Sitting of 1 June 1911

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

MR. SPEAKER'S ABSENCE.
The Clerk at the Table (Sir Courtenay Ilbert) informed the House of the unavoidable absence of Mr. Speaker from this day's Sitting:—
Whereupon Mr. Emmott, the Chairman of Ways and Means, proceeded to the Table, and, after Prayers, took the Chair as Deputy-Speaker, pursuant to the Standing Order.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Provisional Order Bills (Standing Orders applicable thereto complied with),—Mr. Deputy-Speaker laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bill, referred on the First Reading thereof, the Standing Orders which are applicable thereto have been complied with, namely:—
Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 5) Bill.
Ordered, That the Bill be read a second time To-morrow.
Bristol Tramways Bill,
Read the third time, and passed.
Halifax Corporation Bill,
As amended, considered; to be read the third time.
Thames Conservancy Bill,
As amended, considered; Amendments made; Bill to be read the third time.
Local Government Provisional Orders (Gas) Bill,
As amended, considered; to be read the third time To-morrow.
Inverness Harbour Order Confirmation Bill,
Read a second time; and ordered to be considered To-morrow.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDER (No. 15) BILL.
"To confirm a Provisional Order of the Local Government Board relating to Milford Haven," presented by Mr. HERBERT LEWIS; supported by Mr. Burns; read the first time; to be referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed.

BELFAST CORPORATION BILL.
Reported, with Amendments, from the Local Legislation Committee (Section B) [Title amended]; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES (Mr. Whitley)The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES (Mr. Whitley) moved, "That Standing Orders 39, 128, 204, and 230 be suspended, and that the time for depositing Petitions and Memorials against Private Bills, or against any Bill to confirm any Provisional Order or Provisional Certificate, and for depositing duplicates of any Documents relating to any Bill to confirm any Provisional Order or Provisional Certificate, also for depositing at the Private Bill Office all Documents relating to any Order under The Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899, be extended to the first clay on which the House shall sit after the Recess."
Mr. WATT: May I ask the reason why these Standing Orders are suspended, and what the effect of their suspension will be? I am desirous of opposing the Inverness Harbour Order Confirmation Bill, and if this suspension will prevent my doing that I shall oppose the Motion.
Mr. WHITLEY: The hon. Member will lose none of his rights by the passing of this Motion. It is only to prevent any promoters having their rights taken away by the Adjournment of the House.
Question put, and agreed to.

GAS AND WATER WORKS FACILI TIES ACT, 1870.
Copy presented of Report by the Board of Trade as to the grounds for dispensing with the consent of the Cannock Urban District Council, the Cannock Rural District Council, the Hatherton and Shares-hill Parish Councils, and the Parish Meetings of the Townships of Huntington and Sarldon, in the case of the Cannock Gas Provisional Order [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
COMMONS ACT, 1876 (WINTON AND KABER COMMONS, WESTMORLAND).
Copy presented of Special Report by the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries upon modification of a Provisional Order for the regulation of Winton Fell, Kaber Fell, Kaber Rigg, Kaber Green, Winton Cow Close, Winton Longrigg, Winton Green, and Fell Lane, in the parishes of Winton, Kaber, and Hartley, in the county of Westmorland, and the parish of Muker, in the North Riding of the county of York [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
EAST INDIA (PROGRESS AND CONDITION).
Copy presented of Statement exhibiting the moral and material Progress and Condition of India during the year 1909–10. Forty-sixth number [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
COAST EROSION AND AFFORESTA TION (ROYAL COMMISSION).
Copy presented of Third (and Final) Report of the Royal Commission appointed to inquire into and report on certain Questions affecting Coast Erosion, the Reclamation of Tidal Lands, and Afforestation in the United Kingdom. Volume III. (Part I.), Report (Part II.), Minutes of Evidence, and Appendices [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
DISTILLERIES (UNITED KINGDOM).
Return presented relative thereto [Ordered 24th May; Mr. Crean]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
ARMY.
Copy presented of Report on the Discipline and management of the Military Detention Barracks and Military Prisons, 1910 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
BOARD OF TRADE (COMMERCIAL INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE).
Copy presented of Report upon the conditions and Prospects of British Trade in Syria, by Mr. Ernest Weakley, Special Commissioner of the Advisory Committee to the Board of Trade upon Commercial Intelligence [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE.
Lord HUGH CECIL: I beg to present a petition from Somerville College, St. John's College, Lady Margaret Hall and St. Hilda's Hall, Oxford, in favour of conferring in the present Session the Parliamentary franchise upon women.
EMIGRATION AND IMMIGRATION.
Copy Ordered, "of Tables Relating to Emigration and Immigration from and into the United Kingdom in the year 1910 (being a Statistical Account of the Passenger Movement between the United Kingdom and Places Abroad); together with Report of the Board of Trade thereon (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 137, of Session 1910)."—[Mr. Buxton.]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.

  Morocco.
  Mr. DILLONasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, whether he can give an undertaking to the House that no negotiations will be concluded or entered upon for the division of Morocco into spheres of influence before the House has had an opportunity of discussing the proposal?
  The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir Edward Grey): I cannot give a hypothetical undertaking of this kind, but to prevent misconception I ought to add that no negotiations for altering the political status of Morocco are, so far as I am aware, in contemplation.
  Mr. DILLONasked the Secretary of State whether his attention had been called to the punitive operations being carried on against the tribes in the neighbourhood of Fez; and whether he would direct the British agent in Fez to report fully on the details of those operations and communicate those reports to the House?
  Sir E. GREY: His Majesty's Representative in Morocco will in the ordinary course report events of importance in Morocco, but I cannot undertake to lay Papers where no British action has been involved; though I may later on be able to give information as to matters of fact, if desired.
  Mr. DILLON: I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether his attention had been called to the fact, that on the day the French troops entered Fez a large district with many villages was ravaged by the Sultan's troops under the command of French officers; the men were killed or dispersed, their crops and sheep all stolen, nearly 80 women and children seized and sold in the market at prices varying from 40 dollars to one dollar for small children; and whether, in view of the fact that France claims to be acting as the mandatory of Europe, and that this expedition to Fez has been undertaken with the assent and approval of the British Government, he does not consider that the British Government is in some measure, at least, responsible for these barbarities, and this House ought to be informed from week to week as to the proceedings of the Sultan and the French troops in Fez for which, as it appears to me, the British Government are in some sense responsible?
  Sir E. GREY: Certainly, the British Government is not responsible. I deprecate very strongly questions of this kind or questions being put in a form which really reflects upon the officers of another Power before it can be possible for His Majesty's Government to have full information as to the facts. It was precisely in consequence of these reports in the Press that I put in the addition to the original answer that I may later on be able to give information as to matters of fact if required. I am quite sure the French Government will be the first to give full details.
  Mr. DILLON: May I ask whether in view of these reports he will not undertake to give information immediately it reaches the Foreign Office, so that we may know whether these facts, which are stated on very substantial authority, have any foundation?
  Sir E. GREY: They are not matters in which we have any responsibility. They are matters which primarily concern another Power. I certainly cannot promise to lay Papers which I have not yet received. When full information is received as to the facts I shall be willing to state what our information is.
  Mr. ASHLEY: Are these facts made on any substantial basis at all?
  Sir E. GREY: No, Sir; my statement with regard to information as to facts was
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  not intended to imply that what is reported in the Press is a fact. On the contrary, my statement as to the facts was intended to mean that until we know what the facts were it was certainly impossible for me to give information, and as I said in the previous answer I think it very undesirable that Members should draw premature conclusions.

  Opium (Hague Conference).
  Mr. THEODORE C. TAYLORasked at what date the Hague, Conference upon Opium and Kindred Drugs will meet, which was fixed for 1st July next?
  Sir E. GREY: No date has yet been fixed.

  International Arbitration.
  Mr. BYLESasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has any official information that Germany has agreed to negotiate with the United States for a general arbitration treaty similar to the draft treaty now understood to be in the hands of Great Britain and France; and can he communicate to the House any information as to the progress of the treaty negotiations as far as they concern our own country?
  Sir E. GREY: The answer to the first question is in the negative. As to he latter, I can add nothing to the answers given on Tuesday, but I look forward to making progress now that the draft of a treaty has been received.

  Old Age Pensions.
  Mr. BOLANDasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether he was aware that a new claim, with fresh evidence, had been made for an old age pension by Mrs. Anne Sullivan, Ballard, Emlaghmore, near Caherciveen; and whether the Local Government Board would take these facts into consideration when adjudicating on the claim?
  The CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Mr. Birrell): If the fresh claim referred to comes before the Local Government Board on appeal, they will duly consider all the evidence submitted to them.
  Mr. BOLANDasked the Chief Secretary whether he was aware that Timothy Shea, High Street, Caherciveen, was granted an old age pension on 1st January, 1909, by the local committee; whether the judgment of the local pension officer as to a claimant's age is held to be sufficient to

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  disqualify a claimant who has submitted all the evidence he can procure; and whether steps would now be taken to secure the pension to this claimant?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The ground on which the Local Government Board considered that Timothy Shea was disqualified for the receipt of an old age pension was intimated to the hon. Member in the reply given to his question on 14th March. It is open to Shea to make a fresh claim.
  Mr. KELLYasked on what principle the Local Government Board decide against claimants to old age pensions in cases where there is no record from the Census of 1841 or of 1851, and where there is no reliable documentary proof, but where the sub-committee are fully satisfied from local knowledge, often personal, and from local testimony, that the applicant is fully qualified, and where, as is frequently the case in rural parts of Ireland, documentary evidence is quite unobtainable; and whether pension officers have any instructions to appeal all such cases indiscriminately?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The Local Government Board do not decide on principle against claimants for old age pensions in the circumstances mentioned, but decide each case on its own merits. The Board consider all evidence submitted to them. Pension officers are not under my control, but I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given on 1st May, on behalf of the Treasury, to a question on this subject by the hon. Member for North Sligo.
  Mr. HAYDENasked the Chief Secretary whether he is aware that an old age pension was paid to Matthew Kearney of Doniel, Moyvore, county Westmeath, from January, 1909, to February, 1911, when it was taken from him on the grounds that his means exceeded the statutory limit; whether he will say if there was any change in Kearney's means between the time when the pension was granted and when it was taken away from him; and whether he is aware that Kearney is in possession of no means whatever, having assigned his little holding to his son five months before the pension was taken, which shows that this action had no relation whatever to the receipt of the pension; and, in view of this fact, whether the Local Government Board will restore the pension to him?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The facts are as stated in the first paragraph of the question.
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  When applying for a pension Kearney represented that he had no means of his own but was dependent on his son. When assigning his farm to his son Kearney reserved a life interest in it and the profits of the farm for life. Since the award of the pension he appears to have been granted by the Land Commission a second farm at Cloneybane, the two farms being worked as one. The transfer of the first farm in 1910 would appear to have been made with a view to securing the continuance of the pension. There is no reason why the pension should be restored to Kearney.
  Mr. PATRICK O'BRIENasked the Chief Secretary whether he was aware that the Local Government Board for Ireland as appeal authority had deprived a pensioner named Anne Butler of her pension, on the ground that her treatment in Kilkenny union hospital constitutes poor relief, and does not come within the terms of the exception in the Pensions Act in favour of medical relief (including food and comforts supplied by or on the direction of a medical officer); whether he was aware that the Kilkenny borough committee decided that the pensioner was receiving medical treatment and not ordinary relief, and that one of the medical officers personally attended before the committee and informed them of the disease from which the pensioner was and is suffering, and that she was in the hospital under the orders of the medical officers, and purely in order to ensure her receiving such treatment and care as her condition of health required; whether he could state on what grounds the Local Government Board for Ireland decided in these circumstances that she was in receipt of non medical poor relief; and whether there was any judicial authority for their action in thus deciding?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The Local Government Board allowed a question raised by the pension officer to the effect that Anne Butler was disqualified for continuing to receive a pension by reason of being in receipt of Poor Law relief. The Kilkenny Borough Pension Committee held that the relief granted was not disqualifying relief. The Board, however, ascertained that Anne Butler had been in the workhouse infirmary suffering from "debility," and, having regard to the duration of her residence there, they held that any medical relief she was receiving was merely incidental to ordinary relief. There have been no judicial decisions on the point.

  Land Purchase (Ireland).
  Mr. KELLYasked whether the Estates Commissioners propose to purchase the untenanted portion of the Boyton estate, Convoy, county Donegal; and, if not, whether they propose to make any offer for unoccupied lands near this estate, in order to provide the tenants of this estate, most of whom hold small and poor farms, with additional lands?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The owner has instituted proceedings for the sale of this estate direct to the tenants, and proposes to sell and repurchase under the provisions of Section 3 of the Irish Land Act, 1903, the demesne and other lands in her occupation. The Estates Commissioners in dealing with these lands will have regard to the amount of land available for the enlargement of holdings, where they consider such enlargement necessary.
  Mr. PATRICK WHITEasked whether purchase agreements have been lodged on behalf of tenants on the estate of Craven H. Wade, county Meath, with the Estates Commissioners; if so, would he state at what date, and when, the estate is likely to be reached in the order of priority?
  Mr. BIRRELL: Purchase agreements have been lodged on behalf of the tenants on this estate, but the Estates Commissioners are not in a position at present to say when the estate will be reached in order of priority.
  Mr. PATRICK WHITEasked whether any negotiations are on foot between the Estates Commissioners and Dr. Kelly Paterson for the acquisition of untenanted land at Mullahan, Rathkenny, county Meath.
  Mr. BIRRELL: The Estates Commissioners had a preliminary inspection made of the lands and communicated their estimated price to the owner, but up to the present he has not instituted proceedings for sale under the Land Purchase Acts.
  Mr. LYNCHasked the Chief Secretary whether, in the case of the Kildeemo farm, lately in the occupation of Mrs. Anne Mathews but part of the estate of Lord Leconfield, he was aware that recently the tenants made an offer to the agent, Mr. Willis, who in return asked a larger price; whether this property would be soon dealt with; and whether in the meantime care would be taken that the farm should not be striped in such a way as to defeat the intentions of the last Land Act?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The Estates Commismissioners inform me that the lands of Kildeemo do not appear to be included in lands for the sale of which proceedings have been instituted before them, and they have no information as regards the matters referred to in the Question.

  Probation Officers (Ireland).
  Mr. LARDNERasked the Chief Secretary how many probation officers have been appointed in the several petty sessions districts in Ireland; what the aggregate cost of these officers in salary and expenses respectively amount to; under whose supervision these officers are; and whether he can give any information showing the work clone by these officers since their appointment?
  Mr. BIRRELL: In 1910 twenty-one probation officers were appointed in the several Petty Sessions Districts in Ireland. The amount paid to these officers in that year as remuneration was £32, and as expenses £1 10s. There is also one probation officer for the Dublin Metropolitan Police District, and the amount paid in this case as remuneration in 1910 was £227. These officers are under the supervision of the magistrates. I shall be happy to forward to the hon. Member a statement in reference to the work done by these officers.

  Income-Tax Collectors (Magistracy, Ireland).
  Mr. LARDNERasked whether collectors of Income Tax are ineligible for the Commission of the Peace in Ireland; and, if so, when this disqualification was introduced?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The Lord Chancellor informs me that it is the practice not to appoint to the Commission of the Peace persons holding the office of a Collector of Taxes whether of Income Tax, Poor Rate, or County Rate, and this practice has been in existence from a remote period.
  Mr. LARDNER: Have not several Income Tax collectors in Ireland been appointed in the last ten years?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I only give the information that I receive from the Lord Chancellor. It must have been by inadvertence if it was done.
  Mr. LARDNER: Will the right hon. Gentleman take steps to see that this inadvertence is not repeated?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I do not know whether a collector of taxes is a good magistrate or not. I should like to have time to consider it.

  Declaration of Secrecy (Local Government Elections, Ireland).
  Mr. LARDNERasked the Chief Secretary if he was aware that some months ago the Registrar of Petty Sessions in Ireland issued a circular directing magistrates not to take statutory declarations of secrecy for the purposes of local government elections unless there was affixed 1s. duty in petty sessions stamps; would he state under what authority the Registrar issued this circular; and, further, why the practice of many years standing of taking these statutory declarations of secrecy without payment of any stamp duty had been departed from?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I would refer the hon. Member to my reply to the question addressed to me on this subject by the hon. Member for South Cork on 22nd May.

  Housing of the Working Classes (Ireland).
  Mr. HAYDENasked what is the amount of loan applied for by the Roscommon Town Commissioners under the Housing of the Working Classes (Ireland) Act, 1908, and the amount sanctioned; whether sanction was given within the last financial year; and, if so, why no portion of the housing grant has been made in respect of the loan for that year, and the absence of any mention of the loan from any of the tables published last week?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The Town Commissioners of Roscommon applied for a loan of £7,000 in August, 1909, and a loan of £2,500 was sanctioned in December, 1910. The Commissioners were not entitled to participate in the allocation of the annual income of the Irish Housing Fund for the financial year ended 31st of March last, because the Local Government Board could not certify on the 1st April, 1910, to liabilities which had not yet been created, and in respect of which no payment was made by the Commissioners in the financial year. The tables referred to by the hon. Member included only loans applied for during the year ending 31st March last, and the case of Roscommon did not therefore appear in them.
  Mr. HAYDEN: Does not one of those tables contain loans applied for but not yet sanctioned?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I think that is so. The difficulty in this case seems to have been that though the loan was applied for in August, 1909, it was not sanctioned until December, 1910, and I am told it was not by inadvertence that the case of Roscommon was omitted from the tables, but I confess I am not quite sure about it myself.
  Mr. HAYDEN: Do these tables include all the transactions up to the present under the Housing Act?
  Mr. BIRRELL: No; as I understand it it is not intended that the tables should include transactions except those which have been applied for during the year. These are intended to be included in them up to date.

  Advisory Committees (Ireland).
  Mr. VINCENT KENNEDYasked the Chief Secretary whether any progress has yet been made with regard to setting up advisory committees in Ireland; and will he try the experiment in Cavan county without delay, in view of the dissatisfaction which the nature of the recent appointments made by the present lieutenant has caused?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I have nothing to add to, my reply to the hon. Member's question on this subject on the 1st May.
  Mr. KENNEDY: Seeing the urgency of the matter will the right hon. Gentleman take into consideration the advisability of at once setting up these advisory committees?
  Mr. BIRRELL: No; I really do not think I have had enough evidence before me to satisfy me that there is any necessity for setting up advisory committees in Ireland. I should like to wait and see how they work in the adjacent land. I have nothing whatever to do with the appointment of magistrates. This rests with the lieutenants of the county and with the Lord Chancellor. I am always ready to communicate with the Lord Chancellor upon the subject. I have repeatedly done so, and found him most anxious and ready to do what he can to add proper persons try the Commission of the Peace.
  Mr. SWIFT MacNEILL: The right hon. Gentleman has said the lieutenants of the county have a voice in the appointment of magistrates. Is he not well aware that no lieutenant of any county has any real voice in it? Why are their recommendations

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  always obtained, and why are the representations of the people slighted in this matter as they have been?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The hon. Gentleman takes a strong view on the subject, and I do not quite agree with him.
  Mr. SWIFT MacNEILL: A much stronger view than I have yet expressed.

  National School Teachers (Ireland).
  Mr. VINCENT KENNEDYasked the Chief Secretary whether Pension Rule 4 (1) (page 156, Commissioners Rules, 1910–11), in reference to Irish National school teachers, not being an assistant teacher appointed on or after the 1st January, 1886, etc., applies in the case of teachers appointed before that date; if not, will he say why certain teachers who entered the service as far back as 1875 and down to 1885 are dealt with under the rule set out above; are these teachers refused higher grade pensions; and, if so, will he explain the reasons for the same?
  The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Hobhouse): Pension Rule 4 (1) applies to all teachers appointed before the 1st January, 1886, and such teachers are not refused higher grade pensions provided they are promoted to the higher grade before the age of sixty in the case of men, and fifty-five in the case of women.

  Dublin Castle (Union Jack).
  Mr. LONSDALEasked what is the reason why the Union Jack or other National flag was not flying from the tower in Dublin Castle on the occasion of the celebration of the King's birthday on Saturday last?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I am informed by the Board of Works that the flagstaff had recently been inspected in view of the King's approaching visit, and being found in an unsatisfactory condition had been removed, and it was not practicable to provide the new one in time for the King's birthday celebration. Owing to the size of the pole required no temporary arrangement could be made.

  H.M.S. "Invincible."
  Lord CHARLES BERESFORDasked whether structural weakness has developed in His Majesty's ship "Invincible," to such an extent that, through
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  outside pressure, water finds its way into the compartments reserved for oil?
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Dr. Macnamara): No structural weakness is known to have developed in His Majesty's ship "Invincible."
  Lord C. BERESFORD: Will the hon. Gentleman answer my question. Has water percolated into the oil compartments or not?
  Dr. MACNAMARA: I have said that no structural weakness is known to have developed. I have no report whatever that water has percolated into the oil compartments.
  Lord CHARLES BERESFORDasked whether through structural weakness the roller plates under the turrets of His Majesty's ship "Invincible" have given out, making it impossible to train all guns on one beam, fire them, and then train all guns on the other beam immediately and fire them, as may be necessary in action; and whether the ship will be ready in full commission for active service in three months from 1st March, 1911?
  Dr. MACNAMARA: The reply to the first part of the question is in the negative—and to the second part in the affirmative.
  Lord C. BERESFORD: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that two of the barbettes of the "Invincible" have never been trained round a complete 32 points?
  Dr. MACNAMARA: I am not aware of that. Perhaps the Noble Lord will give notice of the question?
  Mr. ASHLEY: Will the hon. Gentleman ascertain whether the facts are as stated in the question?
  Dr. MACNAMARA: Well, I should imagine that would be done.
  Lord C. BERESFORDasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he has any reason to modify the official statement made that no signs of structural weakness had been shown by His Majesty's ship "Invincible"; whether, when she was recently about to be docked, portions of the longitudinal framing were removed; whether, on docking the ship, signs of structural weakness were apparent to such an extent that pumping out the dock had to be stopped; whether the ship was refloated,

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  taken out of dock, and the portions of the longitudinal framing which were removed replaced, the ship being re-docked afterwards without any further signs of buckling; and whether it is intended, owing to a structural weakness, to strengthen the longitudinals?
  Dr. MACNAMARA: There is no reason to modify the statement that no structural weakness has been shown by his Majesty's ship "Invincible." No portions of longtidunal framing have been removed. No signs of structural Weakness were observed on docking. It is not intended to strengthen the longitudinals.
  Lord HUGH CECIL: May I ask whether the hon. Gentleman will inquire if structural weakness has developed or not?
  Dr. MACNAMARA: The Noble Lord may take it that full inquiry was made.
  Lord C. BERESFORD: Will the hon. Member inform the House why the vessel was taken out of the clock, why pumping out the dock had to be stopped, and why nine gangs of twenty-five men each were sent on board, many of whom are working there now? May I ask further whether he can inform the House why the director of naval construction went down to superintend the ship, and why he had to superintend the pumping at this dock?
  Dr. MACNAMARA: What happened was this: When the ship was docked last autumn there was no case of any structural weakness at all, but because of the disposition and character of the blocks for dry dock purposes there was a slight buckling, which is not uncommon in ships of this character. That had nothing to do with the structural character of the ship. In order that that might not take place again great care was taken in the replacing of the blocks.
  Lord C. BERESFORD: Will the hon. Gentleman tell the House what the 200 Shipwrights were doing there?
  Dr. MACNAMARA: I repeat that there is no structural weakness. There was a slight buckling on account of the disposition of the blocks, a matter with which the Noble Lord is more familiar than I am.
  Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD: Will the hon. Gentleman in making inquiries in regard to this matter also make inquiries how these points of information are always leaking out, contrary to the regulations of the public service?
  Viscount HELMSLEY: Will the hon. Gentleman and the Admiralty be rather more candid with the House? Is he aware that there is considerable want of confidence in regard to some of the answers given by the Admiralty?
  Dr. MACNAMARA: I am perfectly confident that I have been perfectly candid, and that everybody in this House thinks so.
  Lord C. BERESFORD: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that there has been no leakage with regard to these compartments, and that everybody in Portsmouth knows what is happening?
  Mr. CROOKS: Is there such a ship at all?

  Royal Dockyard, Portsmouth (Prices for Caulking and Chipping).
  Lord CHARLES BERESFORDasked whether any reduction has been made in the prices paid in the Royal Dockyard at Portsmouth for iron caulking and chipping (pneumatic work only); and, if so, whether this reduction has received the sanction of the Admiralty; what was the date on which the reduction had to come into effect; and was such reduction recommended by the officers in charge of the men so employed?
  Dr. MACNAMARA: The replies to the first and second parts of the question are in the affirmative. The date asked for in the third part is 1st May. I do not know that any useful purpose would be served by a statement setting forth the opinions on this matter of the particular officers referred to in the fourth part of the question.

