Sitting of 12 July 1911

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

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Sidmouth Gas and Electricity Bill [Lords],
Read the third time, and passed, with Amendments.
London and South-Western Railway Bill [Lords], (by Order),
Third Reading deferred till Friday.
Land Drainage Provisional Order (No. 3) Bill,
Read the third time, and passed.
Severn Fisheries Provisional Order Bill,
As amended, considered; to be read the third time To-morrow.
North British Railway (Superannuation Fund, etc.) Order Confirmation Bill [Lords] (by Order),
Consideration deferred till Monday next.
Corporation of London (Bridges) (Recommitted) Bill,
Reported, without Amendment; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
Bill to be read the third time.
Saint Helens Corporation Bill,
Reported, with Amendments, from the Local Legislation Committee (Section B); Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
Chiswick Urban District Council Bill,
Reported, with Amendments, from the Local Legislation Committee (Section A); Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
That they have agreed to:—
Merchant Shipping (Seamen's Allotment) Bill,
Public Libraries (Ireland) Bill, without Amendment,
Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 1) Bill,
Dunfermline Burgh Extension and Drainage Bill,
Milford Docks Bill,
Metropolitan Railway Bill, with Amendments.
That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to provide for the granting of superannuation allowances to the officers and pensions to the servants of the council of the metropolitan borough of Paddington; and for other purposes."—[Paddington Borough Council (Superannuation and Pensions) Bill [Lords.]
And, also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to provide for the granting of superannuation allowances to the officers and pensions to the servants of the council of the metropolitan borough of Poplar; and for other purposes." —[Poplar Borough Council (Superannuation and Pensions) Bill [Lords.]
Paddington Borough Council (Superannuation and Pensions) Bill [Lords],
Poplar Borough Council (Superannuation and Pensions) Bill [Lords],
Read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 1) Bill,
Lords Amendments to be considered To-morrow.

TRADE UNIONS.
Address for "Return of the Injunctions granted by the Chancery Division of the Supreme Court of Judicature against Trade Unions since the date of the House of Lords judgment in the case of Osborne v. The Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants."—[Mr. Mitchell-Thomson.]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.

  Battleships ("Dreadnought" type).
  Mr. BURGOYNEasked the First Lord of the Admiralty at what period only battleships built since the "Dreadnought" will be regarded as effective; and what preponderance in this type of vessel over any possible combination of Powers is regarded as necessary for our sea supremacy by the Board of Admiralty?
  The FIRST LORD of the ADMIRALTY (Mr. McKenna): The dates when the battleships built prior to the "Dreadnought" will become ineffective will be a matter for the consideration of the Admiralty in future years. They depend on many circumstances that cannot be foreseen at the present time. The number of vessels of the "Dreadnought" and later types of vessels considered necessary by the Board of Admiralty to maintain our sea supremacy is indicated each year by the provision for new construction made in the Navy Estimates.
  Mr. BURGOYNEasked the First Lord of the Admiralty, whether he can now give details as to the displacement, horsepower, speed, and armament of the vessels of the "Orion" and "Lion" types?
  Mr. McKENNA: It is undesirable at present to furnish the information for which the hon. Member asks.

  Protected Cruisers.
  Mr. ASHLEYasked how many protected cruisers, not including unprotected cruisers or vessels of other classes, have been launched for the British and German Navies, respectively, since the beginning of 1907?
  Mr. McKENNA: Nine protected cruisers have been launched for the British Navy since the beginning of 1907. This figure does not include five unarmoured vessels of the "Boadicea" type. Nine protected cruisers have been launched for the German Navy since the same date.
  Mr. ASHLEY: Is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied with that comparison of strength?
  Mr. McKENNA: No, sir; the hon. Gentleman must not suppose that these figures exhaust the strength of the respective countries.

  Portsmouth Dockyard Factory.
  Mr. POINTERasked whether men who were taken on three months ago at the new factory, Portsmouth Dockyard, at a promise of five months' employment, are now being discharged owing to the work having been completed earlier through the adoption of the premium bonus system and double shifts; and, if so, whether work will be found for the men at least for the period promised?
  Mr. McKENNA: The men in question were informed when engaged that their
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  employment would be temporary, but no promise was made as to the time the employment would last beyond an assurance of three months. The men are now being discharged because the work for which they were engaged has been completed, but that event has not occurred earlier than was anticipated.

  Cruisers and Torpedo Vessels.
  Mr. MIDDLEMOREasked whether His Majesty's ships "Blake," "Blenheim," and "St. George," are classified in the official Navy List as protected cruisers, first class, and that in the Admiralty Return of fleets of May 1911 these vessels are not included with cruisers, but with torpedo vessels; and whether he will explain how this divergence of classification has arisen.
  Mr. McKENNA: Pages 270d and 270e in the Navy List are intended to show the type according to which the vessel was constructed; the Dickinson Return shows the service for which these vessels are at present appropriated, and also shows the type in column 1.
  Mr. MIDDLEMORE: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that is misleading and elusive?
  Mr. McKENNA: No, Sir. On the contrary, in each case the type of the vessel is clearly explained. In the Navy List on that particular page the service of the vessel is not given; the service of the vessel will be found on other pages. In the Dickinson Return both type and service are given on the same page.

  Battleships and Cruisers (Home Waters).
  Mr. MIDDLEMOREasked how many British battleships in full commission are in Home waters; and how many protected cruisers there are attached to these vessels?
  Mr. McKENNA: The numbers are twenty-two and five respectively. There will be six protected cruisers when the "Falmouth" joins the Second Division next month. These figures do not include vessels temporarily in full commission for exercises, or vessels attached to destroyer flotillas.
  Mr. MIDDLEMORE: Is that considered entirely satisfactory?
  Mr. McKENNA: Yes, sir, it is eminently a matter on which I have taken naval advice, and I am informed it is quite satisfactory.
  Mr. MIDDLEMOREasked what is laid down by the Admiralty as the numerical proportion of cruisers to existing battleships (excluding battleship-cruisers) to meet any reasonably possible combination of foreign Powers?
  Mr. McKENNA: It is not possible to lay down any such proportion as the hon. Member suggests. The number of battleships and cruisers must be determined by their probable requirements in war independently of each other.

  Disabled Destroyers.
  Mr. MIDDLEMOREasked whether, in view of the fact that not less than six disabled destroyers have recently put into Portland, he will state what were the causes of their disablement; whether these destroyers were almost new; and whether he will consider the advisability of giving a greater margin of safety by the provision of increased numbers of these vessels?
  Mr. McKENNA: The vessels are under examination, and the official report has not yet been received
  Mr. MIDDLEMORE: Will that be shortly?
  Mr. McKENNA: The vessels are now being examined and as soon as that is over we shall have the official report.

  Fair-Wages Clause (Dowlais Ironworks).
  Mr. KEIR HARDIEasked whether the moulders now on strike for fair wages and conditions of employment at Dowlais were engaged for some part of their time each week in making castings in connection with the Admiralty order for steel plates placed with the firm of Messrs. Guest, Keen, and Nettlefold, and that the wages paid these men ranged from 25 per cent, to 50 per cent, under the rates paid for similar work in the district; and what action he proposes taking to secure compliance with the fair wages clause as it affects these men, without which there may be serious delay in carrying out the contract?
  Mr. McKENNA: As already stated, there is no Admiralty work in hand at Dowlais, but steel plates are made by this firm for the Admiralty in the works at Cardiff. I understand the hon. Member's question to mean that some castings of the working parts for the firm's general plant at the Cardiff works may be cast at Dowlais; I concur in the view expressed by the "Under-Secretary of State for India in his
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  reply on a similar point on Thursday last, and I am prepared to join with him in submitting the point for interpretation by the Fair-Wages Committee.
  Mr. KEIR HARDIEasked the Undersecretary of State for India whether he is now in a position to state the result of his inquiries into the rates of pay to workmen engaged in connection with the Government contract for rails at Dowlais ironworks; and what action he proposes to take to secure the proper observance of the Fair-Wages Clause attached to this contract?
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Trevelyan): I am afraid I must ask my hon. Friend to postpone his question for a week. The Secretary of State has sent the Director-General of Stores to Dowlais, and he is now conducting an inquiry on the spot. No avoidable delay will be allowed to occur, but I am sure my hon. Friend will agree with me that it is desirable that the inquiry should be a thorough one.
  Mr. KEIR HARDIE: Meanwhile, may I ask whether the Director-General who has gone down to examine the books will examine them for this year, and not merely for last week?
  Mr. TREVELYAN: I will communicate with my hon. Friend.

  Indentured Coolies (Mauritius).
  Mr. KINGasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that the indentured coolies in Mauritius complain of pressure being put upon them by the employers of the sugar estates towards, the close of their term, in order to induce them to reindenture, and that in some cases discharge tickets have been refused to the coolies on application at the end of their term whereby they are forced into a renewal of their contracts; and whether he will instruct the governor to report on this subject?
  The SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Mr. Harcourt):No such complaints have reached me, but I will ask the officer administering the Government to report on the subject.
  Mr. KINGasked whether, in view of the observations of Lord Sanderson's Committee on the unnecessary and excessive recourse to the penal provisions of the law regulating coolie labour in Mauritius, he

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  will advise the repeal of such penal provisions for mere simple breaches of contract?
  Mr. HARCOURT: It appears from the observations to which my hon. Friend refers that the trouble is limited to a few estates only. I have no doubt that the remarks of the Committee will receive careful attention from the Government of Mauritius, and that the Government will consider how the evil of excessive and unnecessary prosecutions can best be checked, whether by amendment of the Labour Ordinance or by some other means such as those suggested by the Committee. I will send to the officer administering the Government a copy of my hon. Friend's question and this reply, in order that the matter may not be lost sight of.
  Sir WILLIAM BYLES: When will the Colonial Office Vote be taken.
  Mr. HARCOURT: It is our intention to take it to-morrow week.

  Trial of Hon. Galbraith Cole.
  Mr. EDMUND HARVEYasked the Secretary for the Colonies whether his attention has been called to the trial at the Nakuru High Court Sessions of the Honourable Galbraith Cole for shooting and killing a native suspected of sheep stealing; and whether he will publish as a White Paper the observations and report of the judge and the report of the Governor on the trial?
  Mr. HARCOURT: Yes, Sir. The Governor of the East Africa Protectorate is sending a full report on the matter, and pending the receipt of his dispatch, I think it would be premature to make any statement.

  NATIONAL INSURANCE BILL.

    MATERNITY ORDERS.
    Mr. CROOKSasked the President of the Local Government Board whether he can obtain for the information of the House the number of maternity orders giving the right to free attendance by a medical man from the various hospitals maintained by voluntary contributions in London?
    The PRESIDENT of the LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. Burns): I understand that in the year 1909, 5,134 confinements occurred in London in lying-in hospitals, and 24,873 in connection with
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    free hospital maternity charities at home. Total, 30,007. Assuming one birth to a confinement, this implies that about 25.4 per cent, of the total births in London were gratuitously attended in connection with these charities.
    Mr. CROOKSasked if the right hon. Gentleman will state the number of maternity orders issued by the several boards of guardians, one in London, two in the provinces, three in Wales, differentiating between institution and home attendance of the medical officer?
    Mr. BURNS: According to the latest returns, 3,125 cases were admitted to maternity wards of London workhouses and infirmaries during the year 1910. The number of midwifery orders given to district medical officers was 1,265, and to midwifery nurses appointed by guardians 329. I am not able to give corresponding figures for the rest of the country.

    HEALTH COMMITTEES.
    Mr. HASTINGS DUNCANasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether health committees appointed under Clause 14 of the National Insurance Bill to administer medical benefit may include medical men practising homoeopathy in their list of qualified medical practitioners?
    The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Lloyd George): The answer is in the affirmative.

    INSURANCE OF DEMENTED PERSONS.
    Major HENDERSONasked whether, under the insurance scheme, in the event of an insured person becoming demented and detained in a public institution, the whole of his invalidity money will be paid to his dependents without deduction?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: In the circumstances described the disablement benefit would be paid to or applied in whole or in part for the relief or maintenance of the dependents of the insured person as the society or committee by which the benefit is administered think fit. No part would be payable to the institution, but the dependents would have no absolute right to the whole.

    CONVICTS' CONTRIBUTIONS.
    MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINEasked (1) in what manner will the contributions due from prisoners and convicts be dealt with under the National Insurance Bill;

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    and (2) whether the Government, as the employer of convicts and prisoners, will pay 26s. per annum per head of prison inmates in the same manner as the trustees or governors of homes of refuge?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: A prisoner or convict, since he is under no contract of service, has not as such any right to be an insured person. An employed contributor, whose employment is interrupted by a period of imprisonment, will fall into arrears for that period, and will be entitled to the same privileges in respect of the arrears as if they had been attributable to loss of employment on any other ground.
    MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE: Am I to understand that a prisoner who, say, after a month's imprisonment, goes sick, is to be entitled to sick benefit without employer's contribution, and is thus to get his benefits for a smaller premium than the honest man, while trustees of charities are to be forced to pay contributions of both employer and employed?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: The Noble Lord is entirely wrong. If a man is in arrear for a month he is in arrear beyond the time allowed for arrears in the Bill, and there will be an abatement.
    MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE: Is the fact that he has been in prison to be shown on his insurance card, and thus advertise the fact wherever he may want to get employment?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: He will advertise the fact that there is a gap. That is inevitable. But if he chooses he can fill it up by paying the arrears.
    Mr. JAMES HOPE: How long will a prisoner be considered to be an unemployed person—will he be so treated if he is in prison twelve months?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: That question was discussed for two hours the other day. I can hardy be expected to deal with it in answer to a question.

    GOVERNMENT AMENDMENTS,
    Mr. FELLasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he will print the Amendments to the National Insurance Bill he proposes to move and on which the discussion now proceeding so largely depends?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: The hon. Member will find certain proposals of the Government already printed as Amendments to Clauses 14, 41, 42, 43. I will have all Government Amendments printed as early as practicable.
    Mr. FELL: Can the right hon. Gentleman put down the Amendments to Clause 51 at once?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I quite agree it is desirable to put these Amendments down as soon as possible. I will see that they are put down either to-night or to-morrow.
    Mr. C. BATHURST: In view of the importance of the matter and the general interest in it, will the right hon. Gentleman put down his new Clause with regard to temporary sickness as soon as possible?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: This, as the hon. Gentleman knows, is a very debatable matter, and I have invited an expression of opinion before the Clause is framed. I think the hon. Gentleman has our suggestions in his own possession.
    Mr. C. BATHURST: No.
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I am sorry, but they are available. I should rather like, before I put down the Clause finally, to have the opinions of hon. Members specially interested.
    Mr. C. BATHURST: And when they are forthcoming, will the right hon. Gentleman take steps to make them public?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: Certainly.

    IRISH AMENDMENTS.
    Mr. GINNELLasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will have all agreed Irish Amendments to the National Insurance Bill printed on the Order Paper as soon as possible, so that representative bodies in Ireland may have reasonable time for considering them before discussion of them in Committee of this House?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I will have all Government Amendments printed as early as practicable.

    AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS' CONTRIBUTIONS.
    Mr. O'SHAUGHNESSY: On a point of Order. I wish to point out that I had on the Paper a question yesterday addressed to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and in the ordinary course I should have received

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    a reply this morning. I have received neither a reply nor a notification of its postponement. May I ask why?
    Mr. SPEAKER: The lion. Member had better ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer?
    Mr. O'SHAUGHNESSY: I will now put the question to the right hon. Gentleman. It is if he can say, in the case of an agricultural labourer, an insured person receiving 9s. a week with board from his employer, but not lodging, what will be the amount of sickness benefit per week he will be entitled to for the first thirteen weeks of his illness?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: It will depend on the value of the board. I should like some sort of estimate of that value before I can answer the question.
    Mr. O'SHAUGHNESSY: On what basis is it intended that the value of the board shall be calculated? If the right hon. Gentleman cannot answer that will the right hon. Gentleman see that before the Bill passes into law the basis shall be established?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I do not think a universal basis can be established. It depends on the standard of living in the particular part of the country. The value of board is higher in some districts than in others, and that must be left largely to the judgment of the authorities in the particular district to decide what the standard of life is.
    Mr. O'SHAUGHNESSY: Will the calculation have to be made by regulation by the Insurance Commissioners or by the local health committee or by the friendly societies?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: The hon. Member had better give notice of that question.

  Banbury Workhouse (H. Hugget's Case).
  Mr. FIENNESasked whether a man named H. Hugget was taken into the Banbury Workhouse and treated in the infirmary and then discharged; whether a few days later he again presented himself for admittance to the infirmary, when he was put into the tramps' ward and kept there three days, then by the instruction of the master he was ordered to the body of the house, after three days he was admitted to the infirmary where he died in forty-eight hours; and, if so, whether an inquiry can be held into the case?
  Mr. BURNS: On the case coming to my notice I caused inquiry to be made. I find that the man, a single man and an organ-grinder, was in the Banbury Infirmary from the end of December till some time in February. He then took his discharge against the advice of the medical officer. He was readmitted to the workhouse eight days later, and was at first placed in the tramp ward, where he was visited daily by the medical officer, who did not consider him ill enough to be placed in the infirmary, and on the third day was sent by the medical officer to the body of the house. On seeing him again a few days later he found serious symptoms and ordered his immediate removal to the infirmary. There may have been an error of judgment on the part of the medical officer, but the information before me does not suggest that there was any wilful negligence in the matter on the part of any of the workhouse staff.

  Swansea Case (House of Lords' Judgment).
  Mr. KINGasked the President of the Board of Education whether he has been made aware that many local education authorities have been perplexed by the judgment of the House of Lords in the Swansea case; and whether, in view of the prevailing misconception of the issue decided in that case, he will issue to all local education authorities a circular letter pointing out that the court expressly held that differentiation in treatment between schools in the same area is perfectly legal if justified on adequate grounds?
  The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Runciman): I have received no communication on the subject from any local education authority except the authority immediately concerned. It does not, therefore, appear that any occasion has arisen for the issue of a circular to local education authorities.
  Mr. KING: Is it possible to obtain information otherwise than by direct communication when such perplexity and uncertainty does actually arise?
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: I think the finding of the House of Lords is quite clear.

  School Children (Medical Inspection).
  Mr. WEDGWOODasked whether it is the practice of medical inspectors of school children to make recommendations on the medical card of each child as to treatment

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  or care and whether the inspectors of different authorities differ in practice on this point?
  Mr. RUNCIMAN:In most cases the defect is referred to the parent in a special note. There are so many varieties of practice that it is impossible to deal with them in an oral answer. My hon. Friend will find much information on this point in the latest report of the chief medical officer of the Board.
  Mr. WEDGWOOD: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether the schools under the London County Council are worse than those in the rest of the country?
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: Quite recently I have had to criticise the methods adopted by the London County Council, and I see there are considerable improvements now in progress by that council and the medical officers.
  Mr. WEDGWOODasked whether he can say how many schools on the average are allotted to one London County Council medical inspector for inspection; how many visits and how many hours a year on the average a medical inspector in the London area gives to each school; and how many children of each school he inspects individually at each visit?
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: So far as I can ascertain from the information at present at my disposal I think the answer to the first part of the question is 9.2; but I cannot pretend to an accurate knowledge from month to month of the precise ways in which the various medical inspectors of local education authorities are employed. The actual number of visits per school and the number of hours spent in each school naturally varies with the number of children in average attendance. No general conclusions could properly be drawn from the averages suggested in the question, which are misleading, unless account is taken of the varying sizes of the schools. The number of children inspected at each visit appears to be, in the case of the older children, about twenty to twenty-five, and more in the case of infants. A visit extends over two-and-a-half hours.
  Mr. WEDGWOOD: Would it be possible to get these doctors when they make up the card of the children to make their notes on them intelligibly, and not write them in Latin?

  Indian Collections.
  Colonel YATEasked if the right hon. Gentleman can state what has been the result of his reference to his colleagues of the proposals that the various scattered Indian collections should be brought together under one roof; and what steps have been or are going to be taken in the matter?
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: I am afraid I can add nothing to the answer I gave to the hon. Member on the 5th instant.
  Colonel YATE: Does that mean that no action has been taken?
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: No, it does not mean that. If the hon. and gallant Gentleman wishes to know what action has been taken I shall be glad to give him a full answer. I have already informed him that we have extended the area considerably and added more accommodation. We cannot bring all these collections under one roof without having a new building.
  Colonel YATE: Have any steps been taken to get a new building?
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: None at present.

  Education (Choice of Employment) Act.
  Mr. KINGasked whether the right hon. Gentleman has received resolutions passed at a conference held on 27th June in Liverpool, when representatives of local education authorities protested against having to deal with any Government. Department except the Board of Education in administering the Education (Choice of Employment) Act and, if so, what answer has been given?
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: A copy of the Resolutions reached me yesterday, and I have not yet been able to give them adequate consideration. No reply has yet been sent.
  Mr. KINGasked whether the right hon. Gentleman will state what statutory sanction exists for the conditions laid down in the joint memorandum, dated 3rd January, 1911, signed by the Presidents of the Board of Trade and the Board of Education, issued in connection with the Education (Choice of Employment) Act; and whether the memorandum has evoked any protests from local authorities?
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: I must ask my Friend to give me some further notice of this question, which affects another Depart-

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  ment besides my own. Perhaps he will kindly postpone the question till tomorrow, at any rate.
  Mr. KING: I beg to give notice that I shall draw attention to this matter at the earliest possible opportunity, and I will repeat the question next week.

  School Accommodation (Marylebone).
  Mr. KINGasked whether the right hon. Gentleman is aware that an inquiry was held in October, 1909, into the need of a new school to replace the Portland School, Marylebone, and that as a result it was decided by the Board that a new school of approximately the same size in the same position was required; whether the Board of Education has receded from the position then taken; whether there is adequate accommodation in non-provided schools for the children in that district; whether further delay in providing proper educational facilities will be permitted; and whether, in order to secure that a site may be obtained, he will inform the local education authority for London that action must be taken forthwith?
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative and to the second in the negative. As regards the third part of the question I have no reason to suppose that children whoso parents desire them to attend non-provided schools are unable to obtain admission for them. With regard to the rest of the question, I must refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave to a similar question on 29th May.
  Mr. KING: Has the right hon. Gentleman read the report of the inquiry which was held in 1909, and does that not afford sufficient evidence to show that there were then a large number of people desiring non-provided school accommodation in that district?.
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: Yes, I have seen that report and I have considered the matter very carefully, but I am afraid I cannot press the London County Council to take any further action at present.

  Teachers' Salaries.
  Mr. GOLDSTONEasked whether the right hon. Gentleman's attention has been drawn to the practice of certain education authorities of reducing the salary of teachers when for reasons over which the teachers themselves have no control the number of children attending their schools
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  diminishes; and whether the Board is considering the matter, and has made any recommendations upon it?
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: I must refer the hon. Member to the answers I gave on the 17th and 31st May to the hon. Member for the Wilton Division of Wiltshire.

  Labour Exchanges (Lancashire).
  Mr. TYSON WILSONasked the President of the Board of Trade if he could state the number of persons that obtained employment through the Labour Exchanges in Lancashire during the months of February and May this year, giving the number for each month and each exchange separately?
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Tennant): The numbers of vacancies filled by the Labour Exchanges in Lancashire during the periods of four weeks ending 24th February and 26th May were 5,910 and 7,734 respectively; in addition 824 persons in February and 668 in May were placed in casual employment.

  Shipping Strike (Effect on Clyde).
  Mr. DUNDAS WHITEasked whether the right hon. Gentleman is in a position, to make any statement with reference to the shipping strike as it affects the Clyde; and whether it has been possible for him to take any steps to promote a settlement of the dispute?
  Mr. TENNANT: I am afraid I cannot say more than that the Board of Trade are closely watching developments in the shipping dispute on the Clyde and elsewhere.
  Mr. DUNDAS WHITEasked whether the right hon. Gentleman's attention has been called to suggestions that in the course of the shipping strike various Home-trade ships have been permitted to sail from the Clyde insufficiently manned; whether any specific instances have been brought to his notice; and, if so, whether investigations have been made, and with what results?
  Mr. TENNANT: Only two cases have been brought to my notice in which it was alleged that Home-trade vessels have left the Clyde insufficiently manned. Investigations were made and it was found in each case that the manning was adequate.

  Census (Preliminary Report).
  Colonel YATEasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that the Preliminary Report of the Census, recently issued, as shown in Table XI., page 116, returns an excess of women over men in the United Kingdom of no less than 1,330,899; and whether, under these circumstances, he will consider the question of giving some special encouragement to the emigration of women from the United Kingdom to the British dominions over the seas, in all of which the number of men largely exceeds that of women?
  Mr. BURNS: My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has asked me to reply to this question. I am aware of the excess of females over males in the population of the United Kingdom. Female immigrants are, I understand, welcomed in many parts of the Empire, and I do not consider that it is necessary for the British Government to offer any special encouragement to female emigration.

  Small Holdings.
  Viscount WOLMERasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture whether he will request all county councils to issue returns showing how many small holdings have been allotted to bonâ fide agricultural labourers under the Small Holdings Act, 1908, and how many persons having other businesses?
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of AGRICULTURE (Sir Edward Strachey): The preparation of such a return would entail a considerable amount of work on county councils, but I will ask them to adopt the Noble Lord's suggestion in their annual returns for this year. There is no limitation in the Act of the class of persons entitled to small holdings.
  Sir GILBERT PARKER: Has the Board of Agriculture power to require county councils to do this, or have they to trust to the willingness of county councils to do it?
  Sir E. STRACHEY: I should think the Board certainly have that power, but we have never found it necessary to do anything more than ask the county councils to assist in carrying out the Act. I have no doubt they will be quite ready to assist us in this matter.
  Viscount WOLMER: Does the hon. Baronet not think that the information asked for would be exceedingly useful in judging these cases?
  Sir E. STRACHEY: Yes. If it did not think the information would be useful I should not ask the county councils to furnish it.
  Mr. HAMERSLEY: When the hon. Baronet asks the county councils to give-that information does he not think they should be asked to give details as to how many agricultural labourers have given up their small holdings since they were allotted to them?
  Sir E. STRACHEY: I will consider that point.
  Mr. HAMERSLEY: And the reason for giving them up?
  Viscount WOLMERasked how many county councils have issued Returns showing how many bonâ fide agricultural labourers have been allotted small holdings under the Small Holdings Act, 1908, and how many small holdings have been allotted to persons having other businesses; and whether he will state what is the total number of each of those classes-as shown by these available statistics?
  Sir E. STRACHEY: No county councils-have made such returns to the Board.
  Viscount WOLMER: There are the official returns.
  Sir E. STRACHEY: We have had no official returns lately, but I will inquire into the matter.
  Viscount WOLMERasked why, in view of the fact that the Small Holdings Commissioners in their Report for 1910 [Cd. 5,615] state that in another two years practically the whole of the present demand for small holdings will be satisfied, six additional commissioners have been appointed at an annual cost of £4,800; and whether he anticipates that the future demand for small holdings will necessitate four times as many commissioners as have been hitherto adequate, and, if so, why?
  Sir E. STRACHEY: The statement in the Report refers to the position at the end of 1910. Since then a large number of additional applications have been received. I am satisfied that the staff now at the Board's disposal will be no more than, sufficient for the work to be done.

  Foot-and-Mouth Disease (Recent Outbreaks).
  Mr. CHARLES BATHURSTasked what is the nature of the connection which is deemed by the veterinary advisers of the Board to exist between, the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease at Bland's Farm, Hounslow, and the more recent outbreak of the same disease at Church Farm, Harlington; and whether the cause of the outbreak has in either case been traced, and, if so, what is it?
  Sir E. STRACHEY: The veterinary advisers of the Board are of opinion that the disease was carried by some person from one farm to the other. The answer to the latter part of the question is in the negative in the first two outbreaks.
  Mr. CHARLES BATHURST: Is it known for certain who this person was, or is it merely a matter of conjecture?
  Sir E. STRACHEY: It must always necessarily be a matter of conjecture in the case of infection, but there is good reason to believe it was conveyed by some person going directly from one farm to the other?
  Mr. C. BATHURST: Has there been any further outbreak since the hon. Gentleman last spoke on the subject, and has there boon any alteration in the precautions to be observed?
  Sir E. STRACHEY: There has been no further outbreak up to this moment, and the question of isolation areas is under consideration. I think the hon. Gentleman will see it is very desirable we should move with great caution in the matter.
  Mr. O'SHAUGHNESSY: Can the hon. Gentleman say in what way the disease was conveyed by this person from one farm to the other? Was it by means of hay or straw?
  Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. member ought to give notice of that question. It does not directly arise here.

  Telephone Transfer Bill.
  Mr. CROFTasked the Postmaster-General whether the contract managers and agents of the National Telephone Company will be placed on the established staff of the Post Office?
  The POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Herbert Samuel): This subject is receiving consideration, but I am unable to-day to make any definite statement.

  India and Ceylon (Railway Communication).
  Colonel YATEasked the Under Secretary of State for India whether, in consideration of the fact that railway connection between India and Ceylon will probably be effected in the course of next year and that, as far as Ceylon is concerned, it is expected that the line will pay its way from the first, he will state whether there is an early prospect of the standard gauge, five feet six inches, of India being brought down to link up with the same gauge in Ceylon?
  Mr. TREVELYAN: I have been asked by my hon. Friend to answer this question. No, Sir. At present the metre gauge line of the South Indian Railway is being completed to Danishkodi on Rameswaram Island. From that point there will be a ferry connection with the Ceylon Railway system at Manaar. There is no immediate intention of constructing a railway between Danishkodi and Manaar.

  Indian Police (Pensions).
  Colonel YATEasked whether any communication has yet been received from the Government of India regarding the assimilation of the pensions of officers of the Indian police and those enjoyed by officers of the Indian public works, telegraph, and forest services?
  Mr. TREVELYAN: The Government of India have been asked to accelerate the course of the inquiry which is a necessary preliminary to definite recommendations.

  Indian Civil Service.
  Sir HENRY CRAIKasked whether any reason exists to justify the difference between the rates of pay in the Punjab and those for corresponding posts in other provinces; whether the Secretary of State is aware that complaints have been made of this difference; and whether he would be prepared to consider any representation of the Government of India on the matter?
  Mr. TREVELYAN: The scales of pay of the Indian Civil Service in the several provinces have been from time to time determined in accordance with local conditions. The Secretary of State is not aware of any complaints from members of the Service in the Punjab, but will give full consideration to any representation that the Government of India may make.

  Private Entertainments on Licensed Premises (Kingstown, Ireland).
  Mr. COTTONasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether he is aware that on Friday, 5th May, Mr. White, a licensed trader, carrying on business at 70, Lower George's Street, Kingstown, notified the superintendent of police that he intended entertaining some friends on the following Sunday, that he was told by the superintendent that he might do so, and that notwithstanding this fact he was visited on four different occasions by a police sergeant, a station sergeant, and a constable, who, on two occasions, went upstairs into his private room, and on the occasion of the final visit took down the names and addresses of the guests; whether Mr. White has since been informed that there will be no prosecution; and, if so, will he state whether this decision was the result of an investigation upon the part of the superintendent, commissioner, or commissioners of police; and if any steps will be taken to prevent in future such interference with the ordinary privacy of members of the licensed trade?
  Mr. ILLINGWORTH (Lord of the Treasury): Perhaps the hon. Member will permit mo to reply: Mr. White did notify the police as stated. The police in the ordinary course of their duty visited the premises three times—such visits are paid to hotels and other licensed premises when entertainments are being given. The matter was reported to the Commissioner of Police, who decided that there was nothing unusual in this case, and no summons was therefore issued.

