing that question later, but nobody has shown that it will be jeopardised if this Motion of the Prime Minister's was not acceded to.
After all, do hon. Members opposite really mean to suggest that the passage of that Bill would be jeopardised if the twelve days which this Motion will take were still devoted to private Members' business? It could not delay the Bill for more than a fortnight at most. If the Government's anticipations as to passing the Bill before the Coronation are so accurately calculated that a fortnight would falsify them, they must be basing them upon very slender grounds, and under ordinary circumstances they are very likely to be upset. There could not be a more inappropriate time for this Bill to go up to another place than immediately before the Coronation. I think the Government are exercising in this matter a little "intelligent anticipation" in the expectation that the Lords will refuse to pass the Bill, and that then they will be able to denounce another place throughout the country at the time of the Coronation for refusing the olive-branch which the Government had been kind enough to tender to them. It is well to be armed beforehand. We know practically from the mouth of the Home Secretary himself that the object of the Government is to precipitate a Constitutional
1372
crisis a few days before the Coronation. Why? In order that any odium that may attach to the bellicose condition of politics at that time may be put by the right hon. Gentleman and his friends, upon the House of Lords, so that thereby they may inflame in the country the feeling which they think is not sufficiently inflamed already, and which would by then have been still further allayed by the moderating influence of time. What further object is there why this Motion should be acceded to by private Members? For my part, I can see none. I am bitterly disappointed that the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy, of all men, is bowing the neck to the yoke at last, and is going into the lobby with the Government. The condition of private Members is parlous indeed if he is going to betray and desert the cause.
Sir HENRY DALZIEL: You did not follow when I led.
Viscount HELMSLEY: The hon. Member is speaking rather outside the mark, because, from the circumstance that I entered Parliament only in 1906 in opposition, I have never had the opportunity of following him in the way he suggests. I do not wish to traverse the ground which has already been covered as to the effect that this proposal will have upon private Members' rights. It will undoubtedly be quoted as a precedent in years to come, and probably very shortly. Only yesterday we had the Prime Minister quoting, with considerable satisfaction to himself, his own precedent of last year, a precedent against which we protested very strongly at the time. There is no doubt that this will be quoted in a very short time as a precedent to be followed. You have only got to look at the gradual encroachment of the Closure Resolutions upon this House to see how they progress from comparatively simple and extraordinary methods of dealing with extraordinary occasions to be the normal procedure of our Parliamentary life. First of all you have the closure. When it was introduced to cope with Parliamentary circumstances that had arisen in connection with hon. Members for Ireland below the Gangway it was resented as a new engine of tremendous magnitude and as curtailing the freedom of Debate in an unprecedented fashion. The closure was found to be defective. It developed into the guillotine. The right hon. Gentleman, the Leader of the Opposition, introduced

1373
the guillotine when, after the Education Bill had been discussed for, I believe, 18 days in Committee, it was found absolutely necessary in order to put an end to the obstruction of hon. Members opposite.
The guillotine was advanced and sharpened as an engine of Executive power, until it has now become almost a practice in this House with any Government Bill of great importance that the Guillotine Motion precedes the Committee stage of the Bill—very often it precedes the Second Reading stage. Therefore the process of events, in gradually stiffening up the power of the Executive against the Members of the House of Commons, is an example of which we should beware with regard to this taking the time of the private Members. We feel quite certain that if private Members do not rebel very soon against this dealing of the Executive they will soon find that their time has been taken from them altogether. An hon. Gentleman who addressed the House hinted that we were neither a patriotic nor a public-spirited Opposition. That was an unworthy charge, and one that the Opposition has in no way deserved. I am going to try to give effect to my views by moving an Amendment. The Prime Minister has told us that he requires twenty Parliamentary days out of the twenty-seven and a half that there are before 31st March to deal with the necessary financial business of the year. He allocated thirteen and a half days to the Supplementary Estimates, and to get Mr. Speaker out of the Chair on the Army and Navy Votes (Votes A and 1); the Civil Service Vote; Report on the Votes granted to Committee; and the Consolidated Fund Bill; a day for the general discussion on the Army and Navy Votes; and six and a half days for the Finance Bill
It is entirely the fault of the Government if these six and a half days are required for the Finance Bill. They could perfectly well have carried all these proposals last year had they chosen to do so. Still, there it is: these twenty days are undoubtedly required to carry out the necessary business which must be completed before 31st March. Now, if only these days were taken, that would leave seven and a half days, or their equivalent, for private Members. Hon. Members will see that my Amendment is all that is necessary to meet the situation. All who followed the points of the Prime Minister's arguments will see that my Amendment
1374
gives him all the time he wants. It takes away the time which I suppose the Prime Minister intends to devote to the Parliament Bill. Does the Prime Minister mean to tell us that the Parliament Bill cannot wait those seven and a half days, and that it would not have just as good a chance—I am sorry to say—of passing through this House after 31st March as before? In the main then private Members will have retained their rights or some remnant of their rights, and they will have retrieved some small portion of the situation. I hope that hon. Members like the hon. Member for Scarborough (Mr. W. R. Rea) and other hon. Members, seeing how they deplore this inroad upon private Members' time, will support me in this Amendment.
Viscount CASTLEREAGH: I desire to second the Amendment moved by my Noble Friend, and I hope the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister will give some consideration to the matter. The Home Secretary, in the speech he made a few moments ago, falling into the habit the Government has always adopted of legislation by reference, endeavoured to make his speech by reference. He told us that the Prime Minister, in a very straightforward, concise and eloquent manner, had given adequate reason for the course he has taken to-day. I do not think anyone in the House will agree that the Prime Minister has given any reason at all for the unjustifiable course of taking away the time of private Members. The right hon. Gentleman, in the course of his speech, seemed to anticipate the speech he intends to make on Tuesday on the Parliament Bill. He told us that this was the mandate the electors gave when they returned the Government. We heard an entirely different story yesterday when we were led to understand the electors had given their decision in regard to Home Rule for Ireland. No doubt in the course of the Debates in the next few days we shall hear that the electors returned the party opposite upon a great many other questions of which at present we do not know anything.
12.0 M.
With regard to the question of the private Members' rights I think there ought to be a bond of union—somewhat of a Trades Union—among private Members of the House, against the Members of the Government. We have been told by the right hon. Gentleman that a shrug of the shoulders from one Member would make the Government

1375
pause in their headlong career. Is it not possible for all hon. Members, who in their speeches to-night have told us that they are very jealous indeed of the rights of private Members, to shrug in unison, and to go together into the Lobby against the Government. What would be the result of their action? We have heard from various speakers that this would amount to a vote of censure upon the Government. I am prepared to ask the question, would the Government resign? I venture to think they would be pre pared to sit upon the Treasury Bench as long as they possibly could. If the gentle shrug of the shoulder has the desired effect, then the Amendment ought to receive the approbation of the Prime Minister. We have heard various speeches to-night from hon. Members opposite. The hon. Member for Stoke (Mr. John Ward) made no secret of it that he adopts an entirely different view. He said that although he is going to support this drastic proposal moved by the Prime Minister, if he were in opposition and the Unionist party were in power he would use all his arts of eloquence to support the rights of private Members. I think that is a very curious position to take up. The hon. Member for Stoke further stated that he would not mind seeing the Parliament Bill go through the House of Commons in three days. In view of the vitiated and curtailed discussion we are likely to get on the Parliament Bill I venture to think that it would be as well to pass it in three or four days. The Prime Minister, in some of those pellucid phrases for which he is famous, has spoken of the normal position made for private Members and their rights, but I do not know how much value we can attach to those sentences of the right hon. Gentleman. Even during the short time I have been in the House of Commons I have had the opportunity of seeing the effect the closure has had. When the Prime Minister came into office he swallowed the closure like an insidious drug, and he is going on now from one stage of the closure to another until it is perfectly obvious, by the action which the right hon. Gentleman has taken, that he has spoiled altogether Debate in this House, and if the Prime Minister remains on the Treasury Bench much longer there will be no discussion whatever eventually
1376
in this House on any important measure brought before it. It is because the rights of private Members are gradually slipping away from them, and because hon. Members opposite are deliberately allowing those rights to be taken away from them that I desire to second this Amendment.
The PRIME MINISTER: With regard to the speech of the Noble Lord who has just addressed the House, I have certainly nothing to complain of either in the tone or the substance of his arguments. It is true that he has drawn a rather alarming picture of a possible future combination among private Members on both sides of the House. I understand the Noble Lord contemplates a state of things under which private Members will form a new kind of Trade Union, which, by a judicious process of reciprocal and consolidated shrugging, they will replace those at present sitting on these benches. Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to change places with the Noble Lord, and to see him supported by his body of fellow shruggers carrying on the business of the country under those conditions. I may not live to see that day, but if I do I shall be an interested and sympathetic spectator. But that is not actually the question before us. The question is whether the Resolution which I have proposed should or should not be confined to the necessary financial business. Earlier in the evening the Noble Lord the Member for the University of Oxford (Lord Hugh Cecil) paid me the compliment of quoting a rather long passage from a speech of mine made in the month of March, 1905. I confess that I do not remember that speech, but I listened to it with great satisfaction, and I may say that that speech expressed in adequate and appropriate terms the sentiments which I have always entertained, and which I entertain just as strongly to-day as I did then I spoke of the importance of the freedom of discussion. What was the Question to which I was addressing myself? What was the proposal in regard to which that language was used? I call attention to it because it is relevant to the Amendment. It was during the month of March, and I find, when I refresh my memory by reference to this speech, that the Army Estimates for the year had been circulated on the preceding morning. The then Leader of the House and the now Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Balfour) proposed, the Estimates having been circulated the day before, that after three and a half hours'