  Official Secrets Act.
  Sir REGINALD POLE-CAREWasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he is aware that where a person, by means of his holding or having held an office under His Majesty the King, has lawfully or unlawfully either obtained possession of or control over any document, sketch, plan, or model, or acquired any information and at any time corruptly or contrary to his official duty communicates or attempts to communicate that document, sketch, plan, model, or information to any person to whom the same ought not, in the interest of the State or otherwise in the public interest, to be communicated at that time, he is guilty of a breach of official trust; and whether the

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  Board of Admiralty have any authority to act in contravention to, or to give instructions not in accordance with, the Official Secrets Act?
  Dr. MACNAMARA: The hon. and gallant Gentleman has set forth in the first part of his question an extract from Section 2 (1) of the Official Secrets Act, 1889. With regard to the second part, the Board of Admiralty are, of course, bound to conform to the provisions of the law.
  Sir REGINALD POLE-CAREW: May I ask how it was that instructions were sent down last year to the dockyard officials to show the Japanese Commissioners anything that they might wish to see?
  Dr. MACNAMARA: I would like to see these instructions, but I must remind the hon. and gallant Gentleman that information must not be communicated to any person to whom the same ought not in the interest of the State or otherwise in the public interest be communicated. He may take it from me that the Admiralty are fully alive to the responsibility which rests upon them as the result of that prescription.
  Sir R. POLE-CAREW: Does the hon. Gentleman consider that Commissioners representing any foreign Power should be shown anything they wish to see?
  Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: That question really does not arise out of the answer.

  Veteran Reserve.
  Mr. HUNTasked whether ex-soldiers and marines who are not members of any existing Naval Reserve force are free to join the Veteran Reserve?
  Dr. MACNAMARA: The question whether ex-seamen and marines shall be admitted as members of the Veteran Reserve is now under consideration. The admission of ex-soldiers is a matter for the War Office.

  Coventry Ordnance Works (Labourers' Payment for Overtime).
  Mr. TYSON WILSONasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he is aware that labourers employed in the works of the Coventry Ordnance, Limited, do not receive payment for overtime worked; and whether this is a violation of the Fair-Wage Clause?
  Dr. MACNAMARA: I have no information respecting the matter raised in my hon. Friend's question, but have ordered immediate inquiry.

  Chatham Dockyard (Discharges).
  Mr. TYSON WILSONasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether a number of discharges from Chatham Dockyard have been decided on; if so, whether he will state the number of men who are to be dismissed and the reason for their dismissal; and whether some action can be taken to remove the necessity of discharging men at a time just prior to the Coronation?
  Dr. MACNAMARA: Sixty men, who were temporarily catered at Chatham Yard recently will shortly be discharged. These men were engaged for specific work which has now been completed. They were made fully aware at the time of their engagement of the temporary nature of the job, and no prospect of permanent retention was held out to them. I may add that the number of men engaged in the Chatham Yard was on 22nd May, 1909, 8,736; on 21st May, 1910, 8,781; and on 20th May, 1911, 8,976. From this last-named number, of course, sixty will shortly have to be subtracted.

  Cotton Spinning.
  Mr. GILLasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he can state the number of prosecutions against proprietors of cotton mills for the present year up to 31st May; the amount of penalties inflicted, and costs; the number of convictions; and how many of the cases were in Oldham?
  Mr. WEDGWOOD BENN (Lord of the Treasury): The Home Secretary has asked me to apologise to the hon. Gentleman for his absence, and to answer the question. The figures reported to the Home Secretary are as follows:—Eighty prosecutions, seventy-seven convictions; amount of fines, £490; amount of costs, £286 2s. 3d. Sixteen of the cases were in the Oldham district, five being in the borough.
  Mr. GILLasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he can state how many cotton-spinning mills in Oldham, Bolton, Rochdale, Ashton-under-Lyne, Stalybridge, and Blackburn have installed special apparatus for the taking away of dust generated in the process of

  1209
  stripping carding engines, and the number of mills in each case in which the installations are complete, and the number only partially so; whether notices have been served on employers to complete the same within a given date; and, if so, what date; and whether similar installations are being insisted on in the Yorkshire cotton mills?
  Mr. WEDGWOOD BENN: My right hon. Friend is unable to give the precise figures up to date of the mills which have introduced this apparatus; but according to the information obtained by the inspectors on their last visits to the different mills fifty-six out of the 323 mills in the boroughs mentioned have introduced the apparatus completely and thirteen partially. The figures for the separate boroughs are: Oldham, ten completely, four partially; Bolton, twenty-one completely; Rochdale, seven completely, seven partially; Ashton, five completely; Stalybridge, three completely, one partially; Blackburn, ten completely, one partially. Notices have been served on all the mills to provide the apparatus within three months from the date of the notice, but the Home Secretary is informed that there has been some delay in consequence of objections raised by the operatives to certain types of apparatus. A joint committee of operatives and employers has been sitting to settle this question. Similar installations are being insisted on in the Yorkshire mills.
  Lord HUGH CECIL: May I ask why nobody is present to represent the Home Office? Why is neither the Home Secretary nor the Under-Secretary present to answer questions?
  Mr. GILLasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he can state how many cotton-spinning mills in Oldham, Bolton, Rochdale, Ashton-under-Lyne, Stalybridge, and Blackburn are fitted with automtic locking motions over the cylinders of carding engines; whether the inspectors are insisting on them being applied in all mills throughout the trade, and if any date has been fixed for their completion; and, if so, what date?
  Mr. WEDGWOOD BENN: As in the case of the hon. Member's previous question, the Home Secretary cannot give the precise figures, but according to the information obtained at the last visits of the inspectors, 149 out of 323 mills in the boroughs mentioned are now fitted with the card-locking motions. The separate
  1210
  figures are: Oldham, 76; Bolton, 21; Rochdale, 10; Ashton, 9; Stalybridge, 8; Blackburn, 25. The inspectors are pressing mill owners to fit locking motions in all mills in the trade, and marked progress is being made, but no date has so far been fixed for the completion of the work.

  Women's Suffrage (Magistrate's Speech, Chorley Wood).
  Mr. ARNOLD WARDasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether his attention has been called to a speech made by Mr. Cecil Chapman, one of the magistrates of the police-courts of the metropolis, at Chorley Wood, on 25th May, in support of Woman Suffrage, in which he attacked the law as unjust and unequal, and accused the Government of cruelly sweating the women in their employment; whether the delivery of speeches of this character by magistrates of the police-courts of the metropolis is permitted by the regulations of their service; and, if not, whether he proposes to take any steps in the matter?
  Mr. WEDGWOOD BENN: The attention of my right hon. Friend had not been drawn to the speech referred to until the hon. Member sent him a newspaper report of it, and he is communicating with the magistrate upon the subject.

  Boarded-Out Children (Glasgow).
  Mr. HUNTasked the Lord Advocate whether he is aware that for the last forty years the Glasgow Parish Council has been boarding out Glasgow pauper children among the crofters of the West of Scotland; that 80 per cent. of the island of Iona consists of these children; and whether he can say what the Glasgow Parish Council pays per week for each child?
  The LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. Ure): I am aware that the Glasgow Parish Council have for many years boarded out children among the West Highland crofters. The payment made for each child varies from 3s. to 5s. per week. It is not the case that 80 per cent. of the population of Iona consists of such children, the actual figures being 16.6 per cent.

  Bankruptcy Procedure (Scotland).
  Mr. CHARLES PRICEasked the Lord Advocate whether he is considering the report of the Committee appointed to inquire into the Bankruptcy Laws and

  1211
  Procedure in Scotland; if he intends introducing a Bill on the lines recommended by the Committee; and, if so, when?
  Mr. URE: The answer to the first and second parts of my hon. Friend's question is in the affirmative. I cannot at present say when the Bill will be introduced.

  Illegal Trawling (Fife).
  Major ANSTRUTHER-GRAYasked the number of prosecutions, the number of convictions, and the amount of fines for illegal trawling off the coast of Fife for the last twelve months?
  Mr. URE: For the twelve months from 1st June, 1910, to 31st May, 1911, the number of prosecutions for illegal trawling off the coast of Fife was four, the number of convictions was four, and the amount of fines imposed was £180.

  Bee Disease.
  MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINEasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture whether it is proposed to introduce a measure in order to prevent the spread of bee disease in Britain; if so, whether such a measure will be compulsory, subject in special cases of hardship to compensation; and whether it will cause infected areas to be scheduled for export and import until declared uninfected?
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of AGRICULTURE (Sir E. Strachey): If the investigations now in progress indicate that legislation is required in order that the spread of disease amongst bees may be prevented the Board will at once bring in a Bill for the purpose.
  Mr. C. BATHURST: Has the Board at present power to take steps to ensure the destruction of the refuse from infected hives so as to prevent any of it from being blown on to other persons' premises?
  Sir E. STRACHEY: I do not think so.
  Mr. CROOKS: Are these the particular kind of bees they get in their bonnets?

  Pedigree Live Stock.
  Mr. CHARLES BATHURSTasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture when it is proposed to issue the Report of the Departmental Committee, presided over by himself, which as appointed last year to inquire into
  1212
  the best means of improving and extending the trade in pedigree live stock between Great Britain and other countries?
  Sir E. STRACHEY: This Report will, I hope, be issued next month.

  Foot-and-Mouth Disease.
  Mr. CHARLES BATHURSTasked whether the Board of Agriculture has made or proposes to make arrangements whereby control experiments will be conducted in the event of any future alleged outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in Great Britain, and so create greater confidence in the minds of British stock-owners in decisions of the Board which have the effect of closing against them their best markets for an indefinite time?
  Sir E. STRACHEY: Practical agriculturists are more than satisfied with the Board's procedure in regard to the foot-and-mouth disease.
  Mr. C. BATHURST: Does the hon. Baronet mean agriculturists inside or outside the Board?
  Sir E. STRACHEY: Agriculturists outside the Board like the hon. Member himself.

  Cattle Exported to Argentina.
  Mr. CHARLES BATHURSTasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture (1), whether the Board is aware that unless the embargo upon the importation of British cattle into Argentina is removed so as to admit of such cattle being shipped from Great Britain not later than the end of July, the whole of this year's trade in pedigree cattle with that country will be lost; and, if so, what action is the Board taking in the matter; and (2), whether any diplomatic representations have been made direct to the Argentine Government with a view to the removal of the restrictions on the importation of British live stock imposed in consequence of the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in Surrey three months ago; and, if so, with what result?
  Sir E. STRACHEY: The Board are in communication with the Argentine Government as to this matter, and hope to receive a reply in the course of a few days.
  Mr. C. BATHURST: Is not it a fact that the Board communicated with the Argentine Government on this matter three months ago, and have they received no definite reply since? The matter is one of enormous importance to stock owners.
  Sir E. STRACHEY: As the hon. Member is aware, the Board do not communicate directly. They carry on communications through the Foreign Office.
  Mr. C. BATHURST: Has no reply been received from the Foreign Office?
  Sir E. STRACHEY: Not so far; no definite reply.

  Alsace and Lorraine (Home Rule).
  Mr. KELLAWAYasked the Prime Minister if he would lay upon the Table of the House a translation of the Bill which has recently passed the Reichstag conferring Home Rule upon the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine?
  The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Asquith): His Majesty's Government are not yet in possession of the text of the Bill in its latest shape. There will be no objection to laying a translation of it when it has been received.
  Mr. KELLAWAY: Does the right hon. Gentleman know whether there is any danger of the grant of Home Rule to these provinces leading to the dismemberment of the German Empire?
  Mr. KEBTY-FLETCHER: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that no Bill has ever been proposed in the Reichstag granting Home Rule to Alsace and Lorraine, and that no Bill has been passed, and that the answer given is quite inaccurate?

  Women's Enfranchisement Bill.
  Mr. ARNOLD WARDasked whether the Government, before they give facilities for the full consideration of a Women's Enfranchisement Bill in this House, will afford an opportunity to the electors to give a verdict on this issue?
  The PRIME MINISTER: No, Sir, I am not able to give any such assurance.
  Mr. A. WARD: Will the Government, in determining what facilities should be granted for this Bill, have regard to that principle of supremacy of the House of Commons which finds such fervent expression in the Parliament Bill?
  The PRIME MINISTER: That does not arise in the least out of the question.
  Mr. A. WARD: Is it the intention of the Government to connive at the disposal by Parliament of a first-class constitutional question which has never been before the country?
  The PRIME MINISTER: It is the intention of the Government to fulfil the pledge which I gave before the last General Election.
  Lord HUGH CECIL: Does the right hon. Gentleman think himself bound to fulfil the pledges which were given by the Chief Secretary for Ireland and the Secretary of State for War?
  The PRIME MINISTER: That does not arise.

  General Medical Council.
  Mr. OLIVER LOCKER- LAMPSONasked the Prime Minister whether his attention has been drawn to a recent decision of the General Medical Council in regard to a medical practitioner connected with the Sandow Institute; and whether he will consider the advisability of recommending an inquiry by way of Royal Commission into the constitution of and powers exercised by the General Medical Council?
  The PRIME MINISTER: I see no sufficient reason for instituting such an inquiry.
  Mr. LOCKER- LAMPSON: As the General Medical Council is the only professional tribunal with disciplinary powers, from whose decision there is no appeal whatever, does the right hon. Gentleman consider this body's virtual combination of the functions of prosecutor, judge, and jury is consistent with the principles of justice?
  The PRIME MINISTER: I do not in the least agree with the hon. Member's representation.

  Loch Etive (Sea-Trout Fishing).
  MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINEasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware of the importance that the public on the shores of Loch Etive attach to the matter of sea-trout fishing, and whether he will take steps to assist them in continuing that enjoyment; whether the waters are tidal; and whether hitherto the public have been in the habit of fishing these waters for sea-trout.
  Mr. HOBHOUSE: I have no precise information as to the importance that the public attach to the sea-trout fishing referred to. The waters of Loch Etive are tidal, but this fact does not appear to give the public the right to fish in them for sea-trout. Sea-trout stand on a different legal

  1215
  footing in this respect to white fish. Inquiry is being made whether the Crown is entitled to any of the salmon and sea-trout fishing, for want of charters to subjects, and when the facts are ascertained I shall be happy to communicate them to the Noble Lord.

  New Forest (Deer Hunting).
  Mr. GEORGE GREENWOODasked the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Commissioners of Woods and Forests, whether licences to hunt deer in the New Forest are now from time to time granted by the Crown; and, if so, under what Statute such licences are granted, in view of the fact that the right of the Crown to keep deer in the forest was absolutely extinguished by the New Forest Deer Removal Act, 1851?
  Mr. HOBHOUSE: No formal licences under any Act of Parliament are granted to hunt deer in the New Forest, but since 1883 no objection has been taken to the hunting.
  Mr. G. GREENWOOD: Are licences granted as a fact, and are deer hunted in the New Forest?
  Mr. HOBHOUSE: No. I do not think any licence is required.
  Mr. WATT: Will the right hon. Gentleman say in whom the property in these deer is vested?
  Mr. HOBHOUSE: That, again, is a legal question to which I am not prepared to give an answer.
  Mr. G. GREENWOOD: Will the right hon. Gentleman take the advice of the Law Officers of the Crown as to whom the property in these deer is now vested?
  Mr. HOBHOUSE: No, Sir.

  Revenue and Expenditure (Ireland).
  Mr. PATRICK WHITEasked the Secretary to the Treasury (1) whether he will state the total amount of revenue raised in Ireland from all sources for an average year in each quinquennial period from 1886 to 1906; what amount should be paid for an average year in each period on the part of Ireland as her contribution to the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom under the Government of Ireland Bill, 1886, had it become law; if he will also state what amount would be available
  1216
  for Irish development after providing out of sources of Irish revenue then existing, and since imposed by the Parliament of Great Britain, the stipulated contribution to the Imperial Exchequer, as well as providing for the cost of civil and other government charges as they have since existed in Ireland; and whether he will also state what portion of the then estimated share of Ireland's responsibility for the National Debt would now be extinguished by the operation of the Sinking Fund provided by the Bill of 1886, and when the whole of Ireland's liability under the latter head would be extinguished; (2) what loss in each year to the finances of an Irish exchequer would result from the imposition of the increased spirit duty imposed by the Finance (1909–10) Act, 1910, had the financial clauses of the Government of Ireland Bills, 1886 and 1893, respectively, been in operation between Great Britain and Ireland since the time the increased duty was imposed; and (3) whether he will have prepared a balance-sheet of Irish revenue and expenditure for an average year in each quinquennial period from 1886 to 1906, similar to that presented by Mr. Gladstone in the Government of Ireland Bill of 1893, as amended, and setting out the items as therein stated; and whether he will set out separately the Irish yield of any taxes since specially imposed as war expenditure or extraordinary expenditure for the defence of the realm, as defined in Section 10. Sub-section (7) of that Bill had it become law?
  Mr. HOBHOUSE: I am afraid I cannot undertake to furnish hypothetical calculations on the basis suggested in these questions.
  Mr. P. WHITE: Does the loss on the Spirit Duty in Ireland in years past affect the question?
  Mr. HOBHOUSE: If it is calculated on the basis suggested I should think it does.
  Mr. P. WHITE: Having regard to the importance of the question will the hon. Gentleman give me facilities to make inquiry myself?
  Mr. HOBHOUSE: Certainly.

  Customs Officers (Cardiff).
  Mr. KEIR HARDIEasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that the information recently supplied to him concerning the overtime worked by the

  1217
  preventive men of His Majesty's Customs at Cardiff is incorrect; and whether he will cause an independent inquiry to be made into the matter, which is causing dissatisfaction among the officers?
  Mr. HOBHOUSE: I assume that the hon. Member refers to my answer to his question on this subject on the 16th ultimo; the Board of Customs and Excise inform me that the answer I then gave was quite accurate. If, however, the hon. Member will state in what particular he considers it to have been incorrect, I will make further inquiry.
  Mr. KEIR HARDIE: The suggestion made in the question is that independent inquiry should be made, and is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the officers of these men are not anxious to make complaints?
  Mr. HOBHOUSE: I have already pointed out that the impression conveyed by the hon. Member is not correct. If he will point out in what particulars he thinks the information is incorrect, I will make inquiries.
  Mr. KEIR HARDIE: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that I have already, in a former question, stated the cause of complaint? Apparently no inquiry has been made.
  Mr. HOBHOUSE: I have made inquiries, and as far as my information goes the hon. Member is not accurate.

  Irish Lights Board (Contracts).
  Mr. WILLIAM ABRAHAMasked whether the Secretary to the Treasury will inquire whether the Irish Lights Board have given, or are about to give, contracts for the supply of brushes to Dublin manufacturers, and if clauses have been, or will be, inserted in such contracts making it imperative upon the contractors to employ trade union workmen and pay the standard rates of wages; and if he could state whether any effective steps would be taken by the Irish Lights Board to ensure that the condtions as to employment of trade union labour and payment of standard wages are complied with?
  Mr. GULLAND (Lord of the Treasury): My right hon. Friend has asked me to reply to this question. The Commissioners of Irish Lights have obtained three tenders for the supply of brushes during the year ending 31st March, 1912, and in
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  compliance with the request of the Commissioners the Board of Trade have decided to sanction the acceptance of the lowest tender which contains the conditions as to rates of wages and hours of labour which contractors are required to observe in, accordance with the Resolution of the House of Commons of 10th March, 1909.

  Old Age Pensions.
  Mr. PATRICK WHITEasked whether, if Great Britain and Ireland were taken as a single entity for the purpose of paying the old age pensions 1909–10, and that the amount paid in each country continues to bear the same proportion to each other as they did in that year, and if a ratio was calculated as to what each country should contribute to a common fund, having regard to their respective standards of wealth as indicated in their yield of Income Tax on investments in Government stocks, public companies, foreign dividends, coupons, etc., under Schedules C and D, year 1909–10, Ireland's contribution as compared to that of Great Britain would he about as 1 to 27; and, if so, whether, if the payment of old age pensions was regarded as an Imperial liability of the State towards His Majesty's subjects in Great Britain and Ireland, without regard to where they are domiciled therein, there should be transferred from the cost of civil government in Ireland under the heading of old age pensions a sum approaching two millions; and, if not, will the right hon. Gentleman state the exact amount?
  Mr. HOBHOUSE: The total expenditure on old age pensions in 1909–10 was £8,496,000. One twenty-seventh of this sum is £315,000. The expenditure on old age pensions in Ireland in 1909–10 was £2,443,000, or £2,128,000 more than one twenty-seventh of the total expenditure in the United Kingdom.

  Education (School and Continuation Class Attendance) Bill.
  Mr. PERKINSasked the President of the Board of Education whether, under Section 4 (3) of the Education (School and Continuation Class Attendance) Bill, the Government proposes to empower the courts to recover fines and costs from children; and, if so, by what procedure?
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. Herbert Lewis) (for Mr. Runciman): The Bill proposes to empower the courts

  1219
  to recover fines from children over fourteen, where it is proved to the court that the parent has done his best to get the child to school. It is intended that the child should only be forced to pay if he is in receipt of wages or some other income, and if this is not sufficiently clear from the Clause itself, steps will be taken to make the necessary alteration at a later stage.

  Coronation.
  Mr. HUNTasked whether, in the case of necessitous children who would be fed if there were no Coronation holidays, he can say whether these children will receive food during these holidays?
  Mr. HERBERT LEWIS: My right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Education asks me to say that it rests with the local education authority, not with the Board of Education, to determine as to the meals it provides under the Act.
  Mr. HUNT: Are we to understand that the children are not going to be fed?
  Mr. H. LEWIS: I have nothing to add to the answer.

  Cheap Telephones.
  Mr. VINCENT KENNEDYasked the Postmaster-General if he will state whether similar telephone facilities are to be given to Irish farmers and Irish agricultural co-operative societies as he has proposed in England; will he say the extent of the guarantee required in the two countries, and will the detailed provisions of this telephone system be sent through the proper channels to the various Irish cooperative societies?
  The ASSISTANT POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Captain Norton): No distinction will be made in the provision of telephone party lines in rural districts or in the conditions of such provision between any part of the United Kingdom and any other part, and I shall be glad to have the assistance of all societies interested in the development of agriculture in Ireland in the organisation of these party line systems. It should, of course, be understood that these cheap party lines can only be provided in districts in the vicinity of existing telephone exchanges or where there is enough telephone business to justify the establishment of new exchanges and their connection with the general telephone system of the country.
  Mr. LARDNER: Is not the result of the answer that there will be no rural telephones in Ireland, though extensions of the telephones are to be made, and that a distinction has been made between the extension of the telephone trunk system in the towns of Ireland and that in England?
  Captain NORTON: I do not think that will be so.
  Mr. C. BATHURST: Will not this limitation which the hon. Gentleman mentioned prevent the extension of the telephone to the farmers in England?
  Captain NORTON: Undoubtedly it will to some extent. The system can only be extended gradually.
  Mr. KENNEDY: Is it not a fact that though in the Cavan district they promised absolutely every guarantee that was asked they were told that they would not get the telephone?
  Captain NORTON: Doubtless. But these facilities cannot be given right throughout the country in places where the telephone does not exist to some extent at present. We cannot cover the whole face of the United Kingdom with a network of telephones at tremendous cost.
  Mr. LARDNER: Is it not the fact that this is due to the fact that the management is in London and not in Dublin?

  Post-Office Factory, Mount Pleasant.
  Dr. ADDISONasked what are the reasons for the discharge of a number of men from the post-office factory at Mount Pleasant, some of whom have worked there for many years, in one case up to thirty-nine years; and whether the Postmaster-General can say what work is to be offered to these men outside, as they state that they have been given to understand is to be the case?
  EARL of RONALDSHAYasked—(1) If, while employés in the Post Office wood workshops are being dismissed, large contracts are being given to outside firms; (2) if the majority of the employés in the Post Office wood workshops who have received notice of dismissal are men with many years' service and receiving trade-union rates of wages; and if the majority of those retained are receiving less than the recognised union rate of wages?
  Captain NORTON: My right hon. Friend has asked me to answer Questions

  1221
  59, 60, and 61 together. The reason for giving notice to a number of wood-workers in the Post Office factory at Mount Pleasant was explained in his answer to the hon. Member for North Islington on the 24th of last month. The man to whom my hon. Friend the Member for Hoxton refers as having worked in the factory for thirty-nine years has, I regret to say, just died of pneumonia at the advanced ago of seventy-two. All the men under notice of discharge have been actually offered suitable work with a firm of repute at their own trade under favourable conditions. The majority of them have already accepted this work. Two only have definitely declined the offer made, and on behalf of these two further inquiries are being made. Any suggestion that the Postmaster-General is dismissing men paid at trade union rates in order to have the work performed by men paid at lower rates is, of course, without the smallest foundation, and as regards the rates of pay and conditions of employment in the Post Office factories I may remind the Noble Lord the Member for Hornsey that when the men were offered an option between agreed trade rates and conditions (recommended by the Select Committee) and the existing Post Office conditions they chose the latter. The men who are retained will, of course, continue to enjoy these conditions. The majority of the men to whom notice has been given had some length of service and are among the more highly rated of the wood-working hands. For these higher-grade men there is, as my right hon. Friend has already stated, no prospect of further employment in the Post Office. For the unskilled men who have been working in conjunction with the hands under notice employment can be found in the Post Office (though not necessarily in the factories) on work of other kinds. No contract for woodwork only has for a long time been placed with an outside firm for which the factory quotation, both as to price and rate of delivery, was at all suitable. An urgent order for distribution cases, of which the woodwork represents but a small portion of the cost, has just been placed outside after the Postmaster-General had satisfied himself that for reasons of economy and of difficulty in securing sufficiently early delivery he would not have been justified in giving it to the Post Office factories.