  Land Purchase (Ireland).
  Mr. GINNELLasked the number of estates in the Land Judge's Court which the Estates Commissioners, after inspection, offered to purchase, and which the Land Judge refused to sell at their price; the amount in excess of value required by the court in each case; and the number of tenants thus denied the benefits of the Land Purchase Acts?
  Mr. ILLINGWORTH: The Estates Commissioners inform me that the Land Judge has refused their offer for four properties on which there were twenty-one tenants in all. The Commissioners are not aware at what prices the Land Judge may have sold these properties.
  Mr. GINNELLasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland at what date the Nugent estate at Multyfarnham, Westmeath, was
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  taken over by the Land Judge's Court for sale; whether he is aware that two tenants on this estate have been imprisoned for attempting to purchase their holdings at the value in the manner provided by Parliament, and that forty of their neighbours are threatened with imprisonment for sympathising with them; and whether he can see his way to have the compulsory powers of the Land Act of 1900 applied to the remnant of this estate still unsold?
  Mr. ILLINGWORTH: The petition for sale of Sir Walter Nugent's estate was presented on the 3rd August, 1881. Two tenants on the estate were imprisoned for contempt of court for retaking forcible possession of their holdings after they had been evicted for non-payment of rent. It is not a fact that forty persons are threatened with imprisonment for sympathising with these prisoners. The Estates Commissioners do not propose to institute proceedings for the compulsory acquisition of these lands.
  Mr. GINNELL: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that all the tenants desire to purchase at a value to be ascertained by the Estates Commissioners?
  Mr. ILLINGWORTH: I will inquire into that.

  National Schools (Ireland).
  Mr. GINNELLasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland, having regard to the interest of teachers, managers, and the general public in the treatment of junior assistant mistresses in national schools, if he can now state the terms or effect of the new rule adopted regarding them?
  Mr. ILLINGWORTH: I have nothing to add to my right hon. Friend's reply to the hon. Member's question on this subject on 15th June.
  Mr. GINNELL: Has it been considered since?
  Mr. ILLINGWORTH: Yes, it is under consideration.

  Constitution of House of Commons (Electoral Anomalies).
  Major MORRISON-BELLasked the Prime Minister whether, when the constitutional relations between the two Houses have been adjusted, immediate consideration will be given to removing the acknowledged electoral anomalies which at present exist in the constitution of the Lower House?
  Mr. LLOYD GEOGE: It would be premature to make any statement on this subject.
  Mr. CLYNES: Might I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he understands plural voting to be one of the electoral anomalies referred to in the question?
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: Certainly, and one of the very worst.
  Mr. SWIFT MacNEILL: And University elections the next one.
  Mr. KING: If it is one of the worst of the anomalies, may it not be taken in hand?

  Declaration of London.
  Sir WILLIAM BULLasked the Prime Minister whether the adhesion of Great Britain to the Declaration of London will become final and effective upon the ratification of the Declaration; and, if so, whether the amendments in the law relating to Naval Prize of War enabling effect to be given to the convention mentioned in the Naval Prize Bill and ancillary to the Declaration of London can be otherwise made than by an enactment passed by both Houses of Parliament?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. McKinnon Wood): The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. The answer to the second part of the question is that an Act of Parliament is only required for the purpose of effecting such alterations in the existing Prize Court Acts as the convention referred to in the Naval Prize Bill may render necessary or desirable.
  Mr. FELL: May I ask if the ratification will be final and effective on our side, or will it depend upon the others ratifying also?
  Mr. McKINNON WOOD: The Convention will only be operative if the Powers concerned ratify it.
  Mr. JAMES HOPE: Failing the passing of the Naval Prize Bill, will there be any machinery for carrying it into effect?
  Mr. McKINNON WOOD: I think it is a question I need not answer. It does not immediately arise out of this.
  Mr. JAMES HOPE: Surely the right hon. Gentleman must have had it in his mind?

  Duration of Parliamentary Session.
  Mr. FELLasked the Prime Minister if he can now state to the House his plan for the business of the Session, and how long he expects the House will continue to sit?
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: My right hon. Friend hopes to be in a position shortly to make a statement to the House.

  Finance Bill (1911–12).
  Mr. ASTORasked the Prime Minister if he will state, approximately, how many more days he proposes to allocate to the discussion of the Finance Bill?
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: My right hon. Friend is not yet in a position to make an announcement on this subject.

  Registration of Voters (Ireland).
  Mr. GINNELLasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether the Irish Local Government Board is averse to the registration of the people under the Franchise Acts; if not, will he explain why the printed notices and forms formerly supplied generally to rated occupiers, inhabitant occupiers, and claimants, are now supplied in Westmeath only to persons selected by the secretary of the county council, who refuses to supply them to other persons entitled; why the Board's auditors continue to ratify payments to rate collectors for registration work which they have not done; and what steps the Board will now take to have all qualified persons in that county who have been thus neglected registered as voters at the approaching revision sessions?
  Mr. ILLINGWORTH: The Lord Lieutenant in Council is the rule making authority for registration. The Local Government Board are not adverse to registration. The forms mentioned in the question are prescribed by Order in Council, and the Local Government Board have no information or jurisdiction regarding the allegation of the hon. Member on this point. The auditors pass payments to collectors in accordance with the prescribed scale which is based on the number of ratings in their respective districts. The Board have no power which would enable them to take action in the direction indicated in the concluding paragraph of the question.

  "Army Review."
  Mr. PIKE PEASEasked the Undersecretary of State for War whether the Australian Commonwealth Government

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  has recently authorised the publication of a military magazine by the General Staff of that Dominion, which will be issued free of charge to all officers of the Australian Forces; and, if so, whether it is the intention of His Majesty's Government to adopt the same course in reference to the "Army Review"?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Colonel Seely): The reply to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. The reply to the second part of the question is that over 1,000 copies of the "Army Review" are distributed free of charge to general officers commanding, staff officers, officers' reference and mess libraries, and other military institutions. This number is thought sufficient.

  Alleged Defective Ammunition.
  Viscount WOLMERasked the Undersecretary of State for War, whether the ammunition B Mark VI., dated 7th December, 1906, which has been supplied to the troops for target practice, is seriously defective in the very high percentage of split cases in live rounds, defective caps, blow backs, bulged rims both before and after firing, and especially in the invariable jamming of the cartridge cases, thereby rendering the rapid firing practice, to which great importance is attached, almost impossible; why such ammunition has been supplied; and whether, in view of the fact that the pay of the men depends upon their proficiency in musketry, he will consent to compensate those troops who have been forced to use this ammunition?
  Colonel SEELY: No complaints have been received of the ammunition referred to in the question, and, if any such defects as mentioned were found, the matter should have been reported, and would have been investigated forthwith. Perhaps the Noble Lord could furnish me with more detailed information to enable me to make further inquiries. From inquiries I have made this must be only a very small batch. There is practically no defective ammunition.
  Viscount WOLMER: If the right hon. Gentleman finds the fact to be as stated in the question, will he say what he will do in answer to the last part of the question?
  Colonel SEELY: That is another point. Of course that would have to be considered. I was considering more the question of the safety of the country involved
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  in the fitness of the ammunition. There is no doubt about that. I will inquire on this smaller point.
  Viscount WOLMER: How much is there of this ammunition in stock at the present moment?
  Colonel SEELY: As I told the Noble Lord we have had no report at all of defective ammunition and there can be hardly any of it, as quite a small batch has come under our notice.
  MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE: Are we using up at present the reserve of ammunition?
  Colonel SEELY: I do not know what the Noble Lord means by "reserve ammunition." Perhaps he will put down a question on that point.
  Mr. CHIOZZA MONEY: Is it not the fact that our smokeless powder is inferior to that used by Germany?
  Colonel SEELY: I do not think so.
  Mr. CHIOZZA MONEY: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us if the War Office knows how the German powder is made?
  Colonel SEELY: I do not think that directly arises out of the question, but as far as I can ascertain I think our powder is the better.

  Commutation of Pensions.
  Colonel YATEasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, considering that permission to commute pensions often results in loss and penury to those who have commuted, that the commutation of pensions is opposed in itself to the main principle of the pension system, and that this commutation is carried out at a profit to the Government, he will consider the expediency of an inquiry into the subject as to whether the present system should be continued or not?
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: In view of the restrictions placed upon the commutation of pensions, I do not consider that any useful purpose would be served by an inquiry of the nature suggested.

  Old Age Pensions.
  Mr. JOHN ROCHEasked whether Martin Lydon was granted an old age pension by the local pension committee of Mountbellew, county Galway; and upon what grounds the Local Government Board deprived this man of it?
  Mr. ILLINGWORTH: The case referred to is presumably that of Martin Lydon, of Annagh, Ballymacward, Ballinasloe. Lydon, who was in receipt of a pension of a shilling a week, raised the question that he was entitled to a full pension. The pension sub-committee allowed the question, but the Local Government Board were not satisfied that there had been a change in Lydon's circumstances since the pension of a shilling a week was awarded and they therefore dismissed the question, the result being that the original pension of a shilling a week remained unchanged.

TURKEY AND ALBANIA.
Mr. JAMES HOPE: I desire to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs a question of which I have given him private notice. Whether his attention has been called to statements that large numbers of non-belligerents and unarmed Albanians of both sexes (estimated in one account at 16,000) are being confined by the Turkish authorities to the marsh lands near Scutari, with the practical certainty of their death by malaria; whether he is in a position to confirm or deny the truth of these statements, and whether he is able to make any further announcement as to the progress made by the Powers towards the settlement of Albanian affairs?
Mr. McKINNON WOOD: I must ask the hon. Member to be good enough to put his question on the Paper, as I understand my right hon. Friend privately asked him to do.
Mr. JAMES HOPE: As a personal explanation, may I say that the right hon. Gentleman did not ask me not to ask the question to-day.
Mr. McKINNON WOOD: I can only give the information I have received.

IMPERIAL CONFERENCE (OFFICIAL REPORT).
Mr. ALFRED LYTTELTON: May I ask the Colonial Minister when the Official Report of the Imperial Conference will be laid?
Mr. HARCOURT: I have already sent it to the printers. I hope it will be circulated to the House on Friday of this week. It will not include all the memoranda cir-
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culated at the Conference: they will follow as soon as possible. The whole of the verbatim report will be, I hope, circulated on Friday.

QUESTIONS.
Mr. CLYNES: I have a question on the Paper for to-morrow addressed to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. As I understand, Mr. Speaker, the right hon. Gentleman will not be here, and as the question is one of some urgency, I wish to ask whether I can put it now?
Mr. SPEAKER: We cannot take tomorrow's questions to-day.

BILLS PRESENTED.
  ELEMENTARY EDUCATION (ENGLAND AND WALES) BILL.
  "To make further provision with respect to elementary education in England and Wales," presented by Mr. EDMUND HARVEY; supported by Mr. Charles Bathurst, Mr. Silvester Horne, and Colonel Williams; to be read a second time upon Friday, 4th August, and to be printed.
  RAILWAYS (EIGHT Hours) BILL.
  "To provide for the establishment of a working day of eight hours for certain grades employed on railways," presented by Mr. HUDSON; supported by Mr. Wardle, Mr. James Thomas, Mr. Chiozza Money, Mr. John Taylor, Mr. Pointer, Mr. James Parker, Mr. George Roberts, Mr. Adam-son, Mr. Goldstone, and Mr. Fred Hall; to be read a second time upon Friday, and to be printed.

NATIONAL INSURANCE BILL.
Considered in Committee.
(IN THE COMMITTEE.)
[Mr. EMMOTT in the Chair.]

NATIONAL INSURANCE BILL.
  BENEFITS.

    CLAUSE 8.—(Rates and Conditions of Benefits.)
    (1) The benefits conferred by this Part of this Act upon insured persons are—

    (a) Medical treatment and attendance, including the provision of proper and sufficient medicines (in this Act called "medical benefit");

    (b) Treatment in sanatoria or other institutions when suffering from tuberculosis, or such other diseases as the

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    Local Government Board with the approval of the Treasury may appoint in this Act called "sanatorium benefit");

    (c)Weekly payments whilst rendered unfit to provide their own maintenance by some specific disease or by bodily or mental disablement, commencing from the fourth day after notice there-of is given, and continuing for a period not exceeding twenty-six weeks (in this Act called "sickness benefit");

    (d)In the case of the disease or disablement continuing after the determination of sickness benefit, weekly payments so long as so rendered unfit by the disease or disablement (in this Act called "disablement benefit");

    (e)Payment in the case of the confinement of the wife of an insured person, who is not herself an insured person, or of a woman who is an insured person, of a sum of thirty shillings (in this Act called "maternity benefit");

    (f) In the case of persons entitled under any scheme made in accordance with this Part of this Act to any of the further benefits mentioned in Part II. of the Fourth Schedule to this Act (in this Act called "additional benefits") such of those benefits as may be distributable under that scheme.

    (2) Subject to the provisions of this Part of this Act, the rates of sickness benefit and disablement benefit to which insured persons are entitled shall be the rates specified in Part I. of the Fourth Schedule to this Act.
    (3) The right to sickness benefit and disablement benefit shall not commence before the insured person attains the age of sixteen and shall cease on his attaining the age of seventy, but, save as aforesaid, the right to benefit (other than additional benefits) shall continue throughout life.
    (4) Except with the consent of the society or committee administering the benefit, no insured person shall be entitled to any benefit during any period when he is resident either temporarily or permanently outside the British islands, or to medical benefit during any period when he is resident outside the United Kingdom.
    (5) Where an insured person, having been in receipt of sickness benefit recovers from the disease or disablement in respect of which he receives such benefit, any subsequent disease or disablement, or a recurrence of the same disease or disable-
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    ment, shall be deemed to be a continuation of the previous disease or disablement, unless in the meanwhile a period, continuous or discontinuous, of at least twelve months has elapsed, and at least fifty weekly contributions have been paid by or in respect of him:
    Provided that the benefit in respect of such subsequent or recurrent disease or disablement shall not commence to be payable before the date at which it would apart from this provision, have commenced.
    (6) Where a woman is herself entitled to maternity benefit she shall not be entitled to sickness benefit, disablement benefit, or medical benefit at and for a period of four weeks after her confinement.
    (7) Notwithstanding anything in this part of this Act, no insured person shall be entitled—

    (a) to medical benefit during the first six months after the commencement of this Act;

    (b) to sickness benefit unless and until twenty-six weeks have elapsed since his entry into insurance, and at least twenty-six contributions have been paid by or in respect of him;

    (c)to disablement benefit unless and until one hundred and four weeks have elapsed since his entry into insurance, and at least one hundred and four contributions have been paid by or in respect of him;

    (d)to sickness benefit in respect of any disease or disablement which commenced during the twenty-six weeks, or to disablement benefits in respect of any disease or disablement which commenced during the one hundred and four weeks, next following his entry into insurance;

    (e)to sickness benefit or disablement benefit during any period when he is provided with board and lodging by his employer;

    (f) to maternity benefit unless and until twenty-six, or in the case of a voluntary contributor fifty-two weeks have elapsed since his entry into insurance, and at least twenty-six, or in the case of a voluntary contributor fifty-two, contributions have been paid by or in respect of him.

    (8) As soon as a sum has been accumulated by investment sufficient to provide interest at 3 per cent. per annum on the amounts then standing to the credit of all

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    approved societies the benefits payable to insured persons under this part of this Act shall be extended in such manner as Parliament may determine, but in determining the distribution of such extended benefits amongst the persons who become entitled thereto regard shall be had to the claims or special considerations of persons who have entered into insurance at an early age.
    Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: I beg to move, in Sub-section (1), to leave out paragraph (b).
    I want to raise a very big question. Anyone who has looked at the Amendments which stand early on the Paper today will see that there are others, notably one in the name of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Strand Division (Mr. Long) which raise the special question of the propriety of sanatorium treatment. I do not wish to enter into technical questions of that kind, though I have on previous occasions expressed my doubt as to whether the money to be spent on sanitoria and sanitorium treatment is really expended to the best advantage for the prevention of consumption. The question I want to raise is a much bigger one, and that is as to the propriety of this special treatment of the disease of tuberculosis in this Bill. I do not desire to say a word in disparagement of the motives which have induced the Government to attempt to deal with this question in connection with the National Insurance Bill. I do not for a moment deny the vast importance to the community, or the great desirability of taking systematic steps to combat the progress of this terrible disease. Hut I think it must be apparent to anyone who studies the Bill, and this Sub-section in particular, that this very peculiar treatment of this one disease is, for good or evil—I do not wish the word to convey reproach, but for the moment only as a description—for good or evil is an excrescence on the general scheme of the Bill. It absorbs a good deal of the money provided for the purposes of the Bill, and it stands, so it seems to me, on an entirely different footing to the other provisions connected with health which are in the Bill.
    We do not propose out of the money provided by this Bill to make special provision in this way for the treatment of any other disease. I do not know why. If we are to treat consumption in this special way why should not the equally terrible scourge of cancer receive similar
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    treatment? This particular disease is selected by the Bill, and a large portion of the funds collected under the Bill are earmarked for this special treatment. The State and the public authorities ought to give much greater attention in the future than they have done in the past to this matter; and the State, perhaps, might properly be called upon for contributions, partial perhaps, for dealing with cases which have already arisen; still more for research in regard to the best method of dealing with the disease, research for preventive measures. I think it is quite arguable—I myself should be inclined to argue—that the State must do more in both of these respects than hitherto. But what I want to ask is whether this Bill is the proper place, or these funds the proper funds, to do it, or charge it on? This Bill is a Bill for insurance against sickness; and this is not really the ordinary work of insurance against sickness. This is taking one disease and putting it in a special category by itself on the ground of the, extensive injury it inflicts on the Nation. I think that is good ground for the special treatment of that disease, but I am in great doubt whether the special treatment that that disease deserves and requires should find a place in this Bill. Anyone who remembers my observations when the Bill was introduced, will be able to contrast what I then said with what I am saying now. They may taunt me with inconsistency. I do not suppose anyone would be inclined to do so, but if they did I would at once plead guilty and urge that on further consideration of the matter I have changed my opinion. I think, at any rate, that the question is one of sufficient importance for the House to devote a little attention to, all the more so because the Chancellor of the Exchequer has not hitherto given us any reasoned statement as to what led him to deal with this matter in this particular way. I do not think it is sufficient to point to the fell ravages of the disease or the fateful circumstances attendant upon it to necessarily justify its inclusion. The same is true of other diseases. It seems to me that what you are proposing in this case is to carry out a health campaign for stamping out a particular disease at the expense of the Insurance Fund, and I cannot see any reason for treating one disease, and one only, in that way. It seems to me that that health campaign ought to be conducted, but that

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    it ought to be dealt with by a separate measure and out of different resources. It is quite fair and right to ask that these insured contributors shall insure themselves against ordinary sickness, or the provision of ordinary medical necessities, and for sick pay during that illness, but I do not know on what ground it is contended that what is a national health campaign in regard to one particular disease is to be charged upon their funds. You do not provide under this Bill full treatment for all the ordinary accidents and diseases to which people are liable. Surgical appliances are only provided to a very limited extent. What exactly has to be done in regard to the dressing required after a person has had treatment in the hospital is not quite clear, but there again it seems to me that the Bill, generally speaking, is limited to what you may call ordinary sickness, and does not profess to travel further, but in this Sub-section it does travel further, and takes upon the fund what really ought to be not an insurance proposition, but what I have described as a national campaign for the improvement of the national health, and it seems to me that these charges for sanatoria or for a special campaign against consumption are much more akin to the popular charges already assumed either by the State or by local authorities than the insurance charges which are included in other parts of the Bill.
    Mr. MUNRO-FERGUSON: You cannot compare consumption with cancer. We unhappily know all too little about cancer, but we know how to fight consumption, and we have too long delayed in fighting it. I do not think consumption can best be fought by the local authorities. Many of them will do it, and that is my reason for speaking, because in my county, which is not a very large one— about 40,000 people—we have a sanatorium. It was very economically established—it only cost some £1,300 to build, though the upkeep is costly—but I do not think you can combat consumption upon a local basis. The cost of small sanatoria is very large compared with that of central sanatoria, and it is being more and more borne in upon me that consumption ought to have been fought rather by the Local Government Board than by the local authorities. There are districts of the country, the Highlands of Scotland for instance, where there is comparatively no
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    population, but which are eminently suited for a sanatorium. The proper place for a sanatorium is not within the borough boundary of a great urban industrial population. There is room for a sanatorium in such cases, but only for very bad cases, or for very slight cases, where a man can get out to his work and get treatment at the sanatorium. But for the great mass of cases I believe the only effective and economical way of treating them in the proper localities is through a. great central sanatorium, and this I hope to see established under the proposals of the Bill. In fact, I do not know any more practical step that is being advocated by that very practical person, my right hon. Friend, than that of the proposals to establish these great sanatoria which I think would follow under this Bill. It cannot be said that experience has shown that the fighting of consumption should be held to be distinct from insurance, because in Germany insurance for the provision of treatment in sanatoria has gone hand in hand and covers a great part of the treatment. I am not prepared to speak upon the technical methods of fighting consumption, but I am speaking as one who is answerable for a sanatorium under a local authority how far I think that provision will go, and how far it will not go. The local authorities are having a great deal put upon them, and I think this ought to be a national undertaking, and the State ought to do its work, and not look to the local authorities.
    Mr. WALTER LONG: I agree with the hon. Member as to the division of expenditure consequent upon the wholesale treatment of tuberculous disease between Imperial and local revenue, and I concur in what he said in preferring Imperial to local revenue for the expenditure, and also to a limited extent as to administration. But I entirely deny that he is justified in his statement on which he based his conclusions that we know all about tuberculous disease but nothing about cancer. It is exactly because I hold the diametrically opposite view in regard to tubercular disease that I cannot recognise in this speech a valuable contribution to the Debate. I am not pretending to speak on the subject as an expert or anything approaching an expert. I am very happy to think that we have in the House hon. Gentlemen such as the hon. Gentleman (Sir Philip Magnus) and the hon. Gentleman (Sir Henry Craik), who both have great knowledge of their own, and both represent a

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    large number of the medical profession, and we have opposite the hon. Member (Dr. Addison) who is a most distinguished member of the profession. We cannot raise in this House a more important subject, or one which bears more closely upon the lives of the people than this. I hope that from those who are able to speak with far greater authority than I can, we shall have some light thrown upon the position in which we find ourselves. I am not here to oppose the proposal of the Chancellor of the Exchequer that a proportion of the money which is to be found under the Bill shall be devoted to the treatment of tuberculous disease, but I am here to ask him—an Amendment which I have on the Paper has this in view—not to commit this House, as we are to be committed, if we are to take his introductory speech on this subject as expressing the policy of the Government and leave the Bill exactly as it stands, to a method of dealing with tuberculous disease in respect of which we have very little, if any, knowledge as to its real effect upon this most fell enemy of the human race.
    I do not pretend to speak as an expert, but I have some small authority to take part in the Debate, because it was during the time that I had the honour of being at the Local Government Board that, on the advice of the medical experts of that Department and with, I believe, the support of the medical profession as a whole, there was appointed the Commission whose report appeared only yesterday. I regret that we should be embarking on the consideration of this question and taking what may be rather definite steps regarding it, when no Member can have read that report, and still less have grasped the important bearing it may have on the first principles connected with tuberculous disease. I venture to say that the report makes it perfectly clear that we want, above all things, more knowledge, and that in order to get that knowledge we want much more research. This is not the time to discuss that report. I have gone hastily through it, and I do not propose to hurl its paragraphs at the head of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but I venture to say that anyone who will read it carefully will come to the conclusion that valuable as it is—it is impossible to exaggerate the value of the work done by the Commissioners—and public-spirited and self-denying though their services have undoubtedly been, if the report makes one
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    thing more clear than another it is that we have more knowledge to get and more careful research to make in order to get it. The Chancellor of the Exchequer in an eloquent passage of the speech in which he introduced the Bill said it was proposed to erect a chain of sanatoria across the country. That is the vital principle which underlies the right hon. Gentleman's proposal, and it is because I do not wish him to commit himself to that as a wholly satisfactory method for the treatment of the disease, that I now ask him to give the matter further consideration.
    The right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Munro-Ferguson) said he was not addressing himself to the Bill, but to the general question of tuberculous disease. That might be a good introduction to a speech on the general question outside this House, but here we are addressing ourselves to the Bill. I take a different view from that taken by the right hon. Gentleman. The Bill makes two proposals. It proposes, as I understand, to set aside a capital sum of £1,500,000, and £1,000,000 is provided in the shape of a yearly contribution. I also understand that the £1,500,000 is to be mainly devoted to the erection of sanitoria throughout the country, and that that is to be under the control of the Local Government Board. The £1,000,000 of yearly expenditure is to be under the control of the Health Committees. So far as I can find out, only £60,000 a year out of this great expenditure, either of the capital sum or of the annual expenditure, is to be devoted to research. I think I am accurate in this statement of the procedure under the Bill. My right hon. Friend says he wants all this work to be under the control of the Government. I have had the honour of serving under more than one Government, and as I was for some time president of the Local Government Board, I am the last person who would in any way disparage our public departments or belittle their great capacity, but I say if you are going to deal effectively with a great question of this kind, it is beyond the power of any great central department to do half of the work that has to be done. It is only by cooperation between the Government Department and the local authorities, the latter taking a larger share of the work, that we can hope for any possible success. The right hon. Gentleman made a remark with which I entirely agree. He said there had been successful work done in connection with this disease. Where was it done? It was done in the great city of

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    Edinburgh. That city made the first great step in this great work—the first successful step in dealing with the disease. I venture to say that the work done in Edinburgh will reflect eternal credit on the municipality and the public of that city. But the work never could have been done if the responsibility for doing it had rested on the central authority. They devoted themselves to ascertaining what is the precise nature of this disease and what is the best way of curing it. They set themselves to work to find out if they could some of the causes which contribute to it, or which create it. Then they said: "Is there anything we can do as the local government of the city to deal with these cases?"
    4.0 P.M.
    We know something of this in Ireland. A movement marked by great public spirit and great industry was started, and the wife of the Lord Lieutenant devoted herself to it with tremendous energy. That work emanated from headquarters. What was the first difficulty that presented itself? I venture to say it was a difficulty which will occur in every case, and one which can only be met by the local authorities. It is this: When you come to deal in a radical manner with this great disease and try to stop its ravages, you come face to face with the fact that in order to do this you must check the movement of the individuals who are affected, and who may become the media of infection. What is the first result? It is that we interfere with the daily livelihood of a large section of the population. That can be done with the help and assistance in the first instance of the local authorities, but it can only be done if the central Government are ready to go beyond the mere erection of sanatoria and the mere bearing of the expense attendant on the working of these hospitals. The right hon. Gentleman opposite says that we know a great deal more about this disease than we know about cancer. That may be true, but in the opinion of Gentlemen in this House who can speak as experts on the question nobody can say that the knowledge we have of tuberculosis is in anything more than its infancy. We have now a somewhat inaccurate knowledge as to the amount of the disease, how it is spread, and the treatment which it requires. It would be very difficult for anybody to lay down dogmatically that the establishment of sanatoria all over the country would be a successful way of dealing with it.
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    It has been said very truly that this disease is one of the most terrible that affect the human race, and that it brings more misery than probably any other into our homes. I believe that on that ground there is great justification for the action which the Government are taking in giving special prominence to it at this moment, although I wholly share the view of my right hon. Friend that it would have been far better if the Government had been able to keep this subject by itself and deal with it as a part of the greater question of interference by the Government with diseases which are ravaging the population. This form of disease was made a subject of inquiry by the Commission to which I have referred. I am very sorry that that Commission was not continued. If the Government had continued it, or if some Commission of equal weight were appointed to take its place, and were now going on, I should not have been here to make these criticisms.
    But we are obliged to take things as we find them, and to judge men more by deeds than words. We do not for a moment suggest that the Chancellor and the Government are not absolutely sincere in the steps which they are now taking to deal with this disease. But we are brought short up by the knowledge that they had the opportunity to renew this Commission or appoint a fresh one to continue their most valuable experiments. That opportunity was worth taking advantage of, because you had all the machinery of this Commission, experienced men, knowing what had been going on and the men who had been working under them, and if the Government had continued that Commission and were now in a position to say that that Commission would continue the experimental work from the point to which it had already been done, I should not have been here to cast any doubt upon the wisdom of the proposal now made. That proposal is to devote vast sums of money to the erection of sanatoria across the country, while only a very small sum of money is to be devoted to the work of research. I have been unable to get very reliable information as to the results obtained in these sanatoria. I think that my right hon. Friend was in error in assuming that there is difficulty in the way of local authorities getting sanatoria because they are limited to the area of the borough. I assure him that that is not the case.
    Mr. MUNRO-FERGUSON: I did not say it was, but they are generally within easy reach of the health authority.
    Mr. WALTER LONG: I was at the Local Government Board, and sanatoria were established miles from the area governed by the local authority, and in the districts most suitable for the purpose. One of the main guiding principles of the Local Government Board has always been to see, where local authorities proposed an institution of this kind, that everything was carried out in the manner most likely to conduce to success. I can find no reliable evidence to show that treatment in sanatoria has been really effective. I have myself visited one or two sanatoria which have been erected in this country, paying institutions for occupation by the better-off classes. They reflect the utmost credit on those medical men who have established them, and are doing their best to check this disease. But I am afraid that they are being forced to admit that the results, so far as real cures are concerned, have, so far, been very moderate. I am not sure that I would not even go further. I have been given some figures which I will quote for what they are worth. Messrs. Elderton and Perry, of the Department of Applied Mathematics, University College, as a result of their study of the "Mortality of the Tuberculous and Sanatorium Treatment," arrived at the following conclusions:—(1) Mortality of tuberculous patients treated in sanatoria, even when disease is taken in an incipient stage, is four times as heavy as general population; (2) The mortality of apparently cured (sanatorium) is twice as heavy.
    I give these figures with the authority with which they come. I do not say for a moment that they can be regarded as absolutely reliable, but I do say that they point in the direction which I have been endeavouring to indicate. I do not pretend to give this statement as unanswerable, or even as one that cannot be met by others. It is, as I say, extremely difficult to arrive at accurate information on this subject. I do not think that anyone will tell us that we can be confident of the effect upon this disease of treatment in sanatoria that we ought to embark upon the plan which commits us to this great expenditure, and does not leave us any power of spending money in other directions if necessary. The proposals in the Bill, as I read them, and as I read the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, ap-
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    pear to limit this work to phthisis. I believe that if we are really going to develop the interests of local authorities in this work room ought to be left for the inclusion of some other diseases under this expenditure which in some cases are even more prevalent than phthisis, and which consequently cause more local misery and excite more local sympathy. The proposals of the Bill, as it seems to me at all events, limit our operations to the erection of sanatoria—the Chancellor in his opening speech laid special stress on these sanatoria—and it is because it seems to me that an altogether undue proportion is to be spent on these buildings and by no means a sufficient sum is to be devoted to research work, and because I believe that the limitations imposed upon those who have to carry it out, whether the health committee or the Local Government Board, are far too severe, that I ask the Chancellor to make a definite declaration that the policy of the Government is not to cover this or that field but to take the other line and to admit that possibly the language of the Bill is too limited in its character, and that he and the Government will be prepared to make it possible in the Bill to do more in the direction of research, which I believe ought to be the first work done by the Government, and that they will not embark immediately on a large expenditure on sanatoria without at all events more knowledge than we have now or than we can possess at this moment that the proposed treatment is likely to be really effective.
    I would remind the Committee that the Chancellor in his speeches in this House and in the country laid great stress upon the sufferings of our people in this and other ways and the help that this Bill is going to give. We ought in this House, where we have the advantage of the presence of men who represent great scientific bodies in their constituencies or who possess themselves expert scientific knowledge, to remember that if we raise undue hopes in the minds of the people we may even lead them to a greater state of misery than they are in at present; and if they believe that the Government are going to embark on a great crusade and going to erect all over the country sanatoria, and that these sanatoria are going to relieve them of this disease, then the last position will be infinitely worse than the first. It is only right to tell this House that in pursuing such a policy at the invitation of the Government they would be acting