1377
discussion the Motion that "Mr. Speaker do leave the Chair" was to be put; that after another three and a half hours' discussion every question necessary to dispose of Vote A and Vote I in Committee was to be summarily got rid of; and that after a further two hours' discussion the Report of the Resolutions of those two Votes was to be taken.
Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Will the right hon. Gentleman complete the story of my right hon. Friend's proposal?
The PRIME MINISTER: I will very gladly complete it if the right hon. Gentleman wishes it. It included the Navy Estimates, the Vote on Account, and it included the Consolidated Fund Bill. They were all to be brought in at the end of the Guillotine Resolution.
Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: What the right hon. Gentleman is forgetting is that that was necessary to comply with the law of that year, and, that being necessary to comply with the law, my right hon. Friend offered special facilities to the House in the new financial year to have the discussion of what they were deprived before the 31st March.
The PRIME MINISTER: I remember all the circumstances very well. Why were they necessary to comply with the law? Because the House met much later than it ought to have done.
Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: The point is that the time was given, and, though the right hon. Gentleman says he has all the circumstances in his mind, that was a point which he was concealing from the House.
The PRIME MINISTER: The language I used was used having regard to an invasion, not upon the privileges of private Members, but of the House to discuss the question of Supply, which is absolutely unexampled. The right hon. Gentleman says the time was given afterwards. I am not sure it was. It certainly was not given in very full measure.
Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Yes, it was.
The PRIME MINISTER: We are going to give time to private Members too.
Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: No, the right hon. Gentleman is not giving the time to private Members after Easter. He merely refrains for the present from taking that time away.
The PRIME MINISTER: The Government of the day in regard to whom I used the language quoted by the Noble Lord (Lord Hugh Cecil) was taking away a privilege it had always enjoyed, the privilege of discussing the Estimates of the year. I do not want to prolong the discussion at all. I want to address myself to the Amendment of the Noble Lord (Viscount Helmsley). It proposes to confine the time to be taken by the Government to the necessary financial business. I should be going back to the ground covered over and over again in the course of this Debate if I were to go into the case for the Resolution. It is quite true there is a larger amount of necessary financial business to be got through before the 31st March than usual, but I clearly indicated to the House, when I made my Motion at the beginning of this Sitting, that the ground on which we ask to invade the ordinary territory occupied by private Members before Easter is not merely for the transaction of that financial business, but also in order that we may make progress with the Parliament Bill. The Noble Lord ignores that altogether.
Viscount HELMSLEY: I merely said it would jeopardise matters.
The PRIME MINISTER: I do not know what the Noble Lord means by "jeopardise." No doubt the progress of the Bill would be retarded, and the possibility of its reaching the House of Lords at a convenient time to be considered would be seriously prejudiced. I base this Motion and I resist the Amendment of the Noble Lord not merely on the ground that the necessary financial business involves an encroachment on the ordinary time allotted to private Members, but also on the ground that in the opinion of the Government—and I believe of a majority of this House, and I am certain of a vast mass of opinion outside—that it is of the highest importance that the Parliament Bill should at the earliest possible moment be disposed of.
Mr. FORSTER: My right hon. Friend by an interjection disposed to a great extent of the point which the Prime Minister sought to make in reference to the speech of my Noble Friend the Member for Oxford University, and I think the House will feel it would have been more in consonance with the Prime Minister's reputation for fair play if he had not endeavoured to lead the House to believe that the action he proposes to take after Easter is on all

1379
fours with the action taken by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition under the circumstances to which the Prime Minister referred. A promise was given by the Leader of the Opposition that ample time should be given to the House in place of the time taken away from it. The Prime Minister says he now proposes to give to the House ample time after Easter. But what time does he propose to give? He proposes only to leave the time that naturally and properly belongs to private Members undisturbed. The Prime Minister should be grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for East Worcestershire for having given him an opportunity of making his position perfectly clear. But how does he meet the Amendment moved by the Noble Lord? He says it is perfectly true there is a great deal of financial business to be got through before Easter, but I do not base the claim I now make on the time of the House solely on financial grounds. The right hon. Gentleman is perfectly right, he cannot possibly justify his claim on those grounds alone. Last year he did make a claim on the time of the House based on financial grounds, pure and simple, and he told us then that he would certainly not make that Motion unless under the stress of absolute necessity. The absolute necessity a year ago was that the House met late and Easter came early. This year the House has met early and Easter comes late, and consequently on this occasion there is more than the usual time for the transaction of necessary financial business. The Prime Minister therefore cannot justify his claim on financial grounds alone. No; he says frankly at last that the proposal that he now makes is in order that he may force through the House of Commons the Veto Bill, which he says his party has been returned by the country to pass at all costs. He claims great urgency for that Bill. He says that the country demands it with such eager, earnest imperative insistence that even a day cannot he wasted or spared in the effort to carry it through. Is it more urgent now than it was twelve months ago? I remember two eloquent speeches from the hon. and learned Member for Waterford (Mr. John Redmond) twelve months ago in which he told the Government that the question which was decided by the country at the election in January was not the Budget, which hon. Members professed to believe, but the House of Lords. I could quote an eloquent speech
1380
from the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy (Sir Henry Dalziel), in which he took the same view, and said the leading, primary, and great question which was decided by the country in January was the question of the House of Lords. That question, he said, brooks no delay, and it was the duty of the Government to press it forward and take immediate steps for its solution. The right hon. Gentleman gave in to that demand. He brought in his Veto Resolutions, and said he was going to press forward the Bill founded on those Resolutions at the earliest possible moment. Of course, events occurred in the summer which we all deplore, and which prevented the Prime Minister from carrying out that intention. But he had an opportunity when the Conference came to an end of pressing forward with that policy which the country, according to hon. Members, supported so consistently, and had demanded at the election in January. He threw the opportunity away. Instead of pressing on with this Bill he plunged the country into a needless election—into an unnecessary election—which left all the parties in the House in practically the same position that they occupied before; and now he comes back to this House and says that the decision which has been reached by the country on the second election, confirming as it does the decision which was given in January, makes this question more important still. He bases his claims to the House upon this having been submitted to the people as a single issue. It was Home Rule last night, Veto to-night. According to the hon. Member the Leader of the Labour party, there were two great questions submitted at the same time—Veto and the Reform of Trades Union law, but even if this had been submitted in the speeches of the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues as a single issue to the country, we want to know something about the methods which were employed to persuade different Constituencies to send hon. Members here to support right hon. Gentlemen who sit on the Treasury Bench. We know perfectly well that the Veto of the House of Lords was by no means the dominant or single issue before the country. I hold in my hand a pamphlet which was circulated in one of the Constituencies of the county, one of the divisions of which I represent. There are many grossly misleading statements in it, and there are many insidious suggestions whose corrosive influence prevents a free judgment being reached on the part of the people who read