  Unemployment.
  Mr. HUNTasked the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention
  1222
  has been called to the fact that the unskilled negro workmen in protected America are far better off than our white unskilled labourers in this country; and whether he proposes to protect the employment of our white British workmen in the future, in order to make their conditions of comfort and prosperity equal to the conditions of the descendants of the African slaves in protected America?
  Mr. GULLAND: The answer is in the negative.
  Mr. HUNT: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that it was the leader of the coloured people in America who has made the statement that the black people in America are better off than people in this country of the same class, and is the hon. Gentleman willing that the coloured people in America under the present system should continue so much better off than people of the same class in this country?
  Mr. GULLAND: I shall be very glad to convey the hon. Gentleman's question to the President of the Board of Trade.
  Lord HUGH CECIL: Are the President of the Board of Trade and the Secretary to the Board of Trade both engaged at the Imperial Conference?
  Mr. GULLAND: I should have apologised at the beginning for the President of the Board of Trade.
  Lord HUGH CECIL: And the Secretary?
  The PRIME MINISTER: The Secretary is unwell.
  Mr. HUNTasked whether, in view of the fact that over 300,000 tons of manufactured steel were imported during the first four months of this year, and that this continued importation of surplus steel made by foreign workmen was the cause of the closing down of the Ebbw Vale works indefinitely, and the throwing out of employment of hundreds of our own men, he intends to take any action to prevent our own men from being thrown out of employment in the future by the importation of surplus steel from abroad?
  Mr. GULLAND: My right hon. Friend has seen newspaper reports to the effect that it is proposed for the present to close the Ebbw Vale Steel Works, and he trusts that this stoppage will only be temporary. It is not intended to propose legislation of the nature suggested.
  Mr. HUNT: Can the hon. Gentleman say how our own men can be employed in making these goods when the policy of the Government encourages the importation of these untaxed goods from abroad?
  Mr. DEPUTY - SPEAKER: That is a matter of opinion and of argument.
  Mr. KEIR HARDIEasked (1) how many men were recruited by the manager of the Greenock Labour Exchange during his recent trip to Stornoway and other outlying parts of the Greenock area, the trade or occupation of the men so employed, and the cost of the trip to the State? And, (2) what representations were made by the manager of the Greenock Labour Exchange when he applied for sanction to make a recruiting trip to Stornoway and other places recently visited by him; and whether he informed the Board of Trade that at that time there were hundreds of young Highlanders unemployed in Greenock who had been induced to leave their native towns and villages by false promises concerning wages and conditions of employment; and whether it is a function of the manager of a Labour Exchange to act as a recruiting agent in securing a supply of cheap labour for employers?
  Mr. GULLAND: The recent journey of the manager of the Greenock Labour Exchange to a part of Scotland to which it has not yet been found possible to extend the Labour Exchange system was only authorised after it had been satisfactorily ascertained that it was impossible to fill either locally or from other Labour Exchanges a large number of vacancies registered at the Greenock Labour Exchange. I am informed that there is no ground for the suggestion that young Highlanders suitable for this class of employment were already available in Greenock. My right hon. Friend is satisfied that the Greenock manager, in undertaking the journey, was fulfilling the legitimate duties of a Labour Exchange manager in placing workpeople desiring employment in touch with employers desiring workpeople. The journey was undertaken as part of the ordinary duties of the manager, and its cost cannot be separately stated.
  Mr. KEIR HARDIE: Question 65 has not been answered as to how many men were recruited during this journey.
  Mr. GULLAND: I am very sorry that I cannot give the hon. Member the information.
  Mr. KEIR HARDIE: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether the men who were recruited were skilled draughtsmen or unskilled labourers, and whether, when the trip was made, there were hundreds of unskilled labourers unemployed in the neighbourhood?
  Mr. GULLAND: I am sorry I cannot give the hon. Gentleman the information he asks for. Perhaps he will put a question down.

  Metropolitan Baking Trade.
  Mr. WILKIEasked whether the President of the Board of Trade has recently received a statement of the condition of the Metropolitan baking trade; and, if so, and having regard to the fact that these conditions are such as call for reform, will he use his influence to secure time for the discussion and Second Reading of the Hours of Labour (Bakehouses) Bill in order that the same may be referred to a Select Committee of this House?
  Mr. WEDGWOOD BENN: The President of the Board of Trade has received the statement referred to, and has communicated a copy of it to the Home Secretary. The Home Secretary would refer the hon. Member to the answer which he gave to a question on this subject on the 24th April last. Until the inquiries of the Inter-Departmental Committee are completed, he is unable to make any statement as to legislation.
  Mr. KEIR HARDIE: Has the hon. Gentleman any idea when we may expect the report?
  Mr. WEDGWOOD BENN: I am informed that the report will soon be circulated.

  Trade Unions (No. 2) Bill.
  Viscount WOLMERasked the Attorney-General whether he will explain the term prospective candidate, used in Clause 3, Sub-section (2) (a), of the Trade Unions (No. 2) Bill?
  The ATTORNEY-GENERAL (Sir Rufus Isaacs): The term "prospective candidate" is used to meet the case of the person who is presented or presents himself to the constituency before a vacancy has occurred or dissolution has been announced as the person who will contest the constituency at the next election, or who may not have been adopted by formal resolution as the candidate for the seat at

  1225
  the next ensuing election, but who is, nevertheless, conducting a campaign with the intention of presenting himself as the candidate as soon as the opportunity arises. I must not be understood as stating that such a person would not be a candidate in the strict sense of the term.
  Mr. SUTTON: Would that definition cover the candidate introduced by his father?
  Viscount HELMSLEY: Do I understand the hon. and learned Gentleman that a prospective candidate would not come under the Corrupt Practices Act?
  Sir RUFUS ISAACS: On the contrary, I do not assent, and must not be understood to assent that he would not be a candidate in the strict sense of the term. The term "prospective candidate" is well known.
  Mr. KING: Is not the expression "prospective candidate" now used for the first time in a Bill or Act of Parliament, and, if so, does it not mean some special definition?

  NATIONAL INSURANCE BILL.

    MEDICAL MEN (COUNTRY DISTRICTS).
    Captain WARINGasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether consideration can be taken in the National Insurance scheme of the position of a doctor in a scattered country district who, for a fee of 6s., might often have to visit a case so distant as to occupy five or six hours of time; and whether any special provision for mileage will be inserted in the Bill?
    The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Lloyd George): I will refer my hon. Friend to my reply to the hon. Member for North-East Manchester yesterday.
    Captain MURRAY: May I ask whether, failing an index, the right hon. Gentleman can see his way to have the questions and answers on the National Insurance Bill reprinted?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I believe the hon. Member for Bury (Mr. Toulmin), as Chairman of the Committee which deals with this matter, has arranged for all the questions and answers to be reprinted in the course of the next few days. They will then be in the Vote Office, I understand.

    SALARIES OF OFFICIALS.
    Mr. KINGasked whether any estimate has yet been formed of the number or cost of the salaries of the officers, inspectors, referees, and servants contemplated under Section 41 (2) of the National Insurance Bill; if so, can the figures be stated; and whether these officials will be appointed by patronage or in the recognised manner of examination and open competition?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: It would not be possible to frame an estimate at the present stage. Appointments can only be made in accordance with the Orders in Council relating to the Civil Service. It would be impossible to say at the present time to what extent it may be necessary to use the power of wholly or partly dispensing with an examination. I may add that it will, of course, be necessary to obtain the services of medical and insurance experts.
    Mr. HAYES FISHER: How has the right hon. Gentleman calculated the cost, if he has formed no estimate of the cost of the machinery for carrying out the Bill?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: This is only the case of officers and inspectors, and after all the cost of that is so very small a proportion of the total that really it does not count in the matter of the final result. We have got a rough estimate, but it would be quite impossible until the Bill goes through to know exactly the number of officers required, as we do not know what Amendments the House may make.
    Mr. HAYES FISHER: Will the right hon. Gentleman be prepared to give the rough estimate when we go into Committee?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: Certainly.

    AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS.
    Mr. CHARLES BATHURSTasked (1) how it will be possible under a flat rate system of insurance premium to prevent the low-paid but more healthy agricultural labourer contributing not merely his own quota towards medical, sickness, and other benefits under the National Insurance scheme, but part also of that of the higher-paid but less healthy town artisan; and (2) whether, in view of the better health enjoyed by the agricultural community as compared with the urban population, the uniform rate of weekly payment under the National Insurance Bill, and the mode of appropriation of the surplus funds of branches of approved societies, provided for by Clause 30, it will be

    1227
    to the advantage of agricultural labourers to form large societies confined to rural areas rather than join any of the large friendly societies having branches in the towns, to which the benefit of the surplus of their country branches will be transferred?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: In the next question on the Paper the hon. Member suggests a solution of the problem propounded in this question, a solution which, if he will refer to the answer which I gave him on the 11th ultimo, he will find to be the correct one.
    Mr. C. BATHURST: Is it the desire and intention of the right hon. Gentleman that rural members of the large friendly societies should on the Bill becoming an Act of Parliament leave those societies and join others of their own creation?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: That is a matter entirely for the rural members to consider themselves. That is one of the principles of the Bill that we do not interfere at all with the arrangements of the friendly societies.
    Mr. C. BATHURST: May I ask whether that is the only method which he contemplates to avoid injustice being done to the agricultural community?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: That is the method which is in practice at the present moment.
    Viscount HELMSLEY: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the advisability of altering the rate for persons engaged in the healthy industry of agriculture?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I think the Noble Lord, if he will reflect, will withdraw that suggestion. He will find that it would be imposible to work in practice in a great national scheme, because they are moving from one district to another.

    MEDICAL FEES (GERMANY).
    Mr. ASTORasked what fees are paid to doctors under the German Insurance Acts; and whether such fees include payment for drugs?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: The average fee paid to German doctors by the Sickness Funds of all kinds in 1909 was 5s. 8d. per person insured. This fee was exclusive of drugs, but included attendance upon uninsured members of families where the rules of a fund provided for such attendance.
    1228
    The average fee paid to doctors by the parochial funds, which as a rule do not provide family attendance, was 4s. per person insured.
    Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: Can the right hon. Gentleman say how much will be paid for drugs on the average in Germany?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I should like notice of that question. It is really very difficult to ascertain, because in Germany very often it includes expensive appliances.
    Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: Are there no statistics published?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: Yes, the hon. Gentleman must know I have got the figures.
    Sir PHILIP MAGNUS: May I ask whether the 4s. includes the cost of drugs?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: It does not include the cost of drugs.

    HOP AND FRUIT PICKERS.
    Captain CLAYasked what would be the position of hop-pickers and fruit-pickers who in the season are engaged with their families in these industries, under the National Insurance Bill, seeing that they are paid by piecework, and the children contribute towards their parents' earnings; will the employer be compelled to pay his share; and is he responsible that each of the employed pays his share, notwithstanding the difficulties of ascertaining the correct ages of those employed in this class of labour?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: The employer would be required to contribute in these cases and to pay the employés' contributions, deducting the amounts paid from their wages as in other employments.

PRINTING AMENDMENTS (DUPLI- CATION).
Mr. BALFOUR: I desire to ask a question, though I am not quite sure whether you will be able to answer it, as to the printed Amendments to big Bills in this House. I would ask whether it would not be possible when there is a large number of Amendments in duplicate to print only the Amendment once, with the names of the various Gentlemen who put it down, and, of course, in the order in which they themselves suggested the Amendment.

1229
Everybody who is familiar with these things knows how inconvenient it is to have to turn over page by page of mere duplication. I will not press the point argumentatively, as I think I gather that the general sense of the House is with me in respect to this question.
Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I do not think I can give a definite answer to that question on the spur of the moment. In the first place, as the House knows, I am only a locum tenens, and the matter must be carefully investigated before I can give a reply. So far as I am concerned as a Chairman of Committees I should be only too glad if the suggestion would be adopted. I understand, however, that there are very serious difficulties in the way, and I can only promise at present to the right hon. Gentleman that the matter shall be very carefully considered.

NATIONAL INSURANCE BILL.

  PROPOSED CONFERENCE.
  Mr. BALFOUR: I hope the House will permit me to respond to the invitation given by the Chancellor of the Exchequer a few nights ago. I speak, of course, only by leave of the House, and I do it because, as the House will recognise, no answer could be given on the night on which the invitation was publicly made. And I should imagine, as we are about to start on the holidays, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would like to know definitely, at all events, what is the impression left on my mind and of those with whom I act, with regard to those suggestions. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was perfectly right in saying that the Bill is a non-controversial one, and on that he based the suggestion that there should be a consultation between Members of the House and the Government, and he promised on his own part to do his best to answer privately any questions with regard to points of difficulty which might be put to him, and also to place at the disposal of Members of the House the actuarial calculations upon which so much of the Bill depends. I think that was a very valuable suggestion. The actuarial calculations, of course, are quite beyond the competence of anybody but an actuary. If the right hon. Gentleman will assist Members of the House who have not his means of arriving at conclusions upon actuarial calculations, and give them the benefit of the advice of his experts, and will at the same time supply
  1230
  them with the premises on which those experts have based their calculations, I believe that Debate will be saved, waste of time will be avoided, and there will be considerable advantage. The right hon. Gentleman went further, and made a suggestion which, so far as I understood it, was that each party in the House should elect, as it were, a small number of representatives who should confer with the Government and with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and should have authority, I presume, to decide certain points, or, at all events, provisionally to decide certain points, to withdraw certain Amendments from the Order Paper, and to do, as it were, the rough work of the Committee stage of the House, and eliminate from the Order Paper, as I understand it, a great many Amendments which really would not bear examination in the House, and which it might, therefore, be desirable to dispose of at some earlier stage. There seems to me to be much to be said for that proposal, or for some modification of it, but it would also seem, as presented to us, to be an extremely difficult thing to carry out, because it would really imply that concurrently with the sittings of the Committee of the Whole House there should be an unofficial Committee, representing each section of the House, which, as it seems to me, would be of no use unless they had some authority to bind their colleagues of the same party. So far as I can see they could never get that authority by any means known to us, and that difficulty is increased by the fact that it is an uncontroversial Bill.
  In matters where there is acute controversy, and where party feeling is crystallised, it is necessary, it may be necessary to a certain extent, that members of a party should invite the guidance of their party on both sides, and of those who for the moment are their leaders. That generally is acquiesced in by Members in all parts of the House and among all parties. But I do not see how it can be quite so readily accepted or acquiesced in where, as it is acknowledged we are dealing with what is not a party question, and when it is hardly possible to invoke the party machinery in order to secure uniform action. I do not see in this case how any party is to select delegates and give to those delegates powers to speak for it. The delegates of the party opposite, or of the party to which I have the honour to belong, would probably be representative of that party, and of those in

  1231
  it who devoted special interest to this great measure. But those who were left out would be a considerable section, and would include some who would consider themselves experts. Are they to be excluded, and would they consent to be left out? I am not sure that I understand the proposal—
  The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Lloyd George): No.
  Mr. BALFOUR: I am very anxious it should be understood. I do not quite see how these delegates can assume the power of acting for those for whom they are delegates, or how you will select them. As I appear to have misunderstood the suggestion I will not press the point now. I need hardly say I am not speaking in any party spirit.
  One other point I hope the Government will bear in mind is that there are to be considered a large number of interests in the country, such as the friendly societies, the doctors, and the employers, who think, rightly or wrongly, that they are going to greatly suffer under the provisions of this Bill. I do not think they can be expected to be content unless their case is argued out in public and before the House. I think that, unless that were done, they would feel deeply aggrieved. When they got the decision of the House, even if it went against them, at all events it would be the decision of the House, arrived at in public and after public argument. I do not think it would be possible for us to do anything in private which would very much diminish the stress of Debate, and the effect might be the prolongation of the discussions by those who would think they were bound to represent their constituents upon some matter which deeply affected them in the scheme of the Government. There, again, I see the same difficulty in deciding in private what must be thrashed out again in public before the House, and in that case evidently there cannot be that saving of time which we all desiderate.
  Therefore, in, so far as I understand the proposal, I believe I am speaking entirely for my own friends in pointing out the difficulties I have mentioned, but if I rightly interpret the feeling in all quarters of the House, I do not think the proposal, as I understand it, can quite be accepted. We are none the less grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his sugges-
  1232
  tion to enable us to deal more readily with the immensely complicated and complex questions which this Bill raises. I hope the Government will do all they can to prevent other business being unnecessarily included in the time at our command before we separate for the autumn. For the moment I will only repeat what I have said before, that I do not believe there is the slightest desire on the part of any individual in the House to delay the passage of the Bill, and where there is such a universal agreement the Chancellor of the Exchequer may really count upon no greater time being taken over the discussion of his great scheme than the magnitude of its provisions and details inevitably requires. If I have in any way misunderstood the Government proposal, it is entirely due to misapprehension of it, and I hope the right hon. Gentleman will be able to make some supplementary explanation.
  The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Asquith): I can only speak by permission of the House, as the right hon. Gentleman has done. I wish to be very brief in what I say. We all recognise to the full the spirit in which the right hon. Gentleman has approached the matter, and my object is simply to make clear what is the nature of the proposal made on behalf of the Government and which, I think, has been in some respects slightly misconceived by the right hon. Gentleman. It was a proposal made to all parties in the House. In this matter there are a large number of varied interests to be considered, and the idea foreshadowed by my right hon. Friend was that all these interests should through their representatives contribute to the common stock, if I may use the expression. The proposal was not that whatever consultation might take place should be concurrent with the Committee stage, but rather it was to be anticipatory, with a view of clearing the ground. It was to establish a kind of informal Clearing House of information and interchange of ideas which it was felt and hoped would greatly simplify the discussion of details in Committee. There was certainly no intention that any such body, however constituted, should claim to be regarded as possessing the right to bind anybody in the House. The Government could not bind their own supporters, and do not desire to do so in that respect. The right hon. Gentleman and myself sat on a body, which did not result as fortunately as we hoped, to consider very grave and serious matters of

  1233
  controversy. But it was fully recognised on all sides that we were not acting as plenipotentiaries, and that our decisions had no binding power upon those whom we represented. In something the same way it is proposed to have an informal preliminary consultative body on this Bill, such as was suggested by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The right hon. Gentleman has truly said you cannot without discussion in this House, and a full representation here in public of all the interests concerned, determine such important questions, for instance, as the position of the doctors or of the other leading interests affected by this Bill. My right hon. Friend never supposed for a moment that matters of that kind could be settled in that informal fashion. A measure of this kind which has so much detail to be examined for the first time might, by a preliminary arrangement of that kind, be prevented from occupying many hours which might otherwise be usefully spent by the House. We thought we might avail ourselves of this preliminary, and more or less informal, clearing away of the undergrowth, leaving a few broad, well-defined paths for the general discussion in Committee.
  4.0 P.M.
  That, I think, was the object of the right hon. Gentleman, and why he says that he welcomes that part of the proposal which will give to himself and his friends, or whoever it may happen to concern, the power of examining, perhaps cross-examining, the actuarial materials and authority which my right hon. Friend has at his disposal. That, I think in itself and by itself, would be a very unsatisfactory way of dealing with the matter. What we rather contemplated was that a number of people, more or less representative, should be brought together without any power to bind those whom they represented, and sitting round a table contribute to the common stock of facts and figures those which they have at their disposal relative to the situation. The Government will contribute freely from their exceptional sources of information. This might enable us to clear the ground, to abbreviate discussion in Committee, and to facilitate the object which every party in the House has in view, that of passing this Bill into law after adequate discussion, without waste of time from the examination and discussion of mere details. That was the nature of the proposal of my right hon. Friend. I shall be glad even now if that proposal meets with general
  1234
  acceptance. Unless it can meet with general acceptance, and unless there can be co-operation in the sense which I have described, the proposal is one which, of course, the Government will in no way endeavour to force upon the House of Commons.
  Mr. JOHN REDMOND: I shall be glad if the House will extend its indulgence to me while I explain the view that we take with reference to this Bill. The Irish party have this matter under consideration at a meeting to-day, and they unanimously passed a resolution heartily approving of the principle of the Bill. We are all extremely anxious that the Bill with such modifications is may be found necessary, may be passed into law. But we are forced to recognise that the case of Ireland, owing to the different social conditions of the country, is separate, and that it must be dealt with separately. We have appointed a committee of our party to consider the provisions of this Bill, and to prepare suggestions and amendments with the object of making the Bill, which, as it stands, we frankly do not consider a, Bill suitable to the conditions of Ireland, so suitable. The circumstances in Ireland are so different that I do not think it will be useful, or to any purpose, for us to take part in the carrying out of the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman as I understand it. As I understand the suggestion of the Government it is that representatives of all the parties are to come together as an informal general committee.
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGEexpressed dissent.
  Mr. J. REDMOND: I do not think that so far as Ireland is concerned that would be possible, for our circumstances are so different that we must consider the conditions of our country, and the applicability of the Bill to it separately from the other parts of the United Kingdom. Therefore so far as we are concernced, we could not fall in with what I understand to be the suggestion. But we have, as I say, appointed a committee, and I would ask the Government—
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: What the hon. and learned Gentleman says is not the suggestion. The suggestion is not that there should be a general committee of all the parties, but that Committees should be appointed like, for instance, that mentioned by the hon. and learned Gentleman as having been appointed by his party

  1235
  and that we should meet separately, so that the Government could then consider the suggestions that are made.
  Mr. J. REDMOND: I am sorry if I misunderstood. As I understand it now, Committees representative of the different parties are, it is suggested, to meet separately, and to be taken into consultation by the Government?
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGEassented.
  Mr. J. REDMOND: That is entirely our view, and I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to enable the committee of the Irish party to do their work; to extend to them the information and actuarial figures which the Government has, and which was asked for by the Leader of the Opposition. I can assure the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor that our desire is to make this Bill suitable to Ireland. We hope to pass it into law, and we must necessarily keep our position in reference to this matter separate from that of the other parties of the House.
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: We will be very happy, of course, to place at the disposal of hon. Members opposite all the information we have got, and, of course, we expect that they will place at our disposal the information that they have got, and that they will meet us in the spirit of amity and co-operation, so that we may try to arrive at some sort of general understanding not to prevent discussion in the House, but in order to make discussion much more useful and to save time. These observations apply to hon. Members below the Gangway; the proposal I have mentioned is the only offer we made, and I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman cannot see his way to fall in with the suggestion.
  Mr. BALFOUR: There is this great difference between the position of hon. Gentlemen on this side of the House and the other two parties to which the right hon. Gentleman has referred. While every party in this House desires to see the Bill made a general good Bill, the Irish Members wish to put before the Chancellor of the Exchequer the Irish aspect of the case. I apprehend that the Labour party, although their interest is a general interest, nevertheless have specially under their charge certain particular interests, and will desire to know the effect of the Bill upon the great organised trades and the great trade unions. We are not in that position. The Unionist party has not got
  1236
  a Unionist view in this matter. There is no special policy which we as a party desire to press, nor is there, from the nature of the case, special interests which we have got in the same sense that hon. Members below the Gangway opposite—most properly—have, regarding themselves as the special custodians of the trade union interests; or hon. Members below the Gangway on this side, who have the Irish point of view. Our case is different, but to carry out the parallel, Gentlemen, sitting in this quarter of the House, acting with many of those in other parts of the House, do take a particular interest, irrespective of party, in some special case, such as that of the friendly societies, the collecting societies, the doctors, and others. By meeting they could carry out the Chancellor's view. I shall be delighted to further in any way in my power the kind of informal arrangement suggested by the right hon. Gentleman in relation to a Bill in which we have, as a party, no special views. Perhaps what I have just said will meet the view of the right hon. Gentleman?
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: If I may say so, the view taken by the Unionist party is also the view taken by the Government. We do not consider that we have got a special Liberal view, any more than the right hon. Gentlemen considers that his party has a Unionist view. I hope we take the general and the national view of the matter. I understood that a committee had been appointed on the other side to consider the Bill, and my suggestion was that we should meet representations of that committee in relation to the collecting societies or the doctors, or any special point of view, and we consider that it would be useful both for them and the Government that representatives of that committee should meet us.
  Mr. BALFOUR: I think it is extremely probable that the members of the committee will be very glad to meet the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

BILLS PRESENTED.
  HYPOTHEC ABOLITION (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  "To abolish the landlord's right of hypothec for rent in Scotland," presented by Mr. GODFREY COLLINS; supported by Mr. Falconer, Colonel Greig, Mr. M'Callum, Mr. Whyte, and Mr. Watt; to be read a second time upon Wednesday, 14th June, and to be printed.
  DUBLIN PARLIAMENTARY REVISING BILL.
  "To amend Section 1 of The Dublin Parliamentary Revising Act, 1853," presented by Mr. BIRRELL; supported by the Attorney-General for Ireland; to be read a second time upon Monday, 19th June, and to be printed.

SUPPLY.— [10th allotted day.]
Considered in Committee.
(IN THE COMMITTEE.)
[Mr. WHITLEY in the Chair.]

SUPPLY.— [10th allotted day.]
  CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS ESTIMATES 1911–12— [CLASS 2.]

    SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND'S OFFICE.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £10,583, be granted to His Majesty to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1912, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of His Majesty's Secretary for Scotland and Subordinate Office, Expenses under the Inebriates Acts, 1879 to 1900, and Expenses under the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899, including a Grant-in-Aid of the Congested Districts (Scotland) Fund." [Note: £25,000 has been voted on account.]
    Mr. PIRIE: I beg to move to reduce Item A by £1,000 in respect of the Salary of the Secretary for Scotland.
    I do not suppose in the memory of the oldest Scottish Member—I believe in one case extending over a quarter of a century—that there has ever been anything like the circumstances under which the Scottish Estimates are discussed this year. Certainly there has been some curious instances in the past, but nothing equal to the present occasion. What is the present occasion? We are here, I think sixty out of seventy-two Scottish Members, discussing these Estimates under the pledge that we shall not carry this Debate to its logical conclusion in case we do not approve of these Estimates, namely, to vote against them by going to a Division on any point on which we are not agreed. I do not cavil at this. I was asked to give that pledge. This pledge so far as I understand it—
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN (Mr. Whitley): That is quite a domestic matter, and has nothing to do with the Vote.
    Mr. PIRIE: Yes, it has; this day was given to the Scottish Members on that condition, and on that condition alone. I am one of the party who assented—and willingly—and I am only wanting to explain why I did assent to it. I was the only Member who had a Motion down for a reduction of the salary of the Scottish Secretary. Under the very exceptional circumstances, and in view of explaining the whole attitude we must adopt this year on the Scottish Estimates, the Chairman will not consider it out of place—and even I would ask leave of the House that I might be allowed to make my statements—to dwell upon this in order that the Scottish people may have one of the very few opportunities they get of learning the truth in these matters. The conditions of this discussion are so important that they ought to be realised. This year we have a sort of pantomime which is, being enacted. The general public of the Scottish nation may be called the dupes, and we who are the actors on the scene may be called the fools.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I cannot allow discussion of this kind. This is Committee of Supply, and the only matter that can be discussed is the Vote of certain moneys, and not such matters as the hon. Member is trying to bring out.
    Mr. PIRIE: The only way to discuss this matter is upon the salary of the Secretary for Scotland. If I am not entitled to do so, I can only discuss the general aspect of the Scottish question, and the general way in which things are dealt with in this House. The Secretary for Scotland is responsible. However, I will not pursue the matter now. The only other question I want to discuss is the Fisheries Board, and I shall wait until the Vote on that item comes up.
    Mr. GEORGE YOUNGER: I think the interesting speech of the hon. Gentleman opposite, which was rather cut short, was somewhat unusual, but the circumstances in which we are dealing with these Estimates are rather unusual. I do not approach the matter from the point of view of the hon. Member however, but it is unfortunate, I think, that we should be called upon to discuss the Scotch Estimates for the year without having in our hands the most important report of all—that is, the Report of the Congested Districts Board for Scotland, which was so

    1239
    cleverly criticised last year, and which contained accounts prepared and presented in such a way that no human being could understand them. The Lord Advocate promised that if possible they would be presented this year in a more intelligible form, and possibly because of that there may have been delay in preparing the Report. I do not want to make any great complaint, but I say it is unfortunate that on the only important question with which we on this side of the House want to deal, that is the success, or want of success, of the money spent in the experiments made by the Congested Districts Board in the purchase and settlement of so many properties in the northwest of Scotland we should not have an opportunity of doing so.
    It is five years since the Secretary for Scotland said that the Board was pretty well out of date and required reconstruction, and as we shall have to deal tomorrow with the Scotch Landholders Bill it would have been very interesting if we had more definite knowledge of the results of the experiments made, and if we were able to decide in the light of the information given us whether the game is really worth the candle. The proceedings of this day, therefore, are shorn of much of their interests for us. We have a sort of trooping of the thistle. It may be a very interesting performance, not so impressive or picturesque as the one of last Saturday, which, by the courtesy of my hon. Friend the Lord Advocate, I saw very comfortably from the Scotch Office window. I think it is very unfortunate that our Scottish business should be arranged as it is. I quite recognise that there is a desire on the part of everybody to deal with the question that comes up for discussion tomorrow, and I hope some good result will follow. But I think some time might have been found for that without calling upon Scottish Members to remain in this benighted spot when everybody else is gone. We are left to pirouette in these two days in this hot weather in an atmosphere of which we are sick. The position is not a very dignified or a satisfactory one.
    With regard to the general position of Scotch Estimates, I do not think that we on this side desire to raise many important questions. The only question which I desire to discuss, namely, the Congested Districts Board, is one which I am unable to discuss, and it would not be quite fair to ask the Lord Advocate to deal with many questions which the Report of the
    1240
    Board will contain, because I do not suppose that he is in a position to do so, or that he could give us any comprehensive view of the situation as it obtains at the present moment. On other questions I do not know that I have much to say. We have felt, of course, that Scotland is seriously handicapped from the educational point of view in connection with the superannuation scheme of teachers, and while this House I understand is quite ready to vote an expenditure of one and a-quarter million for labourers' cottages in Ireland it seems always difficult to get a miserable pittance for Scotland, whether we think she deserves it or not. Whether it is possible with discussion in this House to enable the Lord Advocate and the Secretary for Scotland to deal more successfully with the Treasury than up to now they have been able to do, I cannot say. But on both sides of the House there is an intense desire that there should be an increase in the grant for educational purposes. I have not risen to discuss anything in particular, but simply to make a protest against the position in which Scottish business is placed this year, and I hope we shall not again be asked to deal with Scottish Estimates while being left in perfect ignorance on the most important subject which we desire to discuss.
    Mr. CATHCART WASON: I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman opposite should have taken upon himself to somewhat severely criticise the Congested Districts Board for Scotland, because from personal knowledge of that Board and the work it has done in Scotland, I think it is the only one bright and shining light in the whole of our Scottish administration. The work that Board has done through the Highlands and Islands of Scotland ever since its inception a good many years ago is simply marvellous. The piers they have built, the roads they have made, the lights they have put up in different places should give the right hon. Gentleman the Lord Advocate and his friends a good object lesson in the future administration of Scotland. And if it is possible to bring in this to-morrow on the discussion of our Land Bill I hope they may take an example from the work the Congested Districts Board has done in the direction of maintaining the people on the land and helping them to live at home. That Board more than any other realises our difficulty. They know more than most people do, that once you get the population off the Highlands and Islands of Scotland it is exceedingly difficult to get them

    1241
    back there. Once the farms are left derelict it is difficult to get the people back again to them. But the Congested Districts Board of Scotland has done good work amongst the people. They are a powerful body of extremely conscientious and able men, and they get very little remuneration.
    Mr. YOUNGER: I did not propose to complain in any kind of way about the Board itself. What I wanted to discuss was the administration of the Board, and the results of its administration in regard to the estates purchased.
    Mr. CATHCART WASONThat is a mere trifle.
    Mr. YOUNGER: It involves about half-a-million.
    Mr. CATHCART WASON: I am not a bit interested in that side of the question. They have only bought land under the extreme pressure of the hon. Gentleman opposite and his friends. Perhaps it would be as well if they let it alone. They have done an immense amount of good in maintaining people upon the soil. I wish now to draw the Lord Advocate's attention to the position of one of the Orkney Islands. In the time of his predecessor we succeeded in getting a substantial grant to build a pier. There are two or three thousand inhabitants in this island, and it is entirely cut off from the mainland of Scotland and of Orkney. One of the very objects of the Congested Districts Board is that they should provide facilities for such people. I approached the Congested Districts Board in a very humble spirit with reference to enabling us to get a small subsidy for carrying the fish off this island and marking the fish. I received a very sympathetic answer, but they are absolutely obdurate. I suppose all their money Went to Inverness-shire in buying land or putting down wire fences, probably useless at one end before the other is up. An enormous amount of money has been spent in that way. I only ask a few pounds a year, and I think the Board might well have come to the rescue. On the whole I contend the Congested Districts Board has done most admirable work throughout Scotland in the last ten or twelve years that I have known it. Not one penny has it spent for a useless purpose or without proper result in the whole of the Orkney and Shetland Islands. In every case I believe the result is not the same, but in every case so far as I know—and I know most of them, the Board has
    1242
    done admirable work in opening up and developing the country, and except for these occasional little lapses they are doing very admirably.
    There is one question I should like to touch upon in the connection with the fisheries, but which I cannot possibly introduce on the Fishery Vote. If there is one administrative action in the legislation of which we are entirely and thoroughly ashamed in Scotland it is in reference to the Moray Firth. The position there is this. The Moray Firth is one of the best breeding grounds we have in Scotland. This place was closed for Scotch trawlers. More recently that was confirmed in the Law Courts that it was applied to all trawlers for a reason which we could never understand and of which the Secretary for Scotland has never given the slightest indication, and on which the Lord Advocate has never given the slightest indication. The matter was stopped, and we have never been able to get, directly or indirectly, any information why. We have been to the Foreign Secretary time and again; my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow has been deluged with questions, and he has never been able to say why this has taken place. The Secretary for Scotland ought to be challenged by Scotch Members to tell us what was the reason for this. We have got on our side all the trawling interest and fishery interest. We have seen what foreign countries have done and we have seen what has been done recently in Russia, and we think it is high time that our own Scottish Secretary who, after all, is the guardian of Scottish interests in this matter, and is the only person to whom we have to look to protect our interests, should come forward and do so. We cannot ask the Foreign Secretary, or if we do we get a reply that he can do nothing. It is to the Scottish Secretary we have to look, and he has really got to take the Foreign Secretary by the arm and lead him into the right path and try to stick up for the interests of Scotland in this matter. I hope you are not disbelieving, Mr. Whitley, but if you will go to this and other places and see the position our own trawlers are placed in you will find that they dare not catch a fish in those waters without being liable to go to gaol, while the foreign trawlers are there trawling all over the place.
    The DEPUTY - CHAIRMAN: I was wondering how far the hon. Member was

    1243
    keeping within the lines of order. It is clear that anything connected with the merits of this question must be confined to the Fishery Vote, and the hon. Member is only entitled to raise some special action taken by the Secretary for Scotland, and that only, on this Vote.
    Mr. CATHCART WASON: I wish to bring in the action of the Secretary for Scotland, because he has done nothing in this matter. I think we are being extremely badly treated. The Lord Advocate does nothing, and the Foreign Secretary cannot do anything. If only the Secretary for Scotland would do something that would meet the case. It is the general aspect of the question which I desire to bring to the notice of the Lord Advocate. I am very grateful to you, Mr. Whitley, for having allowed me to bring this matter before the Committee. The Lord Advocate will remember that some time last year he received a deputation from the Scottish Council on Women's Trades protesting against sweating. The Lord Advocate knows all about the matter. They put their case very clearly before the Scottish Secretary and the Lord Advocate with reference to the conditions of labour in certain trades in certain parts of the south of Scotland. I think they fairly satisfied those representatives of the Government that the conditions under which this particular industry was carried on were not such as ought to prevail in this country at the present time. These women showed the Secretary for Scotland that the conditions under which the industry was carried on was not worthy of our country, and they demanded that a full inquiry should take place by a representative of the Local Government Board for Scotland. The Secretary for Scotland replied, "That is all very well in its way, but you have given me no facts. You have alluded to this question in a general sort of way, but you must collect certain facts and hand them to me."
    At considerable trouble, the Scottish Council for Women's Trades collected a great number of hard cases and facts, showing the conditions under which this labour was carried on, and I am sure the Committee will be surprised to know that even on the report of these women absolutely nothing has been done. The case is extremely unsatisfactory. A letter was read from a farmer connected with this trade who said he had nothing
    1244
    to do with it, and that it was the merchant who organised the labour. I can assure the Lord Advocate that this is a very serious question in the South of Scotland, and one which deserves immediate attention at his hands. The trade is not carried on as it ought to be. There is another very serious grievance in the Orkney and Shetland district, and many other similar places, in regard to old persons who have passed the age of being able to work, and who are obliged to give up their little homes. A very restricted and narrow view is taken of this matter by the authorities, and all we ask is that where the Old Age Pension Committee is satisfied that there is a deserving case there ought to be a direct appeal from the local pension officer to the Local Government Board. I put a question on this point to the Lord Advocate, and instead of answering me as I expected he would do, he replied to a totally different question, which showed that he had not even read my question. I gave notice to the Lord Advocate, as I am sure he would not willingly act discourteously.
    Mr. BARNES: I rise to ask for an explanation in regard to a matter in which I am interested, and upon which I am sure a large number of people in Scotland are also interested. Questions have been asked from time to time about the House Letting and Rating (Scotland) Bill, and I think I shall be in order in asking for some information on this point. I take it that we are discussing things in general now, but what I have to say constitutes a charge relating more to a sin of omission rather than commission on the part of the Scotch Secretary or somebody else, and I want to know who. At all events, this Bill is one of very great interest to the people of Scotland, and especially to the people in the burghs. We have asked questions about it from time to time, and we have got little satisfaction. A number of us went to the Scottish Whips six weeks ago, and we were led to believe that the House Letting Bill was coming on almost immediately. As that promise did not mature, we put questions in the House—
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: That is a matter of legislation, and it is not in order now.
    Mr. BARNES: I was not suggesting legislation. I was simply preferring a charge of neglect against the Secretary for Scotland or the Lord Advocate for not bringing this particular Bill forward as they ought to have done.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: That is not the business before the Committee at the present moment.
    Mr. BARNES: Surely the Lord Advocate is responsible for not pushing the Government forward in this matter. My point is that our opportunities are slipping by, and I want to know who is responsible. I have an uneasy feeling that it is not the Government but hon. Gentlemen on the Opposition side who are dictating to Scottish Members on this question. I hope we shall hear from the Lord Advocate why this Bill has not been pushed forward.
    Mr. SCOTT DICKSON: On this side of the House we have nothing to do with the order of business.
    Mr. WATT: The Opposition were responsible for what took place last night.
    Mr. SCOTT DICKSON: That statement is quite incorrect, and I do not know the reason why the Bill was not brought forward.
    Mr. MORTON: Was there not a bargain made with the Tory party that it should not come forward.
    Mr. SCOTT DICKSON: I understand that the Motion to suspend the 11 o'clock rule was made in order to make sure that the Irish and the Scotch Bills should be carried through. That Motion was not moved at the proper time, and why it was not done I do not know.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I am sorry to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, but he is not in order in discussing now the business of the House.
    Mr. SCOTT DICKSON: I think it is very unfortunate that the hon. Member for the Blackfriars Division of Glasgow should be allowed to get up and make a charge against us of having prevented a Bill coming forward, and the rules of the House do not allow me to make an answer to that charge.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I did stop the hon. Member for the Blackfriars Division, and I cannot allow this matter to go any further.
    Mr. SCOTT DICKSON:I hope it will be noted that the hon. Member for the Black-friars Division made a charge against the Opposition, and although I am anxious to meet that charge, the Rules of the House do not allow me to do so.
    Sir WALTER MENZIES: I have a good deal of sympathy with hon. Members in their difficulty in finding subjects which are in order on this Vote. To put myself completely in order I will move the reduction of the Vote on the Registrar-General's salary by £100.
    Mr. PIRIE: I was under the impression that we were discussing the Secretary for Scotland's salary.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: That is so.
    Sir W. MENZIES: Should I be allowed to discuss the general question of education on this Vote?
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: There are a number of Votes down on the Paper, and any subject relating to those special Votes can be discussed when they come before the Committee.
    Sir W. MENZIES:Is there a Vote down for education and for the Registrar-General.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: Certainly, if the hon. Member will look at the Order Paper he will see on page 15 exactly which Votes are set down for consideration today.
    Mr. PIRIE: It seems to me, Mr. Whitley, with all due respect to your ruling, that there is some relation between the House Letting Bill and the negligent action of the Secretary for Scotland—
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I have already ruled that that subject cannot be discussed in Committee of Supply.
    Mr. PIRIE: On a point of Order. May I put this before you—
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: It is not a matter of administration; it is a matter of the arrangement of the business of the House which is not in the control of the Secretary of State for Scotland.
    Mr. PIRIE: I want respectfully to put this before you: Can I call your attention to the neglect of Scotch business arising from the non-presence of the Secretary for Scotland in this House. That is the great fault we have to find with the present Administration.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I think the hon. Member has been long enough in this House to remember that many previous attempts have been made to raise questions of that kind in Committee of

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    Supply, but always without success. It is not in order to raise them in Committee of Supply.
    Mr. MORTON: If we cannot complain of the Secretary of State for Scotland not introducing legislation to put the law in order, may I ask what is the good of him at all?
    Mr. WHITEHOUSE: I desire to discuss very briefly two points with regard to which action might be taken by the Secretary for Scotland, and the matter of the Secretary's action with regard to the housing provisions that prevail, particularly in the mining towns and mining districts of Scotland. I shall not labour those conditions now. My colleagues are well aware of them, and I am quite sure both the Secretary of State and the Lord Advocate are also well aware of the conditions under which so many people have to live. Those conditions are extremely disgraceful. They mean that a great number of men, women, and children of Scotland are living under conditions which cannot possibly make for a healthy life. When we come to consider the solution of this very great difficulty, it is not so easy to speak definitely, but I suggest the Secretary for Scotland might do a great deal more in putting pressure upon the local authorities responsible in order to ensure that the existing law, now so flagrantly violated, is duly observed. Some amusement, I think, was created not long ago by the Clause in the Coal Mines Regulation Bill which provided for what has been described as compulsory baths. The people chiefly responsible for the housing conditions to which I am calling attention are the people who control and, in some cases own, the collieries. The houses are provided very often by the proprietors of the collieries, and in the case of companies they are working at a considerable profit. There is not even the excuse of poverty to justify the houses which are provided, and we have examples in this country and in the south showing that the housing conditions in mining districts may be adequate, healthy, and even beautiful. I do not labour this matter further, except to urge the Lord Advocate to apply much more pressure upon local authorities, and to endeavour to secure obedience to two principles: First, the principle of a minimum amount of accommodation, and, secondly, the principle of a minimum number of persons to the rooms provided.
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    Under the existing law the Lord Advocate has most of the power he requires in order to bring to an end some of the graver scandals that at present exist in the mining districts of Scotland.
    I pass to the other administrative point on which I should be grateful for some information. It has reference to the enforcement of the Employment of Children Act of 1903. Under that Act the duty was placed upon local authorities to adopt bylaws regulating the employment to which children of school age might be sent, and the conditions under which they might be employed whilst being also liable and required to attend school. The Lord Advocate is well aware that a Departmental Committee has recently inquired into that Act and has published its Report, accompanied by the evidence. That Act, particularly in Scotland—I daresay it is true also with regard to other parts of the country—has been very largely a dead letter. Very few public authorities have troubled to make the by-laws they have the power to make under the Act, but what is equally serious is that where these bylaws have been made they have been very largely a dead letter, and the local authorities have not troubled to carry them out, with the result that to-day in Glasgow and in many other places in Scotland little children are being used in improper forms of employment during the long evenings and early mornings. The statutory provisions of the Act which prohibit the employment of children in any sort of occupation are constantly disregarded, and match-selling and street trading generally are carried on in Glasgow by little children under the age of eleven. I submit this is a disgrace to any nation, and I submit with great respect it is a matter which calls for instant action on the part of the Secretary for Scotland and the Lord Advocate. I am well aware of the difficulties of action, but I do make this appeal to the Lord Advocate, believing it is an appeal with which he will entirely sympathise.
    Mr. AINSWORTH: I hope to strictly adhere to the rule you have laid down that we are to discuss at present, merely the salary of the Secretary for Scotland, and that what we have to concern ourselves with is what he has done, or what he has left undone. I hope I shall be able to do that without transgressing your ruling. I want thoroughly to confirm the view taken by the hon. Member for Sutherland that the treatment of Scotch business in this House is largely due, and must be largely

    1249
    due, to the interest and the charge taken by the Secretary in the advancement of the procedure of that business. The Secretary for Scotland is the only Member of the Cabinet we have representing Scotland, and therefore Scotch business is entirely under his charge. I think there I am not only quite right, but I am keeping strictly within the rule you have laid down. There were two Bills on the paper last night, one for Ireland and one for Scotland—
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The hon. Gentleman is going back to the matter I have already ruled on. The arrangement of business in the House is not in the control of the Secretary for Scotland, and it is is not in order to discuss that matter in Committee of Supply.
    Mr. AINSWORTH: Surely the Secretary for Scotland is a Member of the Cabinet, and surely the Cabinet arranges the, business of the House. I will, however, just leave the fact to speak for itself, and I sincerely hope that fact by this time is beginning to be thoroughly appreciated. It will have been noticed, though we wish to criticise the action of the Secretary for Scotland, nobody has ventured to move a reduction of his salary. I will tell you why. It is because that salary is far too small. He is paid a miserable £2,000, while the Secretary for Ireland gets much nearer £5,000—I believe £4,000—and every other Front Bench man in charge of a Department gets £5,000. How can we expect Scotch business to be well transacted when our representative, the only Cabinet Minister, I think, who is the representative of a kingdom, is paid in this way? Most of the Scotch officials are paid at the same rate, and get very much less than the officials of other Departments. [An HON. MEMBER: "What about the Lord Advocate?"] We do not think the Lord Advocate can be too highly paid. The reason is because a sovereign is supposed to go twice as far in Scotland as anywhere else, and because we spend so economically that we are supposed to be able to do with less money than people in any other part of His Majesty's dominions. I want to draw attention to the present condition of what I may call the business machinery of Scotland. The Secretary for Scotland is far too lowly paid, and has far too much to do. The result is the business of Scotland falls into the hands of Boards, which, though nominally responsible to him, are really responsible
    1250
    to nobody but themselves, and our only way of bringing ourselves into touch with those Boards is by addressing a question to the Secretary for Scotland, who is not here to answer.
    5.0 P.M.
    The business for Scotland is in what I may call a ridiculous and absurd condition, and, before we vote his salary, we should see if the machinery of Scotch business cannot be improved to some extent. I should like to suggest that the position and power and capability of the Congested Districts Board for Scotland might be improved by simply extending its powers over the whole of the crofter parishes of Scotland. If the Secretary for Scotland would only make the powers of the Congested Districts Board co-terminus with the territories under the control of the Crofter Commission, he would do an immense work for the Highlands of Scotland. Is there no way in which we can bring the other Boards more under the authority of the House of Commons? The Fishery Board is in a peculiar position. The House may be, but perhaps it is not, aware that for England there is a Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, but for Scotland it is only the Board of Agriculture. If the Fishery Authority of Scotland could be thrown in with the Agricultural Authority you might have a Board of Agriculture and Fisheries exactly as you have for England. The same Board would control Scotland as in England, having the same authority and the same area. If we were to do that, we should be able to claim an Under-Secretary, sitting in this House to be responsible for the business of agriculture and fisheries in Scotland, whom any Member of the House could approach at any moment on matters affecting these two most important questions for Scotland. That is a very small reform which could be carried out with a minimum of trouble, and if it required the assent of the House, I am sure that would be given without any question at all. I would also like to refer to another point which, if the Secretary of State for Scotland would take it up, would improve the business of Scotland and the business on Scotland in this House. At present Scottish Bills go to a Scottish Grand Committee. Every Grand Committee has to be a reflection of the House of Commons. Fortunately or unfortunately, at present the Liberal Members for Scotland are in a large majority. The result is that when the Grand Committee is constituted upstairs, you have a

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    large proportion of Scottish Liberal Members and a very small proportion of Scottish Conservative Members. To bring the Conservative Members up to their proper number, you have to bring in a number of English Conservative Members. I venture to say that on such questions as Scottish Land and Scottish Education, which are the two principal matters which have been before the Scottish Grand Committees in the last two Sessions of Parliament, English Members have neither the knowledge nor the experience which enables them to deal with those questions. What I suggest is, that we should increase the number of Scottish Conservatives available for Scottish Grand Committees, and that instead of putting in English Conservative Members of the House of Commons, we should put in Scottish Conservative Members of the House of Lords.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: That seems to be a proposal for amending the Standing Orders, which must be raised on another occasion, to say nothing about its being an alteration of both Houses of Parliament.
    Mr. AINSWORTH: I can only say that Scottish business would be infinitely better done under these circumstances than it can possibly be done under the existing rules. I must apologise if I trespassed on the rules of order. I think you will allow that the circumstances have not been made easy for us to discuss these questions which are of importance to us, and we are entitled to bring them before the Committee when we can.
    Mr. MUNRO-FERGUSON: I hope I shall not be transgressing the rules of order if I venture to express the hope that before the end of the Session we shall have another day set down for Scottish Estimates, when we can effectively discuss them. No doubt valuable ends will be served by our discussion to-day, but it is necessary to have the right of dividing if we are to deal with the questions effectively. I wish to deal with one or two questions in regard to the Boards which my hon. Friend (Mr. Ainsworth) touched upon. The Fishery Board is not one which has commanded any great degree of public confidence in Scotland for many years past. I understand its composition has recently been improved, but it would add to the public confidence in that Board if an advisory committee of practical fishermen and others were appointed,
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    whom the Board could consult. It is supposed, rightly or wrongly, not to be sufficiently in touch with national requirements and feeling, and I suggest that the appointment of an advisory committee would remedy that. With respect to the Local Government Board, I should like some information as to what provision has been made to deal with the great town-planning schemes which will now come under it. The Bill giving Dunfermline 4,000 acres of land and a new Admiralty site to control, is exactly one of those examples of town planning for which great preparations have been made by the English Local Government Board. The control of the central authority in town planning is really the lynch-pin of the whole undertaking. I am not satisfied that adequate provision has yet been made in Scotland. I have had some information furnished to me which shows that the Local Government Board is not sufficiently staffed to deal with great undertakings of this kind. Unless you have an exceptionally competent local authority, the only security for the proper carrying out of these undertakings lies in the control of the central authority. The Congested Districts Board has been referred to in glowing terms—perhaps too glowing—by the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Cathcart Wason). I have been informed on credible authority that the Board never meets, and one would really like to know whether it has ever met, and who is really responsible for the work of that Board. If I have to deal with the Scottish Education Department, I know perfectly well who I am dealing with; but if I am dealing with the Congested Districts Board, I have not the ghost of an idea. One should know who is responsible for the large works carried on by this Board. There is one general question which I should like to raise; it is whether the Scottish Office has given attention to the whole question of the great growth of local taxation and its incidence in Scotland. There is the question of the police pay and clothing. I am certain of this, that from personal recollection of the time when the matter was discussed, it was never for one moment contemplated that the proportion paid by the Government for the police pay and clothing allowances would fall from 50 to 37 per cent., as it is now. That is regarded by every local authority as an abominable state of things. It is the real obstacle to getting local authorities to agree to pro-