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    with undue haste and without sufficient knowledge. For these reasons, I support the Amendment of my right hon. Friend, moved, as I believe it was, with the object of securing full discussion on this subject and not with the object of voting against this proposal, and still less of placing an obstacle in the way of the work which the Government are proposing to do by providing what is to be the best considered method of dealing with one of the most terrible diseases with which the human race has ever been afflicted.
    Dr. ADDISON: I am sure that the House is indebted to the right hon. Gentleman opposite for having introduced this subject in this way, because it can in any case do nothing but good. I think that no one would be prepared to argue that the somewhat wild anticipations which certain people entertained at the commencement of the sanatorium treatment have been justified by results. Nevertheless, during the last few years not only in this country but in some others we have obtained without question a sufficient amount of very reliable data which I think will more than justify the Chancellor of the Exchequer in pursuing this undertaking. I quite agree with what the right hon. Gentleman says that in the main it should be a national undertaking, and also I further say that it should be administered by the local authorities. It will be one of the main businesses I hope in a short time of the local health committees set up under this Bill. They will prove to be, I believe, an ideal machine for collecting information, for arranging for the visitation of the families, and for the inspection of those who have to be looked after while a relative or some other person is in a sanatorium. It is provided in the Bill that you may have a group of localities. For instance, in scattered districts, say in Wales, where the cases are scattered over a very wide area, that they should be sent to one particular locality for treatment. But I must say that my belief is that the point of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Worcestershire has been overstated. He compared our knowledge of this disease with that of cancer. I am sure that the House will not expect any technical matters to be introduced, but at the same time I think it was really a somewhat unfortunate comparison.
    Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: I did not compare the experts' knowledge of the
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    two diseases. I compared the painful character of the scourge in each case.
    Dr. ADDISON: I am coming to that, but the point I wish to make for a moment is as to the state of our knowledge as to any efficient method of treatment and the state of our knowledge with regard to the prevention of these diseases. Now, with regard to cancer, it is safe to say that we have absolutely no knowledge of the prevention of the disease. But there is no question of the fact that we have a great amount of knowledge as to how to prevent tuberculosis. The death rate of the country during the last few years, and in Germany since the establishment of these insurance schemes, has abundantly justified the carrying out of various ways and measures to prevent the spread of the disease. This does not apply in any degree whatever to cancer. We know practically nothing as to the modes of preventing it. With regard also to treatment all we have in that particular disease is the knife. It is the last resort of despair, but it is the only method. Here there is something which is very different.
    The point raised by the right hon. Gentleman, which I should like to criticise more particularly, is the objection which he alleged against the Insurance scheme in connection with this disease. This scheme is to insure against the distresses arising from sickness. Here is a disease which is accounting for more of those distresses than any other one disease. For example, I see that the Ancient Order of Foresters pay on an average in 4,707,680 cases of sickness annually, and of these 941,575, or 20 per cent., was due directly to phthisis, and at least 51 per cent, to other forms of tuberculosis. A quarter per cent, of the payments of this one society are due to charges dependent on the incidence of tuberculosis from various causes. If you want to protect the Insurance fund and protect sick pay, you should at the same time undertake the preventional treatment of that disease which causes a greater charge upon the funds than any other disease. It is fair to say that a person dying from some form of tuberculosis would be a charge upon a fund of something like £14 more on the average than a patient dying from any other form of disease, because the patient has been on sick pay, of course, for a longer period. It is estimated by the Hearts of Oak that the average cost of each consumptive invalid is £41, while for other invalids it is

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    £23 each. Friendly societies at the present time spend more than a million a year in treating this disease. Can there be any fact more important than that to justify us in including this disease in a national scheme of insurance, to assist insured persons by preventing the progress of this disease. If we remove it out of the category of insurance, then we should not have the same potent influence to assist in measures directed to prevent its spread. I think that is the most important consideration of all for introducing the treatment of this disease into an insurance scheme. The inquiry to which the right hon. Gentleman, the Member for the Strand Division (Mr. Long) referred—and I am sure the country is indebted to him very much for having originated that inquiry—was, to a great extent at all events, directed towards the spread of the disease and the modes of infection —the question of food, the relation between bovine and human tuberculosis, and so forth, and it was not directed particularly to the methods of treatment. The point of this particular section of the National Insurance Bill is that it is directed to treatment. With what the right hon. Gentleman said as to the value of careful research in matters of this kind I quite agree; yet, at the same time there is no reason why we should not make the fullest possible use of the know ledge we have in regard to treatment. It is true that there are several diseases of which we know partly the cause, and that there are others of which substantially we have no knowledge whatever as to what they are really due; but it does not necessarily follow that we must wait until the time arrives when we have studied and obtained an accurate knowledge of the whole genesis of a disease before we undertake vigorous methods of treatment. That does not necessarily follow at all.
    Mr. LONG: I made no such suggestion. My suggestion was that there were various views as to treatment which should be considered.
    Dr. ADDISON: I do not wish in any way to misrepresent the right hon. Gentleman. I was referring to what was the inevitable inference from the general trend of his remarks as directed to expenditure on research. What I wish to point out is that whilst expenditure on research is thoroughly justified, that in itself is no reason why we should not have an extended method of treatment. Another
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    reason why it is more necessary to include this disease in the national scheme is the cost which at the present time is put upon the Poor Law. I believe about a million and a half annually of Poor Law expenditure goes on persons suffering from tuberculosis. If we can prevent the spread of tuberculosis amongst the people who are to be insured we should prevent them coming within the ambit of the Poor Law, and in that way we should indirectly, but none the less effectually, be reducing the burden upon the Poor Law with regard to this disease. Every Member of this House is probably acquainted with some, or perhaps many, families which have been greatly affected by the incidence of tuberculosis. It may be that a family which was previously self-supporting has gradually come down and down until it has become a burden on the Poor Law. I believe that this great scheme will ultimately provide us with the machinery for preventing this degradation of a large section of the community. As to what the right hon. Gentleman said with regard to the provision of expensive buildings, I am sure his protest to the Chancellor of the Exchequer will be exceedingly useful in regard to incurring an immense expenditure on bricks and mortar. In some districts it is fair to say that a sanatorium can be erected for £100 a bed. Apart from that, I believe the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer will be willing to accept an Amendment of my hon. Friend behind me which will introduce the words "or otherwise" or something of that kind into the Clause to meet the point—I hope the right hon. Gentleman will accept it—as to the application of this scheme to less expensive methods than an expenditure on bricks and mortar. In some districts, perhaps the right hon. Gentleman is aware, cases of tuberculosis are being successfully treated in shelters of cheap construction. What the right hon. Gentleman opposite has said with regard to the provision of expensive buildings no doubt will be very useful, but the whole thing is linked in one chain. It would be useless for the Government to set up their local health committees to inquire into cases which are in such stages that they could be overlooked or could with advantage be treated locally, unless we provided at the same time institutions for treating a considerable number of people in whose case there would be some hope of the treatment being successful.
    May I say a word with regard to these sanatoria? The right hon. Gentleman's

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    figures are really based, if I may say so, upon very slender premises. According to the report of Dr. Bulstrode, of the Local Government Board, there are not in this country at the present time more than about 2,000 beds available in sanatoria for the whole community, and it is true to say that there are not more than 1,500 which are in any way acceptable to persons of small means. When you come to compare that with the fact that there are between 250,000 and 300,000 people at one time in the country affected with tuberculosis, it is perfectly evident that 1,500 beds for that immense population will not provide very reliable data. At the same time a considerable number of those buildings suffer from important drawbacks at the present time. Some of them are small, and some of them are inadequately staffed, and these disadvantages can only be removed by undertaking some such national scheme as this. What really happens in the ordinary way now? You have 1,500 beds, and a population of 250,000 suffering from this disease. A person now goes on suffering from tuberculosis until he has to give up his work, at which time treatment would probably not be so successful as if it had been undertaken earlier. Then he tries to get into a sanatorium, and he very probaly has to wait from three to six months before he can get in. During the whole of that time he is going downhill, and it is sheer waste to undertake the treatment of this disease unless we step in before that. It so happens then that the conditions are such that the large population who are suffering from this disease have to wait a long time before they can get into the sanatoria. It is, therefore, entirely useless to compare the mortality of the population infected with tubercle with the mortality of the population as a whole, especially when you select, as you inevitably do at present, the very worst cases to make your calculation upon.
    Something like one in seven cases of disease are due to some form or other of tubercle, and you can have no better reason than that to introduce the treatment of this disease into a national scheme in order to prevent it from spreading. If I may, for a moment, I will now refer to what would happen under this scheme to justify it in the way it would work, and see how the chain would be constructed. There are two classes of cases which may usefully be treated in sanatoria. In bad cases, that cannot be cured; although you cannot cure them, you can do something
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    for them, and you can do more still for those with whom they live. It is perfectly true what the right hon. Gentleman said, that many patients go into these institutions and go back homo and live a little longer and die. But if you could have them for three months to teach them how to conduct themselves in their own home, so as to avoid infecting those with whom they live, we think you would in that way enormously prevent the spreading of the disease. With regard to the spread of the disease, we have a very considerable amount of most accurate knowledge. I am not speaking of the investigation by the Commission, I mean that the disease is carried by one individual who may infect another by certain channels, particularly in the sputum. Perhaps it would be well to give a case in point. In a particular instance a particular flat has been occupied for eight years with a clean bill of health. In one particular flat, as I am told, the mother was infected with tubercle, and ultimately died, and they left it after a year. Family A having left, family B, consisting of seven people, came in. They stayed for a year. After they had left the father developed tubercle and died, and the mother died and one of the sons and another child died of tubercular peritonitis. Family C came in, and their record was: one child died of meningitis, one of tubercular hip, and another of wasting disease. Later on, when they had removed, the father died of phthisis. Finally family D came in. One of the children died of phthisis, one died of tubercular meningitis, and one of wasting disease.
    During twelve years in that one tenement there were thirteen cases of tubercular disease, and during the same twelve years in the other tenements they had a clean bill of health. It is perfectly evident that here you have a case where the building is infected. It illustrates what we could do if we had a scheme whereby the mother could have been removed when she was infecting her household, and if at the same time the local health committee could come in by a visitor who is a common-sense person. I do not mean by any oppressive and interfering methods, and I sincerely hope that those committees will be able to bring in a large number of useful, level-headed, benevolent persons who will, with some training, undertake this work of visiting houses rather than rely on officials, who are inclined to work on hard and fast lines. We all of us know from our health visitors

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    that there are such people obtainable. If the family had been visited and the flat disinfected and the mother removed to an institution where she could be taught how to avoid infecting her family, in all probability the result would be that families B, C and D would not have presented such a dismal record. [An HON. MEMBER: "Is it possible to disinfect a building from tubercular disease, or is it always liable once there has been that disease in it?"] As the hon. Member perhaps knows, the one thing of all others which is fatal to tubercle baccilus is sun. That, of course, would open up the whole of the housing question. But at the same time it is perfectly possible to disinfect the building, and an ordinary dwelling with fair efficiency. That is the first class of case. There is another class of case in which we have sufficient evidence to show that if taken early a large percentage can be cured, or, at all events, their duration of life can be distinctly prolonged. As it is at present the average duration of life of tuberculosis patients is probably about five years.
    Mr. WALTER LONG: When the hon. Member speaks of a large number of cases of persons whose lives were prolonged, does he mean that that applies only to treatment in sanatoria?
    Dr. ADDISON: Oh, no; I do not say that. I do not say it would not be possible to treat them with proper food and fresh air, say, in cheap shelters, and you might in a large number of cases obtain the same results. But it is much more convenient to have them grouped together, for the reason that where they are so grouped you are able to provide more expert treatment. If you have half a dozen cases in a back yard or garden or field you cannot provide for each group the same skilled attention as you can when you have a large number together. Of course, in the early days it is quite true to say that people had a sort of general idea that you could save them by giving them plenty of fresh air. We know that is not sufficient, and that it is a much more detailed matter than that. We have obtained much further information. Exercise, as we know now, is a very essential part of successful treatment. I am speaking of early cases, coupled with proper food, and so on. Let me give you some evidence on this particular point. I notice in the records of Hamburg that the percentage of cases taken in the first stage in 1900 was in 1905, when the average expec-
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    tation would be that they would be in their graves, 95 per cent, still at work of those admitted in the first stage, and of those admitted in the second stage 82 per cent, were at work, and of those admitted in the first stage 50 per cent, were at work. That is to say, the earning power of those people when they came, out again was enormously increased, and consequently the burdens upon their own families and upon the community were proportionately diminished. I do not say that a large number of those people might not, if they cams under unsatisfactory domiciliary conditions, contract the disease again, because, they will still have some focus or foci of infection within them. That only shows how necessary it is that we should have some provision, and there is in this Bill, for following up those cases when they go back home again as the right hon. Gentleman says, if you simply send them to a. sanatoria, pack them off home again, and finish up with them, you will have very unsatisfactory results.
    It is necessary that there should be instituted groups of visitors and so on who will follow up those cases and, as the right hon. Gentleman suggested, there should be established dispensaries over the country to which those patients could go for periodical examination, advice, and all the rest of it. I believe it would be possible to establish an average dispensary for a population, say, of 250,000, and you would not require an extensive building, and you could run such a dispensary for about £750 per year. It is estimated that you could provide 128 dispensaries for England and Wales at an annual cost of about £100,000, which is merely a trifle comparatively, and the cheapest form of treatment no doubt. They are essential to the right following up of the cases which have been in the sanatoria, and they are also essential for the treatment or supervision by nurses and whoever may carry out the work of those who live at home, while perhaps someone is in the sanatorium. When the right hon. Gentleman says that the provisions here are not great enough for the carrying out of a national scheme dealing with the whole matter straight away, that is true. We estimate that for the present tuberculosis population, with the death rate of about 60,000 per year, that 30,000 beds would be required to provide for the treatment of those persons for three, four, or five months' stay in the institutions. It would require a larger sum than is provided in the Bill, but that will be one of the incentives which I

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    think will be most valuable and which will be agreeable to the right hon. Gentlemen who opened this discussion in making the insurance authorities look for cheaper methods of treatment, because the money which is provided will not allow a sufficient number of beds to deal with the present tuberculosis population. It is, I think, a valuable measure for the prevention of disease, or at all events of that disease which causes a bigger proportion of suffering and loss than any other one disease. Whilst I am sure the right hon. Gentleman wishes the economical side of it to be prominent and borne in mind, he also thought it would be made possible to have cheaper methods of treatment. I am sure it will be nothing less than a national calamity were this Clause to be deleted from the Bill.
    Dr. HILLIER: I am sure that all the Members of this Committee have listened with great interest and sympathy to the instructive speech which we have just had from the hon. Member for Hoxton. Under this Clause in the Bill which we are now discussing the State does, perhaps for the first time, address itself to a great public health problem, and in such a way, as it seems to me, that it does take upon itself the responsibility of dealing with this particular disease. I cannot entirely agree with the closing remarks of the last speaker when he attempted to defend the policy laid down in this Bill, which is not the treating of the disease as a whole, or, as he put it, dealing with the whole matter, but merely offering a sort of palliative and making a sort of beginning. If I may refer to my personal experience I should like to inform the Committee that when I was in medical practice, not so very many years ago, I was especially associated with the sanatoria movement. I had the satisfaction of inducing the friendly societies of this country at one of their national conferences to appoint a deputation which accompanied me to Germany, for the purpose, first of all, of inspecting the sanatoria in that country, and, secondly, of acquainting themselves with the provisions of the State Workmen's Insurance Department. That deputation accompanied me to Germany and spent some nine days in learning some facts with which the Chancellor of the Exchequer has since acquainted himself. I hope he will forgive me for saying so, but he will find if he consults some of his friendly society acquaintances that their first introduction
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    to the whole of this scheme was made by the visit which they voluntarily undertook to Germany some few years ago on my advice. The result of that visit was that so far as the sanatoria was concerned they came back and they formed a committee, of which I had the honour of being one, who set about to establish what is known as the National Sanatorium for the Treatment of Tuberculosis, which is now in existence in Benenden in Kent, and has been maintained by the subscriptions of the friendly societies for the treatment of their own members. A very creditable performance it is, and a very high tribute, I venture to think, to the old voluntary spirit and system which prevailed throughout the friendly societies in dealing with benefits of this sort. I am sorry to say at that time the friendly societies did not see their way to reconcile themselves to the compulsory element in the scheme of national insurance. Arguments, no doubt, have been used since then which have had considerable weight, and they have had time to think the matter over, and I presume that at any rate in a great number of instances to-day that objection on behalf of friendly societies has been overcome.
    There is a point of interest in connection with the founding of that sanatorium at Benenden. The friendly societies were convinced by their experience of sick benefit that tuberculosis made a far heavier claim than any other disease upon their resources, and it was on economic as well as humanitarian grounds that they founded that sanatorium. But in approaching this subject and in proposing schemes for dealing with it, whether those schemes can be best carried out under an insurance Bill, or can best be dealt with by different machinery altogether, of this at least I am convinced, that if the State is going to address itself to this problem at all, if it is going to undertake the responsibilities of dealing with tuberculosis, it must deal with the whole matter, and it cannot afford to deal with merely portions of it. This proposal to build a chain of sanatoria throughout the country and to provide sanatorium treatment merely for those insured under the Bill is not a statesmanlike proceeding nor a wise policy. After all, tuberculosis in its most common form, consumption as it is commonly known, is, at any rate in its later stages, undoubtedly an infectious disease, and if you are going to address yourselves to this problem you have to keep that ele-

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    ment in it more permanently before you than any other. How do the proposals of the Government, work out from that point of view? The Bill will merely provide that persons insured under it will be the recipients of sanatorium benefit. They will be removed to these sanatoria and will receive what benefit sanatorium treatment can give them, and they will, at any rate, be removed as centres of infection from the midst of their families. But what about other members of these families who contract phthisis as they must inevitably do. They continue to spread the disease, and this sanatorium treatment, unless it is supplemented by some machinery for dealing with other cases of phthisis in the country, will be nothing less than a costly luxury. You must either leave the thing alone altogether, or you must do it thoroughly. What you are proposing under this Bill is really a palliative, and not a remedy, and I think a costly palliative which can scarcely be justified. Therefore, I think, the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Austen Chamberlain) raised a very important question indeed when he asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, after all, this was a question to be dealt with by an insurance Bill, or whether it could be dealt with by some other machinery altogether. I welcome the attempt on the part of the State to grapple with this great problem, even if I do not think the whole of the efforts proposed are entirely well directed. I recognise that they are a beginning, and provided that the entire responsibility of dealing with this disease is accepted by the Government, and these efforts are carried out on scientific lines they most assuredly will have my support. The hon. Member (Dr. Addison) dwelt very properly upon the necessity for dealing with advanced cases of phthisis as well as with the early cases in sanatoria, and then he went on to say that these advanced cases, after the education they have had in sanatoria, might safely be allowed to go back to their small homes. I am sorry to say, after a considerable number of years' experience of sanatorium treatment, and a good deal of consideration of the subject, I am bound to differ from him.
    Dr. ADDISON: I did not say that at all. They only stay for a limited time, but when they go back to their homes they will have been so trained that they will be less likely to spread infection than they otherwise would.
    Dr. HILLIER: I am very glad to have elicited that further explanation. I am not prepared to deny that a man might be rendered slightly less dangerous as a centre of infection by this educational means, I should be sorry to do that, but I think it would be the greatest possible mistake if we were lead to believe that any amount of education in a sanatorium would prevent an advanced case of phthisis returning home remaining a centre of infection. On this point I should like to quote the last interview I had with Professor Koch, which occurred a few years before his death. I had the privilege of collaborating with him some few years ago in a small work on the subject upon which he advised me, and the thing that he impressed upon me, and it is a thing I shall remember as long as I live, as the result of his life work and investigation in this matter was that up to the present time neither in Germany nor in any other country had the really necessary measures for preventing this disease been taken. I said, "What, in your opinion, is the chief source of the spread of this disease?" He said, "I have no doubt whatever that the chief source is the poor consumptive returning and dying in a poor home surrounded by his family. Any proposal which merely regards sanatoria as places for the treatment of early cases of phthisis or places where advanced cases may be treated and then allowed to go back to the family really fail to achieve the first requirement of any great preventive measures. Therefore, I say again that if the State is going to take up this matter—and a great deal has been done by voluntary effort; but I do not deny that no one can deal with it like the State—I trust they will take it up in a thoroughly scientific spirit and will deal with it as a whole, and not in the piecemeal way which is suggested in this Bill so far as we are at present advised. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Walter Long) referred with justice to the wonderful work which has been done under the guidance of Dr. Philip in Edinburgh, where they have complete machinery for dealing with all stages of this disease and where they have actually had the gratification of seeing a steady diminution in the death-rate from tuberculosis. It is perfectly certain that whether it be done under this Bill or by something supplementary to this Bill, unless the State combines with its sanatorium benefit a complete machinery for dealing with cases of phthisis amongst the poorer classes more particularly, whether they be in-

    407
    sured or not, they will be undertaking a work which neither economically nor scientifically is sound.
    With regard to the economic side, I should like to say a few words. I entirely agree with the right hon. Gentleman who has deprecated the expenditure of large sums of money on bricks and mortar. I go further and say that in my opinion admirable accommodation can be provided for the treatment of tubercular cases for less than (£100 a bed, which was the sum mentioned by the hon. Member (Dr. Addison). I think before any departure is taken in this matter the whole question should be gone into most carefully, and expert evidence most carefully collected, because I am convinced, from what I have seen of open-air sanatorium treatment, that admirable results can be obtained from what in ordinary conditions of life might be regarded as very primitive accommodation, but which nevertheless is perfectly healthy, even if it is of a somewhat Spartan simplicity, and therefore I hope that this point will be borne in mind by the Government and their advisers. The hon. Member (Dr. Addison) spoke of a flat with successive families infected with phthisis. I have no doubt he has seen a series of similar cases compiled by the medical officer of health for Manchester some few years ago, giving precisely the same sort of statistics and the same result. These cases will, I think, sufficiently emphasise the point I am making, that if you are going to deal with this subject and take on yourselves as a State the responsibility of dealing with it, the last thing you must do is to allow an advanced case of consumption to go home and die in the bosom of his family. I have considered the domestic as well as the scientific side of the problem, and there is this to be said, that in these advanced cases it is perfectly possible for relatives and friends to visit them in sanatoria with safety. They need not be deprived of the companionship of their friends and relatives in their last days altogether. But that is very different from allowing advanced cases to go home. I care not what precaution you may take with regard to the education received in these sanatorium. The conditions in the case in which a patient returns to a small cottage or tenement are such that further disaster is almost certain to follow.
    5.0 P.M.
    A question has been raised by the right hon. Gentleman as to the advantage of
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    sanatorium benefit, and as to the percentage of cures which may be obtained by this method. I do not hesitate to say that I so far agree with him that I think the first advantage of sanatoria or of any similar institution is that you get the consumptive out of the environment in which he might continue to be a source of disease, although I admit that you also educate him into how to conduct himself if an arrest of the disease is obtained. With regard to the proportion of cures, various figures have been published by sanatoria, and various claims made, and I am quite convinced that a considerable proportion of early cases are actually cured. I am not prepared to say what is the precise ' percentage, and I do not think any one can state an exact figure, but I would say a very appreciable proportion. Then there is a very considerable number of other cases in which there is a temporary arrest of the disease, under which for a time a man or a woman enjoys good health, but beyond these there is the other class of cases, of which I have spoken, which are only too numerous, and in regard to which we shall have the greatest and the heaviest responsibilities. In conclusion, let me emphasise once more that the greatest source of the spread of this disease is to be found in those advanced cases of consumption which are allowed to go home to die, or to remain, in a narrow little home or in a crowded tenement.
    Sir HENRY NORMAN: The speeches we have listened to afford ample justification for the Amendment which was proposed by the Member for East Worcestershire (Mr. Austen Chamberlain). My own contribution to the discussion must be without any claim to the technical authority which gave weight to the last two speeches. I think in a discussion of tuberculosis we must bear in, mind one fundamental fact, that if tuberculosis is to be stamped out in this country, there is in the last resort only one Government Department which can deal with it, and that is the Local Government Board. So long as large masses of people have to live in the conditions under which they live at present, in such, unsanitary surroundings, and under such wretched housing conditions, you will never succeed in stamping this disease out. It would be very interesting to enter into the questions of the responsibility and the causes for such conditions, but I do not

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    propose to do so. The hon. Member for the Strand Division (Mr. W. Long), who speaks with much knowledge and authority upon matters connected with local government, alluded to the new Tuberculosis Report. Of course, we have had only a moment to glance at it, but, so far as I have been able to see, it is confined, almost, entirely, to the question of the transmission of bovine tuberculosis to human beings. That touches only remotely upon the matters to which this Bill is chiefly addressed.
    The object of an Insurance Bill must be, as far as possible, to combine all the agencies in the country into one great attempt to raise the standard of the health of the nation, and to accomplish that we must remove, as far as possible, the sources of infectious disease; we must either cure or segregate the infected person. To have introduced this Bill without having made an attempt to deal with these persons, either by cure or segregation, would have been to give evidence of the inability of the authors of the Bill to take a broad view of their responsibility in framing such a measure, and if they had done so, and had sought to leave to other agencies the task of dealing with this great problem I hope I should have been one of the first to reproach them with a lack of insight and foresight. It has been found, to use a phrase which I think comes from Germany, that from the economical point of view the cheapest thing you can do for a consumptive person is to cure him, and it is also the cheapest thing for the community. Every justification for the greatest efforts, and the greatest enthusiasm, in the combination of all the agencies in the country in this work, as far as possible, is found in the fact that under these circumstances tuberculosis in every form will be a constantly diminishing quantity, and therefore, though it sounds paradoxical, the more you spend the less you will have to spend in coping with it. To take one point which has not been mentioned this afternoon, we all agree that there is no doubt whatever that the sanatorium treatment is of great value in certain stages, but it is a very long treatment and a very costly treatment. I do not think it can be correctly described as a scientific treatment. Tuberculosis is, of course, a microbic disease, and such diseases must ultimately be fought bacteriologically.
    Although I speak with great humility I may say that I have taken an interest in following, as far as I can. the medical
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    literature on the subject, and although I have no claim to make a prophecy it appears to me that we are now in sight, perhaps within a few years, of a time when tuberculosis will be cured by injection, on a par with the triumphant serum and similar treatment of other diseases, such as tetanus, diphtheria, and that brilliant and extraordinary treatment recently described in the medical press in regard to the treatment of syphilis. I attended by proxy a scientific lecture in London quite recently with regard to the progress of the tuberculin treatment of consumption. I am not a scientific man and I know it would be wrong to raise false hopes; nothing could be more unwise or more cruel, as the past has shown. But I am told that one can safely say that there is ground for believing that within a comparatively few years, as we are now able to diagnose phthisis at a much earlier stage than has been the case, in the past, we shall have a direct, radical and inexpensive cure, compared with the indirect and comparatively unscientific result of sanatorium treatment.
    You cannot do without sanatoria, but you cannot do everything with them; you cannot, unless you work on a very broad scale, do very much. For that reason I have put down an Amendment on much the same lines as that of my hon. Friend behind me, though it is a little more definite in the wording, to add after the words "treatment in sanatoria and other institutions" the further words "or other preventative or curative treatment." I hope the right hon. Gentleman will see his way to accept my hon. Friend's Amendment or my own, which I should prefer, as it is a little more definite, because it confers upon local health committees the power to adopt other methods of treatment besides sanatoria, and, indeed, invites them to do so.
    Mr. ARTHUR LYNCH: I wish to speak more in regard to the importance of research. It has been touched upon in some of the very interesting speeches which we have had, and although some of the hon. Gentlemen have no special knowledge of the subject they have showed the greatest earnestness and appreciation of the subject. The gravamen of my argument is not directed so much against sanatoria. Rather what I want is to have both sanatoria and research, and that of the two the far greater weight should be allowed to research. The perspective of these two things should be changed. You

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    may spend millions of money on sanatoria and ten years afterwards when you take a retrospect of what has been accomplished the answer may be almost nothing. There are many differences of opinion with regard to sanatoria, and there is a very powerful school of medicine, comprising broadly those who are in the forefront of bacteriological work, who doubt whether much advantage, scientifically, is derived from sanatoria if limited to the expectant treatment. That school is not opposed to sanatoria, or to the provisions of the Bill in other respects, because they recognise that in sanatoria not only can patients be kept under observation and capably treated, but that they can gain in these institutions further opportunities for research work. Without that facility for research I would be inclined to say that this expenditure on sanatoria would be money almost entirely wasted.
    Yet I am one of those who believe that it would be possible in a few years to stamp out consumption and all forms of tuberculosis in the same degree as leprosy has been stamped out, and it is a rather curious fact that the bacillus of tuberculosis and the bacillus of leprosy resemble each other a great deal; so much so that even skilled bacteriologists are sometimes unable to make the distinction. Leprosy was stamped out not by sanatoria or other treatment of that kind. Really nothing was known of the etiology of the disease, but there was undoubtedly an incidental advantage in its treatment by segregation. I am inclined when I ask what advantage will be derived from the expectant treatment to say that the greatest of these advantages will be the taking away of the patients from their homes and segregating them from the rest of the community. And, therefore, I would like to emphasise the remark of the Member for Hertfordshire (Dr. Hillier) that so far from it being permissible to allow patients who are in the last stages of the disease to go home I would regard that as the most dangerous period of all the phases of the disease. That is the time when the bacillus has gained a triumph over the system of the patient and has begun to increase and multiply, and is given forth by him again with the greatest energy. The two months in the last stage of the life of a consumptive patient are far more dangerous to the health of the community than two years at the earlier stage. I wish to traverse one or two arguments
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    raised in the course of this Debate, and first let me say as regards cancer there is no comparison between the two diseases. We do know something about consumption; we have isolated the bacillus; we train and cultivate the bacillus; we know the methods of infection, if not all at least many of them; whereas of cancer we can only guess that it is a microbic disease, and even that point is disputed with the greatest energy by many learned men who spent years of their lives in its study.
    The hon. Member for Montrose Burghs said that Scotland, for instance, would be a suitable place for the erection of sanatoria. I doubt that Scotland or England, of any place in the British Isles, is a suitable place to erect sanatoria. I knew an old lady who lived to be more than sixty years of age; she contracted phthisis in Scotland, and she was told by her physician that she had only three months to live. She emigrated to Australia, and used to see her physician about every ten years, when he invariably told her that she had only three months to live. As a matter of fact, she outlived him and even his grandson. I knew a man who in the last stages of consumption was sent to Australia as a last resort. He recovered, and lived to become a professor in one of the universities and a distinguished student of the disease with which he was threatened. South Africa is a marvellous climate in respect of phthisis. More valuable than any sanatorium treatment is a warm, dry climate, free from microbes; so I rather discourage the idea of building sanatoria in Scotland, as the suggestion arises, not so much from scientific reasons as from patriotic motive. I am not very much in favour of the famous chain of sanatoria in these countries, because England has a climate which is enough to kill an ordinary healthy man, much more a consumptive patient.
    Another point is that tuberculosis is not a deadly disease. I say that with great circumspection. How can you call a disease a deadly disease which takes upon the average five years to kill its man, and very often fails to kill him at all, compared with the disease such as small-pox or diphtheria or typhoid fever, which finishes a man in a couple of weeks. Consumption is one of those diseases which is upon the border line of not being fatal at all; a great portion of every civilised community are almost immune from phthisis, that is so-far immune that their constitutions are