1381
it. There is not a single word with reference to the Veto of the House of Lords from start to finish. This is the sort of document which was circulated—it is called "Fair play for the Electors of Dartford"—with the polling cards as the final word in the election in which the single issue was the Veto of the House of Lords. I will not read it. I have shown enough to show that the issue was not presented in that incisive and clear-cut fashion that the right hon. Gentleman would have us believe. In asking the House to take the step that he does to-night, not under the pressure of the necessity of carrying financial business through in order that the law may be observed, but in order that he may make progress with the Bill which he and his party believe to be of great interest, the right hon. Gentleman is taking a step which will prejudice beyond recall the position of private Members. It is a question of one Bill this year. Next year you will be asked to forego your rights in order that progress may be made with two Bills, Home Rule for Ireland and Welsh Disestablishment—I cannot tell which will come first. If the House confirms the Prime Minister in the Motion he makes to-night private Members tie their hands once and for all time.
Mr. STEEL-MAITLAND: The Prime Minister's speech delighted us particularly, because his remarks appeared to afford the most complete refutation of his own arguments, or perhaps the most complete support of the plea put forward by the Noble Lord (Viscount Castlereagh). It was complete for a very definite reason. When he wished to justify his action the only real justification that he could bring forward was that our Front Bench when they were in power committed precisely the same raid upon private Members' time. If there ever was a claim for pressing the claim of the time of private Members upon the House it is the fact that the only thing which can be said for the plan of the present Government is that on their own showing it is no worse than that of their predecessors. In this particular instance it rather appears as though the private Members were like the unfortunate babes in the wood when neither of the two villains who had designs upon his life showed the least sign of repenting and giving him another chance. The matter seems to be the more important because it is so closely connected with the deprivation, as it appears to anyone who tries to study the
1382
Parliamentary problem, of nearly all initiative or responsibility for private Members in other capacities as well. Throughout the Debate allusion has been made to the perpetual encroachment by the Executive upon the freedom of private Members. Everyone who has studied the history of the past few Sessions knows that Bills have been carried against the judgment of the House. The Home Secretary states that the Parliament Bill and other Bills represent the judgment of the country and the Members of the House. It is a matter of common knowledge that Bills have been brought forward and carried by the Executive Government contrary to the wishes of the majority of the House of Commons itself. Their freedom is now in all the more danger because of the developments which are likely to go on throughout the course of Parliamentary history so far as we can foresee. The process of carrying Bills contrary to the wishes of the majority of the Members of the House will, I think, be the more severe under the new tendencies arising out of the operation of the group system which was not operative until the present Parliament. Under that system bargaining, as every Member knows, must inevitably take place. I do not say so in any offensive sense. It appears, therefore, that the private Member will find that the power of exercising his own judgment will be limited to a greater extent than previously if the Government proposals are carried into effect. It is proposed that there should be payment of Members. Considering that hon. Members are in many cases dependent for their position on the pleasure of the Executive of the day, one cannot help feeling that if this proposal is carried out their responsibility and freedom will be still further diminished. When that is the case surely it is an additional argument that the small remnant of time which is still reserved to private Members should be interfered with as little as possible. There are private Members on both sides of the House who are interested in the reform of the Poor Law, and by common consent they are anxious that this and other matters of a less contentious character should have been proceeded with. We are deprived of the opportunity which many of us would gladly have sought of bringing forward some measures which might conceivably have passed. The extreme speed with which it is proposed to push the Parliament Bill through the House must, I think, militate against the kind of settlement of

1383
the other questions which the Home Secretary looks forward to as likely to follow upon the happy conclusion of the Parliament Bill We have the authority of the Prime Minister for saying that the passing of the Parliament Bill into law will not be an adequate or final solution. If that is so, one is tempted to ask why we should spend time on what is not a final solution? The right hon. Gentleman said a final solution would take one or two Sessions. Surely, therefore, instead of encroaching on private Members' time in this way it would be wiser to devote one Session to a Bill brought in to obtain a final solution. If the Government had really risen to the opportunity which presented itself, they would have taken a different course on this subject. If there ever was a measure that did not need to be carried through with hurry it is the Parliament Bill. It had been the practice of Parliament not to closure financial measures. Surely a measure that deals with the whole fundamentals of the British Constitution should be allowed equal grace. I think from the Prime Minister's own admissions, had it been wished to produce anything like the final settlement to which the Home Secretary has looked forward he would have produced something which would have dealt with the composition as well as with the powers of the Upper House, and would have done something—I speak as a private Member not of long experience in this House, but who has studied it from outside—to have carried the problem to its final solution by restoring to private Members something of the freedom which they possessed in times past. During the past forty years there has been year by year, taking on the average, a steady encroachment on the liberty of private Members of this House. It can be ascertained by anyone who has analysed the actual proposals carried, or who has taken the trouble to analyse the Divisions. Forty years ago 49 per cent. of the Divisions were left to private Members. That number had steadily decreased until a few years ago it was only 2 per cent. In addition to taking away the liberty of private Members the time for general measures brought forward has been curtailed, and if the Government were really to rise to their opportunity they would do something to remedy the composition of the House of Lords as well as bring forward the Parliament Bill and concurrently with those two points they would do
1384
something to restore to the House some of its freedom, which as I believe, in the opinion of the country, would do more than anything else to put it back to the high level it possesed some years ago, while, when now, speaking with every deference for the House, one cannot help believing that by the masses of the people throughout the country the House is regarded merely as a registering machine for the decisions of the Government.
Lord HUGH CECIL: The issue raised by this Amendment is a very plain and very simple one. My noble Friend pointed out that the Prime Minister concedes that the Parliament Bill will run no risk from seven days' delay. What is the Prime Minister's answer? He does not pretend, it would be impossible to pretend, that it can make any difference in the ultimate fate of the Parliament Bill whether it is delayed seven days or not. What then is the answer to almost all the speeches made behind him, who all said they supported the Motion in the interests of the Parliament Bill? That measure admittedly not being jeopardised, how is it hon. Members behind him can possibly justify their vote for the Government? The answer is that he is the servant of the public, of the people who have sent him to pass the Parliament Bill, and that he could not wait even for seven days before carrying out their order. Here is the Government, who are the mandatories of the people, to do what the people will. I cannot see how anybody adopting that theory of constant obligation to the people can resist the Referendum. If the Government really meant to carry out the will of the people, will they refer the Parliament Bill to the will of the People? [HON. MEMBERS: "It has."] Oh, what nonsense! The General Election was fought, as all General Elections are fought, on a multiplicity of issues.
Mr. BIRRELL: The Government went out on it.
Lord HUGH CECIL: Why should the Government have gone out? Is not that characteristic of the Front Bench mind? The Government assert the doctrine of personal dignity in order to coerce the House, if not the country, into voting on what was not the real issue. We want to have done with this exaggerated doctrine of Government dignity. Let them do as the country tells them. If they are not prepared to take the attitude of humility, let them not come here and tell the House

1385
and tell the country that they cannot wait seven days. What a hypocrisy it all is.
Mr. LEIF JONES: The hypocrisy is on the other side.
Lord HUGH CECIL: I think that we must make up our mind as to what authority the Government do defer. We know they do not defer to the House of Lords, and it is plain that they do not care for the well-being of the House of Commons for they propose to curtail its rights. In their resistance to the Referendum they are not prepared to submit themselves to the will of the people. One of the most amazing things is that the Government, knowing that the Referendum would go against them, treat it as a sort of joke, and that really it is an absurdity that they should ever be put in the position of defeat. The Government resist this Amendment, but they really have no case against it that will bear a moment's examination. Nobody supposes that any ill consequences would come from delaying the Parliament Bill, even from the point of view of the most enthusiastic advocate of that ill-starred measure, and nobody supposes that we shall go to the Coronation in a better humour. Whether the House of Lords accept it or reject it one side or the other will be in a towering rage. Nobody believes the silly doctrine that the Parliament Bill is anything but a bone of contention between parties, which will arouse vehement feeling as it advances. The House of Commons is suffering from more diseases than one. One of the diseases is the indisposition of the Front Bench to argue with candour and sincerity. Day after day we have these sort of debates and these pretences which convince nobody who is not already convinced, and which brings the House of Commons lower and lower, so that in the end it will have lost all authority and all respect.
Mr. PETO: I am quite sure if I cannot claim the indulgence of the House I can claim their sympathy, because this is one of the rare occasions on which the guillotine has been dropped. The noble Lord the Member for Maidstone (Viscount Castle-reagh) said that if the Debate on the Parliament Bill were cut short it did not really matter very much whether it went through in three days or took a slightly longer period which might be allotted to it. I quite agree for another reason which he did not give. I think if the Government put through the Parliament Bill in three
1386
days only, then the country would understand that this costly and laboured process of electing 670 Gentlemen who are supposed to be representatives of the people, and who are supposed to constitute an assembly here which is required to carry on free government of the people and by the people, is a solemn and ridiculous farce. And they would understand that the real source of power in this country is the Front Treasury Bench, and that the rest of the House is a superfluity. I wish to refer to one thing that seems to me to make it perfectly clear that the Government themselves understand that, and they are fast getting into the position of not carrying on the pretence that there is any other state of affairs in the country. In the case of a by-election to fill a seat lately occupied by a gentleman who is going now on an important position as Governor of Victoria the right hon. Gentleman the Patronage Secretary, went down to interview the representatives of the people who were supposed to select a candidate. He gave as the reason for the selection of the present candidate—and I think you will agree, Sir, that this has an absolutely close bearing upon this present question—that was, not that he was a specially desirable candidate, and not that he was specially eloquent, or would be in this House, not that he would sustain debate, and be able as an independent Member of the House to re-represent that constituency with special distinction, but that he was the Private Secretary of the Prime Minister and that therefore—
Mr. SPEAKER: I cannot agree that that is relevant to the Motion now before the House The question now is whether sufficient time would be given for financial business and for financial business only.
Mr. PETO: Of course, I bow to your ruling. In support of this Motion, which leaves private Members some small relic of their time between now and Easter, I think there could be no stronger argument than the speeches, taken as a whole, of hon. Members opposite. Almost without exception they agreed as to the grievances of private Members, but they said because of the great importance of the Parliament Bill that they were going to vote in a contrary manner to that in which they spoke. Therefore it seems perfectly clear that the Government do not resist this Amendment for any reasoned argument, but they base