    1253
    viding the weekly holiday for the police. That, amongst other points under this head, is a matter of which I should be grateful for some further information from the Government. The Burgh of which I am the municipal head is against the Bill simply and solely on that ground, but the Burgh I represent is in favour of it, but under the strongest protestation against so small a receipt for the cost of the pay of the police. From every local authority in Scotland there has come a complaint of the addition to the rates to be imposed by the teachers' pensions; that is another item. There, again, I am sure that educational efficiency, as the police efficiency in the other case, will be weakened unless these just claims are attended to by the Scottish Office, and further grants obtained. There are one or two minor points I wish to refer to. Considerable pressure is being exercised by medical officers in Scotland. They have had small-pox hospitals built here, there, and everywhere. That is the result of the semi-abolition of vaccination in Scotland. I am one of those who think that the practice of vaccination ought to be encouraged. I do not think that sufficient encouragement is given to it. If the practice of vaccination were to die out, as it is rapidly doing in many parts of Scotland now, the community would be put to enormous expense in regard to small-pox hospitals. The very best of county and burgh medical officers are putting great pressure on local authorities to provide sufficient hospital accommodation, and I am not sure that it is not the view of the Local Government Board also, that further provisions should be made. I sincerely trust that no occasion for these buildings will arise, but if the whole country is to be subjected to this scourge such provisions should exist. That expenditure is the result of the policy of this House, but I question the advisability of putting it on the local authorities, who are not responsible for the policy. With regard to Poor Law buildings, pressure is being put on local authorities to increase them, but with the old age pensions and with the Insurance Bill now before the House and with other provisions made by Parliament, there should not be any pressure put upon local authorities at present to spend the ratepayers' money upon the extension of Poor Law buildings. Of course, the whole question of rates still remains in certain parishes of Scotland. For instance, the Lewis rates are over 20s. in the £; that is a serious case, it is an absolute barrier to
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    any new industries coming into the district in the face of such rates as those. I do not think that point has been sufficiently appreciated, but I should be glad to know if the Scottish Office has really given its attention to, and taken a comprehensive view of the whole incidence of local taxation in Scotland. There is a question connected with licensing which I hope will have the attention of the Secretary for Scotland. Formerly, within my own county of Fife, public-houses were closed upon certain holidays. That was done by general agreement; one district of the county opened its public-houses on these holidays, and under the inspiration of the Noble Lord opposite (Lord Ninian Crichton-Stuart) another district followed its example. That introduced a great confusion as between different districts, and makes it possible to open public-houses in all neighbouring districts, which is quite contrary to public sentiment. I brought this question before the Secretary for Scotland, and he allowed the licensing authority of this district to open their houses, he having the power to refuse. But I do think that the whole question is one that should be considered, and that it is one upon which we should know the mind of the Government. I would, therefore, ask the Lord Advocate to deal with the matter, and I would also ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he has yet any information in regard to the Report of the Royal Commission on the Registration of Titles. That Report bears upon the question of the transfer of houses and small lots of land. It bears also upon tenure, and in many villages on the Moray Firth a system is common under which it seems impossible to give a proper tenure. A good deal, therefore, depends upon this question of registration of titles in order to give a cheap and easy transfer of small houses and small parcels of land. The Commission took a good deal of trouble about it, and I hope the Government may take some trouble about it also. In addition to what I have already said, there are one or two points in regard to which I promised to ask for information. One is whether something can be done towards giving an allowance in regard to the salaries of the officers engaged in the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. They are a most important part of our social organisation, and the work that they do is admirable. Most of the officers are greatly overworked in regard to purposes of charity organisation, as well as of securing good treatment of the children;

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    and I do not know of any better social work than that which is being done by the officers of this society. Those are some of the points upon which I desire information, and I hope we may have some expression of opinion from the Government.
    Mr. HUNT: I wish to call the attention of the Lord Advocate to the affairs of the Island of Benbecula, and I wish to point out that there are certain things which could be done by the Secretary for Scotland for which money has been provided by Parliament, and which want doing very badly indeed, and which I think should be done as soon as they conveniently can be. In the first place, lights are very badly wanted at Petersport, in the island of Benbecula. Then again last year the Secretary for Scotland made an arrangement with Mr. McBrayne, who carries the mails, that his mail steamships should stop at Petersport once a week to take in cargo and passengers. This practice has been given up this year, and the consequence is that the people of Benbecula have no means of getting to the steamship in order to get away from the island, however much they may want to do so, unless they travel over a very rough road and over an arm of the sea for about twenty miles whichever way they go. Last year, after this arrangement was made in the month of August, in spite of it, Messrs. McBrayne missed calling one week, although there were a lot of people waiting for the steamer according to this arrangement made by the Secretary for Scotland. The firm never even wired to say they were not going to call, and in consequence the people who were there, including women and children, had to walk back to their homes over rough roads and arms of the sea at a late hour. The Secretary for Scotland was told about this—indeed, he was telegraphed to—but he took no notice.
    I think some action should be taken in the matter, because these people broke their contract in not sending the steamer. Moreover, the meal bags which were on board for the island were got at by the rats, which ate the meal, and the people lost a lot of money. It is all very well for the right hon. Gentleman the Lord Advocate to laugh, but I have no doubt that if it had been his meal bags that were eaten the laugh would have been on the other side of his mouth. There has been an arrangement of this kind in the past, and the people are very anxious
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    that they should have a chance once a week of getting away from the Island by steamer, and I therefore ask the right hon. Gentleman whether that could not be arranged. I have applied to the Postmaster-General about it, and he said he could not do it, on account of the expense, and referred me to the Secretary for Scotland. That is why I venture to put this question on the present vote. May I say that on the Island of Barra, which is the same size as Benbecula, there are two ports at which steamers call, and the Secretary for Scotland has spent a lot of money on Barra but nothing on Benbecula. All that the people of the latter island ask for is to have a light put up at Petersport, so that the mail steamers can call and deliver and embark passengers and goods. At present all the parcels for the Island get smashed because they are left twenty miles off and they are always a day late. The Postmaster-General is willing to allow these boats to call there and deliver letters if the Secretary of Scotland will find money for this purpose of a light out of the £35,000 a year which he gets from the Congested Districts Board, one of the objects of which he to improve the communications of the Outer Hebrides. Some of this money ought to be applied to these services, and considering that the two Islands are about the same size I think the right hon. Gentleman might do this small thing for the people of Benbecula. The right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster-General told me that I must apply to the Secretary for Scotland on the matter, and I accordingly do so.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN (Mr. George Younger): I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but I do not think the Secretary for Scotland has anything to do with the lights, and I think therefore that this would arise on the Lord Advocate's salary.
    Mr. ROBERT HARCOURT: As points of Order are being raised, may I ask you, Sir—with great respect and with congratulations, which I am sure will be joined in from all quarters of the Committee—by what precise procedure you, who are not on the Chairman's panel, occupy the Chair? I do not object to the arrangement, but on the point of Order, may I ask you to explain to the Committee the procedure under which it was effected?
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The only explanation I can give to the hon. Member

    1257
    is that the Chairman of Committees asked me to take his place here, and said he had the power to do so.
    Sir JOHN DEWAR: Are not these lights under the jurisdiction of the Fishery Board?
    Mr. HUNT: The reason I rose to ask questions on this subject was because the Postmaster-General referred me to the Secretary for Scotland, and I have very little more to say except that I think that something at all events should be done about this matter. I should like, in conclusion, however, to remind the Lord Advocate that the people of Benbecula furnish a lot of soldiers and sailors to His Majesty's Army and Navy, and moreover they are a very decent and law-abiding people, whilst other people who have a tremendous lot of money lavished upon them hardly ever send a man into His Majesty's Forces. I hope, as I have been allowed to bring this matter forward, that the Lord Advocate will consider it and we shall get something done, at all events before next year. I understand a right hon. Gentleman on the other side of the House is also going to bring this matter forward, and I trust he will do so, and more effectively than I have done.
    Mr. WILKIE: May I be permitted to say in a few words, Sir, that I am pleased to see you in the Chair. For a number of years we had one of your predecessors in that Chair, and I think you will admit that he served the House very well, though not perhaps so well as you are doing at the present time. I wish to join with my right hon. Friend the Member for Leith in the complaint that he addressed to the House, that we Members for Scotland do not receive the attention which we deserve. We are told it is because there are so many Scottish Members if not Scotchmen in the Government, and if that is so I do urge the Government this afternoon to seriously consider some of the complaints which have been put forward. The one which I would like to emphasise is that in connection with the pay and conditions of service of the Police Force in Scotland. South of the Tweed they are much better paid than they are in Scotland, and I have received several complaints and resolutions from my Constituents on the subject. Our police are being deprived of the benefit which this House gave of one day's rest in seven, and it is complained that the councils are not getting the fair treatment that their
    1258
    colleagues in other parts of the country are receiving, and that we are causing this extra expense to be placed on the ratepayers of the town, and consequently those town councils are somewhat adverse from giving them what they would otherwise do. I think they are entitled to equal remuneration for their labour, and to an equal superannuation. We know the Lord Advocate's strong opinion on some of these matters, and all that we ask him to do is to urge on the Government that in these matters we shall get equal justice and equal right with the southern part of the country. We heard from the hon. Member opposite that vaccination was dying out. I am very pleased to hear that statement. It again shows the forward state of opinion in Scotland, because the theory of the Vaccination Acts has entirely exploded, and has not been carrying out what it proposed. It has never been proved that this has been the means of keeping down small-pox. The hon. Member (Mr. Barnes) referred to the House-Letting Bill. I think the representatives of the workers in Scotland have a cause of complaint. We are not blaming the Government for the delay which has occurred, and I am not going to blame the Opposition, but I should like them to consider its provisions favourably. I fail to see again why the workers of Scotland should not have the same privileges and the same accommodation in shifting from place to place as they have in England.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I really must carry out the decision of the Chairman of Committees. I do not think I can allow the hon. Member to discuss the matter further.
    Mr. WILKIE: I thought I was within the limits in discussing this part equally as hon. Members have been in discussing the other parts. I fail to see any difference in the matter. Seeing that we are having an opportunity of virtually creating a new town at Rosyth, I hope the Town-planning Act will be put into force, and will be taken advantage of, and that instead of building another town of slums we shall have a city worthy of the name. Instead of requiring in the future insurance associations to keep the workers alive when they are sick, we want provision made to prevent sickness. We want not cure, but prevention, and if we had the bulk of the slums of the cities done away with there would be less call on the Bill. I trust that the Scottish Office will consider the points which have been

    1259
    placed before them, and if the Scottish Members have not been so militant as others in certain quarters I hope it will not be assumed that we are not equally earnest in the interests of those whom we represent.
    Sir HENRY CRAIK: The hon. Member appears as an out-and-out opponent of Vaccination. Scientific opinion has hardly reached the high point which the hon. Member has attained, and, unfortunately for the medical profession, universities have subscribed to opinions exactly opposite. I have received numerous communications from doctors all over Scotland as to the alarm that is fast seizing the profession as to the threatening cloud which will burst on the country sooner or later. I know as a fact that the medical authorities and the Local Government Board itself have felt this so strongly that warnings have been expressed as to the necessity of being prepared for an epidemic. That is a very serious question indeed. I should like to refer to a circular issued not long ago, which assumed a new form when it was last issued. The Secretary for Scotland may have feelings of his own, approaching, perhaps, somewhat more nearly than some of us would like to those of the hon. Member (Mr. Wilkie). If he allows these personal opinions by one hair's-breadth to affect his administration of the Vaccination Acts he is guilty of what I believe is a very serious dereliction of duty.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I am very sorry again to interfere, but I am afraid this comes under another Vote. There is a special Vote for the Local Government Board, under which questions relating to vaccination can be discussed, and I am afraid it is not possible to discuss them on the Vote of the Secretary for Scotland.
    Sir HENRY CRAIK: The Chairman did not stop a previous speaker who referred at considerable length to this question. But, apart from the Local Government Board altogether, I am speaking of the conduct of the Secretary for Scotland.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: Yes, but the question arises directly on the Vote of the Local Government Board for Scotland. I think there can be no doubt it does not arise on this Vote at all.
    Sir HENRY CRAIK: Another point I should like to refer to arises under the
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    Education Act of 1908. Under Section 16, Sub-section (d), the Secretary for Scotland is directed to make certain payments to the University of Scotland out of the Educational Fund, which is a large fund established by the Act. The Secretary for Scotland has powers over it distinct from those of the Education Department, and under this Sub-section he is empowered and directed to make certain payments to the Universities in addition to any sums otherwise payable to them under the Act. He is directed to appoint a special committee and to have special inquiries made and to make this grant. Surely he is not carrying out this direction by making no grant at all. It no doubt rests in his discretion to say what is the amount of the grant after he has made these inquiries through the Committee, but how he can carry out the directions at all if he makes neither a large nor a small grant I do not know. We fully discussed the matter when the Education Act was under consideration, and I, on behalf of a University, consider that the Secretary for Scotland has distinctly deprived the Universities of a certain sum which is due to them. His action must be to some extent affected by the fact that when grants were made to England and Wales a grant from the Treasury was made to the Universities of Scotland. But that had nothing to do with this grant under the Education Act. The Sub-section says expressly:—
    "The Secretary for Scotland is to make payment to the University for Scotland in addition to any sum otherwise payable to them under any Act."
    The fact that they had a right and established their right to a grant from the Treasury did not lessen or do away in the very smallest degree with their right to claim from the Secretary for Scotland this grant under the Education Act. I demand an explanation of the reason why the Secretary for Scotland has omitted this bounden duty laid upon him by the Education Act, and has cut out the Universities altogether from sharing, as they are entitled to share, under the Education Act of 1908.
    Sir JOHN DEWAR: I should like to join the hon. Member opposite who brought to the notice of the Lord Advocate the question of the harbour and pier. The pier has been erected at great cost, which was greatly contributed to from the Congested Districts Boards Fund and also in the form of labour from the inhabitants

    1261
    themselves. For long this pier had no access to it by land or sea, but ultimately it became accessible to vessels trading in the West Highlands during the summer months, but during the winter months vessels cannot enter owing to the want of lights to guide them into this somewhat difficult harbour. The Congested Districts Board has spent a large sum on the harbour, and it is a great pity that we should not complete it and make it accessible at all times of the year and all states of the tide by making the additional payment which is necessary. I believe the sum required is very considerable, and the Congested Districts Board have hitherto rather hesitated to spend the large sum necessary for completing the work. I would urge the necessity of taking the work in hand and having the harbour completed. It is of the greatest importance that this should be done, and the question is one which appeals very much to the inhabitants of the district.
    Another subject which I wish to bring to the notice of the Lord Advocate is the condition of affairs at Mallaig, at the end of the West Highland Railway. That railway has been the means of developing a very important trade in that part of Scotland, but for some reason the harbour there is not made as much use of as it might be. I wish to direct the Lord Advocate's attention to the condition of several of the houses which were built there for the accommodation of fishermen. There were 28 or 30 houses built there in a great hurry and occupied by fishermen. When the fishing season is at its height there is a great influx of workers, and the condition of the houses then is more or less a public scandal. The County Council have taken the matter in hand and investigated it, and they have applied to the Congested Districts Board for a grant towards the building of decent houses for the people. Lord Lovat offered ground at a very nominal sum to erect houses upon, but the Congested Districts Board refused the offer. I do not know that any reasons have been given for their so doing, but the result is that the County Council have been compelled to declare the houses uninhabitable, and to call for their being removed within six months. If that order is put in execution, the condition of affairs will be serious indeed. I think it is a pity that the Congested Districts Board have not dealt with the Matter, for it is one of great importance as affecting the health of the people and the development of the port.
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    I wish also to refer to the condition of the harbour at that place. A very large sum was spent on the construction of the railway, and the Government gave a guarantee for a large portion of the cost. It has been a means of developing the district. Part of the bargain with the railway company was that a breakwater was to be constructed at Mallaig, and if completed within a certain time the Government undertook to pay £30,000. The breakwater was not made in the time stipulated, and without it the harbour is of comparatively little use. It is not only inconvenient to the district, but sometimes it is positively dangerous. I believe there is great fishing in that district. There were twenty or thirty steam drifters in the district, and they landed great catches of fish. Sometimes 1,300 or 1,400 crans of fish were landed at the harbour at great inconvenience and, under certain conditions, great risk. The construction of the breakwater should be proceeded with, at once. I would appeal to the representatives of the Government to use their friendly offices to induce the railway company to complete the breakwater. It would have a very beneficial effect, not only in providing for the convenience of that district, but of the whole of the Western Highlands. There is no reason at all why the mails for the Western Highlands and Islands should not go, to some extent, by Mallaig. That would make a difference of several hours, and would be a great advantage to the travelling public. I hope the Lord Advocate will be able to give favourable consideration to these matters.
    Lord NINIAN CRICHTON-STUART: I would like to endorse the appeal which was made a few minutes ago by the hon. Member for Mid-Lanark (Mr. Whitehouse) on the question of the housing accommodation of the coal-mining class in Scotland. The Secretary for Scotland has certain absolute and direct powers under the Public Health Act, and also Under the Acts which deal with the local authorities, to see that people are accommodated in a manner suitable to the requirements of good health, and suitable also for providing that class with the comfort which they ought to have. I know it would be entirely wrong to go even so far as the hon. Member for Mid-Lanark did on the question, as there is a Bill being considered by a Committee upstairs at the present time. The question is not so much one with respect to the size of

    1263
    houses and the number of rooms in them as a question of the number of individuals who live in each room. There are rules carefully laid down under the Public Health Act which the Secretary for Scotland is bound by his position to deal with. These are matters of great moment, because if you take certain coalfields you find that the conditions are deplorable at the present time. We must look to the future, and consider the health of the children who are brought up under the conditions which now prevail—conditions which, if investigated by anyone, would be regarded as absolutely astounding. I hope that the point which was raised by the hon. Member for the Leith Burghs with respect to the local authorities will be carefully taken up and seen to by the Secretary for Scotland. That is a matter in which I myself and a large number of those with whom I sit on the county council in Fife are very interested, namely, the compulsory notification of disease. If questions like small-pox and vaccination are dealt with by the public authorities, surely the matter to which the hon. Member referred should also receive attention. It is one which has for many years been receiving the careful consideration of members of the medical profession and many others. I mean the question of the tubercular harm that may be done to the population by not taking adequate precautions. I would like to touch upon the point referred to by the hon. Member for Argyllshire (Mr. Ainsworth) as to the Scottish Committee upstairs. I submit that there are a good many of us on this side of the House who, although we may sit for Welsh or English constituencies, know a great deal more about Scotland than in many cases hon. Members who sit for Scotland. Perhaps if we were asked sometimes to come in and assist in the deliberations of the Committee, Scottish business in this House might get on a little better.
    Mr. PRICE: I understand although there are put down for consideration four Votes, it is practically on the second that we can really state any points. I wish to say that unless we get a guarantee from the Lord Advocate that another day will be allowed for the discussion of the Scottish Estimates, I am afraid a good many subjects which we are anxious to raise will be lost sight of. The hon. Member for the Leith Burghs (Mr. Munro-Ferguson) referred to Rosyth. Many people in
    1264
    that district have been greatly concerned that the land which has been bought by the Admiralty should not be disposed of. I have seen the First Lord of the Admiralty, the Junior Lord, and the Secretary to the Admiralty regarding this matter, and they say that they have no plans or offices at the place, or men who could do anything in regard to the laying out of the district of Rosyth, and accordingly they are disposed to sell the land. I think it would be a great calamity if the Admiralty disposed of any land, and more particularly with that which might be required for the purposes of the Admiralty at some other time. I think the Secretary for Scotland should enter into negotiation with the Admiralty to take over the land they do not immediately want, and place it under the Local Government Board for Scotland. We should then reserve for ourselves the complete use of the land, and we should be able to see a town erected there worthy of what I would call a model city.
    May I suggest to the Lord Advocate that a circular should be issued to the different districts of Scotland calling attention to the high death rate among infants? Many people have been concerned to see the small increase in the population of Scotland during the last decade. Many can give an explanation of that, but the fact remains that the small increase that has taken place in the birth rate of Scotland has caused very great concern. I would suggest that the Secretary for Scotland should call attention to the very great percentage of deaths occurring among children under the age of twelve months. It has been very gratifying to see the enormous reduction that has taken place in the death rate all over Scotland, and particularly in the large towns, during the last thirty years. Anyone who examines the figures must be impressed with the fact that the medical officers of health have exercised their powers with very great effect, and accordingly we have an enormous reduction in the death rate. But I regret to say that there has been a very small reduction in the death rate as regards infants under twelve months. Dundee, for instance, stands at 107 per 1,000, which is appalling; Glasgow, a very much larger place, stands at 121; Aberdeen at 112; and Edinburgh at 111. I am glad to see that in Aberdeen, where three or four years ago the average stood rather higher, the medical officer of

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    health has devoted a great deal of attention to the matter, and there has been a reduction in the death rate. If the Secretary for Scotland would issue a circular calling the attention of local authorities to what can be done in the matter of improving health conditions, I believe that would exercise a very great influence on the different authorities. Undoubtedly in Dundee the condition of things is accounted for by the condition of the working people. I do not know any place where less attention has been paid to the matter than in Dundee. It is a serious fact, in view of the reduction of the birth rate, that something should not be done to reduce the death rate of infants under twelve months.
    6.0 P.M.
    I wish to ask the Lord Advocate whether he can give the Committee any information regarding the proposed extension of the museum in Edinburgh. The officer who has charge of the works in Edinburgh has done everything he can, but still he wants a very much greater extension of the museum than we have had. I am glad to see that a new director has been appointed. In a conversation which I had with him the other day he reiterated what had been said by the previous director, namely, that it is impossible to display the admirable collection they have owing to the crowded condition under which the museum exists. Therefore, if we can get any further grant for the extension of the museum, I am sure we will be most thankful. Another matter to which I would like to refer is the condition of the King's Park, Edinburgh. We all know the enormous amount of money that is spent on the parks in London, and we greatly rejoice to see it. Anyone coming to St. James's Park, finds it a constant delight; but I think that something more could be done to make the condition of the King's Park, Edinburgh much more worthy of the capital of Scotland, than it is at the present time. Those who are familiar with the Phœnix Park in Dublin know perfectly well that that is also a park of which any country might well be proud. The King's Park, having in it Arthur's Seat and many other features, which you will scarcely find near any other capital in Europe, can, I am assured by those who know, be made, if more money is spent on it, one of the most lovely parks that you could have in any portion of the British Isles; some parts of it at the present time look more or less like a wilderness. I trust, therefore, some
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    additional money will be spent on this park, so as to make it worthy of the capital of Scotland.
    Mr. WATT: I beg to move that Item "A" be reduced by £1,000, in respect of the salary of the Secretary for Scotland. I am more than surprised that my colleagues from Scotland in discussing this Vote, which includes the salary of the Secretary for Scotland, have so far omitted to move a reduction. I now move that the salary be reduced by £1,000, because of the treatment which Scotland is getting and for which the Secretary for Scotland is fully responsible. It is the duty of the Secretary for Scotland to fight for our country in the Cabinet, and to assert the rights of Scotland to the time of this House, and to a consideration for its Bills in this House. Instead of doing that satisfactorily we all know how we are treated. Last night we were done out of the House Letting Bill. I understand that the Opposition had threatened that they would talk on the Irish Bill if the House Letting Bill for Scotland was insisted on. Immediately the Government, influenced by the Secretary for Scotland, held out the white flag, and the result is that Glasgow and the cities of Scotland are deprived of the House Letting Bill.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I would be glad if the hon. Member would kindly keep to the point. It is not in order to talk like that.
    Mr. WATT: I obey your ruling, especially as I have finished that subject. Having finished that subject, I pass on to one that is in order, and that is the extraordinary position in which we are placed to-day of having to discuss the Scottish Estimates after the holidays have started. We are told by old Parliamentarians that such a condition of affairs has never been known before in the history of man. After the Adjournment has been moved, and the majority of Members have gone to enjoy the sunshine and the salt sea breeze, we are left here to discuss with great difficulty, because of the rulings of the Chair, the affairs of our nation, and not only have we to-day to discuss them in this unprecedented fashion, but to-morrow in order to get some legislation we have again to put in an appearance so as to pass the Small Landholders (Scotland) Bill. The Secretary for Scotland, I venture to think, is to blame for that. It is his duty to assert the rights of our country, and to get a full share of time