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    capable of resisting its attack. That vitiates statistics derived from sanatoria because it is impossible to estimate the number of cures. In accordance with this, post-mortem examinations have shown us in recent years that a great proportion of ordinary persons have been at some time of their lives attacked by tubercule bacillus, perhaps never knew they were so attacked, and survived that attack, and as post-mortem examinations more and more increase, I am inclined to think that the discoveries of the proportion of persons who at one time or another have been attacked by tuberculosis, would rise higher and higher. So that when you say a person has been in a sanatorium and has been cured it is a logical fallacy to impute that cure to sanatorium treatment, yet at the same time if that person had never been sent to a sanatorium he might easily have been cured.
    Patients in a sanatorium sometimes look quite healthy; they are bronzed by the sun, they may even put on weight and feed well, and may show a high rate of improvement, but by certain scientific tests which have only recently become known, it may be found that the patient is making no headway against the disease and even perhaps that the disease is making headway against the patient. So that the proper estimate in these cases is not by statistics or by the appearance of the patients, but by what is called the opsonic index. It was a discovery made rather than invented by my most famous teacher, Sir Almworth Wright, and is one of the triumphs of bacteriological science which gives to modern bacteriology what Koch looked for in his day. There are many Members of the Committee who remembers the excitement created by Koch's announcement as to the treatment of consumption. It was a premature announcement, however, put before the public for patriotic reasons when Koch believed he had discovered a cure for tuberculosis. Hundreds of patients rushed to Koch, and by submitting to his treatment, had their illness accelerated, not that his principle was wrong, but simply because he had not the means of studying his tuberculin treatment and gauging its effects. That defect is remedied by Sir Almworth Wright in his opsonic index; it supplies the means by which we can ascertain the value of sanatorium treatment. I should like to say a word or two, if I may, which I fear may shock some of my medical confrères, namely, that there is a certain superstition
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    about the fresh air treatment of tuberculosis. Throughout the whole history of medicine one can see there have been, fashions in medicine, just as there have been fashions in spring bonnets. I believe that is the case throughout the whole world in art and science, and one fashion which prevailed throughout the Middle Ages, and from which we have not wholly emancipated ourselves yet, was that of the doctrine of signatures; so that you prescribed bloodstone to a man suffering from, hœmorrhage of the lungs, and that you treated a man suffering from asthma with lungs of foxes, and quinzy with bluebells because they have long necks. I believe that is one of the reasons why we hear so much to-day of the fresh air treatment with, regard to tuberculosis. It must be remembered that tuberculosis is not always-phthisis; it attacks many of the organs besides the lungs, but I am inclined to think that the value of fresh air in the case of any tuberculosis is just as high, or nearly as high, as it is in regard to tuberculosis of the lungs—not by acting on the bacillus, but by improving the whole system, by acting as a kind of tonic and enabling the system to throw off the disease. I am inclined to think that this is the sole benefit of the fresh air treatment even in regard to phthisis, because the fresh air, not coming in contact with the bacillus, can only act by improving the tone of the whole general system. I have the authority of Sir Almworth Wright to say this: that where he has been treating tuberculous patients, all his treatment was based upon the opsonic index, and that if children were taken on a holiday to Margate, the healthiest place in the whole of England, and so interrupted their treatment to enjoy the benefits of fresh air, he sometimes found when, they returned that there had been a distinct retrogression. The great difficulty of estimating the improvement of patients by fresh air was that they might be able to throw off the disease entirely without any; treatment whatever, or even without knowing that they had been attacked by tuberculosis.
    Before sitting down I should like to propose the impossible—that is, I think all this is a case for special examination by a special committee. But for the fact that we are limited to time, I would like to see this whole question relegated to a commission of experts, who would have an opportunity, not merely of taking evidence in the ordinary way, but entering thoroughly and in the most determined way into the value of the latest treatment,

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    and especially into the value of tuberculin treatment as guided by the opsonic index. But for the question of time I think it is a matter that should be so investigated, because I believe you must look for an absolute cure for tuberculosis, and if you fail to cure it you will have done very little. As long as you leave the germs about you leave a ferment, and I use the word ferment advisedly, because the action of the disease itself is that of ferment, and ferment is something comparable to a disease. Unless you stamp out tuberculosis you accomplish very little. At the same time I am in full accord not only with the good intentions of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but to a very great extent with his methods, because although I think a great deal of the one, and a half millions will be wasted, I think it is possibly not a bad thing to waste one and a half millions, or even ten millions, if eventually we are put upon the track of grappling with this disease. The force of ail I have said is this—that whereas sanatorium treatment must be encouraged for this reason, our great weight of attack is by tuberculin treatment guided by the opsonic index; far greater weight should be given in proportion to scientific methods of research and to tuberculin treatment, and a far greater sum of money should be allocated for these purposes, if possible.
    Mr. BARNES: After the very able and technical speeches we have just heard what I have to say will be regarded, I am afraid—I will not say as stale, flat and unprofitable—but as severely practical. It was quite with a shock I heard this present proposition coming from the Front Bench, because I believe since the introduction of this Bill that these particular provisions were the best part of it. I rejoiced to know that a responsible Government was taking steps for making some scientific and systematic provision against the inroads of disease just as we have long ago done in regard to the prevention of fire and the destruction of property, and therefore I was somewhat shocked to hear to-day the proposition put forward from the Front Bench, though I quite appreciate the fact that it is put forward for the purposes of discussion. One argument which has been put forward is that we should cut this proposal out of the Bill because provision for the prevention of consumption should not be a charge on the Insurance Fund, but ought to be a public charge. With that argument as an abstract proposition I en-
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    tirely agree. I should like to see all the money required for this scheme coming from the Exchequer. I think it is a bad principle theoretically to charge very poor persons as the Chancellor proposes a certain moiety for the treatment of disease which is preventable, and which, in my opinion, is largely due to poverty. That has been clearly ascertained by those who have gone fully into this matter. I remember attending a conference at Glasgow and hearing figures given on this subject by Dr. Chalmers which convinced those present at the conference that this disease was very largely due to poverty.
    The argument put forward is that theoretically this is not the right way of dealing with consumption. Have we ever dealt theoretically with any great question. Even in my short experience I remember that we dealt with sweated industries experimentally picking out a trade or two to deal with for the time being. In regard to education theoretically everybody will admit that free education is the right thing. Education is a matter of national concern, and an enlightened and educated people is a benefit to the whole community, and therefore education ought to be a public charge. But we did not bring about free education by dealing with it theoretically. On the contrary, we stumbled into it. First we made education more or less general, and imposed a small charge, and as the community gradually recognised that education was a national concern, the fees were abolished and then we had free education. With regard to this question the same thing will happen. We have commenced by throwing a portion of these charges on very poor people, but so far as sickness is concerned I look upon these provisions as the germ of a national medical service, which I believe this scheme will grow into. In the meantime I am not condemning a provision simply because it is not theoretically correct.
    The second argument was that this provision should be knocked out, because we had not sufficient knowledge. Comparisons were made between our knowledge of tuberculosis and cancer. I cannot speak from a technical knowledge of those subjects. Several doctors have spoken, and, as usual, they have differed, and it has been left for the plain man of ordinary common sense to decide. Speaking as one not possessing expert knowledge, but as a man of ordinary common sense who tries to get to know as much as possible, I have no hesitation in saying that

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    although we do not know a great deal more about tuberculosis than about, cancer we know a great deal more as to how to treat it. I have gathered information upon this question. I was in Germany a few years ago, and we collected a great many figures, and I believe that the results showed a reduction of consumption as a consequence of the adoption of the open-air treatment. I wish to say that I prefer sanatoria to serum. No harm can come out of fresh air, but a great deal of harm can come, and has come, out of serum.
    Mr. LYNCH: The method I mentioned was not serum.
    Mr. BARNES: I know nothing about the Gentleman to whom the hon. Member opposite referred. I know that one of my hon. Friends advocated serum. I am not going to say anything against scientific research, but I think it is something which ought to be carefully watched, and if we are going to have scientific research I want it to be safeguarded. I hope we shall not torture any more poor dumb animals for the purpose of scientific research. I do not think a case has been made out against the proposals of this Bill in regard to sanatoria on the ground of a lack of knowledge. It may be true that medical science in regard to consumption is more or less in the experimental stage. We are in the experimental stage with regard to almost all diseases. It is true that we know a good deal about the treatment of consumption, and we know that the open-air treatment has been largely justified by results. There is another reason in favour of the inclusion of this disease and making it a matter for special treatment, and it is that there is no other disease claiming so many victims. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in introducing this Bill said that every year 75,000 victims fell as a result of this disease in this country. From that point of view alone I think there is a reason why it should be dealt with specifically to the exclusion of other diseases. I hope the same principle will be applied to the other diseases as soon as the Chancellor of the Exchequer can afford to spend the money.
    It is said that this Bill does not deal with the subject thoroughly. I agree with what the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury) said as to the inclusion of women and children, and I voted for his proposal. I regret that this scheme does not cover the women and children. I have heard the statement made about
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    the danger of the further spreading of this disease by people being sent from a sanatorium home to die. I do not think that should be allowed. I should like to see a more liberal provision made. For these reasons it is claimed that we should not do anything at all in this matter, but that seems to me a very illogical position to take up. I want a start to be made. I think a start is being made in the good old blundering British fashion, not by academic consideration, but by blundering into it and getting something done. Afterwards I shall vote every time I get a chance for extending this principle so as to make it theoretically more perfect.
    It has been said that if this 1s. 3d. were saved we might get this question dealt with on theoretical lines. I do not know whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer has an additional 1s. 3d. in the till. If I thought so I should vote for the exclusion of this Sub-section in order to have the question dealt with in another way. What I feel is if we do not spend this 1s. 3d. in this way we shall not save it. This Bill is surrounded by vested interests of all sorts, and if we do not spend this 1s. 3d. upon sanatoria then the doctors will have it, or somebody else, and I do not know any better way of spending it than upon sanatoria. For all these reasons I am, inclined to vote for the Bill as it stands. It may be said that sanatoria, as well as other things, is purely experimental treatment. At all events, there is this to be said, that fresh air can do nobody any harm, and sanatoria, if they prove to be of no use for consumption, will be very useful for something else. At present we find thousands of poor people laid up sick for weeks and months in the slums of our large cities and there they have to stop. As soon as they get well, and even before they are well, because of the pressure of economic poverty, they go to work before they are fit. If these sanatoria turn out to be no use for the treatment of tuberculosis they will certainly come in for these poor people as useful convalescent homes where these people can get what is better than physic, namely good fresh air and plenty of food.
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: We have had some very able speeches, and we have also had one of the most instructive Debates I have been privileged to listen to for a very long time. In saying that, I am not reflecting in any way upon any of the other discussions I have heard. I think the Committee will agree with me when I say

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    that this Debate has been full of significance and full of suggestion in every part, and I do not regret a single minute of it, because I think it has been very valuable. The suggestion we put forward is a new one so far as an Act of Parliament is concerned and the Treasury, and therefore it is important that it should be thoroughly examined before we proceed with it. We are embarking upon a new experiment and incurring considerable financial liabilities. In fact, they are very heavy liabilities. We are incurring an expenditure of £1,500,000 by way of capital liability upon buildings for sanatoria, and we are incurring that proportion of the expenditure which the Financial Resolution and its provisions have laid upon the shoulders of the taxpayers. From all the inquiries I have made I think this experiment will be a success, and I am sure that its success will end in our extending the experiment a good deal further than we propose to do in this Bill. Therefore, I think it is perfectly right that we should examine this proposal very carefully before we proceed with it. I think the warning which has been given to the Committee not to trust exclusively to sanatoria in dealing with this question is a very timely and a very necessary one, because if we were to do that sanatoria could not possibly cover all the cases of consumption. We might, if we concentrated the whole of our efforts upon sanatoria, neglect the larger percentage of people who cannot possibly, under this system, receive treatment. I therefore not only think the warning was a timely one, but I think it was a very valuable one at this stage.
    The hon. Member for one of the divisions of Clare (Mr. Lynch) was perfectly correct when he said there are fashions in cures, and undoubtedly sanatoria for the moment have got the advantage of being also fashionable, but that does not mean they are not very useful and very valuable. A good many remedies which after years of struggle have managed to secure the approval of the profession have come to stay, and the case of sanatoria is a case of that kind. It is not something which has been suggested within the last few years. It is something which was suggested a food many years ago. I forget how many, but I am not sure it is not forty or fifty years ago when an English doctor tried the experiment. It has been a long experiment, and it has
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    gone through the same stages as every other successful experiment. It has taken very many years to convert the faculty, and it is only because the experiments, extending over a good many years, have been a success that doctors have been at last convinced there is a good deal to be said for it. I do not, therefore, put it in the same category as a sort of fashionable craze. It is something tried and tested by the most severe test of all, the test of experience, extending over something, like two generations. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Long) said, and said very properly, you must not merely make a case showing that the ravages of the disease are very terrible, and that a good deal of suffering is involved. You must also make your case that this particular method of dealing with it deserves at least a trial. I agree with him. I do not think there is any doubt at all about the terrible injury which is inflicted upon the strength and vitality of the-nation, or the mortality which is attributable to it, or the economic devastation which is created by it. We have also got to make a case that it is desirable to try this particular experiment on this considerable scale in order to meet the ravages of the disease. The right hon. Gentleman rather cast doubt upon the success of the sanatorium experiment. He quoted certain figures. I did not quite catch the authority, but they did not seem to me for the moment to be conclusive.
    Mr. WALTER LONG: I said they were not conclusive.
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: And I agree with, the right hon. Gentleman. I should like to have that authority again if he will kindly let me have it later on.
    Mr. WALTER LONG: Certainly.
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I should like to see what it really implies. We have fortunately two or three very important facts, and facts on a very large scale, which enable us to come to a conclusion as to whether sanatoria are something more than a temporary craze, and as to whether they justify us in spending £1,500,000 of capital and £1,000,000 a year in maintenance for the purpose of trying, through that medium to cure and arrest consumption. We have got, first of all, the experience of our own country. There is a. very valuable book—I have no doubt hon. Members have seen it—by Dr. Arthur Latham and Mr. C. H. Garland. It contains a

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    good many figures showing what the effect has been in the sanatoria we have established in England. Unfortunately, there are two rival schools, and they think it necessary, in order to establish the advantage of their own methods, to decry the other. That is a great mistake. There is, of course, no rivalry like that of the advocates of special methods for remedying either body or soul. It is not merely that they insist their own specifics are the very best—they are not satisfied with that—but they will insist that any remedy suggested by somebody else is poison. There is just a little of that in the advocacy of the rival schools in regard to consumption. I think it is a mistake, because undoubtedly they are not substitutes one for the other. They can be fitted in, and one can supplement and assist the other. I hope, therefore, we shall not consider them merely in the nature of rival and antagonistic methods of dealing with the same disease. As a matter of fact, one method may be far and away the best for a man who is in a certain stage of the disease, or who is in a certain condition of life, and another may be an infinitely better one for a man who is in an earlier stage of the disease. I hope, therefore, it will not be necessary for us to advocate one method at the expense of another. I only preface that observation before I come to the figures with regard to what has happened in England. I am not sure whether the sanatorium referred to by the hon. Gentleman is not the sanatorium of the Hearts of Oak. This is the report to the Hearts of Oak with regard to that sanatorium:—
    "All the patients with early tuberculosis did well, and left the sanatorium with the disease arrested and fit to return to work. The success of the treatment almost entirely depends on the stage of the disease when the patient is admitted."
    It then gives certain figures, and the result can be tabulated as follows: Fifty-eight patients treated by the society up to May, 1009; disease arrested, 34.5 per cent.; improved, 57 per cent.; unimproved, 8 per cent. That shows the vast majority of those who entered the sanatorium were cither cured altogether, or they left very considerably improved as the result of the treatment. There is another case, the case of the Post Office Sanatorium Society. In that case, they treated 168 cases, and the results may be thus tabulated: Disease arrested, 48.8 per cent.; improved, 36.3 per cent.; unimproved, 14.2 per cent. There was only one died out of the total number. That shows, at any rate so far as the experiments in this country are
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    concerned, they have been a very considerable success, and after all. as the hon. Member for Hoxton (Dr. Addison) in a speech which impressed the House, has pointed out, the experiments here have been on a very limited and small scale. We have only got 2,000 beds, and, as he pointed out, practically only 1,500 of those are available for people with this disease. In Germany I think there are 10,000 beds for the exclusive use of consumptives belonging to the working classes. The experiments have been going on in Germany for a considerable number of years, and in the cases to which I am referring, they deal, not as they deal here in many of the sanatoria very largely with better-class patients, but exclusively with the working classes. This is the result of experiments in Germany. The figures are very significant. I have got hero the statistics of the Imperial Insurance Office, and they show that every year the proportion of consumptive patients discharged from sanatoria as able to return to work increases, and that the duration of their earning capacity is more prolonged. That is the result every year. If the Committee will follow the figures they are very striking. The sanatorium treatment in Germany began in 1897. In 1897 65 per cent. of those treated were able to return to work. In 1909 83 per cent. were able to return to work.
    Mr. ALFRED LYTTELTON: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what is the duration of treatment?
    6.0 P.M.
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: They generally stay about three or four months in the sanatoria. The proportion of persons treated who are able to work at the end of the first year was 62 per cent, in 1902, but it has now increased to 80 per cent. The proportion able to work at the end of the second year has increased from 44 per cent, to 63 per cent., at the end of the third year from 30 to 57 per cent., at the end of the fourth year from 30 to 52 per cent., and at the end of the fifth year from 27 to 46 per cent., so there has been an improvement year by year in the method, and, consequently, in the results, of the sanatoria treatment in Germany. In other words, whereas in 1902 one person in every four was still able to work five years after undergoing treatment, the proportion now is nearly 50 per cent. I think that is quite sufficient to justify us in embarking on this experiment. Every enquiry I have made proves to me that at any rate the

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    sanatorium treatment gives a man an increased chance in fighting for his life, and I think that stands to reason. I do not know what the effect of the open air is upon the disease, but, even if it has no effect at all, it does strengthen a man in fighting against it. You remove people from an atmosphere in small homes in towns where the air is pretty devitalised, and charged with dust, and put them in healthy surroundings. Sanatoria are generally in about the healthiest spots that can be found. You put them there for four months and see they get good food. Their habits are improved, and those indiscretions in the matter of diet, sleep, air, and ventilation which men commit unless they are really looked after are checked during that period. That in itself has a great effect on men suffering from disease of that kind, and, as far as I am able to discover, the most valuable part of the sanatorium treatment is the discipline in the institution itself. The patient leaves the sanatorium after four months' training in the kind of treatment that is best for him if he is to keep the tubercle down. He learns what is necessary with regard to diet and air, he learns what excesses to avoid in every direction, and that sort of training is really valuable for a subject who has the tubercle lurking in his or her system, always ready to spread to some vital part unless it is kept in check. That in itself is exceedingly valuable for the purpose of enabling us to grapple with this disease. I think we are justified in the course we are taking by the facts I have referred to, facts quoted not only from the very valuable work of Dr. Lathom and Mr. C. H. Garland, but also by the medical adviser of the Local Government Board (Mr. Newsholme). Analysing the figures affecting consumption in this country and giving a perfectly impartial view as to the methods of dealing with the disease the medical adviser of the Local Government Board says—
    "I am completely convinced that sanatorium treatment is most beneficial to patients and enables a large proportion of them to resume their ordinary life."
    That is the conclusion he has come to, after looking into the statistics published on the subject, and that, at any rate, is one of the reasons which has prompted us to experiment in the direction of sanatorium treatment in this country. As regards what has been said about not erecting expensive and extravagant buildings I am in complete accord. One of the
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    first things I am told with regard to sanatoria—and in this matter I must not be taken as indulging in anything in the nature of uncharitable criticism, I am only conveying to the House information which has reached me—is that a good deal of money has been wasted not upon bricks and mortar but upon marble. I think it is a great pity to put up these extravagant buildings; we want our money to go as far as we can make it go. I also agree with the suggestion that, after all, sanatoria are in an experimental stage and that therefore to erect magnificent buildings is a great waste. It is not making the best use of our money; it is not by any means the best method of fighting the disease. I therefore entirely agree with the remarks which have been made on that point.
    I think there are at least three advantages in supplementing our sanatorium expenditure by other methods than sanatoria. Take the case of Germany, where, since the year 1897, the sanatorium treatment has been extended and a great deal of money has been spent upon it. I think there they provide 10,000 beds and treat about 40,000 patients every year. But even that does not exhaust the whole of the demand upon them. I do not contemplate that under any conditions it will be, I will not say possible, but desirable to build a sufficient number of sanatoria to provide accommodation for all subjects in this country, and for that reason I think it is just possible some may be treated in another way. There are advantages in having other methods of treatment. Where doctors disagree I know it is rather rash for a mere politician to intervene, but, at any rate, I think I may point out three advantages. The first is, if you get some other method it helps you in your selection of patients for your sanatoria. Those engaged in sanatorium treatment well know that it is not every patient whom you can send into a sanatorium. Some, unfortunately, are too far gone, and it would simply be encouraging false hopes by taking such patients into these institutions. At the same time, you will be keeping others out who might benefit by the treatment. Besides that, these patients are apt to do more to spread infection than to get rid of it. Therefore the first thing which will have to be done under our method will be to decide what are proper cases to treat in sanatoria. The second thing is that as we cannot hope to provide sanatorium treatment for all consumptives in this country, and I believe they number from 200,000 to 300,000 at the very least, if we

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    have got other methods than sanatorium treatment, it will mean that those for whom you cannot provide treatment in the sanatoria will receive some special treatment which experience has proved to be useful in cases of consumption. The third reason is well worth considering. I am not sure, but I think it possible, if you have got other methods of treating, you can shorten the period during which patients stay at the sanatoria, and then very probably twice as many patients will be able to receive sanatorium treatment. Therefore, for all these three reasons, I think it is very desirable you should not confine your treatment of consumptives to sanatoria, and I hope I have convinced the Committee that the Government do not intend, at any rate, to concentrate the whole of their efforts in their struggle against this disease merely upon building and maintaining sanatoria.
    I now come to the second point raised by the hon. Member for the Blackfriars Division of Glasgow (Mr. Barnes). His criticism seemed to amount to this, unless you can do everything you had better do nothing. I cannot conceive a more unwise policy. In this country we like to proceed experimentally; we like to pass from stage to stage, and we like to get even into the most advanced stages by easy stages. That is what we are doing here. But we are not going by very easy stages, because we are taking a very large stride in this matter. I am sure that no doctor, no advocate of sanatorium treatment, could have had it in his mind a year ago that the Government would within twelve months come down and offer £1,500,000 for the purpose of building sanatoria and would find another million towards maintaining them. After all, the real danger of a proposal like this is that it attracts attention to the disease as well as to the remedy; but the proposal which has been advanced is that instead of finding £1,500,000 we should provide at' least another £3,500,000, in order to cope with this disease. Practically, I cannot see my way to do that; it cannot be done unless we reduce the benefits all round under this Bill—at any rate, until we have tried this experiment and see how it works out. We are trying it on a sufficiently large scale to make the results much more valuable than the results we have already obtained from sanatorium treatment in this country.
    I think the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Worcestershire will agree with me it will be possible for the Exchequer to provide another three millions
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    for the purposes of this experiment. At any rate, we ought first to see what will be the result of our present proposition. It would, of course, be very desirable if we could undertake the whole responsibility of treating every man, woman and child in this country suffering from the disease, but that is not the function of a National Insurance Bill. Still we are bound to deal with this problem. It is an urgent one. I do not know one more urgent, and although it does not come properly within the sphere of an insurance Bill to provide expenditure of that kind for those who are outside the contribution, it will have to be dealt with when the general question of Poor Law reform is under discussion. Local authorities, at any rate, are beginning to wake up to their obligations in this matter. They are spending considerable sums of money, and I believe in Ireland, during the last few years, they have built no fewer than seven sanatoria, and still they are undertaking further obligations. A number of county councils in this country are also realising their responsibilities in this matter. I am reminded by my right hon. Friend the Attorney-General that Heading has done so.
    Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Birmingham also.
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: Yes, and I have some remarkable statistics from Birmingham. I was rather surprised that the right hon. Gentleman who comes from Birmingham should have ventured to criticise sanatoria treatment, and should have used Edinburgh as an example when, at his own doors, he has an illustration of the success of the experiment he is criticising. The Birmingham sanatorium is a valuable illustration of the advantage of this system. Birmingham in this, as in many other respects, has been a pioneer on municipal reform, and it is a much better authority on municipal reform than on Tariff Reform. At any rate that shows that the municipal authorities are becoming quite alive to it. I conceive that there is a good deal of hope here: that there is a possible germ in this Bill which may fructify to something even bigger than this plan. What happens? I should like to see the system extended so that families could be cured in these sanatoria. I think there is a method suggested in the Bill which when it develops will enable us to do that. In one Clause of the Bill there is a provision that the local authorities

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    "may." There is some doubt about the interpretation of the word, but it is the intention of the Government that the local authorities and the Treasury "may" each find half of the excess which is charged in respect of the medical benefits which are administered by the local health committee. That is left purely to the option of the Treasury and of the local authorities. They can make their own terms in regard to the conditions under which they are prepared to meet it. I think that provision may very usefully be extended to sanatoria.
    Plainly what would happen would be this: If it is decided to have treatment for families, and make it compulsory, you must find three and a-quarter million straight away. This is to make it optional, and I have not a bit of doubt that the local health committee and the approved societies will use these sanatoria for the purpose of curing the wives as well as the insured persons. It will soon, probably, be discovered that the accommodation is inadequate. If the treatment is successful then it will be upon the local authorities in that district to approach the Treasury with a view to getting increased accommodation to be allowed to expend more money for that purpose. The Treasury will undertake half in addition and the local authority will undertake the other half. It is left entirely to the option of the local authorities. There is no compulsion upon them. It is in the interests of the local authorities to do this, because every one, like the right hon. Gentleman opposite, who has had experience of local government in this country must know that a very considerable proportion of the expense of medical benefit now chargeable to the Poor Rate is attributable to tuberculosis. The infirmaries of this country maintained by the guardians are full of patients suffering from tuberculosis. In the Homes we get tuberculous patients staying for months, and sometimes for years, with consequent expense both in medical attendance and in maintenance. I am trying to get the accurate figures—I could not get them in time for this discussion—but what I have indicated is a source of a heavy expense to the rates. This provision will be to that extent a relief to the rates—not perhaps to the full extent of the million, but to a very considerable extent. And if it were possible to make an arrangement with the local authority whereby they could extend the
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    provisions of this Bill—they can do it under the Bill itself—then I believe it will further relieve the rates, and provide a much more effective system of dealing with cases of tuberculosis in various parts of the country.
    One thing I should not like. I certainly should not like to undertake this responsibility on behalf of the Treasury merely on the assumption that the local authorities would afterwards come to the rescue. I have already had too much experience of that in connection with old age pensions. I remember when it was suggested that the benefit of the Act should be extended to paupers, I stated, on behalf of the Government, that it could be done provided the local authorities contributed the amount which it cost them. When I made that offer there was a great silence. Nobody got up on behalf of the local authorities. I never even got a resolution from any of the local authorities in any part of the country. Then, being thoroughly innocent in this matter, I proceeded on the assumption that it was thoroughly understood. Immediately every local authority in the kingdom was up in arms, and said that they had never agreed to such an arrangement, and wanted the Treasury to bear the whole cost. I am not going to be a party again to that kind of thing. Therefore, before we undertake any further liabilities in the matter, I should like to have a little clearer understanding with the local authorities, and those representing them on both sides of the House.
    I hope such a suggested understanding will not degenerate into an attempt on the part of those who directly represent the ratepayers merely to raid the Exchequer. It ought to be treated as an attempt to co-operate; it should be cooperation between the local and Imperial authorities for the purpose of stamping out a great disease. I believe if it is treated in that way it can be done now. We could then not merely—and I say so advisedly—make this provision; for the purpose of dealing with insured persons, but I believe that if the local authority met this advance in the spirit in which we are making it it will be possible for us to deal with tuberculosis on a thoroughly national, comprehensive, and drastic scale. That suggestion I throw out. It may not be possible within the four walls of this Bill. If it is to be an attempt merely to abstract the sum of £2,500,000 from the Exchequer for the relief of the rates, that

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    is degenerating a great crusade against consumption into a squalid attempt to relieve the rates. That is really not to the purpose. I therefore suggest that if that can be done we shall make a very great step in advance in what is really a national campaign against consumption.
    I agree with what has been said by several hon. Gentlemen, one of whom quoted Dr. Koch. I believe that Dr. Koch, in one of his published works, has said that:—
    "Consumption is a disease of small homes."
    I believe that is one of his greatest sayings. It is perfectly true. In the main the disease attacks those living under conditions which do not allow them to strengthen their frames to struggle against its incipient attacks. It is therefore very largely a housing question; possibly, as an hon. Friend behind me would suggest, one of ground rents. We shall deal with that housing question to a certain extent in this Bill, but we cannot make the Bill to deal with every aspect of the disease. We can no more deal with the whole problem of tuberculosis by this system than we could with the whole question of housing. I do hope the Committee will not overburden the scheme by attempting too much. After all, that is only one step towards our purpose. It is perfectly clear that we have to go on and reform the Poor Law in many respects. I hope we shall be able to do a good deal more towards the housing problem. In the meantime I have pleasure in saying that we have had an instructive and very valuable Debate that I think will bear considerable fruit. If it be that we can ensure co-operation between all the authorities of the country, local and Imperial, who are charged with the burden of looking after the welfare of the people we shall put an end for ever to one of the most terrible scourges that inflict mankind.
    Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: In the concluding words of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, I think this Debate has been amply justified, and that it will be found to have been not only instructive to us, but very instructive to other people interested in this question, and ready to deal with it outside this House. My friend and I, especially my friends on these Benches for whom I am speaking now, have listened with particular interest and satisfaction to the statement which the Chancellor has made. He has amplified his previous explanations of the
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    Bill. He has given us much further light, and has told us what is really in his mind. He has foreshadowed some small but important alterations in at any rate the wording of the Bill, which have, I think I may say, entirely met the criticisms which we directed against the Clause as it stood. After all, the main point raised by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Strand Division was that sanatoria should not be accepted as standing alone as a remedy, nor should their merits, however great they may be, be allowed to put into the shade other methods of cambating the disease. We are quite satisfied with the statement of the right hon. Gentleman that though this experiment of sanatoria is a large experiment it is still to be regarded as only an experiment, and not only as an experiment, but as one amongst several combating and fighting this disease. That is the main point for which my hon. Friend and I contended. We are satisfied with the Chancellor's declaration on the subject.
    As regards the point I specifically raised I think I am almost satisfied by what the Chancellor has said. I hesitated about raising it because I am very reluctant, as the Chancellor knows, and as the House will have seen, to do anything which would place a great new demand upon the Exchequer at a time when the Exchequer has such great liabilities to meet, and when with the general assent of the House still further liabilities for the future are being created. The House is not only agreeing to pay much larger sums in future years, but whether it be the right hon. Gentleman or I, or some other gentleman be Chancellor of the Exchequer, we will not be grateful to the House of Commons if it overlooks the fact that whilst its benefits no doubt begin immediately some of the liabilities do not mature for a long time. What I do want to acknowledge to the Chancellor is that he has acknowledged both in his speech and in his suggestion that action against consumption must be in the nature of a crusade. It cannot be purely a matter of insurance by individuals or on behalf of individuals. We are in complete agreement that for that purpose the co-operation of local authorities with the Imperial authority is necessary. The Chancellor has sketched a means by which, in harmony with the provisions already in the Bill, but in extension of those provisions, that co-operation might be brought to bear upon this problem. I do not like offhand and on the spur of the moment to