1387
their claim to the whole time of the House on the ground that the Parliament Bill has been practically the sole issue decided by the people, and that consequently there must not be a moment's delay, not even the odd Fridays, or any other relic of private Members' time before Easter. As one of the private Members, I certainly claim that there is no evidence that the Parliament Bill is not a part of the machinery for the government of the country by the Executive, with practically no intervention on the part of Members of the House as a whole. It is not because the people have risen in their majesty and decided that this measure must go forward at this instant; it is in order that the Government may carry out their own plans in their own way, without consulting the convenience of the House or the rights of any Members other than those who sit on the Treasury Bench. I support the Amendment because the way in which it is resisted proves that the government of the country by Parliament as a whole is absolutely a thing of the past, and the people may just as well understand that it is perfectly unnecessary to have Members supposed to represent them in this House.
Colonel GRIFFITH - BOSCAWEN: I regret that the Prime Ministter has not seen his way to accept this very reasonable Amendment. All must admit that the Government has a great deal of necessary financial business to get through. It is quite true that it is largely their own fault, because, after having said it was unconstitutional to divide the Budget, they chose to divide it last year, with the result that they have now to deal with what they ought to have dealt with last year. Still, we must admit that they have a great deal of necessary financial business to get through, and it is a very reasonable compromise, as suggested by the Amendment, that they should have special facilities, by taking private Members' time, for the transaction of that financial business, but not for other purposes. The Government, however, have met the proposal by an absolute non possumus, and demand the whole time of the House until Easter. What reason does the Prime Minister give? He says it is to pass the Parliament Bill, for which the Government has an absolute mandate. Only yesterday we were told that they had a mandate for Home Rule, and two or three days before it was contended that they had a mandate
1388
against Imperial Preference. The fact is, they have not a mandate for the Parliament Bill any more than for anything else. We have been told that there was practically a Referendum on the Parliament Bill. According to my experience of the General Election, the Parliament Bill was kept very much in the background. [An HON. MEMBER: "By whom?"] By the gentle man who stood against me, and whom I had the honour to defeat. When the Election began, the whole Constituency was placarded with the statement that the one question was "Peers or People?" But the Election had not proceeded two days before I discovered that the other side were talking about every other question but that. [An HON. MEMBER: "That is why they lost."] But they won in other places, because they kept the Parliament Bill in the background. The people did not care in the least degree about the Parliament Bill. What they did care about was social reform and Tariff Reform. The great point made by my opponents was what a splendid thing the Government had done in passing the Old Age Pensions Act, and they went on to say that another splendid thing the Government were going to do was to pass an Insurance against Invalidity Bill. The fact is that in the constituency for which I stood insurance against invalidity was put in an extremely frank way. It was said that if a man fell ill——
Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member would do well to bear in mind the Special Amendment that is now before the House.
Colonel GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: Of course, Sir, I bow to your ruling. I was pointing out that the Prime Minister had stated that the reason for refusing the Amendment made was in order that the Parliament Bill, for which there had been a mandate, should be pushed through as quickly as possible. In my opinion there was no special mandate whatever for that measure. Here are we private Members, sent by our constituencies to bring before the House of Commons those special subjects in which our constituents are interested. Our only chance of taking advantage of the opportunities which have been given to us by the Standing Orders of the House to discuss the Questions which have been brought prominently before the constituencies is immediately taken from us by the Government. The late Sir William Harcourt used to call the House of Commons the "Grand Inquest of the Nation," where every conceivable

1389
subject in which the people were interested could be brought forward. That has entirely disappeared, owing to the action of the right hon. Gentlemen opposite. It has been a great disappointment to me to hear the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Kirkcaldy. I know the stand he has made in favour of the rights of private Members, and I did at least hope that on this Amendment, which is a compromise, and which gives the Government all they really want—that is, time for their financial business, which we admit is necessary—he would have supported us. However, he has gone the way of all private Members: he has given up the fight as hopeless. We have had an extraordinary speech from the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary. He has told us that private Members have always the opportunity, if they like, of preventing such a proposal as this becoming effective. But how are they going to stop the Government, except by voting against the Government, in which case they would probably turn the Government out? I regret that this Amendment, which should have been accepted by the Government, has been received with an absolute non possumus. When the right hon. Gentleman has replied, we will, at all events, make our protest against this pillaging of the time of the House.
Mr. SANDERSON: I shall confine myself to what is strictly germane in answer to one of the chief points made by the Prime Minister, who, I understand, has said that the sole reason, the basis of his opposition, to this Amendment is, that the Government and he claim that it is desirable the Parliament Bill should be presented to another place by a certain time. Hon. Members opposite have based their arguments upon the same grounds. One hon. Gentleman said he hoped that this great Constitutional question would be settled before the Coronation. Do hon. Gentlemen opposite really think that this Constitutional question is going to be settled before the Coronation? [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear"] I am delighted to hear it; it means that those hon. Gentlemen who cheered that remark of mine are prepared to make great concessions to common-sense and reason. Of course, if they are not, if they think the Parliament Bill in its present form is going to pass, and if they expect it to go through in four months hon. Gentlemen on the other side are living in a fool's paradise. This great Constitutional question is not going to be
1390
settled in four months, nor in four years, nor in perhaps the lifetime of any hon. Member opposite. It is simply ridiculous for hon. Members to base their arguments in support of the taking of the whole time of the House up to Easter on the supposition that the Parliament Bill will be settled in four months and before the Coronation. The Home Secretary said so far as he could see there was going to be no crisis. Does he think that a Parliament Bill such as is to be presented to the House to alter the Constitution of this country, contrary to the wishes, at all events, of half the population, is not going to raise a crisis? If he thinks there is going to be no crisis in the next four months he, too, is living in a fool's paradise. This is the only ground upon which the Government are offering opposition to this Amendment and I submit it is no ground whatever.
1.0 A.M.
Captain CRAIG: I do not think that this matter affects any part of the United Kingdom more than it does the north of Ireland. The question affects us so deeply that it is only right that from the very beginning we should take the opportunity of showing that the deep laid schemes of the Government are recognised and that we are prepared from the outset to fight them. The Irish Unionist Members have, so far, not interfered in this debate, but I should like to point out one or two significant things in connection with what has occurred. The most significant outstanding fact has been that the Nationalist Members have not ballotted for any bills this session and naturally our suspicions are immediately aroused. There are crying needs of Ireland which have been presented to the House of Commons during the last few days, and we have heard every one of the leaders of the Home Rule party parading them in the House. How is it that the old cry of arterial drainage, for instance, that was balloted for for years and years, and the question of reviving the grants towards elementary education, and the question of University grants, and the questions of Poor Law reform, and the heating and cleansing of our national schools—how is it that the Nationalist party have refused to ballot for any of these matters? It shows a league between the Nationalist party and the Liberal party which is most significant to those of us who have to fight for what means to us in the north of Ireland the very life and prosperity of that part of the

1391
country from which we come. The Amendment which has been proposed gives the Government an opportunity of getting through their financial business which is necessary in order to carry out the law of the country. More than that they are not entitled to at this particular crisis. I see the Chief Secretary in his place. I defy him to get up and deny that he himself has on several occasions for years past said that Poor Law reform cannot wait for one moment. That statement is four years old, and yet hon. Members below the Gangway, when they have the opportunity of balloting for a place in order to bring forward this great reform that is crying out for treatment, refuse at the dictation of the right hon. Gentleman, and say: "No, we must get through this nefarious scheme of the Government's, and then, when the rights and privileges of British citizens in the north of Ireland are done away with, you can have them." I intervene at the present moment because it is perfectly clear to me that it is a hollow sham that lies at the back of the Prime Minister's reason for rejecting the Amendment. He says it is in the financial interests of the country that the Government are anxious to get through business. It is not in the interests of the country that we must get, great financial questions settled and out of the way by 24th March; it is in order that
they may get forward with another scheme. It is that scheme which I need hardly assure the House, so far as my colleagues and I are concerned, we intend to meet and fight. Hon. Members below the Gangway may cow the Front Bench but they will never cow the Ulster Members. With regard to the proposal to make this exception from the Prime Minister's Motion, I cannot conceive why it is not accepted by the Front Bench, unless they are under the coercion of the various groups which pretend to support them. The point really is that finance must be got through. Everybody agrees to that, but beyond that I do not think that those who have the best interests of the country at heart would go with the Government a single inch. It is one o'clock and no time to make dramatic statements, but I wish to say, with all sincerity, as this is the first opportunity I have had of intervening in a Debate which closely concerns the great province of Ulster, that we may have quarrelled in the past and may quarrel in the future about details and small things, but on this particular point I can assure everyone that it is a serious matter and one that will be treated in the most serious way.
Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
The House divided: Ayes, 199; Noes, 118.

Division No. 12.]

AYES.

[1.10 a.m.

Abraham, William (Dublin Harbour)

Corbett, A. Cameron

Gulland, John William

Acland, Francis Dyke

Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway)

Adamson, William

Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth)

Hackett, John

Addison, Dr. C.

Crawshay-Williams, Eliot

Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)

Allen, A. A. (Dumbartonshire)

Crumley, Patrick

Harmsworth, R. Leicester

Anderson, Andrew Macbeth

Cullinan, John

Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, W.)