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    for Scotland. We have another disadvantage in the fact that our Secretary is sitting in the Peers.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I am afraid I must ask the hon. Member to respect the ruling of the Chair; and further I must ask him not to discuss the question, which he is now discussing, in the way in which he is doing.
    Mr. WATT: In the way of the Secretary for Scotland being a Peer?
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: No.
    Mr. WATT: It has been said that the Peer is an ordinary man spoiled. He started as an ordinary man, but, in the process of life, he was spoiled; so our Secretary for Scotland no doubt has undergone a deterioration since he went to the House of Lords, and instead of the affairs of Scotland being managed as well as when he was in the Commons, I believe they are managed worse since he became a member of the other august assembly. But these things apart I wish to draw the attention of the Committee to one or two things in which I think the Secretary for Scotland has been thoroughly remiss in his action. We have appointed a committee of experts to deal with the financial relations of Ireland and the United Kingdom with a view to the question of Home Rule being brought in. What I want to ask is, why did Scotland not have a committee on that point? Why did the Secretary for Scotland not institute a committee to consider the financial relations of Scotland and England, so that when the Home Rule All Round Bill comes in next Session, Scotland would be in a position to know precisely the financial relations that exist between it and England? In that respect, I venture to think the Secretary for Scotland has been remiss in his duty. Another point to which I would like to call attention is one on which I have put several questions in this House, namely, reclaiming of the land from the sea at Greenock.
    The Corporation of Greenock are emptying their ashes into the sea at Cardwell Bay, and thus there has been reclaimed from the sea a considerable portion of land. This reclamation has actually been going on for something like 35 years and the extraordinary thing is, that as fast as the land is reclaimed into the possession of the landowners, it is
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    re-sold to the Government. The reclaimed land has been re-sold as the site of the torpedo factory at a price of £27,200. This is still going on. The sea as we know is under the protection of the Board of Trade, and the Corporation of Greenock is under the Local Government Board; so you have this extraordinary position, that you have one department of the Government, the Scotch Office, permitting the filching of the sea from another department, and a third department of the Government stepping in and buying that filched land at an exorbitant price. If that went on in any commercial concern in the country, bankruptcy would be reached in the space of a very few weeks, and yet the Scotch Office, which is asleep in these circumstances, permits the Corporation of Greenock to continue the process which has been going on so long. I have here an extract sent to me from the report of the Police Board of Greenock. It is an entry made in December, 1886, and it clearly indicates that as far back as that time the rubbish of Greenock was being used to make this land which is now the site of a torpedo factory, and has been reclaimed from the sea. If that state of affairs, having been brought to the attention of the Secretary for Scotland, does not in the opinion of the Scotch Office require a remedy, then I venture to think that the salary that is being paid to the Secretary for Scotland is too large, and should be reduced, and I beg to move accordingly that Item A be reduced by the sum of £1,000.
    Mr. ARTHUR ALLEN: I do not rise to support this somewhat drastic reduction of the Scotch Secretary's salary, but I want to draw his attention to one point, and that is the necessity which exists for following the example that has been set in England of appointing a Departmental Committee to inquire into the industrial and reformatory schools in Scotland. There has been no committee inquiring into those schools since the year 1896. The result of that committee was rather a curious one. Whilst the Scotch schools were transferred to the Scottish Office they were retained under the English inspectorate. That, I think, is not altogether a very satisfactory state of things. When I say, as is the fact, that on their inspectorate there is only one woman inspector who has to do the whole of England, Scotland, and Wales, and there is no whole-time medical inspector to do the whole of these schools and that the

    1269
    inspectorate generally is not a very large one, I am justified in saying that the time has come when a similar committee might be appointed to inquire into the schools of Scotland as is sitting at present in regard to the schools of England. It would be very unfortunate if the committee sitting on the English industrial and reformatory schools should produce its report without there being a similar inquiry or report produced with regard to the Scotch industrial schools. Of course the schools are of very great importance, having to deal with children and to train them in such a way that they will be in a position to earn a living when they leave school. I do think, therefore, that the matter is of very considerable importance, and I would urge the Secretary for Scotland at the earliest possible moment, to appoint a committee to inquire into those schools which exist in Scotland. I do want to emphasise the point which was raised just now by the hon. Member for Lanarkshire with regard to the administration of the Act relating to street trading by children. There is no doubt that street trading is a very prolific source of occupation amongst children in this country. If one reads the reports of the governors of prisons, and the reports by philanthropic people who are engaged in the work of reclaiming young people who have gone wrong, you will find that a very large proportion indeed of these young people have been engaged in street trading. The first step in connection with these children was the appointment of a committee, which made some recommendation on the subject; but I think that if the law as it at present exists were properly administered we should have a very much improved state of affairs. I ask the Lord Advocate to give his attention to the matter, and see whether something could not be done to screw up the different local authorities in Scotland to administer the Act in a proper way, and so do something to save the great waste of child life going on at the present moment.
    Mr. MORTON: I am glad to support my hon. Friend's Amendment for the reduction of the Vote. We were told early in the evening by my hon. Friend the Member for North Aberdeen (Captain D. V. Pirie) about some pledge that was given, but I know of no such arrangement at all. I do not personally blame the Secretary for Scotland at all, but it would be better if he were in this House that we might deal with him in an efficient manner. We
    1270
    have been told by Lord Pentland himself that he went to the House of Lords to look after Scottish affairs. What has been done? I hope the Lord Advocate will be able to answer that question, and tell us what has arisen out of that adventure and speculation. At any rate Scotland appears to me to be worse off than ever, and I quite agree with my hon. Friend about the neglect of Scottish affairs. Just look how we are treated to-day. The doings of the Congested Districts Board constitute perhaps the most important point we have to consider. We have not had their report, with the result that we cannot allow the vote of the Secretary for Scotland's salary to be taken to-night. We certainly must ask the Prime Minister to give us another day to consider the report of the Congested Districts Board. In the absence of that report, so far as I am concerned, the reduction of the vote by £1,900 rather than £1,000 would have been much more satisfactory. I do not want to complain of the Lord Advocate, but I suppose he represents the Scottish Office here, though I quite understand he has too much business of his own, without adding to it the work of the Secretary for Scotland. I suppose under the circumstances we are to depend upon the office boys for information. I see in the Estimates that there are four of these boys, at 15s. each. That information comes from the Treasury, instead of coming directly from the Secretary of Scotland.
    We have heard of the diminishing population in the rural districts of Scotland, and my complaint is against the bad administration of the Scottish Office, and the sooner we have a remedy of the existing state of things the better. As to the Congested Districts Board, it would appear not to exist. I had information given to me the other day that it has not met during the last few years. Of course, the Secretary for Scotland is really the Congested Districts Board, and he informs himself or does not inform himself of what ought or ought not to be done, and the result is generally that we get nothing done. I am speaking, as a matter of fact, with regard to Sutherland-shire. We have had nothing done by the Board in the Crofter Districts during the last five years. In fact, there has been less than nothing done. The previous Government did put on some steamers between Lochinver and some distance down the west coast, but when this Liberal Government came into power

    1271
    they took off the steamers, and we have not seen them since. Of course, I am personally aware that they have provided a sum of £35,000, but for some extraordinary reason which has never been explained—perhaps the Lord Advocate will try to explain it—most of that money has been expended in one county instead of in six counties. Where the influence comes in which induced the Congested Districts Board to spend this sum of money in one county I do not know. We have a right to claim that the amount should be distributed over the crofter districts. Of course, I should be out of order if I went into the land question, but I blame the Scottish Office a good deal for bad and loose administration. I do not know that it would make much difference if instead of reducing the Vote by a thousand pounds or nineteen hundred pounds we proposed to reduce it by the whole amount. If we had done that, and succeeded I do not know that it would have made very much difference in the administration of Scotland.
    It is all very well to get new Acts of Parliament and new laws, but, as Mr. Gladstone always told us, it was of no use having good laws unless we have good administration. And what we ask for is good administration in regard to Scotland, which is, after all, the best part of the United Kingdom. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] After all, Scotland is a most law-abiding part of the country. It is law-abiding and loyal, and it does its best for the whole country. Scottish men and Scottish women are known all over the world as being the most industrious and sympathetic people. Under these circumstances one would have thought that a Liberal Government would have tried to do something for them. We should not, however, have had to-day for the discussion of Scottish business, nor would we have got to-morrow for the consideration of the Land Bill if we had not forced the concession out of the Government. I do not know whether I should be in order in talking about the Development Board and the funds under its control, or about the Roads Board. However, everybody has been out of order to-day, and perhaps I shall come in along with the others. We have heard one hon. Gentleman discussing town planning, which comes under a separate Vote, and we have also had reference to the Fishery Board, which also comes under a separate Vote; and why I should not be allowed to go wrong along
    1272
    with the others I cannot understand. I believe, however, that the Roads Board is under the control of the Scottish Office as far as recommendations go. The complaint I wish to make is that when the Board make grants they put a fine upon the people of the district, county, or town, as the case may be, saying that they must pay so much out of the rates in addition to the grants being given to them. With regard to Sutherlandshire, they received a grant, and the condition was put on the council that they had to find a thousand pounds out of the rate, not for the upkeep of the roads, but for improvements.
    That means a rate in Sutherlandshire of 3d. in the pound. The road rate in Sutherlandshire is now 2s. 2d. in the pound, the highest of any county in Scotland. Therefore it does seem very unfair that the Scottish Office, or whoever is responsible for carying out the order of Parliament in giving these grants, should impose upon the inhabitants an increase of rates—rates which it is admitted are already too high. I hope the Scottish Office will try to look into that matter. I should also like to see something done to carry out such improvements as are necessary to prevent the depopulation of the rural parts of Scotland. One means would be tobacco-growing in Scotland. I am told that it would come under the Development Fund. I have to blame the Scottish Office in this matter, for they have not been nearly so strenuous in regard to it as has been the case in Ireland. The Irish tobacco-growing industry in Ireland is to receive £6,000 a year for five years, while Scotland has been refused a single penny, although it is notorious that Scotland pays a much higher percentage towards the general fund of the country than Ireland.
    Sir F. BANBURY: No.
    Mr. MORTON: The hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London knows a good deal about these matters, but he does not know everything. I shall be very happy to show him a return which we have got out, and which shows that a very much higher percentage is paid by Scotland towards the general fund of the country than by any other part of the country, and about three times as much as by Ireland.
    I should like the right hon. Gentleman to use his influence to promote the cultivation and growing of tobacco in Scotland. Over 100 years ago, before it was prohibited by law, it was grown there very extensively, and we are told by experts that it is just what is wanted in

    1273
    order to get that labour which is so much required. Then we have been asking the Congested Districts Board, with a view to preventing depopulation, that the piers should be improved so that the fishermen might carry on their occupation with safety to their lives. Those fishermen are the finest body of men in the country, and they are driven either to go into the big towns or to emigrate. I do not say that we could keep all those people in Scotland, because the Scotsman is an enterprising man, who goes all over the world, doing all he can for the benefit of the world, and not forgetting to save a few bawbees out of the transaction. We want various other matters attended to for the purpose of preventing this depopulation, which is now so serious a matter, but so far we have failed to get the Scottish Office to do anything at all. What we want to do is to see the promise of the late Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman carried out, namely, that we should colonise our own country. The Secretary for Scotland, if he liked, could come to Parliament and ask for more money than the £35,000 he gets now for the Congested Districts Board. The House of Lords would not object to that. They never object to spend money on that sort of thing, so that he cannot make that excuse. I think, no doubt, it would take more than £35,000 to carry out all I want for the purpose of promoting trade in counties like Sutherland.
    We are anxious that the Government should subsidise or start in some way steamers to go round from Lochinver to call at the various ports, so as to bring the produce of the country that they have to spare to market. For five or six years past I have been trying in every way I can to get this done, but I have got nothing at all yet, and I do not know when I am going to get it. An hon. Gentleman spoke just now about the necessity for a light. We have been asking for the same thing, and we cannot get it. I am referred to some other Board, and nothing is done. I am not going to press the question of house-letting, as it would be out of order, but, as there are some Friends opposite who understand all about these things, I want the Lord Advocate to tell us why that Bill was not gone on with last night when we had a distinct promise and were asked to come here in support of it. There is no secret about it, and I can produce a Whip from the Whip's Office asking me to come and support the Bill. I have a right to ask the
    1274
    Scottish Secretary, or the right hon. Gentleman who represents him as well as he can, why by some arrangement, or I do not know what you would call it, though outside I might use a very strong term, why the Irish Bill was allowed to go on and the Scottish Bill was stopped after being hanging about these premises for some years. It is all very well to tell me there was a bargain, and that the Irish got their Bill, but I should like to see that proposed openly in this House. I ask why the Secretary for Scotland did not get the Bill—
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: That subject is not in order.
    Mr. MORTON: I was not discussing the Bill, but only the action of the Scottish Secretary in not going on with the Bill. Something was said about the police. It is a monstrous thing that, while in England generally the Government grants have been fifty per cent. of the cost, we only get thirty-seven per cent. in Scotland. Surely the Secretary for Scotland ought to look after this, and if he did his duty in the Cabinet or elsewhere, the Liberal Government is not so bad altogether that they would refuse to give him for Scotland what is right and fair. For some reason or other, in the Metropolitan district the Government grant is four-ninths, but I suppose there are special reasons for that. I desire to ask the Lord Advocate about the proposal there is for a new pier in Ross-shire. About a hundred years ago a pier was built by funds provided by the old Fishery Associate Society of Scotland. There is now a proposal in the shape of a Provisional Order to build a new pier. I should like to say distinctly that I have not the slightest objection to the building of a pier or as many piers as they like, but the point is that they are proposing with the help of the Scottish Office to build a new pier and charge on it, while the inhabitants had the right to use the old stone pier free of all charges. I say that those poor people have the right to the protection of the Government in their free use of the stone pier. I object to the closing of the pier and putting a charge on it. I have taken some trouble in the matter to find out who is right. I have got a considerable number of affidavits from men of over seventy years, who declare from their knowledge that it has been free during all their time and before it. That makes a very good case for the inhabitants. It is suggested that those

    1275
    poor people should come 700 miles at a cost probably of £500 to oppose a Bill purporting to be supported by a Government department. I think it is cruelty to make such a suggestion. I contend it is the duty of the Government not to help companies and promoters of that sort to make money, but to protect the inhabitants in all their rights. Perhaps the hon. Baronet, the Member for the City, would tell us about the House Letting Bill arrangement.
    Sir F. BANBURY: I am never out of order, and as that will be out of order I could not do so.
    Mr. MORTON: I hope that the Lord Advocate will allow the vote for the Secretary's salary to be postponed to another day on the ground mainly that we have not got the Congested Districts Board report, which we ought to have here. Therefore we are entitled to have time to consider it in Committee of Supply. There are other reasons why we should have another day. The Irish get three days, and why Scotland should only get one is impossible to understand. During the last five or six years of Liberal Government we never had the slightest chance of discussing Scottish laws. I think that is a monstrous state of things. My hon. Friend alluded before to the fact that in a Parliament which is supposed to be a free Parliament that we never had the opportunity of considering Scottish law affairs. I should like to ask for some information on the question of foreign trawlers in the Moray Firth. It cannot come, I think, under the Fishery Vote, because I am not sure that the Fishery Board have anything to do with it. I think it is simply a question for the Secretary for Scotland to obey the law. The question has been before the highest courts on Scotland on appeal, and it was decided against foreign trawlers. My hon. Friends and myself are simply asking that the Government should do their duty and put the law in force. What the Foreign Office has to do with it I do not know, but they do not seem to care for the interests of the people of Scotland. It does seem absurd that whilst foreign trawlers are allowed to take fish in the Moray Firth, and whilst we have the decision of the Scottish courts that they have no right to do so, the Scottish Office should take no action upon that decision of the courts of law. The Lord Advocate
    1276
    may be able to give some explanation, but it does not show much respect for the law of the country when there is a decision of the High Court of Scotland and the Scottish Office pays no attention whatever to it.
    I want to say in conclusion that although we have felt it our duty to bring these various matters forward, and though somebody has said the Scotch Members are a poor lot, all of us are merely criticising the administration of the Government. I think these matters ought not to be party matters. The whole of the matters we have been talking about are matters of mere administration, which ought not to be dealt with on party lines. There is no doubt that any Government, be it Liberal or otherwise, is of no use unless it is properly criticised. I should not like to say for one moment that the present Government are no better than their predecessors. But how much they will be better is a matter for themselves. Nobody blames the Secretary for Scotland or the Lord Advocate so much, but we think that we have a right, as sixty Liberal Members out of seventy-two for Scotland, to say that something shall be done to stop the neglect of Scottish affairs, and to stop the depopulation, and that everything that is right and proper with regard to the Administration shall be done. The Government of Scotland should be looked into, and it should not be regarded as a party matter in any way.
    Mr. J. A. BRYCE: The Member for Leith called the attention of the Lord Advocate to the increased burdens which were put on the local authorities by the demands of the administrative power. I desire to support that, but I hope I shall not be considered paradoxical if I also call attention to a case in which the Department is taking the precisely opposite course. My own Constituency of Inverness has found it very difficult to keep up its police force owing to the low rate of pay sanctioned for constables, which is lower than is usual in the smaller towns in the rest of the country, and they have asked the Secretary for Scotland to sanction an increase of the pay so that they may get the class of men they require to do that kind of police work. The class of men they want is being drawn off for the supply of boroughs in the south of Scotland, and therefore they are anxious to be allowed to pay a higher scale of pay so as to attract the class of men they need, I understand that the Secretary for Scotland has refused to sanction this neces-

    1277
    sary scale of pay, and I would ask the Lord Advocate to inform me whether he is aware of this matter, and whether he will represent to the Secretary for Scotland that the scale of pay in Inverness should be similar to that sanctioned for Perth and other southern counties.
    The LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. Ure): The holidays being almost upon us, and the House being technically adjourned, we Scottish Members have a day to discuss matters in which we take an interest. I am sure that none of the other Members of the House will grudge us this modest contribution to our debates, and all of us will desire to use it to the best possible advantage, for here we are, a Scotch Parliament, without any interference, except for the presence of one or two notable exceptions, from our colleagues in England, Scotland, and Wales to discuss the affairs of our own country. When I was in Opposition I said I believed my own country was the best governed country in the world, although it was then under the administration of the Member for the Central Division of Glasgow (Mr. Scott Dickson) and the hon. Member who is now Lord Justice General. And I say the same thing to-day, now that I have had experience for myself ranging over a period of four or five years, and I think I say so with some reason because it was well known some days ago, or a week ago, that we were to discuss the Scotch Estimates, I have not received, anterior to this discussion, any notice from any one of my colleagues of the topics they desired to raise. I am on speaking terms with all, and on more than speaking terms with most of them, and I think that is a striking testimony to the smooth and frictionless and uneventful way in which the affairs of Scotland proceed. When even the Gentleman so acute, zealous, and experienced as the Gentleman on the Front Bench opposite and the Member behind him for Ayr Burghs (Mr. Younger) have given me no notice of taking part in the discussion it speaks volumes for the manner in which the affairs of Scotland have been administered.
    Mr. MORTON: You put off the considerations of the Congested Districts Board because the report is not ready.
    Mr. URE: When you consider the wide range of the discussion this afternoon, and that not one of these topics was mentioned to me even yesterday by any Member, that shows that the affairs
    1278
    complained of are not calculated to stop the foundations of the Empire.
    Mr. PIRIE: How many notices of reductions are there by Members for Scotland on the Paper?
    Mr. URE: It has been suggested that an additional day will be found to discuss some of these matters, and I hope that will be done. I deeply regret that the report of the Congested Districts Board was not available, and the Members for Scotland are entitled to make complaint, but we had no expectation that the report would be ready for to-day. We are discussing the Scotch Estimates this year several weeks earlier than the usual time, and I think when hon. Members get the report they will not find that it is bristling with debatable questions. I can assure them we have taken to heart the criticisms that were offered on the form in which the accounts were presented, and that in future they will be presented in a form in which they will be much more intelligible and more easily criticised and examined than in former years. So much at present for the Congested Districts Board. I dare say, if the business upon which we are to be engaged to-morrow is completely successful, we shall not have much more discussion about the composition of the Congested Districts Board.
    Mr. MORTON: Because it will have gone.
    Mr. URE: That is quite right. I will endeavour to follow as closely as I can the order of the discussion, and to pick up as they were presented to us the various points upon which my colleagues have spoken. The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. J. C. Wason) has drawn our attention to the fact that a long time ago a deputation waited upon the Secretary for Scotland and myself to represent that there had been some neglect with regard to the conditions under which female labour is conducted in the southern counties of Scotland. I remember that deputation, and I think, with all respect to them, they were very ill-informed on the matter they came to bring forward. We invited them to give additional information, but they conveyed none; and we received some information for ourselves, which showed that the matter was not so serious as it was represented to us. We pressed upon the local authorities the duty, which was certainly laid upon them, to take action; and so far as we can we

    1279
    believe we have done our best to cause the local authorities to bring about a remedy. The Member for Orkney and Shetland also called my attention to topics relating to fishing in the Moray Firth, and to the general subject of trawling and the constitution of the Fisheries Board.
    7.0 P.M.
    I think these matters will come on when we reach the Fishery Vote. A number of my colleagues here are greatly interested in this subject, and desire to offer criticisms; and I think we will have an interesting discussion later in the evening. My hon. Friend also called attention to what, I agree, is a very important question which was raised as to the working of the Old Age Pensions Act. He said, truly, that in a great many instances old people were denied their 5s. on the ground that they had given up their crofts into the hands of successors, who might be a son or a someone of that kind; and he asked that inquiry should be made into the circumstances of those people in order that we might deal fairly by them. I was a member of the Local Government Board and Solicitor-General about the time the Act came into operation, and I had a good deal to do with its administration in the earlier stages. The view was held by some that a man when he reached the age of seventy years and upwards was entitled to give up his croft and claim his 5s. I was not able to take that view on a just construction of the statute, and in view of the intentions of this House when the Act was passed, and I can only say that each case must be inquired into on its merits, and the board or pensions committee must do their best to find out in each case whether the property was given away for the express purpose of obtaining the pension or in the ordinary natural course of events. I do not see how any general rule can be laid down, and I do not think that any general rule if it were laid down could be carried out. I think it is just one of the duties of the pensions committee, and the Local Government Board must do their best to review the decision. We have no desire to lay down any hard and fast rule that there is to be no inquiry after the pensions committee has decided, and the Local Government Board are asked to review their decision. I think it is still open to the Local Government Board to make inquiry. I have directed that to be done in many cases, and that course is still followed. The hon.
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    Gentleman the Member for Leith Burghs has raised a variety of topics. He asked whether the Scottish Office was devoting its attention to the question of the relation between local and Imperial taxation, the increasing burden of local taxation, and the distribution of the burdens between the taxpayer and the ratepayer? Yes, we are. But it is a very large, difficult, and complicated question, which will very early engage the attention of the Imperial Parliament. It is not confined to the special claim of Scotland as against other parts of the country. I think that everyone will agree that there is no larger, more difficult, and more complicated question lying in front of the legislative body of this country than the adjustment of the relations between local and Imperial taxation, so as to see that the burdens are fairly distributed over the shoulders of those who ought to bear them. Then the hon. Member asked me if there had been any strengthening of the Local Government Board for Scotland in order to enable them to cope with the additional work which now falls to be performed in connection with Rosyth and the housing of the men, and their town-planning scheme. The hon. Member knows that the Local Government Board has been strengthened.
    The CHAIRMAN (Mr. Emmott): There is a separate Vote relating to this matter.
    Mr. URE: I admit it is somewhat away from the point, but I bow to your ruling.
    Mr. WATT: How about free speech?
    Mr. URE: In regard to your ruling, Mr. Emmott, the reason why I adverted to this question was that my hon. Friend the Member for Leith Burghs has spoken at length upon it, and the Secretary for Scotland is President of the Local Government Board and the responsible head of the Local Government Board.
    Mr. PIRIE: The whole thing has been so irregular that it really does not much matter.
    Mr. AINSWORTH: You were not in the Chair, Sir, at the time the question was asked that the right hon. Gentleman is answering. It was supposed to be in order when it was asked. Surely it is in order to give an answer.
    Mr. URE: I will not pursue the subject. My hon. Friend has also asked a question as to the Royal Commission on the Registration of Titles. No one can say that