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    say more than that I am very favourably impressed with the suggestion, and that I hope that on those lines we shall be able to arrive at such a widening of our energies and of the scope of our operations as will prove a material benefit to the country. I do not at this moment ask leave to withdraw my Amendment, because there are other Members who have a special right to speak on a subject of this kind, and who would be prejudiced by my doing so. I do not want to cut them out of the discussion, but I hope that when the Debate reaches its natural termination without undue delay, the Committee will allow me to withdraw the Amendment and not insist on negativing a proposition which was never intended to be voted upon, and which has served ins purpose in eliciting the most interesting statement of the right hon. Gentleman.
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I am not at all suggesting that the Debate should come to an end, but I do suggest that we have really covered the whole field of this particular paragraph. We can deal with sanatoria from the point of view of machinery later on. This Sub-section merely settles the benefit. I hope it will be possible by general agreement to get, at any rate, Sub-section (b) before we adjourn at —say 8.30. If this is understood, it does not matter whether we debate the question on this Sub-section or on the subsequent provision.
    Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: I cannot speak for others in a discussion like this in the same way that one can speak for them in a party debate, but I will do my best to facilitate that arrangement.
    Sir RANDOLF BAKER: I wish to ask whether it would not be possible for some portion of this money to be applied to other means of fighting consumption besides that of sanatoria. There are three distinct lines on which the disease can be fought. The first is the line of research for finding out new means of cure; the second is that of extending existing methods, and the third is that of curing people already attacked by the disease. I think the Chancellor of the Exchequer is putting all his energies into the one line of curing people who have the disease already. I submit that much might be done by preventing the increase of the disease, and, if possible, minimising it. There are two methods which might have very valuable results. The first, and I would particularly press this, is the com-
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    pulsory notification of all cases of consumption as soon as they are discovered. I do not know whether it would be possible for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to introduce a provision in this Bill making, such notification compulsory. The second method is the carrying out of experiments to find out something further about the disinfection of buildings. An hon. Member quoted a case where four separate families had been infected with tuberculosis through going into the same flat. I myself know a case in which three sons of a family were infected. The father and mother had no trace of the disease before, and they were in a house which nobody had inhabited except themselves. The eldest son developed consumption and died; the second son came home, developed consumption, and died; and the third son did the same. The house was not more than ten years old at the time; but it is supposed that the three boys developed consumption through living in that house. If it were not that, the doctors are unable to find out what was the cause. If some experiments could be made in the matter of disinfecting buildings, a great deal might be done towards lessening this terrible disease. Every Member will agree that everything possible should be done with that object.
    I would also suggest that instead of building sanatoria something might be done by using tents. I know one case where a man has lived for two years in a tent in his own garden, and goes to his-work every day. The expense is ridiculously small compared with building a large sanatorium. Much might be done by a system of open-air cure in the early stages of the disease if there were some means of supplying tents in country districts and small towns, in which the people might dwell and still go to their ordinary work. The Chancellor has given most interesting figures from Germany as to the number of people who have been cured and returned to their work at the end of a year. It is said that something like 50 per cent, are able to return to work at the end of the year's treatment. What we ought to try to find out is whether those people who are able to return to work still carry sufficient seeds of the disease to infect those with whom they come in contact. Obviously, it is of no use setting up a great and expensive system of sanatoria all over the country if the cures are only partial or only as regards the particular persons treated, and if it does not prevent the disease being spread again when the per-

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    sons return to their work. I think that something might be done by research in connection with this point, and I hope the Chancellor of the Exchequer will bear these various suggestions in mind.
    Mr. LANSBURY: May I ask whether the Amendment standing in my name, to extend the treatment to the wife or children of the insured person, will be in order?
    The CHAIRMAN:I am considering that matter, and I will reply to the hon. Member when we reach the Amendment.
    Mr. LANSBURY: It would be a convenience if I could know your decision, because it will decide whether I speak on the present Amendment or not.
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I should certainly submit that it would be impossible to carry out the Amendment of the hon. Member without imposing a fresh charge on the Exchequer. Therefore, seeing that there is no money at all in the Bill providing for that purpose, it could not be done without a fresh Resolution, and I shall submit when the time comes that it is quite out of order to discuss a proposal which goes outside the Bill and will involve a charge on the Exchequer of at least £3,000,000. I would suggest, if I might, that the hon. Member should put his points in the present discussion.
    Mr. LANSBURY: Last night we discussed a very much larger matter.
    The CHAIRMAN: When the Chancellor of the Exchequer submits his point of Order I shall have to ask him how he differentiates between medical benefit and sanatorium benefit as regards the Financial Resolution. The Financial Resolution says that the State shall find two-ninths of the cost of the benefits under Part I. of the Act. I cannot differentiate in my own mind between medical benefits and sanatorium benefits in the Financial Resolution, except in this respect, that in addition to the two-ninths the State finds one-half of the extra cost for medical benefit and 1d. per person in regard to sanatorium benefit. I do not myself think at present the Amendment is out of order; but that is the point I shall put to the Chancellor of the Exchequer when be raises the matter later on.
    Dr. CHAPPLE: I think it will be generally accepted that better results in the cure of tuberculosis' have followed the erection of sanatoria than any other treatment known to medical science. That,
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    however, need not blind us to the limitations of sanatoria. An hon. Member said the other day that sanatoria had appealed to the imagination of the people. I think we should be careful that they appeal also to our judgment. We might waste an enormous amount of money on sanatoria and get very poor results. What cures tuberculosis? It is not costly buildings; it is not sanatoria as such; it is not the therapeutic treatment in sanatoria. What cures tuberculosis is the resistance of the tissues in the person who has been infected. All that sanatoria can do is to provide the so-called sanatorium conditions; that is, fresh air, open air, good food, and rest. The question for us to decide is can these conditions be provided in any other way? Because, if they can be provided in a cheaper way we must be cautious lest we spend too much money upon these buildings, and are guided too much by the imagination of the people and too little by our judgment. An hon. Member referred to the number of cures amongst those who had gone to distant colonies. Of all the treatment that has been applied to ordinary phthisis none yields such good results as the climatic, in those countries where sanatorium conditions prevail. If people go to South Africa or some of the higher altitudes where they can live in the open air all the year round they can be cured of consumption. We "know by statistics that fully 50 per cent, of the people who die from other diseases show on postmortem examination that they have, at some time in their life, been cured of tuberculosis. We must not run away with the idea that there are no other remedies except sanatoria.
    The Chancellor of the Exchequer said in his very interesting speech that there would be a selection of the cases suitable for sanatorium treatment. I should like to know how the health committee will make that selection. We have to divide tuberculosis into two great classes to see how far the cases are suitable for sanatorium treatment. We have the early stage of tuberculosis and the later stage. In the early stage of tuberculosis it is not infectious. In the early stage it is curable. In the late, stage it is infectious, but not curable. Therefore you have practically two diseases to deal with, one of which is early, non-infectious, and curable, and the other of which is late, infectious, and incurable. For which of these two great classes of cases are these sanatoria to be provided? In the one case the sanatorium would be a treatment hospital, and in the

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    other case it would be an isolation hospital. Which do you provide? I maintain that it is a very difficult thing to get a man in the early stage of phthisis to go into a sanatorium. In the first place you have to take him away from his work. We are not dealing now with rich cases where the patients can go to Australia and elsewhere. It is difficult to induce a man in the early stage of phthisis to isolate himself in a sanatorium and to leave perhaps' a young family at home. If it is difficult to get the head of a family in the early stage to isolate himself for six months or a year in a sanatorium, it is even a more difficult thing to get a young married woman, the mother of a family, to leave her home and isolate herself for treatment purposes. Until there is a discharge in a case of tuberculosis it is not infectious at all. There must be a discharge of sputum, or matter from a joint, from the glands, or in some other way from the body. It is only by the escape of germs that there is any danger at all.
    In the early stage of phthisis in a mother of a family it is not infectious, and there is therefore no danger to her family. On the other hand, if you are going to make the sanatorium an isolation hospital, like a fever hospital, are you going to compel patients to be isolated during the whole period of treatment? If you get persons into a sanatorium for a short time, they soon begin to tire of institutional treatment. If the disease is in a late stage, you cannot practically do anything. I think one of the great values of a sanatorium is that the patient may be taught how to destroy the sputum so that when he gets home he will take greater care and precautions. These objections may not be vital, but they are important, and the question I am going to ask is whether there is no other simpler and less expensive way by which you would be able to arrive at the same result. I think there is. If anyone who had phthisis consulted me in the early stage, the advice I would give would be that he should emigrate at once and get sanatorium conditions—fresh air, and a climate where he could live out all night as well as all day if he liked. There is nothing so effective as conditions which develop the tissue resistance to the spread of the germs. But only a rich person could emigrate and so follow my advice. If I were consulted by a poor person in the same stage of disease, I would say, "Go to a
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    sanatorium, or live under sanatorium conditions." If you are going to have the best sanatorium conditions for the curative treatment of the disease, you want the establishment in a country district. If you want the sanatorium for isolation, you can afford to have it right in the centre of the city, for the sputum can be destroyed and made non-infectious. What I have to say therefore is by way of caution in regard to the expenditure of money on tremendous buildings which fill the imagination but which cannot be justified by the requirements of prevention. I would rather follow the course of making every infected home a sanatorium, for you can provide in every home sanatorium conditions. Not long ago a woman, whose husband had consumption at Willesden, stated that she and her husband and six children all slept in one room. That man, who was in the last stage of consumption, would have been taken away from his home, not for curing, but for isolation purposes. He had left the germs in that room where there were his wife and six children, and conditions prevailed there for the supply of consumptives being kept up.
    The conditions of poverty and slum life, as the hon. Member for Blackfriars (Mr. Barnes) told us, are the conditions which are the great primary cause of tuberculosis. I think the health committee ought to be given jurisdiction over all infected houses. There should be a compulsory notification of every case of tuberculosis, and the notification, should tell whether it is an infective or a non-infective case. The health committee should be empowered to see that precautions are taken to have the place disinfected, for if that is not done, the supply of consumptives will be kept up, notwithstanding that you isolate those cases which are infective. I have an Amendment on the Paper, which would to some extent empower the Health Committee to take these precautions. My criticism, therefore, is not against sanatoria as such; I am distinctly in favour of them. I simply utter this word of caution that at least a large proportion of the money should be used to provide isolation homes for individuals, so that the Health Committee shall be satisfied that sanatorium conditions prevail, namely, fresh air, ventilation, and sanitary conditions in any particular home. They should have power to have inspectors whose duty it would be to visit the homes, to give instructions and directions, and to report to them that such

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    conditions do prevail. I think the Debate has been extremely interesting. I hesitated to speak at all, because those who had already spoken seemed to be so well equipped on the points which bear on this important subject.
    Mr. SHERWELL: I am extremely reluctant to even appear to prolong the discussion, which may seem to have reached its legitimate limits in the speeches already addressed to the Committee; but I would like respectfully to submit that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the extremely sympathetic and within certain limits comprehensive speech that he made recently to the Committee, did not appear to me and to some of my hon. Friends around me to meet the vital considerations which were raised by the Amendment now before the Committee. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Worcestershire (Mr. Austen Chamberlain), whether by deliberate intention or not, did unquestionably raise considerations of great importance in suggesting that the benefits proposed to be conferred under this Sub-section might be more properly, and probably more satisfactorily, conferred under some other machinery than that proposed in the Bill. I may say that with that general proposition I and some of my hon. Friends emphatically agree. We have already submitted to the Committee that in the judgment of some of us the particular benefit which is proposed to be conferred on a certain set of persons by this Sub-section is a benefit which, by its very nature and because it is a great benefit, is probably one which should be proposed in some other connection than in intimate connection with this insurance scheme. I have listened this afternoon to some attempts to deal with what to me are the very strong arguments advanced for the suggestions of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Worcestershire that the provision of sanatoria benefits for the cure or arrest of tuberculosis is a provision which concerns matters of public arrangement rather than the private machinery of a State insurance scheme. I have listened very carefully to the whole of this Debate in the hope of hearing these arguments met. Although I recognise that the Chancellor of the Exchequer interposed an argument, I might say an almost all-conquering objection against the right hon. Gentleman's proposal when he raised the strictly financial objection. I quite recognise that it is not in the power of a private Member
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    to persist in a proposal involving the expenditure of considerable sums of public money if the Chancellor of the Exchequer gets up and says that the state of the national finances will not allow him to provide the necessary sums. But the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that this proposal was, in its very nature, experimental, and that we were not right in suggesting that because the whole community would not participate, therefore we should not deal with this provision in a tentative and partial way. That is not the position taken up by myself and my hon. Friends.
    7.0 P.M.
    We quite recognise that financial necessity may involve some restriction of the methods, but where we are inclined to differ from the Chancellor of the Exchequer is in the assumption that the class who will benefit under his scheme are the class who most need the benefit in reference to the community at large. I recognise that the selective principle must be adopted, but I think that when the scheme is in actual operation we may find that a great force of public expectation has been disappointed, and that the very section of the community which this House would most desire to benefit may be largely left out of the scheme. My hon. Friend the Member for Hoxton (Dr. Addison) did suggest certain arguments for including this benefit under the insurance scheme rather than providing for it by the authority of the State or the duly elected local authority. The first argument he adduced was that tuberculosis is a disease which plays a most important, indeed a paramount, part in determining the claims made upon the sick benefits of the friendly societies. That may be true, but I think my hon. Friend forgot to mention the other fact that whilst tuberculosis is responsible for greater claims on the funds of the friendly societies than any other disease, there is probably no other disease which is more strictly related to industrial and domestic conditions than tuberculosis. There is no other disease more closely related to questions of housing, sanitation, factory arrangements, and factory conditions than tuberculosis. But the very problems with which it is related are problems which are of public concern. So far is it recognised in the provisions of this Bill that tuberculosis is closely related to the social arrangement and industrial conditions that you proceed at once to appoint a nominative local health committee who are expected to speed up and more or less coerce the local

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    sanitary authority. The existence of this special authority to coerce the local authority who are charged with public health and sanitary arrangements, seems to suggest most powerfully that the provision of benefit for this particular disease, of cure for this disease, is properly a matter of public and social arrangement, and should not properly find a place in an insurance scheme of this character.
    The other argument of my hon. Friend the Member for Hoxton was this: In giving to the House details of expenditure of Poor Law administration, he is aware how large a part this disease plays in expanding this expenditure upon Poor Law administration. Surely that was an argument in the opposite direction to that for which my hon. Friend adduced it. The very fact that so much of the expenditure for Poor Law administration is provoked by this disease does suggest that the arrangements for the cure of this disease or the benefiting of it are properly arrangements which should have a public authority and public sanction behind them. What is the general consequence of introducing this sanatorium benefit for the cure of tuberculosis in connection with this insurance scheme? It is that you have to limit the possibility of the proposed benefit to certain persons, and you do not open up the possibility of that benefit to the community as a whole. My hon. Friend below me, in the very informing speech delivered just now, seemed to suggest further the argument that this is properly a duty devolving upon the State and the local authority acting in co-operation. He pointed out that you may divide tuberculosis into a non-infective class and an infective class. Under the scheme which the Chancellor of the Exchequer quoted it is by no means certain that more than a small proportion of persons in the infective class will be embraced in the benefits proposed by this Bill.
    I confess I would much rather cut out this sanatorium benefit from the Bill as it is, with the view of making public arrangements for the public treatment of this disease, where the State should act in conjunction with the local authorities in providing the necessary treatment than persevere with this benefit in its present condition and thereby run the risk that those who most need the benefit may be excluded from the possibility of getting it. It is perfectly true that the Chancellor of the Exchequer did in the most sympathetic
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    way just now suggest that in connection with Clauses 14 and 15 it might be possible to extend this benefit, by the co-operation of the State and the local authorities. But Clauses 14 and 15 restrict the possibility of the benefit to insured persons. In hoping to extend the benefit to others who are non-insured persons under the Clauses of this Bill he may find himself face to face with this difficulty, which to my mind is insuperable, that he will be asking insured persons to devote their funds to the benefit of persons who are not insured and are not contributing under this scheme.
    I agree that when you are setting up machinery to deal with the benefit in such a great public scheme of importance as this you ought to erect it on a basis which, however necessarily limited and restricted in the first instance, is such as to make development and extension easy. I am afraid that, owing to the way in which the benefit is proposed under this arrangement, the possibility of extension and development may be found not to be easy but difficult. I am greatly afraid in connection with the sanatorium benefit that one defect of the Bill which characterised other proposed benefits under this scheme is that you are in danger of devoting the resources of the State to the less needy classes of the community rather than to the classes who most properly can plead for aid from the State because they need it most. I hope in the course of the discussion for a modification of the scheme in reference to sanatorium benefits, as also with reference to other proposed benefits, and that it may be possible still to undertake such a scheme of reconstruction, as shall throw the greater part of the weight of the benefit on the side of the necessitous and poor rather than on the side of the respectable and more or less prosperous artisan.
    Mr. COOPER: I was rather disappointed with the speech of the Chancellor of Exchequer, for one particular reason. He did not enlighten the House in the slightest degree as to the general principles on which the administration of the crusade against consumption is to be carried out. Up to the present we know only that sanatoria are to be provided, that in Germany they have been very successful, and that it is hoped that by providing them for this country they will have the same beneficial results. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said he hoped that we should in future deal with this great

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    subject on a more national, comprehensive, and drastic basis. If that is the case, surely the step we are taking at the present time should be the first great step in a comprehensive and carefully thought out scheme. We have no idea how this great benefit is going to be administered. Presumably by the Local Government Board in connection with the Local Health Committees. I think it is of some interest to point out that there is already one phase of this question dealing with consumption which the Government are making no effort to deal with. It is not, perhaps, the most important, but it is a very important point. They are taking no steps to deal with the milk supply—
    The CHAIRMAN: We really must not go too widely at this stage. The hon. Member cannot go into that matter.
    Mr. COOPER: All I want to say, in conclusion, is that we are left to hope that the administration of this benefit, which we do not at all understand at the present time, will, if it goes to that Department, be carried out with very much more success than has been the case in other directions where good that might already have been done has not been done for this country in tackling the disease of consumption.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: If I understand him aright my Friend the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sherwell) has introduced an element of reality into this Amendment which was never intended to be pushed to a Division. I understood him to say that he would vote for the Amendment if he got the chance, and I certainly want to vote for it; and if I can do anything to secure that a Division shall take place I will do so. The reason for which I am supporting this Amendment is to a large extent different from that which was brought forward by the right hon. Gentleman who moved it. I agree to a very large extent with the considerations which he adduced and which the hon. ember for Huddersfield emphasised. If I understood him aright his argument was chiefly based upon this consideration, that to deal with this national scourge of consumption and kindred diseases was a national task which ought to be undertaken by the Nation at the charge of the Treasury, and it was not a suitable thing to be tacked on as an incident to an insurance scheme, which is subject to most arbitrary limits and applies to a comparatively small number
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    of people, excluding at least two-thirds of the population. Obviously the question is one which should be treated on a national scale and not on a partial and limited scale. By the treatment under this Bill you are trying to empty a trough of water with a dipper and all the while the tap is on. The women and children have practically nothing done for them in this matter of consumption. While you are emptying the trough the tap is on to its full extent and you can only keep the water down to a certain level. But that consideration alone, in the absence of some alternative national scheme, and in the absence of other considerations to which I have alluded at the beginning, will not induce me to vote for this Amendment. I believe that half a loaf is better than no bread. I am not one of those who would say that because the scheme does not do everything, therefore it must do nothing. The consideration to which I alluded at the beginning, and which has decided me to support this Amendment, is this. It follows from a remark which dropped from the Chancellor last evening. This sanatorium benefit does not apply to married women living at home, and it does not apply to children. We had this question raised in a previous Clause. The answer of the Chancellor then was, "I would be only too anxious to extend this benefit to women and children, but I have not the financial resources. I put the obligation upon you to show me where the money can be found." I think I can point out to the Chancellor the golden bridge, the royal road, by which he can extend those other benefits which we have been previously discussing to women and children. Let him omit this sanatorium benefit altogether. He will then set free the money which would have been expended upon it to be spent upon extending those other benefits which are so necessary to women and children. I put this with all seriousness and earnestness. The manner in which married women are being treated under this Bill is a foul blot upon the measure. It is a harsh and cruel injustice, and, by multiplying other benefits which will go to one class only, at the expense of married women, you are intensifying the hardship. I wish to get some of this money to be expended under the Bill on sanatoria used for extending other benefits to married women at least, and possibly to the children. Before you multiply benefits for men, at least secure that the

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    other benefits which are already passed are extended all round. Let us at least do justice to all before we are generous to some.
    Dr. ESMONDE: The question we are discussing is one which requires a great deal of consideration. If we are going to spend a, million and a-half of money in building capital, and a million a year in expenses, I think we ought to see that we get the best value we can for that large amount of money. I thoroughly agree with some Members of this House that it will be very much better if we can bring married women and children under the Bill. We have, however, to face the fact that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has so much money to spend, and the greatest care should be taken to get good value for that money. My experience of medical practice in this country has brought home to me one important fact, namely, that the most difficult thing we have got to deal with in consumptive patients is that it is almost impossible, in a great many eases, to get them to leave their homes. If you had everyone looking at the matter from a scientific point of view, and not going in for the idea of wishing to die at home amongst relations, and so forth, you might then try a large and gigantic plan of huge sanatoria in the country. What you have got to face is that in a great many cases doctors do not see the patients until the disease is well advanced and has come to a stage in which it is utterly impossible to effect a cure. We are going to spend this money on the building of huge sanatoria all through the country. They will have to be well staffed, and there will be enormous expenses attending them. I do not say that a few large sanatoria would not be beneficial. I think if you can get cases in time, cases which are curable, and not highly infectious, and send them to sanatoria, in such circumstances the patients might be benefited; but it must be remembered that it would be a wicked and iniquitous thing to send a person in the primary stage of the disease to a sanatorium where there are advanced cases. If the Government are going to have sanatoria throughout the country they must first of all make up their mind on two questions. They must not compel a curable case to go into some place where there are incurable cases. The next principle they have to consider, if they wish to work this scheme properly, is this: They will have to provide for those
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    cases in which the patients will not leave their homes under any consideration, and for cases when they come out of the sanatoria, when the patients are sent home in a dying condition, and spread the disease from the time they return until they die. I think that the method which they should take into consideration is the provision of some very small pavilions, which could be moved about from one place to another— which could be sent to a locality and where the doctor of the locality, who is treating the case, could see the patient, should he refuse to go to a sanatorium. It would be for the benefit of the patient that he should be able to obtain the use of such a pavilion, an actual house, which he could use as his home, which would have a south or south-west aspect, and which could be placed outside his home—where he could sleep at night, or could live during the daytime if he could not go to work, and where he would not be the focus of contagion the whole time to the family with whom he lives. Take the case of a man working for a £l or 30s a week in some manufactory of one of the numerous small towns in Lancashire. A man may be found to have consumption in the first stage. The doctor tells him to go to a sanatorium, but it is impossible for that man to go unless you give him 30s. a week to support his family. In nine cases out of ten the man with premonitory symptoms of phthisis absolutely refuses to leave his wife and children, and he takes the chance of getting well at home. An hon. Member suggested that a small tent might be suitable for the use of a man suffering from symptoms of the disease when he came home at night. I can assure hon. Members that phthisis does not increase during the day time in anything like the way it does during the night. Men are out working in the open air; but they come back at night and sleep in a room where the window is perhaps only a foot square, and where the wife and three or four little children also sleep. If we are going to make any real, honest, and straightforward attempt to meet this disease we must consider not only the sanatoria, but the treatment of patients in their own houses. My experience during the last twenty years or more in this country as a medical practitioner is that the workman loves his home, and he will not leave it except he is absolutely compelled to do so by the law of the land.
    I would ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer not to spend his million and a-half in large buildings, which may be utterly

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    and completely useless within a few years, but to spend a good deal of it in research, in order to see whether some discovery cannot be made in this country, and not leave us to look forward to Germany, France, or some other continental country finding out a cure for consumption. I would appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to give a good deal of the money to research, and to be careful about entering upon the building of these large sanatoria. I appeal to him to try and do something at the homes of working people and help them to go on with their work during such time as they are being treated for this disease, something might be done by way of giving them these huts or pavilions which I suggest, where they will have fresh air, and, if necessary, some compulsion should be exercised in making them use those places. In that way, a person suffering from phthisis would cease to be a focus for the spread of the disease to wives and children, and some value would be got out of the million and a half of money which is going to be spent, enabling men to work, and possibly cured while he is continuing his work. Even if some better means of treating the disease be discovered in the future, there will be the advantage that large sums have not been tied up in huge buildings which might possibly not be suitable for convalescent homes, a use to which it has been suggested they might be put. I hope the Chancellor of the Exchequer will take into consideration the treatment in some way of persons in their homes. After all it is only the open air treatment that is obtained at the sanatoria. Experience of the plan of sanatoria is that a person goes to one of these institutions believing that he is going to get well, because he has got the disease in the first stage; he comes back to his home and after a very short time dies. We have really nothing definite to go upon, and any man in general medical practice in this country during the last twenty-five years must be deeply despondent at the results which have been achieved. I trust the Chancellor of the Exchequer will see if something cannot be done to continue the open air treatment at the houses of the people themselves.
    Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: I think I ought to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment. [HON. MEMBERS: "NO, no."] There are other Members who have Amendments on the Paper, and it is desired by the Chancellor of the Exchequer
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    that at any rate they should deal with this Sub-section. I now ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: We have had a discussion of three and a half hours on this Amendment, which it is not at all intended to press to a Division, and was brought forward purely for the purpose of a general Debate on the subject. We are just at the beginning of Clause 8, and there are other Amendments which I think ought to be considered. We only want to take a further small paragraph.
    Mr. ROWNTREE: As one who has had some experience in trying to stamp out this scourge of consumption in a large works, I confess that I am somewhat uneasy at leaving the matter exactly where it is at the present time. I am grateful to the right hon. Member for East Worcestershire (Mr. Austen Chamberlain) for raising the question in the way he has done. The fundamental difficulty that I feel is that we want a system whereby this treatment which we have been speaking of shall easily be extended, not to one class of the community, but to all classes. I do think the Chancellor of the Exchequer will not feel, in what I am going to say, that I am in any way hostile to what he has in his mind. There is no part of this Bill which has appealed more to the imagination and sympathy of the nation than this proposal as to sanatoria, and I am anxious that the arrangements should be such that their use can be extended to the right people. For instance, I am sure, when we begin to deal with this question in the way which has been suggested, if we intend to insure persons, then we must extend the benefits to the wives of insured persons.
    The CHAIRMAN: This point is specifically raised, and I think we ought to leave the general discussion now and deal with the specific Amendment.
    Mr. ROWNTREE: I accept your ruling entirely, Sir, but I do not think I can raise the two or three points to which I desire to call attention at any other stage. Anyone who has tried to do anything to stamp out consumption in any class of the community knows perfectly well that there are cases in which maintenance is necessary. One of the most important things in consumption is to try and keep the patient in an easy state of mind.
    The CHAIRMAN: The question with which the hon. Gentleman is dealing does not arise on this paragraph at all.
    Mr. ROWNTREE: I am sorry, I did not think that I was travelling further than other hon. Members have done. My point is this. I am sure the Chancellor will see that directly he has introduced this scheme public opinion will demand extension in one direction and another, and the difficulty some of us feel is that directly we suggest that certain extensions should be made that hon. Members will say, and I think with perfect force, "that is all right, but it is not insurance." The difficulty some of us are in is to see how under the system that the Chancellor has suggested you can readily get that extension to those other classes who are so in need of it. I cannot help feeling, after some of the arguments that have been advanced to night as to the way in which the municipal authorities have already begun to work in connection with sanatoria, that it would have been very much better if this could have been done on a national basis, and probably done through the local authorities. It seems to me also on the evidence that is before Parliament at the present time that the position of the children who have been inspected in our schools is of vital importance. We know that there are over 6,000 cases of tuberculosis found out in the 68,000 children that have been examined. Those children are not being treated, and those children should—
    The CHAIRMAN: This again arises on the Amendment of the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley.
    Amendment negatived.
    Mr. LANSBURY:I beg to move, in Subsection (1), paragraph (b), after the word "treatment" ["Treatment in sanatoria"], to insert the words "for such insured person, or the wife or child under sixteen of such insured person."
    Everything that we have heard this afternoon proves quite conclusively that consumption and tuberculosis are very terrible diseases, and that they attack all persons, young and old. We have also heard that, not only is it absolutely necessary, but that it is incumbent to treat it in its very earliest stages. I have listened to the whole of the Debate this afternoon and to the speeches of the very eminent doctors who have given us their opinions and advice on the subject. Every one of them agrees that the best thing to do is to tackle it at the earliest possible moment. As the Bill now stands there can be no sanatorium treatment or no treatment at all for the children of insured
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    persons or for the wife of an insured person. We have just practically decided that sanatorium benefit is to stand, and I think anyone who has listened to the Debate must agree with me when I say that we ought to include the women and children. The only objection there can be to that is the objection that is made against every extension, and that is that we cannot do everything at once. I venture to put against that that we ought at least to do the right thing at once, and the right thing is certainly to deal with the young persons and prevent them growing up with this disease and so being much more difficult to deal with. The other point is that the women are the mothers of the children and have to take care of the children, they have to be with the children all the time, and if there is this danger of infection, and we are told on all hands there is, then the one thing to do is to save the mothers from infecting the children. You are proposing to take away the fathers, while in their case they are only at home during a limited number of hours and can be isolated and can sleep in a room away from the children and means can be taken to prevent them infecting the family. But with the mother it is an entirely different thing. The mother must be in the home and must attend to the children if she is there, and in my judgment, and I give it very humbly to the Committee, she is more likely to infect the children than is the man, therefore to rule her out and to say that she shall not have this sanatorium treatment or any treatment at all for this disease is, I think, not starting on right lines.
    I would have preferred to have gone without some other benefit under this scheme so as to have brought the women and children in. If I am asked what evidence there is as to the absolute necessity for bringing in the women and children, I can only give my own experience in the district where I live and the experience I gained in visiting practically every part of industrial England, Wales and Scotland when a member of the Poor Law Commission. In the right hon. Gentleman's own country of Wales I visited at least 100 cases where the people were suffering more or less from phthisis and tuberculosis. In every one of those cases either a child or a woman was really infecting practically the whole household. It is true that they were getting some kind of relief under the Poor Law, but the relief and the treatment that was being given was so miserably inadequate that the