Armitage, Robert

Dalziel, Sir James H. (Kirkcaldy)

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

Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbert Henry

Davies, Timothy (Lincs., Louth)

Haslam, James (Derbyshire)

Baker, H. T. (Accrington)

Dawes, J. A.

Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry

Balfour, Sir Robert (Lanark)

Delany, William

Hayden, John Patrick

Barry, Redmond John (Tyrone, N.)

Denman, Hon. R. D.

Hayward, Evan

Barton, William

Devlin, Joeph

Helme, Norval Watson

Beale, W. P.

Dillon, John

Holt, Richard Durning

Benn, W. (T. Hamlets, St. George.)

Doris, William

Horne, C. Silvester (Ipswich)

Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine

Duffy, William J.

Hudson, Walter

Boland, John Pius

Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness)

Hughes, Spencer Leigh

Booth, Frederick Handel

Edwards, Enoch (Hanley)

Hunter, William (Lanark, Govan)

Bowerman, C. W.

Edwards, John Hugh (Glamorgan, Mid)

Iaacs, Sir Rufus Daniel

Boyle, Daniel (Mayo, North)

Elverston, Harold

Johnson, W.

Brocklehurst, William B.

Esmonde, Dr. John (Tipperary, N.)

Jones, Edgar (Merthyr Tydvil)

Burke, E. Haviland-

Esmonde, Sir Thomas (Wexford, N.)

Jones, H. Haydn (Merioneth)

Cawley, Sir Frederick (Prestwich)

Essex, Richard Walter

Jones, Leif Straiten (Notts, Rushcliffe)

Cawley, H. T. (Lancs. Heywood)

Falconer, James

Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)

Chancellor, Henry George

Ferens, Thomas Robinson

Joyce, Michael

Chapple, Dr. William Allen

Ffrench, Peter

Keating, Matthew

Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S.

Fitzgibbon, John

Kellaway, Frederick George

Clancy, John Joseph

Flavin, Michael Joseph

Kelly, Edward

Clough, William

Furness Stephen

Kilbride, Denis

Clynes, John R.

Golder, Sir W. A.

King, Joseph (Somerset, North)

Collins, Godfrey P. (Greenock)

Gill, A. H.

Lardner, James Carrige Rushe

Collins, Stephen (Lambeth)

Goldstone, Frank

Law, Hugh A.

Condon, Thomas Joseph

Guest, Hon. Major C. H. C. (Pembroke)

Lawson, Sir W. (Cumb'rld., Cockerm'th)

Leach, Charles

O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

Simon, Sir John Allsebrook

Levy, Sir Maurice

O'Sullivan, Timothy

Smith, Albert (Lancs., Clitheroe)

Logan, John William

Parker, James (Halifax)

Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.)

Lundon, Thomas

Pearce, Robert (Staffs., Leek)

Soares, Ernest Joseph

Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester)

Pease, Rt. Hon. Joseph A. (Rotherham)

Strauss, Edward A. (Southwark, West)

MacGhee, Richard

Phillips, John (Longford, S.)

Summers, James Wooley

Maclean, Donald

Pirie, Duncan Vernon

Taylor, John W. (Durham)

Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

Pointer, Joseph

Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

M'Callum, John M.

Pollard, Sir George H.

Tennant, Harold John

Markham, Arthur Basil

Power, Patrick Joseph

Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)

Marshall, Arthur Harold

Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)

Toulmin, George

Martin, Joseph

Pringle, William M. R.

Trevlyan, Charles Philips

Mason, David M. (Coventry)

Radford, George Heynes

Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander

Mathias, Richard

Raffan, Peter Wilson

Verney, Sir Harry

Meagher, Michael

Rea, Rt. Hon. Russell (South Shields)

Wadsworth, J.

Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.)

Rea, Walter Russell (Scarborough)

Walton, Sir Joseph

Meehan, Patrick A. (Queen's Co.)

Reddy, Michael

Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent)

Molloy, Michael

Redmond, John E. (Waterford)

Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton)

Money, L. G. Chiozza

Redmond, William (Clare, E.)

Warner, Sir Thomas Courtenay

Mooney, John J.

Redmond, William Archer (Tyrone, E.)

White, Sir George (Norfolk)

Munro, Robert

Richardson, Thomas (Whitehaven)

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

Murray, Capt. Hon. Arthur C.

Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

White, Patrick (Meath, North)

Needham, Christopher T.

Roberts, George H. (Norwich)

Whitehouse, John Howard

Nolan, Joseph

Robertson, John M. (Tyneside)

Whyte, A. F.

Norman, Sir Henry

Robinson, Sidney

Wilkie, Alexander

Nugent, Sir Walter Richard

Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke)

Williamson, Sir A.

O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

Roche, John (Galway, E.)

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

O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

Rose, Sir Charles Day

Wilson, John (Durham, Mid)

O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

Rowlands, James

Wilson, T. Fleming (Lanark)

O'Doherty, Philip

Rowntree, Arnold

Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

O'Dowd, John

St. Maur, Harold

Wood, T. M'Kinnon (Glasgow)

Ogden, Fred

Scanlan, Thomas

O'Kelly, Edward P. (Wicklow, W.)

Scott, A. M'Callum (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Master of Elibank and Mr. Illingworth.

O'Malley, William

Sheehy, David

O'Neill, Dr. Charles (Armagh, S.)

Shortt, Edward

NOES.

Anson, Sir William Reynell

Gilmour, Captain John

Orde-Powlett, Hon. W. G. A.

Archer-Shee, Major M.

Goldney, Francis Bennett-

Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William

Baird, John Lawrence

Goldsmith, Frank

Paget, Almeric Hugh

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

Gordon, John

Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington)

Baldwin, Stanley

Greene, Walter Raymond

Peto, Basil Edward

Banbury, Sir Frederick George

Gretton, John

Pickersgill, Edward Hare

Barnston, H.

Guinness, Hon. Walter Edward

Pole-Carew, Sir R.

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

Haddock, George Bahr

Pollock, Ernest Murray

Benn, Ion Hamilton (Greenwich)

Hall, D. B. (Isle of Wight)

Ratcliff, Major R. F.

Bigland, Alfred

Hambro, Angus Valdemar

Rice, Hon. Walter Fitz-Uryan

Bird, Alfred

Hardy, Laurence

Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)

Boscawen, Sackville T. Griffith-

Helmsley, Viscount

Royds, Edmund

Boyle, W. Lewis (Norfolk, Mid)

Henderson, Major H. (Berks., Abingdon)

Rutherford, Watson (L'pool, W. Derby)

Bridgeman, William Clive

Hillier, Dr. Alfred Peter

Sanders, Robert Arthur

Burdett-Coutts, William

Hohler, Gerald Fitzroy

Sanderson, Lancelot

Burgoyne, Alan Hughes

Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield)

Smith, Harold (Warrington)

Burn, Colonel C. R.

Horne, Wm. E. (Surrey, Guildford)

Stanler, Beville

Carlile, Edward Hildred

Ingleby, Holcombe

Stanley, Hon. G. F. (Preston)

Cassel, Felix

Kebty-Fletcher, J. R.

Starkey, John Ralph

Castlereagh, Viscount

Kerry, Earl of

Stewart, Gershom

Cator, John

Kirkwood, John H. M.

Talbot, Lord Edmund

Cautley, Henry Strother

Knight, Captain Eric Ayshford

Terrell, George (Wilts, N. W.)

Cecil, Lord Hugh (Oxford Univ.)

Lane-Fox, G. R.

Thynne, Lord Alexander

Chaloner, Col. R. G. W.

Lawson, Hon. H. (T. H'm'ts., Mile End)

Touche, George Alexander

Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. A. (Worcr.)

Lewisham, Viscount

Tullibardine, Marquess of

Chambers, James

Lloyd, George Ambrose

Walrond, Hon. Lionel

Clive, Percy Archer

Locker-Lampson, G. (Salisbury)

Wheler, Granville C. H.

Cooper, Richard Ashmole

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

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

Courthope, George Loyd

Long, Rt. Hon. Walter

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

Craig, Captain James (Down, E.)

Mackinder, Halford J.

Willoughby, Major Hon. Claude

Craig, Norman (Kent, Thanet)

M'Calmont, Colonel James

Wolmer, Viscount

Crichton-Stuart, Lord Ninian

Malcolm, Ian

Wood, Hon. E. F. L. (Yorks, Ripon)

Croft, Henry Page

Meysey-Thompson, E. C.

Wood, John (Stalybridge)

Dalrymple, Viscount

Mills, Hon. Charles Thomas

Worthington-Evans, L.

Dickson, Rt. Hon. C. S.

Moore, William

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

Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

Mount, William Arthur

Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George

Eyres-Monsell, Bolton M.

Neville, Reginald J. N.

Yate, Col. C. E. (Leics., Melton)

Fell, Arthur

Newton, Harry Kottingham

Fetherstonhaugh, Godfrey

Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield)

TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Sir A.

Gastrell, Major W. Houghton

Norton-Griffiths, J.

Acland-Hood and Mr. H. W. Forster.

Gibbs, George Abraham

Main Question again proposed. Debate arising.
The PRIME MINISTER The PRIME MINISTER rose in his place and claimed to Move, "That the Question be now put."
Question put, "That the Question be now put."
The House divided: Ayes, 200; Noes, 117.