    1281
    all the Members of that Commission were of one mind. There were almost as many reports as Members of the Commission, but there was a large measure of common agreement amongst them. The Secretary for Scotland's intention is to invite the legal bodies in Scotland to formulate their views upon the question of conveyancing and to present them when matured to the Scottish Office. I promise, thereupon to bring in legislation to give effect, as far as I possibly can, to the common measure of agreement in the conclusions of the Commission.
    Mr. MORTON: Your Bill will carry out their Report?
    Mr. URE: I have not yet seen the report of the legal bodies. I have only seen the Report of the Commission. My hon. Friend knows better than anybody else in the House how difficult and complicated the question is. But I think he will agree that we have done the right thing when we have asked the experts to formulate their views. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid-Lanark called attention to the housing arrangements, to the neglect of the sanitation in the mining districts. This is a matter which should be dealt with by the local sanitary authorities. I am personally deeply interested in the subject, for my own Constituency is largely a mining constituency. If specific instances are brought to my notice I will, of course, bring pressure to bear upon the local authority to compel them to do their statutory duty under the Public Health Act, and to secure an improvement in the housing of the mining population—which is a most important section of our industrial community. Then the hon. Gentleman called attention to what he called the neglect of the local authorities to enforce the statute of 1903 in regard to the employment of children. Here again I would invite specific instances, so that we may know who are the local authorities upon whom to bring pressure to bear. We shall do our best to compel the local authorities to do their duty if we know who they are.
    I come now to an entirely different series of matters, ranging mostly from north to south of the West Highlands. My hon. Friend dropped a sympathetic tear over the condition of Benbecula, a place remote from civilisation, separate from the mainland, and amid stormy surroundings. But we have to consider that there should be some proportion preserved between expenditure and benefits to be secured. It only because the expenditure upon lights
    1282
    and piers in Benbecula and Barra would be out of all proportion to the benefits to be secured that we had to hold our hands. All these matters have been very carefully considered by the Congested Districts Board, and they really could not face the expenditure. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Inverness has called attention to some matters relating to Mallaig, and other parts of his constituency. There again I am unable to say other than that the Congested Districts Board has very carefully gone into the consideration of this question, and has refused to incur the expense for the very same reason that it would be out of all proportion to the ad vantage to be secured.
    Mr. HUNT: There were between £30,000 and £40,000 spent on Barra. The Congested Districts Board gets £35,000 a year.
    Mr. URE: My contention is that there would be a very large sum required, and that to spend a small sum would be simply to throw away the money.
    Mr. HUNT: Can the right hon. Gentleman say how much it would be?
    Mr. URE: I am informed—I am not speaking with certainty—that it would be something like £1,500. The Congested Districts Board has very carefully considered this question£and they must be careful in the expenditure of the comparatively modest sum which they have at their disposal. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow and Aberdeen Universities has made a complaint to which I, as one of his constituents, would give a very willing and ready ear, especially as it concerns my own alma mater. I was startled to be told that the Secretary for Scotland had actually refused my alma mater more money which it was thought ought to be given, but as my hon. Friend knows very well, the University of Glasgow has been very handsomely treated. The authorities there have received a very substantial sum from the Treasury, which is not yet, I understand, spent. When they have expended that sum I have no doubt that the Secretary for Scotland will be willing to lend an ear to any fresh demand which may be made by the Universities.
    Mr. WATT: Do they get as much as the Irish Universities, or anything like it?
    Mr. URE: My hon. Friend must understand that you do not apportion a grant in this matter by a system of arithmetical proportion. You measure the grants by

    1283
    the needs and the results of the University. That leads me to the complaint that has been made more than once in the course of Debate this afternoon as to the supposed inequality of treatment as between England and Scotland in regard to the police grant. There is no foundation whatever for the suggestion of inequality. [HON. MEMBERS:"Oh, oh."] I am just as patriotic as hon. Members and as eager to get as much for my country as they are.
    Mr. MORTON: We can give the right hon. Gentleman the figures.
    Sir HENRY CRAIK: The Clause which I quoted says that payment is to be in addition to any sums otherwise paid under any Act.
    Mr. URE: The hon. Gentleman knows that the money which the Universities have already received has not yet been spent, and it would be foolish to pay out even to these Universities more money when they have not yet spent what they had. As regards the supposed inequality between England and Scotland in relation to the police grant, the police pay is a first charge upon the local taxation money in England, but in Scotland it is not. What we do not get for our police we get for education, and if we do not get more money for our education than for our police that is our look-out. We may change our views, and think the police more deserving than education, but these are matters for the Scotch Members to consider. But there is no inequality of treatment between one country and the other.
    Mr. WATT: The cost of education falls upon the owners and the occupiers, whereas the police rate falls upon the owners only.
    Mr. URE: Assuming that statement for a moment to be correct, and that it makes a difference in the distribution of burden, it makes no difference in the question in which hon. Members are interested—namely, the relative treatment of the two countries. My hon. Friend the Member for Inverness Burghs asked some questions about the rate paid in Inverness. If he had given notice yesterday I could have answered him, but I can only now say we will take notice of the complaint, and consider the case of Inverness. I say the same with regard to the suggestion of my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen and my hon. Friend the
    1284
    Member for Central Edinburgh, who inquired about the reformatory and industrial schools and about the mortality among children. It is a little premature to go into that until we see how the Children's Act of 1908 is working. It is well to pause a little and see what the effect of that Act will be in regard to these schools.
    Mr. PRICE: With regard to the question of mortality amongst children, my point is that the Scottish Office might issue circulars pointing out that something should be done to reduce the death-rate. Some local authorities have taken action in that direction with good results.
    Mr. URE: That requires consideration and attention, but I deprecate altogether that the Children's Act has done nothing to reduce the death-rate among children. It has a great deal to do with it. My hon. Friend also suggested that some improvement should be made in the King's Park in Edinburgh. I suppose I am one of the Members of this Committee that makes the most use of the King's Park. There is scarcely a week that I am not in it, and I have never seen any room for improvement. It is the most beautiful park I have ever seen in its way. I draw no comparison between it and the Phœnix Park, or St. James's Park, but it has great natural beauties, and I deprecate spending public money in making ornamental paths or forming ornamental sheets of water. It seems to me there is no room for any such thing in the King's Park, Edinburgh. I do not propose now to make any remarks upon the question of the closure of the Moray Firth to trawlers, and I think therefore I have exhausted all the questions which have been put to me.
    Mr. PIRIE: It can hardly be expected that an humble individual like myself should be able to answer the remarks of the right hon. and learned Gentleman, who with all the cleverness and practice of an able member of the legal profession is able to cloud the facts under eloquent verbiage. The right hon. Gentleman opened his speech by assuring us that all was well with Scotland, and he pointed out that no hon. Member had spoken to him about any complaints which they wished to put forward. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman had taken the trouble to look down the Order Paper, he would see no less than nine Amendments to be moved for a reduction of the Vote. It is an anomalous thing that an arrange-

    1285
    ment should have been come to by which these Debates should not have been carried to their conclusion by insisting on a Division. Why should certain Members from Scotland have given a pledge to that effect when the majority of them are falsely accused of not being in favour of the Scotch Land Bill? We have been falsely accused of wishing to postpone the Land Bill.
    The CHAIRMAN: The question of the Land Bill has nothing whatever to do with these Estimates.
    Mr. PIRIE: I was only anxious to explain the fact as to the pledge which was given about not going to a Division, and I was anxious that the truth should be known. I protest against the unfair position in which we are placed, and I say that no one is more culpable in that respect than the right hon. and learned Gentleman. He has not touched upon the absence of the Scotch Secretary or upon the limitations put upon Scotch Members in this discussion this afternoon, in which every Member has been called to order. It is an unprecedented scandal of the greatest magnitude.
    Mr. HUNT: The right hon. Gentleman has not answered my question as to the island of Benbecula; why has not money been spent upon that island when money has been spent upon the island of Barra? Why cannot the necessary small sum of money be employed there in order to provide a daily mail service, which is very necessary for the benefit of the inhabitants? Barra has two ports where a boat calls, and it is very hard upon the people of Benbecula that they should not be afforded these necessary facilities.
    Mr. URE: The answer is that the Congested Districts Board consider that money which might be well spent on one island might be thrown away if it were similarly spent on another.
    Mr. MUNRO-FERGUSON: There is one question which I want to put to the Lord Advocate, but before doing so I want to enter my caveat against the assumption that the Government of Scotland is a model one. To my mind it is a model to avoid, not because there are not many admirable individuals connected with it, but because the system as a whole is probably the worst among civilised Governments. The question I want to put to the Lord Advocate is this: whether he is aware of the great complaints made of the
    1286
    cumbersome character and great expense of private Bill inquiries as now conducted for Scotland, and whether anything can be done, apart from legislation, to reduce these expenses and to reduce the trouble to suitors and opponents of measures in carrying through their operations? An inquiry in Scotland owing to the intricate regulations really makes the present system far more costly and cumbersome than when we had to go through the ordinary Committee of Parliament. I ask whether something could not be done to improve the system.
    Colonel GREIG: I desire to put a question to the Lord Advocate which has been put before him on other occasions. It arises out of an accident that occurred in the constituency of an hon. Gentleman opposite. At one of the village fairs that takes place annually in Scotland a fatality occurred in connection with one of the shooting galleries which was erected there. I have heard of various accidents of this character that occurred on like occasions in Scotland. I am not aware whether the local authorities have any power in Scotland to licence or register these galleries or other instruments of that sort, and I want to know is there any opportunity under the law of Scotland for local authorities to intervene in cases of this kind, and to see that proper regulations are laid down in order to prevent accidents occurring. The Lord Advocate will recollect the case I mean. It caused considerable discussion in the neighbourhood in which it occurred, and a case was originally raised in this House, I think, by the hon. Member for Buteshire.
    Mr. URE: I recollect the incident to which the hon. Gentleman has referred, and it was an exceedingly lamentable incident. None such ever occurred before and none has ever occurred since, and although the local authorities have power, I think, to regulate by means of by-laws these shooting galleries, I am not sure that the local authorities of the county in which this occurred have passed by-laws to this effect. We are in communication with them. I think the power is possessed by the local authorities not to intervene and interfere, but to proceed by by-laws and to punish those who infringe them. The hon. Member asked me whether anything can be done to reduce expenditure under the Private Bill Procedure Act for Scotland. A great deal may be done, but it can only be done by the parties concerned and the solicitor. It largely lies

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    in their hands to control and limit the amount of expenditure. It is not really the machinery of the Act that is the cause of the great expenditure, but it lies in other directions which are in the hands and under the control of the parties who are conducting the inquiries. If they will exercise the pruning knife I have no doubt they will be able to reduce the costs to within reasonable dimensions. You never can conduct inquiries of this kind without considerable expenditure, because you require expert witnesses whose services are much sought after, and consequently they are highly remunerated. I think my hon. Friend will find that the remedy for this expenditure is largely in the hands of the parties, and is not due to the machinery of the Act. With regard to the machinery of the Act, I know that some difference of opinion prevails, but I think the majority of expert opinion is in favour of the view that the machinery of the Act works really very well when administered.
    Mr. SCOTT DICKSON: I wish to ask whether we shall be able to take some of the fishery questions and matters relating to education later on? With regard to what has been said about taking a Division, the circumstances are not in the least different to what they were last year when an opportunity was given for a Division, and hon. Members opposite did not avail themselves of it.
    Mr. PIRIE: That statement is absolutely without foundation, because there were three or four Divisions taken against the Government.
    Mr. SCOTT DICKSON: Not upon the Votes for the Secretary for Scotland's salary.
    Mr. ROBERT HARCOURT: If the hon. Member will refer to Division List 104 he will see that a Division took place on the Vote for the salary of the Secretary for Scotland.
    Mr. SCOTT DICKSON: Yes, and that was upon an Amendment moved by an hon. Friend behind me. I think we might be allowed now to get on with the discussion of some other questions.
    Mr. MORTON: I think we have a right to complain that the Lord Advocate has not taken any notice whatever of some of the points we have raised. I cannot understand why he did not reply with regard to the House Letting and Rating Bill.
    The CHAIRMAN: That has nothing to do with Committee of Supply.
    Mr. PIRIE: May I remind the hon. Member that there was a Division last year in which Sir Walter Menzies and Captain Waring were the tellers.
    Mr. SCOTT DICKSON: That was not on the Scotch Estimates.
    Mr. PIRIE: Yes, it was upon the Scotch Estimates.
    Mr. SCOTT DICKSON: Was it not upon the salary of the Secretary for Scotland.
    Mr. MORTON: The Lord Advocate said he had no notice about some of the questions which had been brought forward. I will tell the right hon. Gentleman why he had no notice. It is no use giving him notice. I asked him last year a question about the turning of some agricultural land in Scotland into a deer forest. I asked the question twelve months ago last Easter, and I have not got an answer yet. Evidently the right hon. Gentleman's influence with the Scottish Office is not very great. I suggested that this Vote should be postponed until we got the Congested Districts Board Report so that we should have an opportunity of properly discussing it, and the right hon. Gentleman has not even answered that question. It is certainly not unusual with Irish Votes to leave them open so that we can raise particular questions again upon another occasion. If we allow this Vote to be taken now after we get the Report to which I have referred, even if we get another day, we cannot discuss that particular question. I know I cannot make the right hon. Gentleman reply, but considering that these matters have to do with the Government of Scotland I think the right hon. Gentleman might have the courtesy to reply to the questions which are put to him.
    Major ANSTRUTHER-GRAYrose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put," but the Chairman withheld his assent, and declined then to put that Question.
    Mr. PRINGLE: On former occasions when we have made a comparison of the expenditure allowed in England with that of Scotland we have always been told that the balance is made up to Scotland in what she receives for education. We never have had, either from the Lord Advocate or anyone else a clear statement of the exact proportion which Scotland does receive as compared with England.
    Mr. YOUNGER: That is contained in the Schedule of the Act of 1889.
    The CHAIRMAN: Has the Secretary for Scotland or the Lord Advocate any administrative power over the question which the hon. Member is discussing?
    Mr. PRINGLE: It is the duty of the Scotch Office to obtain from the Treasury as much money as possible.
    The CHAIRMAN: That is a question for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and not for the Lord Advocate.
    Mr. PRINGLE: I want some assurance from the Lord Advocate in regard to the police. The cost of the English police was very much increased by an Act passed last Session, and I want an assurance that if we do not receive a similar contribution to Scotch expenditure on the police something in proportion should be paid to other branches of Scotch expenditure. I think that is only fair.
    The CHAIRMAN: The Scottish Office cannot do that. All that the Lord Advocate can answer for is the administration of the Secretary for Scotland.
    Mr. MORTON: Surely we can ask the Secretary for Scotland to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer for more money.
    Mr. PRINGLE: I understand that this matter of expenditure is a question between the Department and the Treasury. On the Navy Estimates we are allowed to complain of the amount allotted to the Navy, although Those Estimates have been arranged between the Admiralty and the Treasury. I submit that I am in order in asking that the Scottish Office in dealing with the Treasury should insist that a certain amount should be contributed by the Treasury in accordance with Scottish needs. It has been the custom in all branches of the Civil Service in Scotland not to pay the same rates as are paid to English Civil servants. The explanation given for this is that the cost of living is dearer in Scotland than in England. We know very well that with the exception of London the cost of living in Scotland is as high, taking the average, as in any other part of England. Consequently there is no justification whatsoever for this lower scale of pay.
    The CHAIRMAN: Are the Civil servants in question included in the Estimate we are discussing, or are they not? If they are not included in this Vote the
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    matter cannot be discussed. Which are the particular Civil servants the hon. Member means?
    Mr. MUNRO-FERGUSON: The Scottish Office takes responsibility through its Inspector of Constabulary in Scotland for the condition of efficiency of the Scottish police.
    The CHAIRMAN: That has nothing to do with the question we are considering. I was referring to the question of the pay of Civil servants.
    Mr. PRINGLE: There are a number of Civil servants whose salaries are charged under the Vote for the Scottish Office generally, but if you rule that I cannot raise this point upon this Vote I may say that I intend to raise it on every other Vote; so that the probability is we shall save a little time if the discussion is taken generally on the salary of the Secretary for Scotland.
    The CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member cannot treat the question generally in that way. If he wishes to complain of certain salaries which are included in this Vote he is in order, but if he wishes to complain generally he is not, in order.
    Mr. PRINGLE: All I wanted to do was to save the time of the Committee. The point I was raising arises under the Prisons Vote, and I will raise it when that Vote comes on.
    Mr. WATT: I must protest against the complacency of the Lord Advocate in his reply to the questions which have been put to him. The Lord Advocate took no notice whatever of my observations in his reply. He trusted to his memory—and he possesses a wonderful memory—but like most memories it has its defects. In these circumstances I desire to say that I shall insist on the Motion for a reduction which I have proposed if I can get a teller, and I believe the hon. Member for Sutherlandshire will stand with me in the breach. These discussions show a clear indication how much Home Rule is needed for Scotland, in order that the affairs of Scotland may be satisfactorily administered. There are sixteen departments over which the Secretary for Scotland is chief, and in discussing his salary we are not permitted to touch any of these sixteen departments. Therefore, the struggle we have in making a speech is visible to the naked eye. I certainly thought, when we got a Scotch representative as a Lord of

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    the Treasury, the Member for Dumfries (Mr. Gulland), the Secretary for Scotland would have an easier task, but I am sorry to say the influence of the hon. Member as a Lord of the Treasury has not been noticeable in what we have got. I rose to say that in my view Scotland, to put it negatively, is not the best-governed country in the world, and to indicate, in saying I insist on a Division, that I am not in any way bound by any pledge.
    Mr. PIRIE: I profoundly regret that owing to the pledge I gave, it will be impossible for me to support him if my hon. Friend goes to a Division. It was passed at a meeting by a majority of fifteen Scotch National Members in order to secure to-morrow that we should not divide. That is what we pledged ourselves to, and, because I gave that pledge, I am sorry, and I hope my hon. Friend will understand, I cannot go into the Lobby to express my protest against the misleading speech of the Lord Advocate which, instead of making the case better, has made it worse.
    Mr. MORTON: I am sorry to have to join my hon. Friend in this Division, but I am going to do it as a protest against the way the Lord Advocate has treated us to-night. Surely we have a right to be answered by these officials of ours. They ought not to be our masters. They take our salary, and they are our servants, and we are entitled, so long as we keep in order, to ask for replies on points we seldom have an opportunity of putting before the Committee. I have pointed out that the Lord Advocate did not send me on a communication he promised twelve months ago. He seems to treat that as a very ordinary state of things and makes no reply. The Division in which I shall be happy to join my hon. Friend will not be so much against the Secretary for Scotland as against the inability of the Lord Advocate to answer, as well as the fact that he will not answer. That is where our complaint comes in. The Lord Advocate knows nothing about the matter. He guesses at some things, I suppose, but he is not in a position to know, and therefore I rather excuse him. He ought, however, to try and answer, and he ought to bear in mind we are here representing the Kingdom of Scotland and the Scottish people. The large bulk of us have no axes of our own to grind and have no object except to promote the interests of our Constituents. I brought forward to-night
    1292
    a number of matters in connection with Sutherland, which we say require attention to prevent further depopulation. The Lord Advocate, who represents the Secretary for Scotland, has no reply to make, and that is the way Scotland is misgoverned. Then some hon. Gentlemen, I believe it was the Lord Advocate himself, suggested it is such a model government. I agree with the hon. Member for Leith (Mr. Munro-Ferguson). It is not a model Government. See how we are treated. Our Secretary is sent away, and we get no answer from the Lord Advocate. I am driven, therefore, to support my hon. Friend the Member for the College Division of Glasgow (Mr. Watt) as a protest, not against the Secretary for Scotland, but against the way we have been treated by the Lord Advocate.
    Mr. MUNRO-FERGUSON: I hope my hon. Friend will not divide. There was an understanding at a very large meeting—I think the largest meeting of Scotch Members we have ever held—that in the circumstances we would not divide, and the Lord Advocate has expressed his opinion this evening in favour of another day being given. I hope my right hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (the Master of Elibank) has also realised that the conditions under which the Debate has been conducted to-day are not satisfactory, and we ought to have another day on Scotch Estimates before the end of the Session. I entirely agree with my hon. Friends, and I entirely disagree with the Lord Advocate as to the character of our present system of government in Scotland, but in the circumstances I do not think we ought to go to a Division. Those bound by the understanding certainly could not support it, and I hope, therefore, the reduction will not be pressed to a Division.
    Lord BALCARRES: I had not the advantage of hearing the Lord Advocate's speech, but I gather from the statement of the hon. Member for Leith Burghs that the Lord Advocate indicated his desire to provide a second day for Scotch Estimates.
    Mr. MUNRO-FERGUSON: He gave no pledge, but he indicated he thought it was reasonable. Of course, I should like an understanding, but he did express his own personal desire for a second day.
    Mr. URE:I said I shared the hopes and expectations of my hon. Friend.
    Lord BALCARRES: I do not think it misrepresents his view to say that he indicated a desire, especially as he now says he shares the hopes and expectations of hon. Gentlemen opposite. I merely wish to enter this caveat. Unless the practice, universal in the past Parliament but one, but never put into effect since 1906, to add three extra days of Supply to those provided under our Standing Orders, be revived, it rests primarily with the Opposition to determine what subjects are to be discussed in Supply. That understanding was accepted by the House of Commons ten or a dozen years ago. I enter this caveat, especially in view of the fact that some agreement has been come to by hon. Gentlemen amongst themselves not to divide. The debate has in consequence been somewhat unreal in its character, and I therefore think myself justified in entering, on behalf of the Opposition generally, that word of warning.
    Question, "That the sum of £9,583 be granted for the said service," put, and negatived.
    Mr. MORTON: Shall I be in order in moving that this Vote he postponed with a view to having another day in Committee.
    The CHAIRMAN: No. The hon. Member cannot do that. It is open to withdraw the Vote by general consent of the Committee if the Lord Advocate asks for it, but it cannot be done in any other way. Otherwise it must be decided.
    Original question put, and agreed to.

    FISHERY BOARD, SCOTLAND.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £17,529, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1912, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Fishery Board for Scotland and for Grants-in-Aid of Piers or Quays." [NOTE.—£7,000 has been voted on account.]
    8.0 P.M.
    Mr. ROBERT HARCOURT: I have to apologise to the Committee for entering once again upon what, I am sure, is somewhat familiar ground; but, as one of my hon. Friends said just now, the Fishery Board Vote was not very fully discussed last year. I do not know that I need apologise to His Majesty's Government or to the right hon. Gentleman who is in charge,
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    because, after all, if they would do what we ask and meet the not extravagant demands of the small body of Members who speak as representing certain important industries on the east coast of Scotland, we should not run the risk, year after year, of transgressing the Standing Order against tedious repetition. I have to endeavour to put once again the case of the line fisherman, and to emphasise once more that reconsideration of certain hazy dogmas of international law is long overdue. I am bound to begin by saying a few words upon the doctrine of the Three Mile Limit, because that is really the kernel of all the trouble affecting fishing. It has been pointed out on numerous occasions that there is a varying practice on that point among all the nations of the world. I will not go over all the cases, but there is one quite recent instance which I came across the other day, and which perhaps is new to some of my hon. Friends. Argentina, in 1907, claimed as much as ten-and-a-quarter instead of three nautical miles, and also claimed all the great bays up to as much as one hundred miles across. Norway, Sweden, Spain, and Portugal also differ in their practice in varying degrees. So far as international law depends upon anything, I suppose this doctrine depends upon gun fire and upon the maxim, terœ dominium finitur ubi finitum armorum vis. The modern validity of that doctrine seems to be due very largely to the great names of Washington and Stowell, a kind of Anglo-American entente. I want to emphasise now, as I did last year, that many of the old writers, and I think nearly all the modern text writers, argue very strongly against the continued validity of that doctrine. I have made some researches with the help of a very admirable volume called "The Sovereignty of the Sea," written by Professor Wemyss Fulton, one of the professors of the Aberdeen University, which I desire to recommend to all my friends taking interest in this subject. Calvo considered the range too small; Bluntschli and Phillimore said the same thing; De Martens is particularly strong, advocating ten miles; and, when you get down to the more modern writers, Hall, and the most modern writer, Oppenheim, they are stronger still. The International Law Association and the Institut de Droit International have arrived at similar conclusions. They regard three miles as ludicrously insufficient, and they recommend six miles as an irreducible minimum.