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    money just as well might not have been spent at all. I saw families, not merely one or two, but scores of families, suffering from phthisis and the whole family getting infected. When we are asked to leave out of account, as we are under this Bill, the women and children, I do very respectfully put against the Chancellor's plea of not doing everything at once the plea that the children and the women are of even more importance than the man in this connection for the reasons I have already given. There is a perfectly easy method by which this could be done. The Chancellor of the Exchequer does not seem quite to realise the difficulty we are all going to be landed into with the competing authorities for dealing with children and women on public health lines. I mentioned them last night, and I repeat them again because I am determined continually to put to this House what the whole of the Poor Law Commission, both Majority and Minority, laid express stress on, and what every expert witness laid stress on, and what every chief officer of the Local Government Board laid stress on, that the one thing we were doing in England was wasting public money on so many different public services for doing the same thing, with the result of a frightful waste of public money and time.
    The CHAIRMAN: How does this arise on the Amendment of the hon. Member?
    Mr. LANSBURY: I want to show how to get the money for paying for the women and children. I was going to ask the Chancellor if he would consider the matter, and he hinted in his speech just now of devising some means under this Bill. I at least, as a twenty-year old administrator in local affairs, know the difficulty of making local authorities pay, but I venture to suggest to the Chancellor that it would be much better worth making an effort to do what he suggested in his speech by some revision in his Bill, so that the local health authority, together with the National Exchequer, could make such provision that every poor person shall have at their disposal all the means for getting rid of consumption that will be at the disposal of the well-paid artisan and well paid people. I do beg of the Committee to give this proposal their very earnest consideration.
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: The hon. Gentleman has appealed to the Government to give this matter their very earnest
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    consideration. I can assure him that we have already done so. I had a suggestion which I outlined in the speech I made earlier in the afternoon, and I think I may respectfully suggest to the hon. Member that that would be a practical way of approaching the subject. If this Amendment is incorporated at this stage, it means committing the Government to three and a half millions before we get any kind of arrangement with the local authority. That I frankly say I could not undertake and could not proceed with. On the other hand, if the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley withdraws his Amendment that does not dispose of the question of providing sanatorium treatment for the wives and the children. On the contrary, I should then proceed with the suggestion I made originally: I have always thought it would be very desirable that the sanatoria should be used for the purpose of curing the wives and. children of insured persons. I have already made my suggestion in the matter—that we should insert the words "sanatorium benefit," when we come to deal with the local authorities, and introduce words that would make it optional out of the funds at their disposal to cure the wives and children of insured persons in those institutions. That would mean that the local authorities, I have not the faintest doubt, would do so. Under the Clause I have indicated, it would then be open to the Treasury and the local authorities to say: "Very well, we will come ofrward, and we will pay half of the excess." That I am prepared to face, but to force me now without any preliminary talk upon the matter, and without my being able to say, "If you put in £l,000, I will put in another," to force me, at this stage, to take the whole responsibility, that is an impossible undertaking, and I cannot face it; therefore I could, not go on with a matter which completely disarms me when I come to deal with that of local government. I am sure that is not the wish of the hon. Gentleman. I sympathise entirely with his object. He has asked me to make an effort in the matter. I propose to do so, and I have suggested what I think is a more practical way. I not merely sympathise with the hon. Member, but I am prepared to take a practical step towards the object that he has in view. I hope, therefore, he will not force us now to a Division, which would prejudge the question and perhaps make it out of order to deal with the matter later on.
    Mr. HUNT: This is a very reasonable Amendment. You are not doing nearly as much for the children as you are for other people under this Bill. The women, too, have to pay until they are married, but when they are married they get no sick pay. Therefore I think it is a very small request that they should have sanatorium benefit. This is really more important to the children than to the husband, because if a child is infected with consumption you have nowhere to send it; you cannot prevent it from going to school, where it may give the disease to other children. It is the same with the wife. You have nowhere to send her. She has to stay in the house, and may very likely give the disease to her children. I think, therefore, the hon. Member is quite right in asking the right hon. Gentleman to accept this Amendment. If you send people away in the early stages of the disease, and they get better, there is a way of putting up outside shelters where they can continue the treatment. In that way I think you can do a great deal to prevent the spread of consumption.
    Mr. CLYNES: The hon. Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury) may take his own course in regard to pressing his Amendment to a Divison, but if he goes to a Division I shall readily support him in the Lobby. I do not think that a sufficiently persuasive or hopeful statement has been made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to justify the withdrawal of the Amendment. We heard in the right hon. Gentleman's speech earlier in the evening an account of his experience with the local authorities on a substantially similar question of financial arrangements. He expressed his keen disappointment at the attitude adopted by the local authorities in regard to bearing some share of the cost in the matter of old age pensions, and he told us that he had learnt a great deal from that experience. We also have learnt something. Speaking for myself, the conclusion I have come to is that we may intelligently anticipate the answer of the local authorities when this question is put to them. They will tell the Chancellor of the Exchequer that it is a matter of national responsibility, and not one in regard to which any financial liability should be thrown upon the local authorities. The Chancellor of the Exchequer's speech, to my mind, gave the mover of the Amendment the best possible reason for pressing it. There will be no difficulty in the way of negotiating with
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    the local authorities should this Amendment be incorporated in the Bill. All the appeals to them may still be made with equal force, even with the safeguard and precaution involved in the incorporation of the Amendment in the Bill. Every argument used last night in support of extending medical treatment to women and children in cases of ordinary disease apply with redoubled force to the particular ailment here concerned. Much has been made in the country and in speeches of Ministers with regard to all that is to be done with a view to dealing with the great scourge of consumption. But if we do not now deal with the position of women and children, it means that in the working of the Bill we shall have many years to wait —at least three or four—before these extended or additional benefits can in any sense come into operation. I am convinced that no more popular or useful act could be done by the Chancellor of the Exchequer than that he should now declare that he is prepared to accept even the financial responsibility of immediately providing for the treatment of this scourge of consumption in the case of women and children.
    Mr. LEES SMITH: I had an Amendment on the Paper a good deal narrower in scope than that of the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley. I merely proposed that sanatorium benefit should be extended to the wife of the insured person. That would cost only £400,000 a year.
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE(who was very indistinctly heard): The hon. Gentleman has another Amendment on the Paper, which I propose to accept. For purely sanatorium treatment, I agree it would be £400,000, but the moment you extend it it becomes a very serious charge indeed. For that reason I could not face it except in the way I propose.
    Mr. LEES SMITH: There is power in the Bill to withdraw from the moneys of each insured person 1s. 3d. a year, to which the Government will add 1d. The right hon. Gentleman now tells us that he will accept from me an Amendment making the whole scheme more expensive. I should like, before proceeding further, to have some indication as to where the extra fund will come from?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: If the hon. Member wishes to make it impossible for me to accept his Amendment I can understand his question.
    Mr. LEES SMITH: In any case, the statement the Chancellor of the Exchequer made just now and the new statement which he has added make it a little difficult to think out the whole position as it will be when this Amendment is accepted. I should like the right hon. Gentleman to give us an undertaking that when we come to Clause 14 we shall have an adequate opportunity to discuss the whole subject.
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE(who was very indistinctly heard): I propose to add the words "sanatorium benefit" to "medical benefit," and there will be another Amendment somewhere to include women and children. If necessary, I will even recommit the Bill, with a view to getting a full discussion upon the inclusion of women and children in reference to Clause 14. I will certainly take any steps necessary to do that.
    Mr. LANSBURY: Does the Chancellor of the Exchequer mean that in Clause 14 he is going to introduce a provision to bring in all the women and children of insured persons?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: What I said was that that would be done in reference to Clause 14. I cannot for the moment say where the actual Amendment will be, but I know it is on the Paper. I will undertake to recommit the Bill if necessary to enable an Amendment to be introduced, making the charge permissible to the Treasury in the conditions I have stated.
    Mr. SANDYS: If the hon. Member presses his Amendment to a Division, it will be with great satisfaction that I shall support it. This question of dealing with consumption is entirely a national matter, and not in any way one to be divided with the local authorities. There is great justice in the demand that women and children shall receive adequate treatment under the Bill in connection with this disease. It is beginning at the right end. If we look after the children early in life it is probable that the demands made upon the fund in respect of them will not be nearly so great later on as they might be if they had not had a good start. Therefore, looking at the question merely from the business point of view, I shall support the Amendment.
    8.0 P.M.
    Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD: There is a doubt in my mind as to which is really the better method to pursue. The hon. Member opposite (Mr. Sandys) says that
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    he will vote for the Amendment because the charge for sanatorium treatment ought to be imposed on the State. That is precisely what the Amendment does not do. The Amendment, with the intention of which I am fully in accord, would put the charge for the treatment of the wife and children on the sanatoria fund. That fund is got together by the 1s. 3d. per head of the insured person plus the 1d. of the State. If the difficulty that will arise between the Treasury and the local authorities under Clause 14 did not exist, I would accept the Chancellor's suggestion with the greatest alacrity. If sanatorium treatment is put under Clause 14 that would relieve the insurance fund to a much larger extent than if it was put under Clause 8. I think the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury) would be well advised to withdraw his Amendment and let us have time to see what the effect would be. I think it is quite possible, if we carefully consider the matter between now and when we come to Section 14, we might come to some arrangement by which we could minimise the danger of an obstructive local authority or enable us to put the whole charge upon the State.
    Mr. LANSBURY: As I do not understand the rules of procedure, may I ask the Committee to allow me to describe it as I understand it. It is that on Clause 14 the Chancellor of the Exchequer will allow some Amendment or other to be made, so as to bring in the women and children, or if necessary he will recommit the Bill to enable us to have a later opportunity of discussing any proposal with regard to them. If that is so, I am prepared to withdraw my Amendment and willing to postpone any further discussion.
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I want to be perfectly clear. I am not saying it will be necessary to do it, but if it is necessary I undertake to do it. The hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. Ramsay Macdonald) has pointed out that we are putting a charge upon the fund which perhaps it will not bear. I am afraid that only means in reference to Clause 14 that the Treasury and local authorities may take upon themselves in equal proportions any additional charge that may be involved. I still say, if we insist upon a division now the question is decided, and I cannot do what I said afterwards.
    Mr. LANSBURY: What we wish to be able to discuss is whether it shall be "shall" instead of "may," which is really the crux of the matter. I do not want the Chancellor of the Exchequer to pledge himself, but I should like him to say whether it would be in order to discuss that.
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I should have thought the Committee would be free to give them a complete option of deciding. It lies also within the power of any hon. Member to more that it shall be compulsory.
    Mr. LANSBURY: We know it is better to put in "shall" when dealing with the local authorities. After the Chancellor of the Exchequer has met us in this way, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Amendment made: In Sub-section (1), paragraph (b), after the words "other institutions" ["Treatment in sanatoria or other institutions"] insert the words "or otherwise."
    Dr. CHAPPLE: In your opinion, Sir, does that cut out the Amendment which stands in my name?
    The CHAIRMAN: The hon. Gentleman asks me a question which is not quite within my province. I should say it covers a good deal of it.
    Dr. CHAPPLE:I understood from what fell from the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the words "or otherwise" cover treatment in a sanatorium or other kind of treatment, but my Amendment applies not to other treatment but to other buildings.
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I should have thought it was perfectly obvious that it covers a good deal more.
    The CHAIRMAN: There is no other Amendment that is in order on that particular paragraph.
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: Then I suggest that we now report Progress.
    The CHAIRMAN: I had better call upon the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Lees Smith) to move his Amendment.
    Mr. LEES SMITH: I beg to move, in Sub-section (1), paragraph (c), to leave out the word "Weekly" ["Weekly payments whilst rendered unfit."]
    Question proposed, "That the word proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
    Mr. BOOTH: When will the Committee sit again?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: That is a question about business, which should really be addressed to the Leader of the House. It will be taken on Monday, I think.
    Mr. BOOTH: Will it be taken on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: We had better leave these questions for the Leader of the House.
    Committee report Progress; to sit again upon Monday, 17th July.

ISLE OF MAN (CUSTOMS BILL).
Read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House for to-morrow.

PENSIONS (GOVERNORS OF DOMINIONS, ETC.) [EXPENSES.]
Resolution reported, "That it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of all Pen-sons granted under any Act of the present Session to consolidate and amend the Law relating to the payment of Pensions to Governors of any part of His Majesty's Dominions, or any British Protectorate, or persons holding a similar office."
Mr. CLYNES: I cannot understand why so many Members of this House should sit quiet whilst this Bill is being passed, and I feel bound to make a few observations in opposition to the proposal. The Bill, if it passes this House, will certainly not tend to accentuate the constitutional crisis, for it is obviously a measure that would be welcomed in and passed by the House of Lords. I am more astonished that it should be brought in by the present Government. It gives certain individuals a substantial increase in their individual pensions. The present maximum is £1,000 a year. This Bill would have the effect of increasing the maximum to £1,300. There are provisions in the Bill also enabling One of those retired officials to receive two or three pensions at the one time, so long as the gross total of the number of pensions does not exceed £1,300. I put it to

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the House whether, after ten, fifteen or twenty years' service in the Colonial Governments on the strength of such salaries as these governors usually receive, they are in want of a pension of so high an amount as £24 a week on their retirement? Of course, they will not be all at that level. The pension may be as high as £l,300 or it may be down to £250 in the lower cases. But that would mean on the higher scale a Colonial governor would get as a pension, after the long enjoyment of a considerable salary, as much as we pay to 1,000 old age pensioners, who have great difficulty in proving their claims to pensions under the existing Old Age Pensions Act. I am not prepared to give a highly salaried officer as much pension as we give to 1,000 of the industrial population of this country, who are compelled to wait until they reach seventy years of age.
The old industrial worker must wait until he is seventy for his few shillings of a pension, but this Bill proposes to give Colonial governors a pension of £24 a week at the age of sixty. Nay, indeed, more than that, it proposes to give them a pension without regard to age. There is no fixed age limit in the Bill for the receipt of these excessive pensions. On retirement due to ill health, or infirmity of mind or body, or because of the termination of his office, in any of these cases the ex-Colonial governor may come and receive this extravagant yearly allowance. Some Colonial governors who have retired and have come back here to active political service again, have not distinguished themselves by sympathy with the pensions claimed for the aged poor of this country. I am not aware that this Bill affects the present governor of the Isle of Man, I think it does not, but in that case we have seen how a governor has done much to prevent the institution of pensions for the aged poor in that island. Further, the speeches which we have had delivered in the House of Lords and in the country by other retired governors of our Colonies and other Dominions have shown that these ex-governors are not entitled to any sympathy and certainly not to the inordinate and excessive pensions which are allowed by this Act. At present an industrial worker may be compelled by industrial conditions to retire when he is fifty. We have heard of men being too old at forty. His retirement is practically compulsory owing to the industrial conditions and the pressure of his industry. Yet if he is retired by that compulsion at fifty he must wait another twenty years before he comes upon
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the State for his few shillings a week. Lastly, I observe in the Bill the condition that the Secretary of State is to have absolute personal power in fixing all these pensions with the approval of the Treasury. When he has granted a pension a Minute stating the reason for granting it is to be laid before Parliament. I want to know what is the value of that part of the Bill, Sub-section (2) of Clause 1, which declares that the decision of the Secretary of State confirmed by the Treasury shall be final.
Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. Whitley): I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman is quite aware that this is not the Second Heading of the Bill, but simply the Report stage of a Money Resolution upon which the Bill is to be founded. Whilst the hon. Gentleman would be quite in order in asking any questions upon this Resolution he is now making a speech which would be more suitable for Second Reading.
Mr. CLYNES: An earlier ruling such as you have given would have prevented me from making the observation which I have addressed to the House. I was at the point of concluding by asking the question what is the meaning of this particular Subsection which states that the decision of the Secretary of State confirmed by the Treasury with respect to the claim of any person to pensions under this Act shall be final. If the decision of the Secretary of State is to be final, what is the value of the other portion of the Bill which declares that information should be laid before this House presumably with the idea of discussion. I am glad I have been able to offer this general protest, which I think should be made in respect of this Bill.
The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Hobhouse): The opening remarks of the hon. Gentleman showed how profoundly he misconceived the purposes of this Bill. He began by saying that this Bill would be welcomed by the House of Lords. This Bill does not touch any Member of the House of Lords; it only touches hard-worked Civil servants, and if the hon. Member will only look at the Bill he will see that no one could draw a pension until he has served ten years as a Colonial Governor. What I think the hon. Gentleman has in his mind is the case of Governors selected like Sir John Fuller from among Members of this House to go abroad. This Bill does not cover persons occupying the position of

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Governors such as that, and it does not qualify anyone for a pension until he has served a certain period.
Mr. SNOWDEN: How is the distinction drawn in the Bill?
Mr. HOBHOUSE: If the hon. Gentle-man will look at the Bill he will see that no person can draw a pension unless he has served ten years. What often happens in the case of Gentlemen from this House going out as Governors is that they serve four, five, or six years. They serve one term of governorship and do not serve a second. I know of no exception to that rule.
Mr. BOOTH: I understood you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, to give a ruling that we are not now discussing the Bill.
Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The hon. Gentleman is quite right, but the Financial Secretary is, of course, replying to the points raised by the hon. Member (Mr. Clynes) before I gave my ruling. I do think it desirable that these matters should be referred to a later stage of the Bill, and that this should be treated as a money Resolution.
Mr. WATT: I beg to call attention to the fact that forty Members are not present.
Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The House cannot be counted between a quarter-past eight and a quarter-past nine.
Mr. HOBHOUSE: This Bill does not apply to Governors, such as I have indicated, and does not bear upon the case put by the hon. Member. I think that answers all the points raised by the hon. Member, and I would point out this further: that as regards the maximum rate of pension, it is true that the maximum rate under the Bill is £l,300. The maximum rate at present may go up to £1,100 or £1,200, so that the increase on any particular case cannot be more than £100, and the total variation of the whole charge will not be more than 5 per cent. up or 5 per cent. down. Therefore the charge imposed upon the Exchequer by the Bill is really infinitesimal.
Mr. CLYNES: Is not the present limit £1,000, and does not this Bill give the maximum of £l,300, making in certain cases a difference of £300?
Mr. HOBHOUSE: The present maximum is £l,000, plus other pensions—that makes it between £1,100 and £l,200. The present Bill includes all other pensions, and leaves it at £1,300.
Question, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution," put, and agreed to.

MERCHANT SHIPPING (STEVEDORES AND TRIMMERS)—No. 2—BILL.
Considered in Committee, and reported without Amendment; read the third time and passed.

BOARD OF EDUCATION SCHEME (ALNWICK CORPORATION PAYMENT) CONFIRMATION BILL [Lords].
Read the third time, and passed without Amendment.
ADJOURNMENT.—Resolved, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Gulland.]
Adjourned accordingly at Twenty-seven minutes after Eight o'clock.

  Ipswich Murder.
  Ipswich Murder.
  Land Purchase (Ireland).
  Land Purchase (Ireland).
  Reinstatement Application (Kilmacomma, Waterford).
  Reinstatement Application (Kilmacomma, Waterford).
  Junior Assistant School Mistresses (Ireland).
  Junior Assistant School Mistresses (Ireland).
  Foreign Navies.
  Foreign Navies.
  Territorial Force (Chaplains).
  Territorial Force (Chaplains).
  Crimean and Indian Mutiny Veterans.
  Crimean and Indian Mutiny Veterans.
  Coronation Medals.
  Coronation Medals.
  Union of South Africa (Hawkers' Licences).
  Union of South Africa (Hawkers' Licences).
  British-Indian Labour (South Africa).
  British-Indian Labour (South Africa).
  Local Exemptions (Education).
  Local Exemptions (Education).
  Wrey Charity, Coombe-in-Teignhead.
  Wrey Charity, Coombe-in-Teignhead.
  Letter Delivery at Ballybrittas.
  Letter Delivery at Ballybrittas.
  Agricultural Population.
  Agricultural Population.

EDUCATION BOARD PROVISIONAL ORDERS CONFIRMATION (LONDON) BILL. [H.L.]
(Order No. 3.)
Report from the Select Committee that it is not expedient to proceed further with the said Order; read, and ordered to lie on the Table.

ROTHERHAM CORPORATION BILL.
Moved, That the order made on the 29th day of March last, "That no Private Bill brought from the House of Commons shall be read a second time after the 4th day of July next," be dispensed with, and that the Bill be now read 2a; agreed to: Bill read 2a accordingly and committed: The Committee to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
ABERDEEN CORPORATION ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL.
Brought from the Commons; read 1a; to be printed; and (pursuant to the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899) deemed to have been read 2a (The Lord Pentland), and reported from the Committee. (No. 129.)
CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES.
The LORD BALFOUR The LORD BALFOUR appointed to take the Chair in Committee of the Whole House this day in the absence of the Chairman of Committees.
LAND DRAINAGE PROVISIONAL ORDER (No. 2) BILL.
Moved, That the order made on the 29th day of March last, "That no Provisional Order Confirmation Bill brought from the House of Commons shall be read a second time after the 4th day of July next," be dispensed with, and that the Bill be now read 2a; agreed to: Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed.
DRAINAGE AND IMPROVEMENT OF LANDS (IRELAND) PROVISIONAL ORDERS BILL.
Moved, That the order made on the 29th day of March last, "That no Provisional Order Confirmation Bill brought from the House of Commons shall be read a second time after the 4th day of July next," be dispensed with, and that the Bill be now read 2a; agreed to: Bill read 2a accordingly and committed.

COUNTY COURTS BILL. [H.L.]
House in Committee on Recommitment (according to order).
[Lord BALFOUR of BURLEIGH in the Chair.]
Clause 1:
Jurisdiction of Judges and Registrars of County Courts.
1.—(1) County Courts shall, save as hereinafter provided, have jurisdiction to hear and determine any action which can be commenced in the High Court, notwithstanding that the debt, demand, or damage claimed is not limited to one hundred pounds or under.
(2) Where an action is commenced in a County Court which could not but for this section have been so commenced except by agreement of the parties, the action shall, if the defendant or one of the defendants makes an application for the purpose within such time and in such manner as may be prescribed by rules of the Supreme Court, be removed into the high Court and shall proceed in London or in a district registry as provided by such rules.
(3) Nothing in this section shall extend the jurisdiction of County Courts as respects any action of ejectment, or in which the title to any corporeal or incorporeal hereditaments or to any toll, fair, market, or franchise is in question, or for any libel or slander, or for seduction or breach of promise of marriage, or as respects any action on a judgment in the High Court.
(4) Nothing in this section shall extend the jurisdiction of County Courts as respects actions of a class for the time being assigned to the Chancery Division or the Probate, Divorce, and Admiralty Division of the High Court, nor shall anything in this section affect any revenue proceeding or appeal.
(5) Where, in an action commenced in, or remitted to, a County Court, the defendant or one of the defendants counter-claims an amount of money not limited to one hundred pounds or under, and the plaintiff objects in writing in accordance with the provisions of section eighteen of the Supreme Court of Judicature Act, 1884, the following provisions shall have effect:

(a) The plaintiff may, in accordance with County Court rules, apply to the judge for an order refusing permission to the defendant to avail himself of the counter-claim, and if on such application the judge is of opinion that the counter-claim cannot be conveniently disposed of in the pending action, or ought not to be allowed, he may make an order refusing permission to the defendant to avail himself thereof.

(b) If no such application is made, or the judge refuses to make an order refusing such permission, the whole proceeding shall, in accordance with rules of the Supreme Court, be removed into the High Court, and shall proceed in London or in a district registry as provided by such rules.

(6) Where any action or proceeding is, under this section, removed to the High Court, the record shall be transmitted by the registrar of the County Court to the proper officer of the High Court in manner prescribed by rules of the Supreme Court, and the action or proceeding shall thenceforth be continued and prosecuted in the High Court as if

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it had been originally commenced therein. The removal of any such action or proceeding shall not affect the validity of any order made or act done in the County Court prior to such removal, and any such order may be enforced by tie high Court as if it had been originally made therein, and the costs incurred prior to and of the removal shall be dealt with as the High Court or a judge thereof shall direct.
(7) Section one hundred and sixteen of the County Courts Act, 1888 (hereinafter referred to as the principal Act), which relates to costs in actions brought in the High Court which could have been commenced in a County Court, shall not apply to my action brought in the High Court which could have been commenced in a county court by virtue of this section or by agreement, but not otherwise.
(8) Section sixty-four of the principal Act, which confers jurisdiction on county courts by agreement of the parties to an action, shall not apply in the case of any action which may be commenced in a County Court under this section.
LORD GORELL: I move to delete from the end of subsection (6) the words, "and the costs incurred prior to and of the removal shall be dealt with as the High Court or a Judge thereof shall direct." This is a small Amendment necessitated by the fact that the provision which it proposes to delete is really covered by Clause 12. If your Lordships will look at that clause you will find that the Court which finally disposes of the matter has the power to deal with those costs. That was not noticed at the time the Bill was first drafted, but the draftsman and those who have considered the matter, including myself, think that the words might be omitted from subsection (6) of this clause as they are covered by Clause 12.
Amendment moved—
Clause 1, page 2, line 33, leave out from ("therein") to the end of subsection (6).—(Lord Gorell.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD LOREBURN): The facts are as stated by my noble and learned friend, and I think the Amendment will be an improvement.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
On Question, That Clause 1, as amended, be agreed to,
THE EARL OF HALSBURY said: My Lords, on this Motion I have to move that Clause 1 be omitted from the Bill. It is a clause which has been debated once before in your Lordships' House, and the small attendance this afternoon indicates, I regret to say, that the importance of the subject is not fully appreciated. I wish to
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state my deliberate opinion that this clause, if passed, will cause serious injury to the general administration of justice in this country. There are, however, a great many clauses in the Bill which have my hearty support, but this clause, which in effect enacts that every proceeding shall begin in the County Court, would be to my mind most mischievous in its operation. It would be mischievous in more ways than one. It would be particularly hard on the class of person for whom the County Courts were originally intended—namely, people of small means seeking redress in respect of small questions which might properly be left to the County Court.
I feel the difficulty of arguing this question before a House which really is not familiar with the state of facts. From time to time the Legislature had added a great number of jurisdictions to the County Court, and although the Judges have most fairly and honestly tried to get through the work, a great number of small cases are from time to time delayed and cannot be carried through to a proper conclusion by reason of the great pressure on the County Courts. That pressure exists in a way which is very remarkable in one sense. Wherever there is a very efficient Judge—and there are many, I may say—he becomes as it were a favourite Judge, and his Court is overwhelmed with business. The Legislature, as I say, has thought fit to increase the jurisdiction of the County Courts. Of that I cannot complain, because the Legislature has done so and there it must remain; but this clause would further increase the number of cases to be taken in the County Court. I can only say that from all I hear it is not true that there is at present any delay in the superior Courts. The case as originally made out for some alteration of this sort was that the superior Courts had not the time necessary to try the cases, and that you ought to diminish the number of cases in the High Court by some sort of assistance. That case can no longer be made. The Legislature has thought right to add two more Judges to the Judicial staff, and I hear from the Lord Chief Justice and from everybody familiar with the facts that there is no such delay as was the subject of complaint before.
But by this clause it is intended to increase the quantity of business in the County Courts. If I am wrong, my noble and

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learned friend the Lord Chancellor will correct me; but if that is not the intention, I fail to see what the object of the clause is. The County Court Judges have honestly tried to do what they can in overtaking their work, and many of them have sat until half-past ten o'clock at night hearing cases in order to get through their lists. County Court Judges have to fix their sittings at the different places on their circuit beforehand, in order that adequate notice may be given to the parties; and having fixed the days, they must get through their lists or adjourn cases, and it is these perpetual adjournments which inflict serious hardship and loss on the poorer litigants. I have in my hand a list of a large number of cases showing what the delay has been. On the last occasion when we were discussing this question the Lord Chancellor read—I do not know where the statistics came from—figures showing the number of hours during which County Court Judges sit.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I quoted the average number of days a year on which they sit. The figures will be found in the Judicial Statistics published every year. The average number of days on which a County Court Judge sits is 153 each year.
THE EARL OF HALSBURY: I would point out that the only figures there given are as to the number of days on which the Judges sit. They are no doubt quite correct. But these Judges have circuits to cover. The time spent in travelling is not counted at all in the statistics, and from time to time they have considerable distances to cover. I think the Lord Chancellor, in the argument he founded upon those figures, was rather judging from his own experience of going from his own house to where he sits. These Judges have to travel considerable distances, and when they get there the two or three days fixed for the transaction of the business may, as is continually the case, prove not enough. Then what is the Judge to do? If he tries to get continuous sittings, the parties at the next place where he is due and to which they have gone with their advocates and witnesses have to be put off, and the expense is immediately made much greater for them than it originally was. But if the Judge adjourns the unfinished case, the witnesses, who are not necessarily in the immediate neighbourhood, and others have to be brought there again, and the result is
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to inflict a considerable amount of suffering on the poorer class of litigants. That is a very great scandal, and I think we ought to prevent its occurring. I must say I do not know what is the object of insisting that every case should begin in the County Court.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: That is not the object of the Bill.
THE EARL OF HALSBURY: I will quote to your Lordships a few dates showing what has happened in regard to County Court cases. I will hand my noble and learned friend the list so that he can verify the statement, but I do not wish to read out either the names of the parties or the County Courts.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I would ask my noble and learned friend whether he can state these cases on his own authority. I know that a number of cases were collected by an association connected with the law. They were statements of great grievances in the trial of cases, and they have nearly every one of them been exploded by subsequent repudiations by the parties concerned. When this matter was discussed before I asked my noble and learned friend if he would give us information of the cases. I am quite sure I could meet every one of them.
THE EARL OF HALSBURY: My noble and learned friend is hardly serious when he asks me whether I can state these cases of my own knowledge. I will hand him the paper which I hold in my hand in order that he may have every opportunity of investigating whether the statements therein contained are accurate or not, but he would hardly expect me to say of my own personal knowledge whether A B was kept in the Isle of Wight six hours or not. I know nothing about the cases except what I am informed by those who have been careful in the collection of these statistics and whose statements I have every reason to believe are accurate. Here is one case—a case of wrongful dismissal—which lasted the whole of five days. Counsel states that they were obliged to go down from London on each occasion. The case started on December 1; it was adjourned until December 11; it was then adjourned until January 7, and again until January 16, and judgment was given on a subsequent date. Just observe. Five adjournments! The result of that,

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of course, is that the expense, is repeated five times. Here is another case. The dates of the hearing were July 16, September 29, November 2, December 9, December 10, January 6, January 7, February 1, February 4, February 13, March 14, and April 15—from July to April. And this in the quick Court for poor people! All these adjournments arose, as I have pointed out, from the crowding of the County Courts by these different cases.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Was the last case to which the noble and learned Earl referred a London case?
THE EARL OF HALSBURY: Yes, a Clerkenwell case. But I assure your Lordships that this is by no means confined to London. Then I take a case of an action remitted from the High Court for trial to the County Court—another of the forms in which the County Court has been overloaded. On February 5, the day fixed for the hearing, the parties, with their counsel, solicitors and witnesses, of whom there were eight or nine, attended at Waltham Abbey. At about 3 P.M. it became obvious that there was no probability of the case being reached, and upon application being made to him die Judge kindly granted a special day for the hearing in London. Accordingly, on February 22, the hearing began in London, and when the Judge rose at 4 P.M. the case was little, more than half way through. The Judge again gave a second special day. On Mardi 9 the hearing was resumed in London. Judgment, however, was reserved, and was delivered in London on April 1. These are not isolated cases by any means, and it appears to me that this is really defeating the whole object with which County Courts were set up. Lord Brougham's object was to confine the jurisdiction of County Courts much more than has since been the case. But be that as it may, the state of things at present creates continual annoyance and causes continual loss to small litigants, whose time is their money.
There is another matter in the Bill which seems to me very relevant to this. I think the poorer classes of His Majesty's subjects are quite as much entitled to the learning and independence of Judges as the richer. Yet by one of the provisions of this Bill it is proposed to remit certain
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cases to Registrars. These Registrars of County Courts may be solicitors or not; they may have no legal training at all. The proposal is that when the judge has no time to take these cases, or when there may be no particular reason why the Judge should take them, they should be taken by the Registrar. There are two objections to that. In the first place, the poorer subjects of His Majesty have the right to have their justice as good as the richer class of litigants; and, in the second place, Registrars are very often practising solicitors themselves. In my opinion it is not desirable that a local solicitor, who may have many connections in many ways with local interests, should decide these cases. The parties should have the advantage of a hearing by a perfectly independent Judge.
I see no reason whatever, and I have never heard a reason assigned, why Clause 1 should remain in the Bill. I have no objection to the other clauses. On the contrary, I think some of them are very great improvements. But why the Lord Chancellor should insist on everything beginning in the County Court; I cannot make out. It seems to me to be a distrust of the Junior Bar, and although I quite agree that the Bar exists for the public and not the public for the Bar, yet I do think the institution itself is most valuable in the administration of justice, and I think the great injury that would be done to the profession of the Bar by the passing of this Bill would have its reflex operation on the public generally, and would very greatly impair the administration of justice. For these reasons, my Lords, I beg to move that Clause 1 be struck out of the Bill.
Amendment moved—
To leave out Clause 1.—(The Earl of Halsbury.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, it is a matter of regret that the House should be so thin to-night, but this Bill was down yesterday and I postponed it until to-day for the convenience of the noble and learned Earl, because I was very anxious that he should have an opportunity of presenting his views. It is difficult to explain a law reform to laymen, but I will endeavour to explain this proposal as simply as I can. In the first place, the noble and learned Earl is completely mistaken if he thinks that this clause provides that all actions shall commence in the County Court. It is nothing of the kind.
THE EARL OF HALSBURY: Yes.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I beg my noble and learned friend's pardon. The clause provides that County Courts shall, save as subsequently provided, have jurisdiction to hear and determine any action which can be commenced in the High Court notwithstanding that the debt, damage, or damage claimed is not limited to £100 or under. In other words, we say this—not that every action shall commence in the County Court, but that if you like you can commence an action in the County Court, which is a very different proposition. Now what is the present state of the law, and how small, except from the one point of view last adverted to by the noble and learned Earl, is the change which we seek to make? Let me make it quite clear. At present the jurisdiction of the County Court is limited to cases under £100, although, if the parties consent, any case above £100 can be tried there. That is the existing law. We propose nothing more than this. Instead of requiring what parties in hostility will seldom agree to, a consent to try a case of upwards of £100 in the County Court; instead of saying that the plaintiff and defendant must first come to an agreement that the case shall be tried in the County Court, we say that the plaintiff may set it down for trial in the County Court subject to the absolute unqualified right of the defendant, if he dissents, to have the case removed at once, absolutely on his own right, to the High Court. That is the whole extent of the change.
The reason for this change is very obvious. Cost is the curse of litigation. If I could do anything for the purpose of cheapening as well as simplifying litigation in this country I would willingly do it. The costs are very much greater in the High Court than in the County Court. I received yesterday a letter from one of the County Court Judges, in which he told me of many cases in. which people who were entitled to more than £100 dropped the extra sum in order to be able to bring their action in the County Court without the endless appeals and without the cost of kicking their heels about in the Assize Court or in London, which is prohibitive to people of limited means. My sole purpose and the sole effect of this clause is this. If the plaintiff and defendant agree beforehand, they can now have a case of upwards of
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£100 tried in the County Court. I propose that the plaintiff shall be at liberty to begin in. the County Court, and that the defendant, if he does not like it, shall have the absolute right to remove the case into the High Court. That is the whole extent of this reform which the noble and learned Earl says will produce disastrous results.
It is because I believe it is right and because it is bound up in the texture of this Bill that I say the clause is vital. Two years ago this House threw the clause out, at the instance of the noble and learned Earl, by a majority of five. Now what is the authority in support of this proposal to allow the plaintiff to begin in the County Court, leaving the defendant an absolute right to remove the case to the High Court? There was in the year 1879 a Bill brought before this House and referred to a Select Committee, which comprised Lord Cairns, Lord Selborne, Lord Hatherley, Lord Blackburn, and the noble Marquess the present Leader of the Opposition, although he may have altogether forgotten the circumstance. They reported the Bill to the House; and when we last discussed this Bill in Committee I gave your Lordships the reference to the number of that Bill and the year in which it was introduced in order that you might look it up. That Bill proposed exactly what I am proposing now. But it went further than I do, because I propose to limit this right. It is not to include cases of ejectment, actions for libel, and so forth, nor Chancery actions. Therefore I am more moderate than were Lord Cairns, Lord Selborne, Lord Hatherley, Lord Blackburn, and the noble Marquess opposite in the year 1879. I hope your Lordships will look that Bill up between now and Report and compare it with this Bill. If you do, you will see that I am more moderate than they were. This idea was also revived and reported upon in the year 1907 by the Committee of which my noble and learned friend Lord Gorell was Chairman. That Committee recommended it——
LORD ALVERSTONE: The majority of them. There was a dissentient Report.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: There was one absolute dissentient; the others were qualified. I have yet to learn what harm this proposal can do. It was reported on in the sense I have described in 1907. Where the Committee in 1879 were