Division No. 13.]

AYES.

[1.15 a.m.

Abraham, Wilam (Dublin Harbour)

Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)

Pease, Rt. Hon. Joseph A. (Rotherham)

Acland, Francis Dyke

Harmsworth, R. Leicester

Phillips, John (Longford, S.)

Adamson, William

Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, West)

Pickersglli, Edward Hare

Addison, Dr. Christopher

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

Pirie, Duncan V.

Allen, Arthur A. (Dumbarton)

Haslam, James (Derbyshire)

Pointer, Joseph

Anderson, Andrew Macbeth

Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry

Pollard, Sir George H.

Armitage, Robert

Hayden, John Patrick

Power, Patrick Joseph

Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbert Henry

Hayward, Evan

Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)

Baker, Harold T. (Accrington)

Helme, Norval Watson

Pringle, William M. R.

Balfour, Sir Robert (Lanark)

Holt, Richard Durning

Radford, George Heynes

Barry, Redmond John (Tyrone, N.)

Horne, Charles Silvester (Ipswich)

Rattan, Peter Wilson

Barton, William

Hudson, Walter

Rea, Rt. Hon. Russell (South Shields)

Beale, William Phipson

Hughes, Spencer Leigh

Rea, Walter Russell (Scarborough)

Benn, W. W. (T. Hamlets, St. Geo.)

Hunter, Wm. (Lanark, Govan)

Reddy, Michael

Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine

Isaacs, Sir Rufus Daniel

Redmond, John E. (Waterford)

Boland, John Plus

Johnson, William

Redmond, William (Clare, E.)

Booth, Frederick Handel

Jones, Edgar R. (Merthyr Tydvil)

Redmond, William Archer (Tyrone, E)

Bowerman, Charles W.

Jones, Henry Hayden (Merioneth)

Richardson, Thomas (Whitehaven)

Boyle, Daniel (Mayo, North)

Jones, Leif Stratten (Notts, Rushcliffe)

Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

Bracklehurst, William B.

Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)

Roberts, George H. (Norwich)

Burke, E. Haviland-

Joyce, Michael

Robertson, John M. (Tyneside)

Burns, Rt. Hon. John

Keating, Matthew

Robinson, Sidney

Cawley, Sir Frederick (Prestwich)

Kellaway, Frederick George

Roch, Waiter F. (Pembroke)

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

Kelly, Edward

Roche, John (Galway, E.)

Chancellor, Henry George

Kilbride, Denis

Roe, Sir Thomas

Chapple, Dr. William Allen

King, Joseph (Somerset, North)

Rose, Sir Charles Day

Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S.

Lardner, James Carrige Rushe

Rowlands, James

Clancy, John Joseph

Law, Hugh A.

Rowntree, Arnold

Clough, William

Lawson, Sir W.(Cumb'rld., Ceckerm'th)

St. Maur, Harold

Clynes, John R.

Leach, Charles

Scanlan, Thomas

Collins, Godfrey P. (Greenock)

Levy, Sir Maurice

Scott, A. M'Callum (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

Collins, Stephen (Lambeth)

Logan, John William

Sheehy, David

Condon, Thomas Joseph

Lundon, T.

Shortt, Edward

Corbett, A. Cameron

Macdonald, J. Ramsay (Leicester)

Simon, Sir John Allsebrook

Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

MacGhee, Richard

Smith, Albert (Lancs., Clitheroe)

Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth)

Maclean, Donald

Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.)

Crawshay-Williams, Eliot

Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

Soares, Ernest Joseph

Crumley, Patrick

M'Callum, John M.

Strauss, Edward A. (Southwark, West)

Cullinan, J.

Markham, Arthur Basil

Summers, James Woolley

Dalziel, Sir James H. (Kirkcaldy)

Marshall, Arthur Harold

Taylor, John W. (Durham)

Davies, Timothy (Lincs., Louth)

Martin, Joseph

Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

Dawes, James Arthur

Mason, David M. (Coventry)

Tennant, Harold John

Delany, William

Mathias, Richard

Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)

Denman, Hon. Richard Douglas

Meagher, Michael

Toulmin, George

Devlin, Joseph

Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.)

Trevelyan, Charles Philips

Dillon, John

Meehan, Patrick A. (Queen's County)

Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander

Doris, William

Molloy, Michael

Verney, Sir Harry

Duffy, William J.

Money, L. G. Chiozza

Wadsworth, John

Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness)

Mooney, John J.

Walton, Sir Joseph

Edwards, Enoch (Hanley)

Munro, Robert

Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent)

Edwards, John Hugh (Glamorgan, Mid)

Murray, Capt. Hon. Arthur C.

Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton)

Elverston, Harold

Needham, Christopher T

Warner, Sir Thomas Courtenay

Esmonde, Dr. John (Tipperary, N.)

Nolan, Joseph

White, Sir George (Norfolk)

Esmonde, Sir Thomas (Wexford, N.)

Norman, Sir Henry

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

Essex, Richard Walter

Nugent, Sir Walter Richard

White, Patrick (Meath, North)

Falconer, James

O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

Whitehouse, John Howard

Ferens, Thomas Robinson

O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

Whyte, A F. (Perth)

Ffrench, Peter

O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

Wilkie, Alexander

Fitzgibbon, John

O'Doherty, Philip

Williamson, Sir Archibald

Flavin, Michael Joseph

O'Dowd, John

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

Furness, Stephen

Ogden, Fred

Wilson, John (Durham, Mid)

Golder, Sir William Alfred

O'Kelly, Edward P. (Wicklow, W.)

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

Goldstone, Frank

O'Malley, William

Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

Guest, Major Hon. C. H. C. (Pembroke)

O'Neill, Dr. Charles (Armagh, T.)

Wood, T. M'Kinnon (Glasgow)

Gulland, John William

O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway)

O'Sullivan, Timothy

TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Master of Elibank and Mr. Illingworth.

Hackett, John

Parker, James (Halifax)

Pearce, Robert (Staffs., Leek)

NOES.

Anson, Sir William Reynell

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

Burdett-Coutts, William

Archer-Shee, Major Martin

Benn, Ion Hamilton (Greenwich)

Burgoyne, Alan Hughes

Baird, John Lawrence

Bigland, Alfred

Burn, Colonel C. R

Baker, Sir Randolf L. (Dorset, N)

Bird, Alfred

Carllie, Edward Hildred

Baldwin, Stanley

Boscawen, Sackville T. Griffith-

Cassel, Felix

Banbury, Sir Frederick George

Boyle, W. Lewis (Norfolk, Mid)

Castlereagh, Viscount

Barnston, Harry

Bridgeman, W. Clive

Cator, John

Cautley, Henry Strother

Hillier, Dr. Alfred Peter

Pollock, Ernest Murray

Cecil, Lord Hugh (Oxford University)

Hohler, Gerald Fitzroy

Ratcliff, Major R. F.

Chaloner, Col. R. G. W.

Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield)

Rice, Hon. Walter Fitz-Uryan

Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. A. (Worc'r.)

Horne, William E. (Surrey, Guildford)

Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)

Chambers, James

Ingleby, Holcombe

Royds, Edmund

Clive, Percy Archer

Kebty-Fletcher, J. R.

Rutherford, Watson (L'pool, W. Derby)

Cooper, Richard Ashmole

Kerry, Earl of

Sanders, Robert Arthur

Courthope, George Loyd

Kirkwood, John H. M.

Sanderson, Lancelot

Craig, Captain James (Down, E.)

Knight, Capt. Eric Ayshford

Smith, Harold (Warrington)

Craig, Norman (Kent, Thanet)

Lane-Fox, G. R.

Stanier, Beville

Crichton-Stuart, Lord Ninian

Lawson, Hon. H. (T. H'mts., Mile End)

Stanley, Hon. G. F. (Preston)

Croft, Henry Page

Lewisham, viscount

Starkey, John Ralph

Dalrymple, Viscount

Lloyd, George Ambrose

Stewart, Gershom

Dickson, Rt. Hon. C. S.

Locker-Lampson, G. (Salisbury)

Talbot, Lord Edmund

Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

Lockwood, Rt. Hon. Lieut.-Col. A. R.

Terrell, George (Wilts, N. W.)

Eyres-Monsell, Bolton M.

Long, Rt. Hon. Walter

Thynne, Lord Alexander

Fell Artrur

Mackinder, Halford J.

Touche George Alexander

Fetherstonhaugh, Godfrey

M'Calmont, Colonel James

Tullibardine, Marquess of

Gastrell, Major W. Houghton

Malcolm, Ian

Walrond, Hon. Lionel

Gibbs, George Abraham

Meysey-Thompson, E. C.

Wheler, Granville C. H.

Gilmour, Captain John

Mills, Hon. Charles Thomas

White, Major C. D. (Lancs, Southport)

Goldney, Francis Bennett-

Moore, William

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

Goldsmith, Frank

Mount, William Arthur

Willoughby, Major Hon. Claude

Gordon, John

Neville, Reginald J. N.