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unanimous, there was one dissentient and some qualified dissent in 1907. What is the objection to this proposal? I may tell your Lordships that the solicitors are in favour of it——
THE EARL OF HALSBURY: That is not so.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I am not aware of any that are not.
THE EARL OF HALSBURY: There is considerable dissent in the Law Society.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: The Law Society is in favour of it, and other law societies are in favour of it. Let me explain how it would work in the first instance. It is proposed that there shall be special Courts, special sittings so as to prevent the very delay which is now complained of—that there should be a sort of circuit in the country where these eases should be tried, the places to be approved by the Lord Chancellor for the time being. Who are the objectors? My noble and learned friend says that the Bar objects. I hope riot. The Bar has always been a liberal profession all through the history of England. I am quite certain that the Bar itself—I do not care whether its representatives on the Bar Council say one thing or another—will not object to this. In the first place, it would be very wrong to allow private interests to interfere with public interests. But apart from that, this proposal is in the interests of the Bar. In the County Courts solicitors have a right of audience, but in the High Court the Bar alone has a right of audience. I know it has been said that the reason why some shortsighted members of the Bar object to this proposal is that they would lose the exclusive right of audience in cases above £100. That undoubtedly would be the result of this clause. I do not believe that the Bar take that line, and, as I say, this proposal would not even injure the Bar. I remember when I was starting at the Bar how glad I should have been of the opportunity of having County Court circuits with small work and an opportunity for young men who will attend to their profession and study it to make their way in the world. I have seen numbers of men losing heart at the Bar because they had not this opportunity in small cases of learning their profession. In all the County Court districts there would be circuits which these men could attend. Again, it is never worth the
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while of solicitors in large practice to attend to these cases.
I am told by the noble and learned Earl that there is pressure on the County Courts at present. It is very odd that I have never heard of it. I am responsible for the business of the County Courts, and I aver this, that during the time I have been Lord Chancellor I have not had complaints of pressure of work except from two County Court Judges—only two out of the fifty-five—and I have satisfied myself that in neither of those cases was there any ground for the complaint. The Judicial Statistics show the number of days on which each County Court Judge sits. The average is 153 days in the course of the year. Would any of us, would the noble Marquess opposite or any busy man grumble at 150 days' work out of 365? I wish I could get off with even 270 days. This objection is absolutely hollow. There is nothing in it. The noble and learned Earl referred to certain cases. I think I know where he got those cases. They are the eases which were made the subject of complaint at the Bar Council, but every one who followed the matter knows that no sooner were those cases stated than up rose a number of persons who said, "You are quite mistaken; that is not so." I know one case myself to which the noble and learned Earl referred. It was a case in a Loudon County Court which lasted twelve or fourteen days, and which probably ought to have been dealt with otherwise—I think by reference to an official referee, for it was a very technical case. There must in every Court be cases which are wrongly so tried.
But we are on the point of overwork. The contention was that this case extended over twelve months because the Judge had not sufficient time. I wrote to the Judge and asked him how many days he sat in the year, and he replied "170 days and a few days more for preparing cases." He had no travelling because he was a London Judge. That is the only one of the particular instances I happen to know, and if the others are like that I do not think they will carry very great weight with your Lordships. Out of the thousands and thousands of cases which are constantly being tried you will, of course, now and again find cases in which the Court has not been able to give the desired despatch;

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but where the logic comes in of urging cases of that kind as a reason against the proposal I am making in this clause, which is to allow a plaintiff to begin in the County Court subject to the right of removal, is more than I can understand. If any proper complaint is made of overwork and inability to discharge business, there is already power in the Lord Chancellor to appoint extra County Court Judges; but I do not think the case has arisen. It would obviously be my duty, or that of any one filling my position, if there was any pressure, to make the necessary provision by appointing sufficient County Court Judges to transact the business.
One more point. The noble and learned Earl complained that our proposals with regard to the Registrar, who is nearly always an experienced solicitor, were unfair to poor people, for whose benefit Lord Brougham passed the County Court Act. But the fact is that there is now jurisdiction in the case of the Registrar to the extent of £2.
LORD ALVERSTONE: By consent.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Yes; £2 by consent to be tried before the Registrar. This dreadful Bill proposes that it should be increased to £5, by consent also, but any poor person who wishes to have his case tried before a Judge can have it so tried by refusing his consent to its being dealt with by the Registrar.
LORD ALVERSTONE: That is not in this Bill.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Yes it is. Then see who these Registrars are and measure the weight of this objection. A little time ago the noble and learned Earl himself brought in a Bill which extended by consent the jurisdiction of Registrars from £2 to £5.
THE EARL OF HALSBURY: That was by consent.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Yes, by consent, and so it is in this Bill. Then the noble and learned Earl said that this jurisdiction should only be given to district Registrars or Registrars approved of by the Lord Chancellor. If I was pressed, rather than lose the Bill I would consent to that limitation. But, really and truly, who are these Registrars, who are trusted up to £2 and distrusted up to £5? In
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Bankruptcy cases they have unlimited jurisdiction. In other cases also they have a large jurisdiction. And, after all, if you have the safeguard that the Registrar is not to try unless there is consent, where is the mischief? I pass from that subject. The Bill is full of provisions consequential or related to this clause. I have put this proposal forward to endeavour to give poor people a chance of cheap litigation. I restrain nobody. I only enable where there is consent. I give a little presumption in favour of the jurisdiction and no more, and I am very sorry that the clause is objected to by a great authority for whom I have such a sincere respect. All I can say is that I did not know before what grave consequences would follow from such a small cause as the change in this respect which I propose.
LORD ROBSON: My Lords, my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor has stated that the change which he is proposing to make is a small change. It is, however, a significant change, and we have to deal not so much with the machinery of the change as with its effect and its result on the working of the Courts. My noble and learned friend says that all he is doing is to impose on the defendant in each action entered in the County Court the obligation of making an application to remove it to the High Court. The defendant, instead of merely indicating his dissent, will have in future to make a formal application involving costs. It may be a small matter, but it may result in a great removal of work from the High Court to the County Court. The object of the Bill is undoubtedly to bring about that transfer. Whether the machinery is adequate for the purpose or inadequate is a matter of argument. I think it will probably be inadequate.
But the question for your Lordships to consider is whether or not the change, great or small, is in itself necessary and desirable for the public convenience. That is the point. It is a very narrow one, and in the very few observations with which I shall trouble your Lordships I shall confine myself to what I may call the purely businesslike aspect of it. I am not going to defend the Bar, much as I feel tempted to enter on that alluring theme. I do not think the Bar will be found, in this case or in any other, to range itself in a way adverse to the public interest.

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The Bar has always contained, not only a large number of law reformers, but very nearly all the law reformers. The interests of the Bar are somewhat divided on this question, but without touching the question of the Bar at all I will ask, Is there any case, so far as the High Court is concerned, to take that first, why its work should be removed to the inferior Court? A short time ago there was an excellent case for relieving the High Court in one way or another of the great strain of work placed upon it. But the Government in that instance, very happily, as I think, decided to do for the King's Bench Division what it had done some years before very effectively for the Chancery Division, and two new Judges were appointed. The result is that the work of the High Court is not only well in hand, but is proceeding with a degree of rapidity which is rare in the annals of our judicial administration. So far, therefore, as the High Court is concerned there is no reason at all why its work should be transferred to other, and possibly overworked, tribunals. But turn to the County Courts, and here one must be guided by the experience of those who are actually at work in those Courts. What is the state of business in the County Courts? To me it seems to be almost beyond a doubt that in the principal County Courts the work is beyond the proper convenience of the Court. There are, of course, many Courts that are lightly worked, but there are others that are overworked.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Will you give me your authority for that statement?
LORD ROBSON: I will give instances in a minute which will show conclusively that there are County Courts that are overworked. My noble and learned friend said that County Court Judges sit on an average 153 days in the year. I should have thought that the controversies with which your Lordships and everybody have become familiar would have made us a little careful of the fallacies which lurk in averages. It is no consolation to a litigant who is enduring the inconvenience referred to by Lord Halsbury of not being able to get consecutive sittings for the hearing of his case to be told that he really has nothing to grumble about because in Devonshire and in Cornwall and in the rural districts of the Midlands the County Court judges are scarcely sitting at all. That is no consolation to him. It is un-
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doubtedly true that some Courts are under-worked and some are overworked. That being so, I daresay you may get an average which may tell one way or another, but it will not help us to an appreciation of the real difficulty.
Now what is the state of things in the overworked Courts? Let us look, as the noble and learned Earl opposite invited us to do, at the object of these Courts. The great law reformer to whom the noble and learned Earl referred, Lord Brougham, said he wanted to make justice pure, prompt, and cheap throughout the whole area of England. One cannot look at the cases set out in this document which I hold in my hand, issued by the Bar, without seeing that undoubtedly in many cases it is pure, prompt, and cheap, but I do not know that it is always satisfactory. What is this document, to which the noble and learned Earl opposite also referred? it contains statements made by twenty-seven barristers who were invited by the Bar Council to give them and the public the benefit of their personal experience in County Courts. I do not know that you can have better evidence in relation to a matter like this than these statements. Twenty-seven barristers are approached. They are not searched out by some eager litigant to give evidence favourable only to his own cause. They are gentlemen whose names can be given to the Lord Chancellor if he desires them, who speak from their own books, and who vouch for the authenticity and accuracy of the facts which they put into these statements. What do they say? Take the first. The case mentioned by the noble and learned Earl as being first on the list was a case of wrongful dismissal. It was a case involving character, and therefore it was fought strenuously and at length. A King's Counsel was sent down; and, by the way, that is one of the consequences of transferring jurisdiction from the High Court to the County Court. Cases may be of great importance though of small amount. It is stated that there were five adjournments of this case. Why? The reason is given in the next instance. There a barrister went down to a County Court which he mentions. He says—
"We arrived at 10.40. There were five other counsel besides myself. We were all summoned for ten o'clock. There were 200 judgment summonses which lasted from 11 A.M. until about 3 P.M."

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Those, by the way, are the persons for whom these Courts were constituted. I dare say they do not much appreciate the privilege, but it was for the poor debtor and the small creditor that the County Court was in the first instance formed.
There were in this particular Court no fewer than 200 summonses against debtors on that day. Imagine what that means. Imagine the number of persons who, at the loss of a day's pay, are obliged to attend the Court and hang about its precincts for hours. But those cases must be disposed of. The Legislature in its wisdom has thought fit to add to County Court jurisdiction other cases which were proper for the High Court, at all events, which involved the employment of eminent Counsel. In this instance the important cases had to wait. You may say that at all events the judgment summonses were disposed of. They were. But look at the figures. Two hundred judgment summonses disposed of in four hours! That is fifty per hour. It is very nearly a case per minute. I have no doubt it was pure; it was certainly prompt, and I hope it was cheap, but I cannot help thinking that a little more time might have been given to those 200 judgment summonses. With the immense mass of litigation before the Judge, and with the heavy cases awaiting his attention, it is not difficult to imagine that even the most conscientious and careful judge may be somewhat unduly hustled. There happened on this day what might have been expected. The barrister whose statement I have quoted continues—
"My case was called on at 5 P.M., and at 6.30 was adjourned for a fortnight, the other cases being all put off. Many of those cases were jury cases."
Can you conveniently and wisely combine in one Court—because that is the real crux of the difficulty—litigation like that of judgment summonses with the heavy litigation which you are now putting on County Courts?
See what you have been doing in this direction for some years. I think it has been overdone. The County Court has been made the tribunal for all kinds of recent legislative measures—the Workmen's Compensation Acts, the Agricultural Holdings Act, the Land Tenure Act, the Factory Acts in very large measure—a great mass of litigation of that kind, part
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of which is really administrative. All that has been put upon the County Courts, and more apparently is going to be put upon them. This is bound to produce, not perhaps always, not throughout the whole year, but it is bound to produce at times in certain Courts a congestion of work. You cannot get at that by averages. You can only get at it by the experience of those who have suffered from the congestion. A few heavy cases may throw out of gear the work of the Courts for a considerable time. In dealing with the litigation of the poor you ought to make sure that at all times they have a ready and cheap access to the tribunals of justice. These twenty-seven statements by barristers are, of course, as the noble and learned Earl said, much too long, though they are, happily, concise, to quote at any length or other than in the most general way. They were originally made with regard to the question as to whether or no divorce jurisdiction should be given to County Courts. One barrister says—
"As far as the London Courts are concerned, I say without hesitation that they have already as much business as can be dealt with satisfactorily."
The noble and learned Earl mentioned the case at Waltham Abbey. It is a really instructive case. He mentioned the number of times that it came up for hearing. It was remitted from the High Court. It began on February 5, and judgment was delivered, after many adjournments, in London on April 1. It was a horse case, and I see that during all that time the horse was standing at liberty.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: That was not the case I referred to.
LORD ROBSON: No, but I think one can gather the great inconvenience arising from such cases being tried in the County Court, where you cannot always get continuous sittings. Though there may be in the High Court delays in getting on the list, when you do get on you are sure of continuous sittings. But in the County Court you have great delays in getting on, and then you do not get continuous sittings. One barrister puts it in this way—that the pint pot of the Courts is overflowing with a quart of litigation; and he adds that it is impossible to get a record of the cases settled at any sacrifice rather than incur the expense of adjournments.
It was my duty as Attorney-General some time ago to make inquiry into the

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state of business in the High Court, and I confess I was shocked to find, from counsel and litigants whose accuracy I could not possibly doubt, what a number of cases were settled because of the delay. I have heard hon. members in the other House say, "Do not be afraid of little arrears here and there; they are always cleated up." Yes, they are. You can always settle arrears. You can always get rid of an excess of business in the Law Courts. All you have to do is not to hear the eases. The parties cannot keep litigation hanging over their heads for ever, and they often come to a settlement, though at great sacrifice to those who probably have a perfectly just case. That is the kind of danger that happens. You get in the County Court the small work of the poor impeded and delayed, and therefore made more costly; and the larger cases are also delayed and made more costly, and frequently settled at a sacrifice of justice. The great point which these cases show is the disadvantage of not being able to get continuous sittings.
Now my noble and learned friend says he will get continuous sittings. Under this Bill he is going to set up special sittings which may be continuous. What is the effect of that to be on the smaller work of the County Courts, and how can you be sure, with a County Court that has to move on circuit, that you will be able to keep to your special sittings? You may fix a two days' special sitting in one place and a two days' special sitting somewhere else; but you may be in the middle of a case in the first place at the end of the two days, but you must move on because you have all your people waiting in the next place. These barristers say that in spite of the disadvantages of the delays in getting on in the High Court, the great advantage of being able to get continuous sittings there makes up for any minor advantages that might attach to County Courts. Here are twenty-seven men of character and judgment and experience. They go, as they say, almost at random through their fee books to get a record of the adjournments and delays that they have had to experience, and they tell a story which shows that, in spite of what we hear about averages, in spite of generalities and statements which cannot be very precisely tested, there is a very unfortunate state of things in the busy County Courts, and it is the busy Courts
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that you are going to overload. The overworked Courts are generally those which have the best Judges. They are the men who will have the greater work in future.
I believe we shall have sooner or later to take in hand the question of improving and perhaps localising to a large extent the administration of justice in England. I am by no means sure that the old methods fairly worked out may not prove quite effective. I do not think the circuit system has really received a fair trial. My noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor referred to legal reforms. My experience of legal reforms was that of cutting down the Newcastle business from ten days to five, and when the number of cases had been diminished cutting down still further the number of days. There has been for years in the Judicial administration of England a refusal, I think a foolish refusal, of adequate facilities for the hearing of cases. I have seen it in the High Courts, I have seen it in the County Courts, and on circuit. We have undoubtedly done much to drive business from the Courts because we have not had, first, an adequate Judicial staff, and secondly, adequate local convenience. There are means of improving the administration of justice without adopting this method, which is to take from underworked High Courts work proper for them and put it on the shoulders of overworked County Courts, where it is not appropriate either to the machinery or the Judge.
LORD ALVERSTONE: My Lords, if I had followed my own inclination I should have abstained from taking part in this discussion. I am quite aware that I must differ from the views of the Lord Chancellor. He has told us to-night that he knows he is right, and of course when he says that with all the weight of Lord Chancellor——
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The object is to save litigants costs—that is what I know I am right in—instead of their being bled in the High Courts.
LORD ALVERSTONE: If I thought this Bill was going to economise costs I should support it, but one of the reasons why I cannot support it is that I am convinced that it will work in the other direction. I wish to say one word about precedent. It is suggested that this Bill is founded on the recommendation of

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the Committee of 1879 and on the Bill introduced by Lord Cairns. It really is not. That was a Bill which allowed every kind of action to be commenced in the County Court. This is a Bill which only takes some of the King's Bench cases and says they may be commenced in the County Court. I ask, If this principle is right, why are Chancery cases not treated in the same way? We are trying in the King's Bench Division and in the Chancery Division cases of exactly the same kind constantly. They are heard in exactly the same way, except that in the Chancery Division there are seldom juries. But if it is to be a principle in our system that any case may be commenced in the County Court, I say it should be applied quite as much to Chancery cases as to King's Bench cases. That has a material bearing on some of the suggestions made by the Lord Chancellor.
It is next said that this Bill is for the purpose of saving costs and to prevent poor litigants being bled. I should like to have heard some statistics in support of that statement. This clause would have the effect in certain Comity Courts of imposing upon a number of litigants great delays. Litigants who took advantage of this Bill would not have their cases heard on consecutive days, with the result that the costs would be increased. It is my opinion that the result of hearing this kind of ease in the County Court would be that hearings would be extended over a far longer time, instead of being heard consecutively from day to day as they would be on circuit or in London, with the result that the costs would be very much increased. Then the Lord Chancellor said there were now endless appeals. The effect of this Bill will be that there will be more appeals, because there is an additional appeal from the County Court. A case goes from the County Court to a Divisional Court, then to the Appeal Court, and, where that appeal is allowed, to the House of Lords. In this Bill there is to be an appeal on fact in cases above £100. At present there is no appeal on fact. That may be satisfactory or unsatisfactory, but the result will be that the number of appeals will be increased under this Bill and not decreased.
The Lord Chancellor said, quite truly, that the average number of days on which a County Court Judge sits is between 150 and 160; but I say with very great
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submission that the noble and learned Lord overlooks what the working of this Bill will be. It is in places like Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Leeds, Cardiff and Bristol where you have the most experienced County Court Judges. I know County Court Judges who are perfectly competent to try any case, and who are quite as competent to try a patent case as any Judge of the High Court; and there is no reason why a patent case should not be tried in the County Court. The Lord Chancellor says he proposes to have special sittings. I contend that if special sittings are taken they will strike at the root of the County Court system. I have communicated with several County Court Judges with reference to this Bill, and they tell me that their sittings are arranged for three and four months in advance. I am not now speaking of Judges who always sit in one place, but of Judges who go to our principal towns. The sittings of those Judges are arranged for months beforehand, and if special cases are to be taken they must be sandwiched in between the ordinary work arranged for; and if you have a case lasting five, six, or seven days, the result will be that you will have the ordinary sittings of the County Court postponed. Moreover, invite people to have cases to an unlimited amount tried in the County Court is contrary to our system. I respectfully say that it will not diminish cost. It will not diminish appeals. And if it is to be said that this reform is advocated because people are now bled in costs in the High Courts, that applies equally strongly to those cases which are now being heard in the Chancery Division, and you must, amend matters by stopping the causes which lead to increased cost if such exist. Therefore the first thing I have to say with reference to this provision is that von will find that it will work only in those places where there are experienced County Court Judges who have already ample work to do, and you will have the difficulty which is inseparable from our present system—that you will not be able to avoid adjournments which involve great expense.
I ask how it can be suggested, when you can in the High Court have these cases heard day by day without interruption and when you can on circuit have them heard day by day without interruption, that it is better to have a system

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whereby the hearing of these cases must be broken and must be interrupted? Then the Lord Chancellor said that he would appoint special Judges if necessary for the purpose of relieving the present County Court Judges. I object to the appointment of temporary or Deputy Judges. I do not believe in men being Judges one day and not Judges the next day.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: What I said was that I would appoint as many permanent County Court Judges as were necessary. I may further add that not only I but my predecessor and all Chancellors have always been in the habit of appointing Deputy Judges on occasions.
LORD ALVERSTONE: I quite understand that that has been the practice. But this particular amendment of the law if it be right, which is to allow King's Bench actions to be tried in the County Court, can only be properly worked in the large towns by an addition to the County Court Judges, or by the appointment of Deputy Judges. I trust that as far as possible poor litigants will be allowed to have a permanent Judge to try their cases, not a man who is a Judge one day and goes back to the Bar the next. There is a proposal in the Bill to give County Court Judges more time by allowing, Registrars to try cases up to £5. I quite understand that my noble and learned friend means by consent, but I do not think the Bill says so. I think that under the Bill a plaintiff can bring a case up to £5, and the defendant has to remove it if he does not wish it to be dealt with by the Registrar.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: He has to object.
LORD ALVERSTONE: The clause which deals with the extension of the jurisdiction of Registrars is Clause 5, subsection (1) of which runs—
"Any action in a County Court for a debt or liquidated money demand not exceeding five pounds may be heard and determined by the Registrar, unless any party within such time and in such manner as may be prescribed gives notice requiring the case to be heard by the Judge of the Court."
That is exactly what I say. The plaintiff can bring any action for a debt or liquidated money demand not exceeding £5 to be determined by the Registrar, and the defendant has to say that he wishes the
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case tried by the Judge. With the greatest respect to the Registrars, I submit that the principle of our County Court jurisdiction is that the poor litigant shall have his case decided by a competent Judge. The noble and learned Lord may think that it is merely a question of sentiment, but it is not. The poor man wishes his case to be decided by a Judge just as a criminal likes to be tried by a Judge rather than by a Commissioner. I hope my noble and learned friend does not sneer at that feeling. You may say that it does not matter whether the Registrar hears such a case or whether it goes before the County Court Judge, but there are many poor litigants who think that it does make a difference; and although it is a most laudable desire to cheapen litigation and make it more expeditious, it ought not to be done at the expense of the County Court system. I submit to your Lordships that the result of this particular amendment of the law will be that a number of cases which ought to be tried in the High Court and on circuit will be tried in the County Court, and I further submit that it is not the fact that they will be tried more cheaply or more expeditiously. I believe the expense will be greater owing to the number of adjournments which must be involved and the greater number of appeals.
I really have to say something for the High Court of Judicature. I am sure my noble and learned friend does not mean to disparage the High Court, but he has said to-night things which will be understood as meaning that these cases can be just as well tried in the County Court as in the High Court. I do not think so. I speak at any rate with some experience in the matter. I do not consider that the trial of such cases in the County Court will be satisfactory. From the point of view of the Judge's note they will be most certainly not satisfactory. I have had hundreds of appeals before me from County Courts, and the difficulty has frequently been that the notes taken have not been sufficient to enable us to deal properly with the matter. If these cases are heard in the County Court they will either involve the Judge in much greater labour and deliberation than at present, or will be heard in a way which will not be satisfactory when it comes to the Court of Appeal. There will also be great congestion of business in the

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Courts where these important cases are tried. I submit that the proper course would have been to increase the facilities for trial in the High Court and not persuade people to have High Court actions tried in the County Court. If it is said that at present there are cases being tried in the High Court which ought to be tried in the County Court and that thereby people are being involved in extra costs and delays, let us have information that will enable us to form an opinion upon that, but I must say it is contrary to my experience.
The clause under discussion imposes no limit. Any action, whatever its amount, may be commenced in the County Court. It is not a small change. I agree with my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor that if it was merely a small matter it would not be worth debating; but I believe the practical result will be that both plaintiff and defendant will desire to have their case tried by a particular County Court Judge, who will try their case at the expense of the other litigants in this sense, that the cases of the other litigants will be delayed and the days which ought to be appropriated to the regular County Court business will be taken up by this other business. I am quite satisfied that the suggestion that King's Bench actions cannot be tried in the County Court without delay is well founded. It is very easy and very taking, and produces great effect outside, for the Lord Chancellor to talk about being here on behalf of the poor and to say that we are opposing him. But he has done nothing to show that the effect of the alterations would be to cheapen legislation or to lead to a more satisfactory administration of justice.
LORD GORELL: My Lords, I ask your Lordships' indulgence while I make a few observations upon this clause. This matter has been present to my mind now for some years, and I had the privilege of presiding over the Committee whose Report formed the basis of this Bill. I think I shall be able, therefore, to put some matters before your Lordships which have not up to the present received from those who oppose this clause adequate consideration. I wish to supplement, if I may, what my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor said about the change which it is sought to produce by this Bill. It is easy to speak, as some speakers have done, as if
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this was in effect an attempt to compel people to go to the County Court. It is nothing of the kind. The present law, as laid down by the Act of 1888, is that persons may, by a signed consent, take any common law case into the County Court. They could do nothing more under this Bill, except that this Bill enables the persistent plaintiff to get over the difficulty which he experiences when he proceeds to ask the defendant to consent. Though it is not easy to get defendants to consent, they may be ready, when the case is once brought in the County Court, not to object to its being taken there.
The first general observation I should like to make is this, that this being not a compulsory matter but a means for facilitating getting a case taken in the County Court unless the other side objects, there will be no congestion. If there were any danger of delay through congestion the parties would immediately decide not to go to the County Court but to begin the case in the High Court. Any idea of congestion would be at once got rid of by the parties not using the County Court. And if the plaintiff began his case in the County Court the defendant, if he thought he was going to incur more costs or experience snore inconvenience by the case being tried there, could remove the case to the High Court. I think that is a complete answer to the Lord Chief Justice when he suggests that there will be congestion and that this proposal will add to the difficulties which the County Courts already experience. It is suggested by the Lord Chief Justice that if this extension is right it ought to apply to Chancery proceedings. That is not really sound, if I may respectfully say so, because, although that was contemplated in Lord Cairns's Bill, Chancery proceedings generally involve a large amount of property, and people would not be disposed, I think, to bring such cases in a Court whose officers were not familiar with the forms involved in Chancery proceedings. That was the reason given to me by one of the Chancery Judges on the question of Chancery proceedings when I was presiding over the Committee. Another point that is forgotten is that in great centres of population, in Lancashire, for instance, there is a local Chancery Court——
LORD ALVERSTONE: That is not a County Court.
LORD GORELL: I agree, but there is a Court with unlimited jurisdiction in Lancashire. I venture to assert that the demand which has existed for this change is one which there is no prospect of meeting M the High Court. This proposal is not even so recent as the Lord Chancellor thought. He had probably forgotten that the proposal was first made by the celebrated Judicature Commission of 1870, whose labours resulted in the present Judicature Acts and the present constitution of the High Court. The majority of that Commission recommended precisely the same thing as the Lord Chancellor is recommending to-day. I have an extract from their Report before me. They say—
"Subject to the power of transfer, these Courts [County Courts] should have unlimited jurisdiction."
The power of transfer, as far as I can follow it, was that if a £50 claim was brought the defendant should have the right of removal. So that for forty years this proposal has been before the country. It was also recommended by the Committee to which I have referred and over which I presided, and it is important to bear in mind that that Committee included one of the most experienced County Court Judges and also one of the most experienced County Court Registrars, the latter being an ex-president of the Law Society, both of whom were in favour of this proposal. That point seems to me of importance when your Lordships remember that the only objection we have heard to this clause to-day is that it will lead to congestion.
My noble and learned friend Lord Robson mentioned a certain number of cases selected—over how many nears and from how many cases I do not know—by certain members of the Bar who object to this proposal. I have informed your Lordships that two of the most experienced persons you can find on a subject like this do not see any of these difficulties. I ask your Lordships to remember that if this proposal does lead to blocking of the Courts the parties will not go there. The plaintiff need not go there, and the defendant can remove the case. But, as I have said, there is no real reason to think that this congestion will occur. One word more about the Report of the Committee over whom I presided. There were nine members on that Committee. One dissented, four qualified their assent to the proposal, and
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four were absolutely in favour of it. The four who qualified their assent were in favour of it if greater facilities were afforded by the High Court, but we have looked in vain from that time for such facilities as really meet the difficulties of this particular class of case. The only change that has been made has been to increase the Circuit facilities on the last place on the Assize.
LORD ALVERSTONE: I am not aware of any suggestion which has been made which has not been carried out in the King's Bench Division.
LORD GORELL: The suggestion in the Report of the Committee was that facilities should be given to enable people to get their cases tried more quickly.
LORD ALVERSTONE: I would point out that we have increased the Civil facilities at several towns in the Autumn Assize, and have recently taken further powers of doing so. We have readjusted the days, and given Manchester and Liverpool a practically continuous Civil Judge. We have given these facilities at all places where they are required.
LORD GORELL: I admit that certain changes have been made in regard to the business at the last Assize towns on the circuit. But there are only two Assizes per annum at almost all these places. That is utterly out of date and unsatisfactory, and that is the reason why there is this demand for an increase in the powers of the County Court. The demand has been growing and is still growing, and unless this clause is adopted you will find it grow to a far more sweeping extent.
LORD ALVERSTONE: Will the noble and learned Lord tell us the demand?
LORD GORELL: I will deal with that point when I come to it. There is this further point, that this Bill has been before the country for a considerable time and that this clause, which is the only clause substantially objected to, has been considered by the law societies. These societies have had it fully before them, and I have myself seen the president and ex-president of the London Law Society, who have been in communication with all the other law societies in the country. A great variety of Amendments were suggested by those societies, all of