Wolmer, Viscount

Greene, Walter Raymond

Newton, Harry Kottingham

Wood, Hon. E. F. L. (Yorks, Ripen)

Gretton, John

Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield)

Wood, John (Stalybridge)

Guinness, Hon. Walter Edward

Norton-Griffiths, J.

Worthington-Evans, L.

Haddock, George Bahr

Orde-Powlett, Hon. W. G. A.

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

Hall, D. B. (Isle of Wight)

Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William

Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George

Hambre, Angus Valdemar

Paget, Almeric Hugh

Yate, Col. C. E.

Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashford)

Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington)

Helmsley, Viscount

Peto, Basil Edward

TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Sir A. Acland-Hood and Mr. H. W. Forster.

Henderson, Major H. (Berks., Abingdon)

Pole-Carew, Sir R.

Main Question put accordingly, "That up to and including 13th April, Government
business shall have precedence at every Sitting."
The House divided: Ayes, 196; Noes, 118.

Division No. 14.]

AYES.

[1.27 a.m.

Abraham, William (Dublin Harbour)

Delany, William

Jones, Harry Haydn (Merioneth)

Acland, Francis Dyke

Denman, Hon. Richard Douglas

Jones, Leif Stratten (Notts, Rushcliffe)

Adamson, William

Devlin, Joseph

Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)

Addison, Dr. Christopher

Dillon, John

Joyce, Michael

Allen, Arthur A. (Dumbartonshire)

Doris, William

Keating, Matthew

Anderson, Andrew Macbeth

Duffy, William J.

Kellaway, Frederick George

Armitage, Robert

Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness)

Kelly, Edward

Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbert Henry

Edwards, Enoch (Hanley)

Kilbride, Denis

Baker, Harold T. (Accrington)

Edwards, John Hugh (Glamorgan, Mid)

King, Joseph (Somerset, North)

Balfour, Sir Robert (Lanark)

Elverston, Harold

Lardner, James Carrige Rushe

Barry, Redmond John (Tyrone, N.)

Esmonde, Dr. John (Tipperary, N.)

Law, Hugh A

Barton, William

Esmonde, Sir Thomas (Wexford, N.)

Lawson, Sir W. (Cumb'rld., Cockerm'th)

Beale, William Phipson

Essex, Richard Walter

Leach, Charles

Benn, W. W. (Tower Hamlets, S. Geo.)

Falconer, James

Levy, Sir Maurice

Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine

Ferens, T. R.

Logan, John William

Boland, John Plus

Ffrench, Peter

Lundon, Thomas

Booth, Frederick Handel

Fitzgibbon, John

Macdonald, J. Ramsay (Leicester)

Bowerman, Charles W.

Flavin, Michael Joseph

MacGhee, Richard

Boyle, Daniel (Mayo, N.)

Furness, Stephen

Maclean, Donald

Brocklehurst, W. B.

Golder, Sir William Alfred

Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

Burke, E. Haviland-

Gill, Alfred Henry

M'Callum, John M.

Burns, Rt. Hon. John

Goldstone, Frank

Markham, Arthur Basil

Cawley, Sir Frederick (Prestwich)

Gulland, John William

Marshall, Arthur Harold

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

Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway)

Mason, David M. (Coventry)

Chancellor, Henry George

Hackett, John

Mathias, Richard

Chapple, Dr. William Allen

Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)

Meagher, Michael

Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S.

Harmsworth, R. Leicester

Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.)

Clancy, John Joseph

Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, West)

Meehan, Patrick A. (Queen's Co.)

Clough, William

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

Molloy Michael

Clynes, J. R.

Haslam, James (Derbyshire)

Money, L. G. Chiezza

Collins, Godfrey P. (Greenock)

Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry

Mooney, John J.

Collins, Stephen (Lambeth)

Hayden, John Patrick

Munro, Robert

Condon, Thomas Joseph

Hayward, Evan

Murray, Capt. Hon. Arthur C.

Cerbett, A. Cameron

Helme, Norval Watson

Needham, Christopher T.

Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

Holt, Richard Durning

Nolan, Joseph

Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth)

Horne, C. Silvester (Ipswich)

Norman, Sir Henry

Crawshay-Willlams, Eliot

Hudson, Walter

Nugent, Sir Walter

Crumley, Patrick

Hughes, Spencer Leigh

O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

Cullinan, John

Hunter, William (Lanark, Govan)

O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

Dalziel, Sir James H. (Kirkcaldy)

Isaacs, Sir Rufus Daniel

O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

Davies, Timothy (Lincs, Louth)

Johnson, William

O'Doherty, Philip

Dawes, James Arthur

Jones, Edgar R. (Merthyr Tydvil)

O'Dowd, John

Ogden, Fred

Richardson, Thomas (Whitehaven)

Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)

O'Kelly, Edward P. (Wicklow, W.)

Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

Toulmin, George

O'Malley, William

Roberts, George H. (Norwich)

Trevelyan, Charles Philips

O'Neill, Dr. Charles (Armagh, S.)

Robertson, John M. (Tyneside)

Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander

O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

Robinson, Sidney

Verney, Sir Henry

O'Sullivan, Timothy

Roche, John (Galway, E.)

Wadsworth, John

Parker, James Halifax

Roe, Sir Thomas

Walton, Sir Joseph

Pearce, Robert (Staffs., Leek)

Rose, Sir Charles Day

Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent)

Pease, Rt. Hon. Joseph A. (Rotherham)

Rowlands, James

Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton)

Phillips, John (Longford, S.)

Rowntree, Arnold

Warner, Sir Thomas Courtenay

Pirie, Duncan V.

St. Maur, Harold

White, Sir George (Norfolk)

Pointer, Joseph

Scanlan, Thomas

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

Pollard, Sir George H.

Scott, A. M'Callum (Glasgow. Bridgeton)

White, Patrick (Meath, North)

Power, Patrick Joseph

Sheehy, David

Whitehouse, John Howard

Price C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)

Shortt, Edward

Whyte, A. F. (Perth)

Pringle, William M. R.

Simon, Sir John Allsebrook

Wilkie, Alexander

Radford, George Heynes

Smith, Albert (Lancs., Clitheroe)

Williamson, Sir Archibald

Raffan, Peter Wilson

Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.)

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

Rea, Rt. Hon. Russell (South Shields)

Soares, Ernest Joseph

Wilson, John (Durham, Mid)

Rea, Walter Russell (Scarborough)

Strauss, Edward A. (Southwark, West)

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

Reddy, Michael

Summers, James Wooley

Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

Redmond, John E. (Waterford)

Taylor, John W. (Durham)

Wood, T. M'Kinnon (Glasgow)

Redmond, William (Clare, E.)

Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

Redmond, William Archer (Tyrone, E.)

Tennant, Harold John

TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Master of Elibank and Mr. Illingworth.

NOES.

Anson, Sir William Reynell

Gilmour, Captain John

Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William

Archer-Shee, Major Martin

Goldney, Francis Bennett-

Paget, Almeric Hugh

Baird, John Lawrence

Goldsmith, Frank

Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington)

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

Gordon, John

Peto, Basil Edward

Baldwin, Stanley

Greene, Walter Raymond

Pickersgill, Edward Hare

Banbury, Sir Frederick George

Gretton, John

Pole-Carew, Sir R.

Barnston, Harry

Guinness, Hon. Walter Edward

Pollock, Ernest Murray

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

Haddock, George Bahr

Ratcliff, Major R. F.

Bonn, Ion Hamilton (Greenwich)

Hall, D. B. (Isle of Wight)

Rice, Hon. Walter Fitz-Uryan

Bigland, Alfred

Hambro, Angus Valdemar

Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)

Bird, Alfred

Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashford)

Royds, Edmund

Boscawen, Sackville T. Griffith-

Helmsley, Viscount

Rutherford, Watson (L'pool, W. Derby)

Boyle, W. Lewis (Norfolk, Mid)

Henderson, Major H. (Berks., Abingdon)

Sanders, Robert Arthur

Bridgeman, William Clive

Hillier, Dr. A. P.

Sanderson, Lancelot

Burdett-Coutts, William

Hohler, Gerald Fitzroy

Smith, Harold (Warrington)

Burgoyne, Alan Hughes

Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield)

Stanier, Beville

Burn, Col. C. R.

Horne, Wm. E. (Surrey, Guildford)

Stanley, Major Hon. George (Preston)

Carlile, Edward Hildred

Ingleby, Holcombe

Starkey, John Ralph

Cassel, Felix

Kebty-Fletcher, J. R.

Stewart Gershom

Castlereagh, Viscount

Kerry, Earl of

Talbot, Lord Edmund

Cator, John

Knight, Captain Eric Ayshford

Terrell, George (Wilts, N. W.)

Cautley, Henry Strother

Lane-Fox, G. R.

Thynne, Lord Alexander

Cecil, Lord Hugh (Oxford Univ.)

Lawson, Hon. H. (T. H'mts., Mile End)

Touche, George Alexander

Chaloner, Col. R. G. W.

Lewisham, Viscount

Tullibardine, Marquess of

Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. A. (Worc'r.)