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which passed through my hands and were mostly put into the Bill before its recommitment. There has been no suggestion from first to last that this clause did not meet with the approval of all the societies in the country, and I believe I am correct in saving that it is approved by all the Chambers of Commerce.
This proposal is made on the grounds of convenience and cost. With regard to convenience, can it be suggested in these days of the telephone, telegraph and rapid railway travelling that two Assizes a year in the great majority of the circuit towns in this country are adequate? It is true that cases can be heard more frequently in some of the big centres, but the great bulk of towns in the country get an Assize only twice a year. Is it reasonable that that should be the only facility in a country like this for getting cases of substance heard? By consent a larger number of cases every year are brought to the County Courts than are brought to the High Courts on Circuit. In 1905 there were 947 cases brought in the County Court by consent; in 1906, 961; in 1907, 724; and in 1908, 685. Those are cases over £100 brought by consent. The number of cases brought to the High Courts on Circuit were: in 1905, 751; in 1906, 620; in 1907, 580; and in 1908, 658. Those figures are not quite comparable, because the first figures are of the number of plaints issued and the second of cases tried; but I have searched in vain to find how many of the plaints issued in the County Courts were actually tried. But the fact remains that by consent a larger number of cases are brought every year to the County Courts than are actually disposed of in the High Courts on Circuit. What becomes, therefore, of the suggestion that the transference is to a Court already so much blocked?
On the question of cost, I had placed before me for the purpose of the Divorce Commission a vast amount of evidence upon the respective costs of County Courts and High Courts. One witness gave the figures of 77 cases taxed by him as High Court Registrar in the north of England. He also filled the office of Registrar of the County Court, and had taxed 47 cases of the extended jurisdiction of the County Court, and I gathered from his evidence that substantially the class of case was the same as taken at the Assize. The result was very remarkable. The largest figure
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of the cost in the High Court was £320 and the lowest £35, the average being £108. In regard to the County Court cases, the highest figure was £106 and the lowest £8, the average being £30. I venture to suggest that that is probably the true representation of the position with regard to the business of the two Courts, and you cannot wonder, if people can get their cases tried for £30, £40, or £50 instead of £120, £130, or £150, they are apt to seek the Court which is at their doors and where their cases can be heard so cheaply. Both in the matter of convenience and cost there is sufficient to explain why we find people consenting to go into the County Court.
It is interesting to point out how much England is behind other countries in facilities for bringing cases rapidly, economically, and locally. I have taken the trouble to investigate the state of matters in France. In France there are 375 tribunals of the High Court covering the whole country, and in every one of those tribunals you can bring your suit, no matter how much is involved.
LORD ALVERSTONE: Does the noble and learned Lord recommend the judicial system of France to this country?
LORD GORELL: No; but I recommend the facilities. In Germany there is a local High Court for every 250,000 of the population, and the result is that the parties can get their case always heard within not more than thirty miles from where they live. In Holland there are twenty-three local High Courts. I suggest that the first objection to the clause, which is that it will so block the Courts that poor people will be placed in a difficulty, overlooks the provision ill the Bill of extended powers to the Registrars. That has been somewhat flouted because it is said that poor persons have the right to have their cases heard by the Judge. So they have, and I was very strong on the Committee in suggesting that nothing should be done to take away from the poorest person the right to have his case tried by the Judge. Consequently the Registrar's powers only come in where the parties do not object. Judgment goes for the plaintiff in 98 per cent. of the cases under £3 in the County Court, and——
LORD ALVERSTONE: This Bill does not touch those cases.
LORD GORELL: It gives the Registrar, unless the parties object, power to deal with all that mass of work. It is really only a question of proof, and if this jurisdiction is given to Registrars by extending the amount to £5, you will cover the vast majority of cases that come to the County Court, and the Judge will have so much more time in which to do his work. The other point which has been misunderstood is this. The Bill contemplates that the Judge shall have power to have the larger work taken at central places, not merely on special days, but at special places. The great difficulty that County Court Judges meet with is that they have to go compulsorily to every one of the small places. There may be no work to do or very little work, or there may be a great amount of work; but if they found at any place where they are sitting that there is a substantial case to be heard, the particular proposals in this Bill will enable the Judges to say that the case ought to go to a central place. By the arrangements in this Bill there will be a large power of concentrating the work at various centres, thereby getting rid of the difficulties which arise in connection with adjournments, and enabling the decent work, as one might say, over £50 to be taken on continuous days at one place.
There are other provisions in the Bill which deal with the saving of time. Small places need not be visited if there is no work, and in certain circumstances cases will be concentrated; and, lastly, the increase in the powers of Registrars will enable County Court Judges to have more time. There is another point under the consideration of His Majesty's Government—I refer to the question of committals. If the view presented by a part of the Committee were to be carried into effect—that committal for debt should in certain cases be abolished—a vast mass of the work of County Court Judges would go. I venture to suggest that the only opposition to this clause is based on a few statistics collected by a certain number of persons over I do not know how long a period. Of course it is easy to find such statistics under the present system; but, even so, the number of cases mentioned is exceedingly small, considering the millions of cases taken in the County Courts. I submit that the various provisions in the Bill meet the objections that have been made, and that the proposal contained in this clause is one that ought to be adopted.
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I have been asked whether there was any demand. My answer is that I believe the whole of the law societies are in favour of this change, and they represent the business community in a large sense. I believe also that the whole of the Chambers of Commerce are in favour of it, and if your Lordships do not accept some such proposal as this it is my firm conviction that much more sweeping proposals will be brought forward. There is a demand in the country for local and cheap facilities. Is not that illustrated by the large amount of business which Parliament has put upon County Court Judges? I venture to suggest that this clause ought to pass, and I urge that your Lordships' House should assist in carrying through a reform which has been demanded during many years.
VISCOUNT ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, the subject before your Lordships has been discussed so ably and so completely by the noble and learned Lords who have taken part in the debate that I do not for a moment wish to express any opinion of my own on the merits of the question, which is one with which I am quite incompetent to deal. But I must say, having listened very carefully to the whole of this discussion, that what has struck me most is the extreme difficulty in which members of your Lordships' House who, like myself, are laymen are placed in deciding which way to vote. There is unquestionably, as the noble and learned Lord who has just sat down has said, a strong feeling in the country, in commercial circles at any rate, in favour of greater and cheaper facilities for dealing with litigation locally. When I was President of the Board of Trade—some time ago now—I well remember that chambers of commerce were continually urging that there should be legislation in the direction of giving greater facilities for the hearing of cases locally, and I believe that feeling still continues.
Everybody will sympathise, and I am sure my noble and learned friend Lord Halsbury will sympathise as much as any one, with the demand in the country for cheaper and more easy justice. It is, I understand from the Lord Chancellor, in order to give some effect to that demand that he has introduced this measure which your Lordships are discussing to-day. The noble and learned Lord placed before us his arguments

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in favour of Clause 1, to which my noble and learned friend Lord Halsbury has taken exception. I will only notice one of the remarks which the Lord Chancellor made. He told your Lordships that he regarded this clause as vital to the Bill, and I think I am right in my recollection that when a similar Bill was before your Lordships two years ago [July 26, 1909] and this clause was struck out on the motion of my noble and learned friend Lord Halsbury the Lord Chancellor at once dropped the Bill. I have not heard from any noble and learned Lord in the course of this debate any objection to the other proposals in the Bill. In those circumstances I would venture to submit to your Lordships that it is really a matter for our consideration whether to-day we ought to come to a vote on the Amendment of my noble and learned friend behind me, much as I respect his high authority in these matters. Mitch as I respect that authority, I do question whether we ought to go to a vote to-day on his proposal, which would put an end to this Bill.
What is the position? We have had a debate which I venture to say has left me in considerable doubt. I should very much like to have an opportunity of going over the report of that debate and weighing the arguments used on each side more than it is possible to do merely from listening to the debate. My noble and learned friend gave no notice of his intention to move the omission of this clause, and it was not anticipated, I suppose, by the great majority of your Lordships' House that such an important debate as this would come on to-day. Consequently we have a very thin House, too thin, I venture respectfully to suggest to your Lordships, to deal properly with so important a matter, and I would earnestly and respectfully ask my noble and learned friend whether he would not be content for the present with the debate which has taken place, and not press his Amendment now, but renew it, if he thinks fit, on the Report stage, by which date we shall have had time to consider the arguments on both sides, and be able to come to a more considered judgment upon the question. I venture to make this suggestion, being extremely desirous that no opportunity should be lost of attempting to bring to the people cheaper and more efficient means of obtaining justice than are available to-day.
THE EARL OF HALSBURY: I am not quite certain that I follow my noble friend's suggestion, but if it is that I should withdraw my Amendment for the present and renew it, if I think proper, on Report, I have no objection to that course. I quite agree that the House is a very thin one to decide upon so important a question raised without notice. It was, indeed, a surprise to me yesterday when I found this Bill on the Paper. I had been sitting all day judicially, and I found out quite accidentally that this particular Bill was on the Paper, and I asked my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor to postpone it until to-day, because I had none of the papers with me at the moment. If the understanding is that I withdraw the Amendment only until Report, I have not the least objection. I think it very reasonable that your Lordships should have more notice and be able to consider the matter more fully. Therefore I withdraw the Amendment now, but I wish to give very definite notice that I shall renew the matter on Report.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 2:
Transfer of Actions from County Court to High Court.
2.—(1) If during the progress of an action commenced in a County Court by virtue of the preceding section it shall appear to the judge that the action would be more conveniently disposed of in the High Court, the judge may by order remove it into the high Court: Provided that no such removal shall take place without the consent of the Lord Chief Justice or such other judge of the King's Bench Division of the High Court as shall be prescribed by rules of the Supreme Court, such consent to be obtained in manner prescribed by such rules.
(2) Where an action is removed to the High Court under this section the provisions of the last preceding section as to actions removed under that section to the High Court shall apply.
(3) Nothing in this or the preceding section contained shall affect any enactments now in force as to the transfer of actions from a county court to the High Court.
LORD GORELL: The Amendment standing in my name is to omit from subsection (3) the words "now in force," and to insert "in force at the commencement of this Act." The subsection will then read, "Nothing in this or the preceding section contained shall affect any enactments in force at the commencement of this Act as to the transfer of actions from a County Court to the High Court."
Amendment moved—
Clause 2, page 3, line 18, leave out ("now in force") and insert ("in force at the commencement of this Act").—(Lord Gorell.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I accept the Amendment.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 2, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 3 agreed to.
Clause 4:
Extension of Jurisdiction under the Lunacy Acts, 53 and 54 Vict. c. 5.
4. The power of a judge of County Courts to make an order authorising a person to take possession of and sell or realise the real and personal property of a lunatic under section one hundred and thirty-two of the Lunacy Act, 1890, may be exercised where the value of the real and personal property of the lunatic is under five hundred pounds, and the order may be made upon the application of any relative of the lunatic or of the clerk to the visiting committee of the asylum in which the lunatic is detained as well as upon the application of the clerk of the guardians or a relieving officer as in that section provided; and, where a judge makes an order under that section, he shall, for the purposes of the sale or realisation of the property of a lunatic, have power to make any such order as a judge of the High Court is empowered to make under section one hundred and thirty-three of that Act. Section sixty-eight of the principal Act shall apply to any proceedings under section one hundred and thirty-two of the Lunacy Act, 1890, as amended by this section, as if such proceedings were an action or matter under section sixty-seven of the principal Act.
THE EARL OF DUNMORE THE EARL OF DUNMORE had an Amendment on the Paper to insert the words, "or of the clerk to the visiting committee of the asylum in which the lunatic is detained."
THE LORD CHAIRMAN: I am informed that per incuriam the printers at the previous stage inserted in the clause the words which Lord Dunmore now proposes. The words are therefore actually in the Bill. I do not know whether the Lord Chancellor and Lord Gorell will accept them.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Will you tell us what they are?
THE LORD CHAIRMAN: Lord Dunmore's Amendment is to put in the words "or of the clerk to the visiting committee of the asylum in which the lunatic is detained." Those words are actually in the clause as reprinted. I am informed that they were inserted without any authority. Perhaps the best course in the circumstances would be to hear what the noble Earl has to say for the words,
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and those in charge of the Bill can then say whether the words shall stand or not, and I will put the question accordingly.
THE EARL OF DUNMORE: I put forward this Amendment on behalf of the London County Council six weeks ago. Its object is to enlarge Clause 4 in order that the County Council as the lunacy authority may have power to make an application to the County Court Judge, in addition to the other authorities named in the clause. I might point out that lunatics when received into the county asylums are classified in the first instance as paupers. A lunatic would continue to be classified as a pauper as long as he was chargeable to the board of guardians even if he possessed property, and if the guardians were recouping themselves from that property and paying the cost of his maintenance to the visiting committee. Under Clause 4 as it stands Poor-law officials are empowered to make application to the County Court to appoint some one to administer the estate of a lunatic, but this provision does not extend to County Council officials. It is quite evident, therefore, that the effect of the clause would be this, that where a lunatic is classified as a pauper his estate would be administered through the medium of the board of guardians, and the man would continue to be classified as a pauper, although his estate might be amply sufficient to defray the whole cost of his maintenance. This Amendment proposes to remedy this by enabling County Council officials to make an application direct to the County Court Judge in order that where a lunatic has sufficient property to defray the cost of his maintenance he should not be classified as a pauper. The Amendment is a very simple one. It is non-controversial, and I move it entirely in the interests of the patients. I trust the noble and learned Lord will see his way to accept it.
Amendment moved—
Clause 4, page 4, line 7, after ("lunatic") insert ("or of the clerk to the visiting committee of the asylum in which the lunatic is detained."—(The Earl of Dunmore.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: There seems to have been some misunderstanding in reference to this Amendment. I do not know who was to blame. As I understand, the object of the Amendment is not to prevent the extension of the jurisdiction to larger cases of property,

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but to allow an application to be made by the clerk to the visiting committee of the asylum in which the lunatic is detained, the object being that the visiting committee of the asylum may cause the property to be applied to defray his keep. In the circumstances I suggest that the words should remain in the clause as they have inadvertently been inserted, and before Report I will make inquiries and find out whether there are any objections. I will communicate with the noble Earl before the Report stage.
THE LORD CHAIRMAN: I am afraid the putting of the question is not very easy, as the House had not intended to authorise the insertion of the words, although they are in the clause. Perhaps I had better put the question "that the words be here inserted," and if we are agreed to that at this stage there will be no difficulty.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD GORELL: The next is an Amendment, after the words "Section 68 of the principal Act," to insert the words appearing in my Amendment. It is a purely drafting Amendment suggested by the draftsman, who considered that it was not desirable merely to refer to a section without explaining what that section was. The words which I propose to insert simply describe what the section relates to.
Amendment moved—
Clause 4, page 4, line 21, after ("Act") insert ("which relates to the transfer to the Chancery Division of actions exceeding the jurisdiction of a County Court").—(Lord Gorell.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I accept the Amendment.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 4, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 5:
Extension of Jurisdiction of Registrar.
5.—(1) Any action in a County Court for a debt or liquidated money demand not exceeding five pounds may be heard and determined by the registrar, unless any party within such time and in such manner as may be prescribed gives notice requiring the case to be heard by the judge of the court.
(2) In addition to the jurisdiction conferred by the last foregoing subsection, a registrar may, in any case where the sum claimed or the amount involved does not exceed five pounds, by leave of the judge and subject to County Court rules, on the application of any party, unless any other party objects, hear and determine the case.
(3) Where a defendant gives notice in the prescribed manner that he admits his liability on a
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claim, but desires the decision of the court as to the time and mode of payment thereof, the registrar shall have power to determine the question and enter up judgment.
(4) The powers as to entering up judgment conferred on the registrar by sections ninety and ninety-two of the principal Act shall authorise hint to exercise, in accordance with the terms of those sections, the powers of the judge as to making orders for the recovery of possession of small tenements, and of rents or mesne profits, or both, under section one hundred and thirty-eight of the principal Act.
(5) In any case where the registrar has power under the principal Act or this Act to hear and determine a case or to enter up judgment he shall have power to make such order as to payment by instalments as the judge might have made, and to exercise any other power which the judge might have exercised, and, subject to the provisions of this Act with respect to appeals, any judgment entered up by the registrar in pursuance of the principal Act or this Act shall, to all intents and purposes, have the same effect and shall be enforced and enforceable in the same manner as if it had been a judgment of the judge of the same court.
LORD ALVERSTONE: I should like to ask the Lord Chancellor why in subsection (1) he does not require the leave of the Judge, which would be, of course, a protection, whereas in subsection (2) he does. I do not see why there should be a difference. Subsection (1) says that any action in a County Court for a debt or liquidated money demand not exceeding £5 may be heard and determined by the Registrar unless any party objects. That I quite understand. But in subsection (2) it is enacted that in addition to the jurisdiction conferred by the foregoing subsection, a Registrar may, in any case where the sum claimed or the amount involved does not exceed £5, hear and determine the case "by leave of the Judge." I do not quite understand why, if the leave of the Judge is wanted there, it is not wanted in subsection (1).
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: If the action is for a debt or liquidated money demand not exceeding £5, the consent of the Judge is not asked. The difference is between dealing with debts and liquidated money demands and other claims which are not liquidated.
LORD ALVERSTONE: I do not see why the leave of the Judge is wanted in one case and not in the other.
LORD GORELL: A Registrar might act under this Act when the Judge is not there as to debt, but I do not think he could act as to the other cases unless the Judge was present.
Clause 5 agreed to.
Clause 6 agreed to.
Clause 7:
Special sittings for the trial of actions over £ 50, &c.
7.—(1) Special sittings, for the trial of such actions and matters as under this section are to be tried at such special sittings, shall be held at such County Courts, and at such times, as may from time to time be appointed for the purpose, and every judge of County Courts shall, in accordance with the directions of the Lord Chancellor, appoint places and times at which such special sittings are to be held.
(2) There shall be tried at such special sittings—

(i) all actions as to which jurisdiction is conferred on County Courts by the County Courts Act, 1903, or by this Act, where the debt, demand, or damage claimed or counter-claimed exceeds fifty pounds;

(ii) such other actions or matters triable in a County Court as may be prescribed by order of the Lord Chancellor;

(iii) any particular action or matter which the judge may by order direct to be so tried;

unless in any case the judge thinks fit for special reasons to make an order to the contrary.
(3) The Lord Chancellor may by order direct that any actions or matters required to be tried at special sittings and commenced in any court specified in such order at which no such special sittings are held, shall be transferred to any court specified in such order at which such special sittings are held, whether or not the judge of the first-mentioned court is judge of the last-mentioned court. Where any such order is made, any such act ions or matters commenced in the first-mentioned court shall be transferred to the last-mentioned court in manner prescribed by county court rules; and the court to which such actions or matters are so transferred shall have the same jurisdiction as respects such actions and matters as it would have had in case they had been commenced therein, and the judgment of that court shall have the same effect as if the judgment therein had been the judgment of the court in which they were commenced.
(4) All such incidental, consequential, and supplemental provisions as may appear necessary or proper for the purpose of carrying this section into effect may be made by county court rules.
(5) The appointment of special sittings shall not prevent the judge from hearing and determining any such actions or matters as are in this section mentioned on any day appointed for the general business of the court, where any such action or matter can be so heard without interference with the general business of the court.
(6) This section and the rules made thereunder shall have effect notwithstanding any provisions in any general or local Act providing for the trial or hearing of any actions or matters at any particular County Courts, and inconsistent therewith.
LORD ALVERSTONE: This clause raises a rather important point. It is an important clause for this reason, that it interferes with the existing state of things.
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Under the Act of 1903 the limit was raised from £50 to £100. Now it is proposed to have special sittings, and at these special sittings, according to paragraph (1) of subsection (2), shall be tried all actions as to which jurisdiction is conferred on County Courts by the County Courts Act, 1903, or by this Bill, where the debt, demand, or damage claimed or counter-claimed exceeds £50. The result of that is that the existing law with regard to actions between £50 and £100 is altered, and they are to be tried at special sittings. I do not understand on what ground that change is made, because I do not know that there has been any difficulty in trying cases between £50 and £100 any more than lower amounts. Therefore I would like to know why those cases are to be taken out and sent to special sittings. The next paragraph in the same subsection gives power to try at such special sittings such other actions or matters triable in a County Court as may be prescribed by order of the Lord Chancellor. Would my noble and learned friend tell me what are the sort of actions he contemplates he should send for trial at special sittings? I do not quite see, if actions above £50 are to go to these special sittings, what are the other matters that can be sent there by the Lord Chancellor.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The fact is, in order to prevent delay and to get a Bar together and in order to have a sort of small County Court Assize, we propose that there shall be special sittings set apart. The other work is not to be interfered with. The special sittings were prescribed for four classes of cases. The first is cases between £50 and £100—the extended jurisdiction conferred by the noble and learned Earl's Act of 1903. Second, any cases which become triable by virtue of this Bill—that is, cases above £100 by consent. Third, such other actions or matters triable in the county court as may be prescribed by the Lord Chancellor. I do not remember which particular class I was contemplating, but I will give an illustration. It might be the existing equity jurisdiction, or the existing bankruptcy jurisdiction, or workmen's compensation trials—that class of work. I can quite understand that it might appear to the Lord Chancellor for the time being desirable that there should be a general order requiring that class of work to be tried at

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a special sitting in order not to interfere with current work. Fourth, any particular action or matter which the Judge may by order direct to be so tried.
Clause 7 agreed to.
Clauses 8 to 24 agreed to.
Clause 25:
Amendment of s. 116 of the principal Act as to costs.
25. For the proviso to section one hundred and sixteen of the principal Act (which relates to costs of actions brought in the High Court which could have been commenced in a county court) the following proviso shall be substituted:—
"Provided that if in any action founded on contract the plaintiff shall within twenty-one days from the service of the writ, or within such further time as may be ordered by the court or a judge thereof, obtain an order under Order XIV of the Rules of the Supreme Court, that he be at liberty to sign judgment for a sum of twenty pounds or upwards either unconditionally or unless that sum is paid into court or to the plaintiff's solicitor, he shall be entitled to costs down to and including the time of the payment or signing such judgment according to the scale for the time being in use in the Supreme Court, unless the court or a judge thereof otherwise orders."
LORD GORELL*LORD GORELL moved to delete from the proviso the words "ordered by the Court or a Judge thereof," and to insert the words "allowed in that behalf." The noble and learned Lord said: This Amendment is to enable the Registrar of the High Court to do what can at present only be done, I understand, by the Judge. There is a decision which I think is sufficient in point, to make it very doubtful whether under the words "ordered by the Court or a Judge," as to time, in consequence of the Judge being the only person who can certify for costs in the High Court, the time could be extended by a Master of the Supreme Court. The suggestion is to give the Master power to extend the time and give the plaintiff the costs unless the order is to the contrary. The insertion of this Amendment would enable the Master to extend the time and not necessitate proceedings before the Judge to do that. The idea is to let the Master deal with the matter as lie is the person who gives an order under Order XIV in the first instance, and therefore ought to have power to extend the time.
Amendment moved—
Clause 25, page 14, lines 11 and 12, leave out ("ordered by the court or a judge thereof") and insert ("allowed in that behalf").—(Lord Gorell.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD GORELL: The other Amendments to this clause are consequential.
Amendments moved—
Clause 25, page 14, line 16, leave out ("be entitled to costs") and insert ("unless it is otherwise ordered, be entitled to his costs of the action")
Clause 25, page 14, line 18, leave out from ("Supreme Court") to the end of the clause.—(Lord Gorell.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Clause 25, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 26 agreed to.
Clause 27:
Payment of Judgment Debts.
27. Where a judgment has been obtained in a county court for a sum of money and no order is made as to payment by instalments, the money shall, if the court so directs, be paid by one party to the other, subject to the lien, if any, of his solicitor, instead of being paid into court as required by section one hundred and five of the principal Act. Where money is directed to be so paid the judgment shall not be registered pursuant tow section one hundred and eighty-three of the principal Act unless and until the party entitled to the benefit of the judgment gives notice to the registrar that the same remains unsatisfied.
LORD GORELL*LORD GORELL moved to leave out, at the end of the clause, the words "unless and until the party entitled to the benefit of the judgment gives notice to the Registrar that the same remains unsatisfied," and to insert the words in his Amendment. The noble and learned Lord said: The object of this Amendment is to rectify a slight error which was caused by introducing an Amendment to the original clause. The original clause allowed of money being paid direct to a person instead of being paid into Court, and there are provisions requiring every judgment to be registered. If the money is paid direct to the party, it is not, strictly speaking, necessary to register. The clause provides that where money is directed to be so paid the judgment shall not be registered unless and until the party entitled to the benefit of the judgment gives notice to the Registrar that the same remains unsatisfied. When that provision in the clause was brought to the attention of some of those familiar with the working of these matters it was pointed out that that left the plaintiff the power to leave his judgment unregistered, and that it was not desirable, as registration was in the interests of the public, that that should be allowed. Therefore the proposal now is to leave out the words from "unless and until" to the end of the clause, and to insert the words standing in my name. That is to say, the clause as amended

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will provide that unless the money is forthcoming within a short time the judgment must be registered, and it is suggested that it is to the advantage of the public that that should be done.
Amendment moved—
Clause 27, page 14, line 34, leave out from ("Act") to the end of the clause and insert ("if before the expiration of fourteen clear days from the day of trial, or from the day of entering judgment, or the date of the registrar's allocatur for costs, whichever is the latest, proof shall have been given to the registrar in the prescribed form that the judgment has been satisfied").—(Lord Gorell.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 27, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 28 agreed to.
Clause 29:
Extension of 51 & 52 Vict. c. 43. s. 151, to orders as well as judgments.
29. Section one hundred and fifty-one of the principal Act shall apply to orders obtained in a County Court in the same manner as to judgments so obtained.
LORD GORELL: This is merely a drafting Amendment which suggests again that it is better to describe an Act than only refer to it.
Amendment moved—
Clause 29, page 15, line 13, after ("Act") insert ("which relates to the removal of judgments from a County Court to the High Court").—(Lord Gorell.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 29, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 30 agreed to.
Clause 31:
Juries.
31.—(1) The following provision shall be substituted for section four of the County Courts Act, 1903:—
"The number of jurymen to be empanelled and sworn shall be eight, and accordingly the word 'eight' shall be substituted for the word 'five,' in section one hundred and one and section one hundred and two of the principal Act, where it last occurs in each of those sections."
(2) A summons under section one hundred and two of the principal Act may be served by registered post.
LORD ALVERSTONE: Would o the Lord Chancellor be good enough to inform us what is the meaning of this? "Eight" was substituted for "five" in Section 4 of the Act of 1903. At present I do not see what is wrong with the Act of 1903. Perhaps the Lord Chancellor would tell us.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Section 4 of the Act of 1903, which was intended to raise the number of jurymen from five to eight, also took the form of substituting eight for five in Section 102 of the Act of 1888. The result was not only to; raise the number of jurymen from five to eight, but also to raise the maximum fine from £5 to £8, and at the same time it left the sum payable by the party requiring the jury at 5s. instead of 8s. These mistakes are here corrected.
Clause 31 agreed to.
Clauses 32 and 33 agreed to.
Clause 34:
Protection of sheriff, &c. selling goods under execution without notice of claim by third party.
34. Where any goods in the possession of an execution debtor at the time of seizure by a sheriff, high bailiff, or other officer charged with the enforcement of a writ of execution, are sold by such sheriff, high bailiff, or other officer, without any claim having been made to the same, the purchaser of the goods so sold shall require a good title to the goods so sold, and no person shall be entitled to recover against the sheriff, high bailiff, or other officer, or anyone lawfully acting under the authority of either of them, except as provided by the Bankruptcy Acts, for any sale of such goods or for paying over the proceeds thereof, prior to the receipt of a claim to the said goods: Provided that nothing in this section contained shall affect the right of any claimant who may prove his title to any goods so seized and sold to recover the net sum realised by the sale of such goods from any person in whose hands such proceeds may be or to whom they may have been paid.
LORD GORELL: I move to insert after "writ" ["sheriff, high bailiff, or other officer charged with the enforcement of a writ"] the words "warrant or other process." This is a small Amendment to make the clause apply not only to a writ but also to a warrant and other process.
Amendment moved—
Clause 34, page 16, line 41, after ("writ") insert ("warrant or other process").—(Lord Gorell.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 34, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 35:
Additional powers of County Court under Workmen's Compensation Act, 1906.
35.—(1) Where any money paid or to be paid into a county court in pursuance of the Workmen's Compensation Act, 1906, is applicable for the benefit of an infant, the judge of the county court may, on application made in accordance with rules under that Act, make any order for the appointment of a guardian or guardians and as to the custody of the infant winch the High Court might make, but any application or order so made shall be subject to removal or appeal to the High Court in accordance with section ten of the Guardianship of Infants Act, 1886.
(2) Rules under the Workmen's Compensation Act, 1906, may provide for conferring on the judge or registrar of a county court the like powers of making orders for the examination of witnesses and persons and for discovery and inspection of documents in proceedings under that Act as are exerciseable as respects actions in county courts.
(3) Where an infant entitled to money paid into a county court under the Workmen's Compensation Act 1906, dies before reaching the age of twenty-one, then, if no direction has been given as to the disposition thereof for the benefit of other dependants in the event of his death before reaching that age, the court may, without letters of administration, distribute the sum amongst such persons as appear to the court, upon such evidence as the court may deem satisfactory, to be entitled by law to receive such sum, subject, if that sum, after deducting proper funeral expenses, exceeds eighty pounds, to the obtaining from the Commissioners of Inland Revenue of a receipt for the legacy duty payable thereon, or a letter or certificate stating that no such duty is payable.
Provided that where the principal value of the estate of the infant exceeds one hundred pounds any sum paid under this section without letters of administration shall be liable to estate duty as part of the amount on which that duty is charged, and the County Court may, before making any such payment, require a statutory declaration by the claimant, or by one of the claimants, that the principal value of the estate (including the sum in question) does not, after deduction of debts and funeral expenses, exceed the value of one hundred pounds, or the production of a receipt for the estate duty payable thereon.
LORD GORELL: I move to leave out, at the commencement of subsection (3), the words, "Where an infant entitled," and to insert "In the event of the death of any person entitled as a dependant." This subsection is meant to provide that the Court which gives the workmen's compensation may deal with the matter without letters of administration being taken out if the infant dies without any direction having been given as to the disposition of the money awarded to him. That was the way in which it originally stood. The object of the Amendments standing in my name to this clause is to extend this beyond the case of an infant. It is suggested that when in these circumstances anybody dies who has had money awarded in a workman's compensation case, which is always of a limited amount, it should not be necessary to take out letters of administration. This Amendment has been recommended by the senior County Court Judge, and I think it is a reasonable one.
Amendment moved—
Clause 35, page 17, line 31, leave out ("Where an infant entitled") and insert ("In the event of the death of any person entitled as a dependant").—(Lord Gorell.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I agree that the Amendment is a reasonable one. The only person who might object would be the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but as he is not here I do not know that we need anticipate trouble or difficulty. I do not object to the Amendment, subject, of course, to any question that may arise hereafter in regard to it.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Amendments moved—
Clause 35, page 17, lines 32 and 33, leave out ("dies before reaching the age of twenty-one").
Clause 35, page 17, line 34, leave out ("thereof") and insert ("of such money")
Clause 35, page 17, line 35, leave out ("his death before reaching that age") and insert ("the death of the person entitled thereto")
Clause 35, page 17, lines 38 and 39, leave out ("such sum") and insert ("the same")
Clause 35, page 18, line 5, leave out ("infant") and insert ("person so dying").—(Lord Gorell.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Clause 35, as amended, agreed to.
Remaining Clause agreed to.
Schedule:
LORD GORELL: I move to include, under the heading "Extent of repeal," Sections 150 and 153. It has been suggested by the draftsman that it would be better to specify these sections in the Schedule, although any one would see at once that they were already repealed. It is really recapitulation.
Amendment moved—
In the schedule, third column, after line 31, insert ("Sections one hundred and fifty and one hundred and fifty-three").—(Lord Gorell.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule, as amended, agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Before the House resumes, may I intimate that on the Report stage I hope to suggest an Amendment in Clause 20 dealing with the appointment and qualifications of Registrars.
LORD ALVERSTONE: The noble and learned Lord will, I presume, put on the Paper the Amendment regarding Registrars of which he has just given notice?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Yes.
Report of Amendments to be received on Tuesday next and Bill to be printed as amended (No. 130).
House adjourned at Seven o'clock, till To-morrow, a quarter past Four o'clock.