Lloyd, George Ambrose

Walrond, Hon. Lionel

Chambers, James

Locker-Lampson, G. (Salisbury)

Wheler, Granville C. H.

Clive, Percy Archer

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

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

Cooper, Richard Ashmole

Long, Rt. Hon. Walter

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

Courthope, George Loyd

Mackinder, Halford J.

Willoughby, Major Hon. Claude

Craig, Captain James (Down, E.)

M'Calmont, Colonel James

Wolmer, Viscount

Craig, Norman (Kent, Thanet)

Malcolm, Ian

Wood, Hon. E. F. L. (Yorks, Ripon)

Crichton-Stuart, Lord Ninian

Martin, Joseph

Wood, John (Stalybridge)

Croft, Henry Page

Meysey-Thompson, E. C.

Worthington-Evans, L.

Dalrymple, Viscount

Mills, Hon. Charles Thomas

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

Dickson, Rt. Hon. C. S.

Moore, William

Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George

Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

Mount, William Arthur

Yate, Col. C. E.

Eyres-Monsell, Bolton M.

Neville, Reginald J. N.

Fell, Arthur

Newton, Harry Kottingham

TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Sir A. Acland-Hood and Mr. H. W. Forster.

Fetherstonhaugh, Godfrey

Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield)

Gastrell, Major W. Houghton

Norton-Griffiths, J.

Gibbs, George Abraham

Orde-Powlett, Hon. W. G. A.

Ordered, "That, up to and including 13th April, Government Business shall have precedence at every sitting."
And, it being after half-past Eleven of the clock on Thursday evening, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, according to Standing Order.
Adjourned at twenty-eight minutes before 2 a.m., Friday, 17th February.

  Soldier's Widow's Pension.
  Soldier's Widow's Pension.
  Fees of Pension Clerks.
  Fees of Pension Clerks.
  Pauper Pensioners.
  Pauper Pensioners.
  Claims for Income Tax Rebate.
  Claims for Income Tax Rebate.
  Valuations of Irish Agricultural Lands.
  Valuations of Irish Agricultural Lands.
  Financial Results of Land Valuation.
  Financial Results of Land Valuation.
  Grants by Road Board.
  Grants by Road Board.
  Irish Small Traders' Taxes.
  Irish Small Traders' Taxes.
  Estate Duty.
  Estate Duty.
  Old Age Pensions (Ireland).
  Old Age Pensions (Ireland).
  National Schools (Ireland).
  National Schools (Ireland).
  Untenanted Lands, County Tipperary.
  Untenanted Lands, County Tipperary.
  Feeding of Children in Schools Bill.
  Feeding of Children in Schools Bill.
  Irish Land Commission.
  Irish Land Commission.
  Labourers' Cottages, County Tyrone.
  Labourers' Cottages, County Tyrone.
  Reinstatement Application (Gurranes, Mallow).
  Reinstatement Application (Gurranes, Mallow).
  Drummond Estate, County Kerry.
  Drummond Estate, County Kerry.
  Pauper Lunatics (Ireland).
  Pauper Lunatics (Ireland).
  Royal Fleet Reserve (Canadian Navy).
  Royal Fleet Reserve (Canadian Navy).
  "Dreadnought" Docks in Great Britain and Germany.
  "Dreadnought" Docks in Great Britain and Germany.
  Motor Ambulance (Devonport).
  Motor Ambulance (Devonport).
  Tugs (Royal Navy).
  Tugs (Royal Navy).
  Death of Shipwright (Devonport).
  Death of Shipwright (Devonport).
  Warships (Great Britain and Germany).
  Warships (Great Britain and Germany).
  Royal Navy (Unused Stores).
  Royal Navy (Unused Stores).
  Maritime and International Law.
  Maritime and International Law.
  Royal Navy (Men Entered).
  Royal Navy (Men Entered).
  Coal Reserves (Royal Navy).
  Coal Reserves (Royal Navy).
  Army Reserve and Militia (Pension Claims).
  Army Reserve and Militia (Pension Claims).
  Special Reserve and Territorial Forces (Shortages).
  Special Reserve and Territorial Forces (Shortages).
  General Waldron's Case.
  General Waldron's Case.
  Army Officers and Aviation.
  Army Officers and Aviation.
  Proficiency Pay.
  Proficiency Pay.
  Sidney Street Attack.
  Sidney Street Attack.
  Pay of Adjutants.
  Pay of Adjutants.
  Standard Bread.
  Standard Bread.
  Canvas Shoes.
  Canvas Shoes.
  Muscat Arms Traffic.
  Muscat Arms Traffic.
  Pentonville Prison (Reduction of Sentences).
  Pentonville Prison (Reduction of Sentences).
  Elementary School Teachers.
  Elementary School Teachers.
  Medical Certificates (School Attendance).
  Medical Certificates (School Attendance).
  Madame Montessori's System of Education.
  Madame Montessori's System of Education.
  School Grants (Manchester and Leeds).
  School Grants (Manchester and Leeds).
  British Guiana.
  British Guiana.
  Canada and United States (Tariff Agreement),
  Canada and United States (Tariff Agreement),
  British Vice-Consul at Antung.
  British Vice-Consul at Antung.
  Teheran (Murder of Sain-ed-Dowleh).
  Teheran (Murder of Sain-ed-Dowleh).
  Trial of Fanit Bey (Egypt).
  Trial of Fanit Bey (Egypt).
  Foreign Fishing Vessels (Three-Mile Limit).
  Foreign Fishing Vessels (Three-Mile Limit).
  Telegraph Revenue and Expenditure.
  Telegraph Revenue and Expenditure.
  Carlow Telephone Service.
  Carlow Telephone Service.
  Gillingham Postal Accommodation.
  Gillingham Postal Accommodation.
  Post Office at Doonaha.
  Post Office at Doonaha.
  Telephone from Monaghan to Clones.
  Telephone from Monaghan to Clones.
  Meal Hours of Telegraph Messengers.
  Meal Hours of Telegraph Messengers.
  Telegraph Work on Railways.
  Telegraph Work on Railways.
  "Cost of Living" Classification.
  "Cost of Living" Classification.
  Vivisection (Report of Royal Commission).
  Vivisection (Report of Royal Commission).
  Committee on Public Accounts.
  Committee on Public Accounts.
  Grants to Highway Authorities.
  Grants to Highway Authorities.
  Boarding Out Pauper Children.
  Boarding Out Pauper Children.
  Labourers' Dwellings.
  Labourers' Dwellings.
  Furious Motoring.
  Furious Motoring.
  Railway Amalgamation and Agreements.
  Railway Amalgamation and Agreements.
  Cardwell Bay (Greenock) Reclamation.
  Cardwell Bay (Greenock) Reclamation.
  Portstewart Station, County Antrim (Midland Railway).
  Portstewart Station, County Antrim (Midland Railway).
  Report on Wages, &c. (United States of America).
  Report on Wages, &c. (United States of America).
  Great Southern and Western Railway, Ireland.
  Great Southern and Western Railway, Ireland.
  Buckingham Palace.
  Buckingham Palace.
  New Post Office, Bolton.
  New Post Office, Bolton.
  House of Commons (Ventilation).
  House of Commons (Ventilation).
  Foreign Hops.
  Foreign Hops.
  Joint Stock Banks (Board of Agriculture).
  Joint Stock Banks (Board of Agriculture).
  Sugar Beet Production.
  Sugar Beet Production.
  Afforestation.
  Afforestation.
  Small Holdings in North Riding.
  Small Holdings in North Riding.
  Vaccination in Scotland.
  Vaccination in Scotland.
  School Teachers (Scotland) Superannuation.
  School Teachers (Scotland) Superannuation.

Preamble
Several Lords;—Took the Oath.
The LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House, That the Clerk of the:Parliaments had laid upon the Table the Certificates from the Examiners that the further Standing Orders applicable to the following Bills have been complied with:

Alexandra (Newport and South Wales) Docks and Railway. [H.L.]

Ashborne and District Gas. [H.L.]

Cardiff Railway. [H.L.]

Chesham and District Gas. [H.L.]

Lloyds. [H.L.]

London, Brighton and South Coast Railway. [H.L.]

London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (Steam Vessels). [H.L.]

London Cemetery Company. [H.L.]

London and South-Western Railway. [H.L.]

Luton Gas. [H.L.]

Luton Water. [H.L.]

90

Penllwyn Railway. [H.L.]

Sidmouth Gas and Electricity. [H.L.]

Star Life Assurance Society. [H.L.]

The same were ordered to lie on the Table.

RIGHTS OF WAY BILL. [H.L.]
A Bill to amend the Law relating to Public Rights of Way—Was presented by the Lord Eversley; read 1a, and to be printed. (No. 15.)

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (EARL BEAUCHAMP): My Lords, as there is no business on the Paper for Monday, I beg to move that the House do adjourn, except for Judicial business, until Tuesday next.
Moved, that the House do adjourn, except for Judicial business, until Tuesday next.—(Earl Beauchamp.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House adjourned at half-past Four o'clock, till To-morrow, half-past Ten o'clock.