    1295
    What is that recommended for? I know I am entering into the region of controversy, but it is recommended in order to combat and to control what it is contended is an effective but destructive method of fishing. What, after all, is trawling? The popular idea, which I have often heard argued in this House, is that it is a cheap Means of supply of food to our population—that, broadly speaking, it is comparable with scientific agriculture. The line fisherman is being continually compared with the old hand-loom weavers. I contend that precisely the opposite is the case; that you can exhaust the sea just as without the ordinary principles of agricultural decency you can exhaust the soil. You can do that with impunity in new countries where land is plentiful, and I suppose that some think that by analogy you can mess about the bottom of the sea where fish are theoretically inexhaustible, that you can drag a great bag of netting along the depths, catching huge quantities of immature as well as of marketable fish. With the introduction in 1895 of the otter trawl, instead of the old unwieldy beam trawl, that method certainly became cruelly effective, fishing was carried on 200 fathoms deep and enormous hauls of half-formed fish were cast back or sold as manure. The point emerged at last that the supply was not inexhaustible. It is strange to note how opinion has ripened on this subject.
    In 1863 there was the first Royal Commission on the subject, which contained my Noble Friend Lord Eversley. I shall have to repudiate his authority on naval matters, because the Commission reported that the method of trawling was not wasteful, and that if you exhausted one ground you can go elsewhere. The Commission of 1878 said practically the same thing, but at the same time it reported there was a decrease in soles, plaice and flounders. It is an interesting point in view of modern developments that it was the trawlers themselves who made the complaint as to the impoverishment of the inshore fishing ground. So far back as 1878—the year I was born in—they asked for a nine-mile limit around the shores of the North Sea. In 1883 there was another Committee, and the trawlers' complaints grew still stronger, and they asked for a ten-mile limit. In 1888 there were repeated complaints and calls for international action. In 1890 the trawlers got tired of making continual appeals to His
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    Majesty's Government, and they took the law into their own hands. They took action themselves and enforced as against themselves a kind of self-denying ordinance against fishing off the Danish and German coast. There was a meeting of representatives of the trawlers of Hull, Grimsby, Yarmouth, and most of the East Coast trawlers, which reported that it was "highly necessary for the future for the well-being of the trade and for the preservation of an important food supply, that Parliament should be asked to impose restrictions on the sale and purchase of immature fish." I repeat that all this has been going on for a very long time, the generosity of Governments in appointing Royal Commissions is simply inexhaustible. In 1893, thirty years after the appointment of the first Royal Commission, we had a fresh Select Commttee which definitely laid down the fact in their report that the three-mile limit was totally insufficient, and which actually recommended international action. I do not think it is necessary to argue at greater length the contention as to the depletion of the fishing banks, because it is admitted by the fact that the trawlers themselves are going further and further afield, in spite of the existence of the North Sea Convention. They began to go to Iceland in 1891, to Morocco in 1902, and to Russia and the White Sea in 1905. Certainly the greatest credit possible is due to them for their energy and enterprise.
    I am only discussing the effects of this particular fishing in my part of the country. Their action in going further and further afield, naturally led to a great deal of outcry by the native fishermen in those regions. There was a great amount of protest in Spain and Portugal, culminating in the recent action which took place the day before the discussion of the Scottish Estimates last year of the Russian Government in declaring their intention to close the White Sea and asserting a twelve-mile limit. I remember the protest of the Foreign Office that took place in the early part of this Session, and it seemed obvious to me, from the first announcement in the newspapers of that protest, that by protesting against this the British Government would be estopped from protecting our own fishery grounds, and that so far from regarding that protest against the action of the Russian Government as a National case, the British line fishermen would frankly

    1297
    sympathise with the Russian view. That was my view at the time, and I put a question down on the spur of the moment to the Foreign Office on this subject, and I have since been glad to find that my hasty inspiration has been borne out by the language used by the important Moray Firth deputation, which came from Buckie, Caithness, and elsewhere, and waited on the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and put with great force some of the points which I am now discussing. I desire in connection with the contention of the Russian Government and the attitude which we have taken up in protest against it to direct attention once again to what I shall call the declared policy of the British Government with regard to the thirteen-mile limit. I contend it used to be exactly the same policy as is pursued by the Russian Government now. An hon. Member pointed out last year that in 1895 it was proposed to do for the East Coast of Scotland, south of Aberdeenshire, what by-laws under the Act of 1899 had already done for the Moray Firth between Duncansby Head and Rattray Point, A Bill was introduced by the Liberal Cabinet into the House of Lords, which proposed to draw a line from Rattray Point at the easternmost corner of the Moray Firth southwards to the Fame Islands, in Northumberland. Here there was no question of headland to headland. It is not necessary to argue the question of bays, as you had in the case of the Moray Firth. I am the son of an international lawyer, and have been at the Foreign Office, and should be prepared to argue anything within reason in the interests of my Constituents, but I admit it would be a little difficult, looking at the configuration of that coast, to describe as a bay that very obtuse angle. We have very often discussed bays on this question, but on this particular point the question of bays does not arise. This is the description which is given in the book to which I have alluded, the "Sovereignty of the Sea":—
    "The line at first chosen was a very long one, running along the open coast from Rattray Head to Farne Islands, a distance of 120 miles, passing a little over thirty miles east of Fifeness."
    There is no question of having to argue that there is necessarily a bay. A line like that is a great deal more than I think my Constituents have really ever asked. We do feel that the Foreign Secretary is being a little unfair nowadays to the continuity of Liberal policy, dating back to 1895, when he himself was Under-Secretary, by insisting, as I think the
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    Foreign Office official answers do, upon the unchallengeable validity of these very narrow bounds for exclusive fishery, and when he treats the whole controversy as a chose jugée, and returns a blank non possumus to a claim based upon modern developments, such as the increased range of gun fire and the destructive methods of fishing, which, in the opinion of nearly all modern writers, furnish a primâ facie case for international discussion in the interests both of national sovereignty and of general food supply. If I go back to the year 1895, of course, that proposal did not permanently hold the field, the wide area was reduced to eighteen, and then to thirteen, miles from the coast; but, speaking after a consultation with the line fishermen in my Constituency—and I think I know every man personally, I have represented them a long time, and have been out with them in their boats—I think I know what they want. They would be amply content if the paper declaration of policy was made operative by obtaining the acquiescence of the other signatory powers to the thirteen-mile limit. That is what they want, or at any rate some considerable extension of the three-mile limit.
    I suggest to-day as an alternative, would it not be possible to put into operation a Clause of the Act of 1895 for a thirteen mile limit, simply and solely as an assertion of our own municipal jurisdiction, and pursue the same policy as in the case of the Moray Firth. Broadly speaking, the decisions in the well-known Mortensen case were that the North Sea Convention did not necessarily limit the powers of Great Britain with regard to its own territorial waters, whatever those territorial waters might be. It was suggested in the judgment that exclusive fishing was one thing and that the power of the State over its own territorial limits is another, although those are two things frequently confounded. In the case of the foreign trawlers in the Moray Firth there was the question of what is and what is not a bay; whether or not a wide area far exceeding a ten-mile line from the mainland to a headland was or was not inter fauces. As I say, we should not argue the question of hays in connection with the coast south of Aberdeenshire; but I submit to the Lord Advocate that you can argue the question of territorial waters, and if you put in a statute, as you did in 1895, the declaration that, your limit is or ought to be thirteen miles, I ask him why it is not possible to enforce it?

    1299
    I am happily relieved from detaining the Committee on the subject of the Bell Rock. I argued the case of the Bell Rock last year with regard to territorial sovereignty, and I received a satisfactory reply, at any rate, as to the international position. What is the position? Broadly speaking, islands, of course, are included in the North Sea Convention as being an ordinary part of State territory. Floating banks, such as the Goodwin Sands, are not, owing to their fluctuating nature and the difficulty of fishermen knowing where they are. They are not included as State territory, but rocks were last year a little uncertain—they were a cross between the firm dry land and floating banks, and there was also a question of their being partially submerged. There are three of these rocks—Sevenstones, Scilly Islands, seven miles from Land's End; Eddystone, fourteen miles southwest of Plymouth; and the Bell Rock, which is ten miles east-south-east of Arbroath. There, again, complaints have been made by Cornwall and Devonshire Fishery Committees. They attacked foreign trawlers who came in, and they wanted some penalty imposed, but the British Government were not for some reason prepared to support them.
    The language of my right hon. Friend last year was that we had rights, that the Bell Rock was British territory, but he said he was not prepared, as in the case of Eddystone, to stand by the summit of our rights. That admits that we have rights. He says we have such in the case of Eddystone, and I should like to argue a fortiori that if we have rights in the case of the Eddystone, we have even greater rights in regard to the Bell Rock, because the Bell Rock is inside the area covered by the North Sea Convention, whereas the two others are on the west coast. I should like to repeat my question to the right hon. Gentleman now, and no answer is of any use to me which is not a public one. I am bound to ask him what is the diplomatic reason which prevents him doing what a large body of his fellow-countrymen want him to do. Why cannot we do what we did in the other case, and what diplomatic morass shall we get into if we exercise rights which belong to us. I will only make the briefest reference to another point which keenly interests the line fishermen, and that is the question of the development of motor engines which are required by them in conducting line
    1300
    fishing. I believe, after spending a night at sea in a forty-ton boat, what I am told by a number of experts on the question that when a few more experiments have been made, and fishermen get accustomed to the new development, we ought to get with certainty and dispatch a motive power which men can use who are not skilled engineers. An exhibition was held by private enterprise of these motor-engines last year at Yarmouth with rather insufficient, indeed with no patronage at all from the English Board of Agriculture, though I cannot discuss their shortcomings on this Vote. I am glad to say that the Scottish Fishery Board sent a representative who wrote a report, and there were representatives from foreign Powers.
    I ask why cannot you assist this development through the Development Act which we passed, as many of us thought, for this very purpose. Why cannot we do something to assist the individual to become self-supporting; why cannot something be done by these credit banks of which we have heard so much and of which we have seen so little? As many of my hon. Friends have pointed out, by means of expenditure a good deal is being done by the Irish Board, and a great deal is certainly being done by many foreign countries, while Scotland and England lag behind. I will make no apology to the Committee for making the briefest reference to what is being done abroad which may serve as a very excellent sample to this very backward country. In Norway the so-called Old Sea Fishing Fund has been established which advances a certain proportion of the valuation towards the acquisition of vessels both with and without motors, and for motors alone for vessels already acquired. Security is given by a mortgage on the vessel, and on the motor, and on the insurance, or as against the guarantees from the municipal district authorities, and that is treated not as charity and not as a free grant, but as a business proposition, which is all we ask. If the sum is not repaid within a reasonable period it is collected by a forced sale of the vessel; but if a municipal guarantee has been given for the loan the loan is collected from the municipality. Before a loan is given the municipal board must give a statement as to the general position of the applicant, and the most rigid inquiry is made. Up to date as many as 731 fishing vessels and motor-boats have been dealt with in Norway.

    1301
    In Denmark loans are granted to single persons and societies, carrying interest at 3 per cent. or 3½ per cent., first mortgage being given on the boats and gear as security Again it, is a, business proposition. The fishermen receiving these loans must prove that at least two-fifths of their incomes is gained by salt-water fishing, and the number of fishing grants in Denmark has risen from 152 in 1903 to 1,104 in 1910–1,104 motor-boats in Denmark, as against 147 in Scotland. In Sweden the Government advances to the Royal Agricultural societies or local assemblies sums of money, and they, in turn, advance instalment loans to fishermen, and last year the Swedish Government gave 161 loans for fishing-boats with motors, fifty-six loans for motors for fishing-boats, and seventy loans for fishing-boats without motors. Now as I have referred to the official report of the Scottish Fishery Board, which is available, and which is published in the ordinary manner by Captain M'Ewan, the marine superintendent, I will mention that he says that if it were not for the lack of sufficient funds he should say that quite a number of Scottish fishermen who visited the show would have decided to adopt auxiliary motor-power for their boats. They referred in enthusiastic terms to the prospects of this new development, and he says:—
    "The advantages of auxiliary power in harbour were particularly well displayed at Yarmouth in the ability of the motor-boats to make for a berth at the fish-market. without depending on the services of harbour tugs with consequent delay and expense."
    He criticises some of the crews of the vessels for not taking sufficient care of their engines, but says:—
    "On the other hand in quite a number of boats, some young fisher lad had entire charge of the engine, and evidently took a pride in keeping it in a spick and span condition, and very often I found this lad having quite a natural inclination for mechanical engineering. Needless to say in such boats, everyone had praise for the motor."
    He makes a very interesting suggestion, which may have been noted by the Education Department:—
    "I think that there is a good opening for fisher boys just leaving school who may have a mechanical turn of mind getting employment from engine manufacturers for a time in preparation for going in charge of a motor engine in it fishing boat. … I would like to add that, in my opinion, motor engines as auxiliaries would prove of immense benefit not only to the large first class boats following the herring fishery, but also to all classes of smaller fishing boats still left around our coasts. The recent development of the motor in the haddock fishing from Barra Island and Scalloway in Shetland is an instance, and the better earnings by the Clyde boats equipped with a motor is another."
    I am not a prophet, and I do not wish to anticipate the speech which we shall hear
    1302
    to-morrow from the hon. Member (Mr. Donald Maclean), to whom Scottish Members owe a great deal for the use he is making of this day. But we shall probably hear, indeed we have heard to-day from the Census figures, of the depopulation which is breaking the hearts of men who love their country. We shall be able to compare the old bogey of the capital in cash, which is being driven from our shores, with the ascertained and lamentable fact that human capital is being forced across the seas and denied remunerative employment at home. The land question is great, but it is not all. We are an island people. Do not let us forget the needs of those who go down to the sea in ships. The thousandth part of the money poured out on the multiplication of "Dreadnoughts" and destroyers and naval bases—a few thousand pounds by grant or loan, coupled with the firm administration of Acts already passed and policy already declared, would save a brave industrious body of men and women from despair and destitution.
    Major ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: I am glad to find myself in full accord with all that the last speaker said on the fishing question. There is no doubt that unless the three-mile limit is extended we shall find from year to year a large and growing diminution in the fish supply of these shores. The trouble is not entirely that the fish are captured and sold. The real trouble is that the spawning beds and the fish nurseries are being harried, disturbed, and spoilt. Unless the Government realises that fact there is certain to be a serious diminution. The only cure for that that I can see is to extend the three-mile limit. No one who knows anything about seafaring matters or fishing will object to trawling in itself. The trawlers have just as much right to ply their trade as anyone else has, but not at the expense of the line fishermen. Trawlers can go out to sea, get their catches there, and bring them home, and motor-boats will help them to do that. They will not be faced with the terror of not being able to bring their catches home. If they are supplied with motor-boats they will be able to bring their catches from a far distance, and that will go far to remedy the trouble we complain of. The Moray Firth ought to be open to all or closed to all. It is an absolute farce to prosecute our own British fishermen, fine them, confiscate their nets, and put them in prison when you have to wink at

    1303
    foreign boats plying their trade nearer the shore even than the British ships. It has given rise to the most objectionable practice of British boats sailing under a foreign flag. The temptation, I suppose, is great, but I would rather see British boats face the music under their own flag than come thieving into the three-mile limit under a foreign flag. The sooner we can stop that temptation the better. With regard to motor-boats there is no doubt they have come to stay, and I think if the Government could give some encouragement to our fishermen in Scotland to invest in these motors it would be a very good thing. Foreign countries advance money to their fishermen. They, of course, take a lien on their boats and gear, but it evidently pays, or it would not continue. If our Government would do the same they would find that their money would be safe. Our people would not cheat the Government. There is no honester or finer race, I believe, than the fishermen of our Scotch coast. If you trust them they will trust you, and you may be quite sure if the Government will devote some part of the Development Grant to helping them with their motor-boats a great advance will be seen in fishery matters.
    Another thing I think might be done by the Development Grant is to give a little more help to our harbours. Some of our harbours with a comparatively small expenditure can be opened up to larger boats, and all the trend now is to have larger boats, and unless you have harbours to accommodate them the fishermen must go to seaport towns like Leith or Aberdeen, and leave the smaller harbours and ports, and they will become gradually depopulated. We hear a great deal about putting people back on the land, and I have every sympathy with that object. But I should like to hear a little more about keeping our people on the sea and on the coast. If that is lost sight of we shall have cause to rue it. Consider what would happen if we were at war and food was short. We should have to depend to a great deal on our fishing, and the more fishermen we have along our shores the safer we shall be during the bad time that possibly may come supposing England was ever at a great crisis with another country. They are a grand race of men that these fishing villages breed. They face danger, they are strong, and they breed children of fine physique, and it is most important to do everything we can
    1304
    to encourage and to safeguard them. We have heard a good deal about the Fishery Board, and some of the remarks were not not altogether complimentary. One hon. Member said it was a great deal better now than it had been, but I do not see that there is very much difference, except that they have a few more Radicals in it than they had before. I think the Fishery Board throughout has behaved generously, honestly, and well, and done its best for our people. I have had, during the four years when I was in Parliament before, a great deal to do with the Fishery Board. They never turned a deaf ear to my requests. They were always accommodating and always just, and if they could do it they would do it. And if it could not be done, they said No. That is all I ask of anyone, and it is unfair to blame the Fishery Board unless you know all the details. They are very much cramped for want of money. They get, besides the Herring Dues, which are very small, only £2,000 a year. That is far too small a sum, and if the Government could make it larger they would find that a great deal better work would be done. Of course, the policing of our waters is a matter that we must have regard to. I do not think at present we have enough fishery cruisers. I should like to see them doubled myself, and I hope that as time goes on it will be found possible to do more in that respect.
    With regard to the three-mile limit it must be remembered that Lord Salisbury when he was discussing the question said very distinctly that he did not confine himself to three miles. I believe it is a fact that our limit is not circumscribed by any number of miles. No one knows what the limit is. There is no limit in fact, and that being so, I cannot see why the Government should not take its courage in both hands and make our limit really sufficient for the purpose for which it was devised. Unless you can do that it is idle to talk. We shall be faced with the same difficulties year after year, and the result will be disaster and distress to our people. I think the Government might follow the example of Russia and make a twelve-mile limit. Nobody seems to object to that, and Russia in any case is going to do it. I should like to see a little more courage on the part of the British Government. If they have a good case, which they think is right, let them put their foot down and stick to their policy.
    Mr. R. MUNRO: Representing as I do a constituency which includes a very large number of line fishermen, I desire to say a few words with regard to several topics of immediate concern to them which I think arise on the discussion of this particular Vote. The first topic to which I shall allude has been referred to already, namely, the question of policing the sea round the coasts of Scotland, and in particular the policing of the Moray Firth. So far as this question is concerned, it is not a new one, but I do not think its seriousness is less because it is old. I think its seriousness is greater because it is old, for this reason. It has been so often discussed. Complaints about it have so often been made, and so little has been done to remedy the position of affairs, that the question has really become one of great gravity and importance. I do not altogether blame the Fishery Board in the matter. I quite agree with the hon. Member opposite (Major Anstruther-Gray) in the view he expressed that they have not under their control a sufficient number of cruisers to deal with this mischief. According to the information I have, there is only one cruiser told off to police the whole of the coast between Rattray Point, in Aberdeenshire, and Cape Wrath. It is not surprising in the circumstances that I should be told by one of my Constituents that within the three-mile limit on that part of the coast there were seventeen trawlers seen at work, and not a single police boat in sight. We have often been told that it is difficult to get a constable on land when he is wanted, but it seems to be very much more difficult to get a police boat at sea when it is wanted.
    The Fishery Board is not to blame in the matter. Really what is wanted is more money, and it seems to me that the answer which is sometimes given that there are no funds is unconvincing and irrelevant in the circumstances. Here you have a Statute setting up certain restrictions. It is the duty of the Government to find the money from some source in order efficiently and effectively to administer the Statute which is in force. Merely to ask where the money is to come from is not a complete answer in the dilemma. There is one source from which the money might come. For many years there have been heavy penalties imposed upon trawlers—not too heavy, in my opinion. I think the fines imposed on the trawlers might in a certain extent be applied to meet the requirements of the
    1306
    Fishery Board. I have reason to believe, although that fund goes to the Exchequer in the first instance, it does not stay there, but goes to the Fishery Board. I venture to think that a portion of it might be applied to the purpose to which I have referred. That line of action would be acceptable to the line fishermen along the coast.
    I wish to refer to another question which has been fully and ably dealt with by the hon. Member for the Montrose Burghs (Mr. R. Harcourt), namely, the question of territorial limits. This, of course, is no party question. I think both parties in the State have committed themselves to the view through distinguished speakers on their behalf that the territorial limit ought to be extended. Several recent incidents have driven home that impression. There was a recent Conference at Edinburgh representing about 10,000 fishermen, at which a resolution was unanimously passed that something must be done to extend the three-mile limit if their industry was to be saved from ruin. Then we have the action of Russia in closing the White Sea and claiming a thirteen-mile territorial limit. It has been urged before now, and I again respectfully urge it upon the Government, that a Conference of the North Sea Powers should be convened for the purpose of revising the North Sea Convention in this matter. To that invitation one has reason to believe the other Powers would be quite ready to accede. It is a pressing matter, and it has been urged by fishermen from all quarters. I would suggest that the appeal they make should be heard and dealt with.
    The next question I desire to touch upon is that of the Moray Firth, and in particular the judgment of the High Court of Justiciary, which has been referred to by several Members in the course of the Debate to-night. I have a particular personal interest in that judgment, because, in point of fact, I prosecuted the foreign trawlers at Dernoch, and obtained a conviction against them. If I mistake not, the Lord Advocate supported that conviction in the High Court of Justiciary, at which there were twelve judges. A full-dress Debate took place before that unusually large Court, with the result that the conviction was sustained. It does seem unfortunate that, from that time forward, the law declared by the highest Court in Scotland has not been put in active operation. There may or may not be good reasons for not doing

    1307
    it. There probably are good reasons, but I would like to hear what they are. If it is good law, it is difficult to see—at least, personally, I have not been able to see—why there should not be an attempt made to enforce it, or to explain the reasons clearly and fully why it has not been enforced. [An HON. MEMBER "Is it a final Court?"] It is a final Court. There is no appeal to the House of Lords. The question is constantly coming up in the constituencies, and I am sure that a statement upon it from the Lord Advocate to-night will be welcomed.
    I wish to refer also to the question of the provision of motor engines and steam drifters. These particular appliances have come to stay, and the fishermen in many quarters find themselves quite unable to provide the necessary finance. Accordingly, a proposal has been made, and it has been referred to in questions in this House, for providing them with loans to enable them to deal properly with that matter. Only two replies have been made to the suggestion that these loans should be granted. The first reply was that private enterprise might be sufficient to enable the fishermen to do what is necessary in the matter. In the Northern parts of Scotland that was not so. Private enterprise on the part of the fishermen is quite unable to cope with the difficulty. It is said also that previous experience in the matter of making loans has not been very successful. I suppose that refers to loans under the Crofters Act of 1886. That is a very different experiment from advancing money at a low rate of interest with ample security to men who have made it their sole business to go to sea, and that I venture also to urge on the Government as a suitable proposal which should he taken in connection with the fishermen of our country.
    It is not very much to ask when one turns to other countries, some of which have been alluded to to-night already, and when one sees what has been done there. I do not desire to travel over the ground which has been so well covered by the hon. Member for the Montrose Burghs, but I do refer to Ireland, not for a moment to be envious of Ireland's good fortune, but rather to deplore the ill-fortune which Scotland has had in comparison. In Ireland the Government, so far as I can discover from answers to questions in this House, have within the last twenty years advanced a sum of £171,000 as loans to fishermen, or an average some
    1308
    thing like £9,000 a year, and next year I see that Ireland is to receive for the same purpose some £20,000. Surely it is not asking very much when Scotch fishermen come to the Government and say that they desire not a sum of these dimensions, but a sum which would enable them to cope with the modern conditions under which they are obliged to work, to give them small advances on ample security for the purpose of providing facilities which they are otherwise unable to provide. The last question I desire to refer to is the question of the constitution of the Fishery Board. Something has been said to the effect that it is better than it, was. I do not really complain of the Fishery Board or of its very efficient chairman, if I may say so, but I do say that it is unfortunate, from the point of view at least of my Constituents in the north, that we have not a single representative upon that Board as reconstituted. The Board as reconstituted does not include a single representative from Buckie to Lerwick in the north, and from Stornaway on the west coast there is only one, I think, and they are certainly limited in number to one representative drawn from the district between Buckie and Leith. That has caused a great deal of comment in the North of Scotland, where there are so many loyal fishermen, many of them loyal Liberal fishermen. I do think that in these circumstances the wishes to which we have given expression in this and other matters should receive the attention of the Government. I am quite sure that the Lord Advocate is in sympathy with all the very legitimate demands that this class of man makes, and as I think that none of the demands which I have ventured respectfully to put forward in their name are other than legitimate, I hope that they will receive some attention from the Government.
    Mr. URE: I am sure that the Members of the Committee who had the good fortune to be present during the last hour will agree with me when I say that we have listened to most admirable speeches, closely reasoned, and full of information, and of a tone and temper with which no one could find fault. Indeed, I am in a position to say to my hon. Friends that I am in agreement with practically every word which they have uttered. I agree with them that it would be wise and prudent to consider the three-mile limit, and to consider the question carefully. Foreign nations, so far as my knowledge

    1309
    goes, hold the same views as our own people do with regard to the limit within which trawling can be prohibited, but at all events that is a question which it lies neither with me nor with the Scottish Secretary to decide. We can make representations to the Government, and we shall certainly do so. All my colleagues here know very well that this is a question of State policy, and a question for the Cabinet to consider. I am afraid it is not a very satisfactory answer to give to my hon. Friend the Member for Montrose Burghs that diplomatic reasons have prevented us from enforcing the judgment of the High Court, to which the hon. Member for Wick Burghs (Mr. R. Munro) has referred. It is perfectly true, as he said, that a court of exceptional weight and strength, both in the number and the ability of the judges who composed it, decided that we could enforce these regulations made by the Fishery Board all over the area of the Moray Firth. Personally, as my hon. Friend the Member for the Wick Burghs knows, I hold the view that the whole area of the Moray Firth is within the territory of Scotland, that the whole area is within the limit of territorial water, and some of my hon. Friends on this Committee know that by Statute Law, passed, I think, at the end of the 18th century, the jurisdiction of local courts on both sides of the Moray Firth extends over the whole area. If offences are committed aboard ship anywhere within the area of the Moray Firth they are cognisable by our local courts. There is no nation in the world that I am aware of that would not assert its territorial rights over such an area of water as the Moray Firth.
    The last hon. Member alluded to the fact that Russia proposes to extend her limits, and I am certain that Norway desires to extend hers. Norway as I understand holds the view that her territorial waters extend far beyond any claim that has ever been made, by this or any other country. For that reason she stood clear of the North Sea Convention. It seems to me that a strong case has been made for a revision, and note will be taken of the views so admirably expressed by my colleagues on this Committee, and representations will be made to the Government to see if anything can be done. The diplomatic reasons which my hon. Friend knows, of course, have prevented us from taking action are considerations with regard to the interests of British people in other parts of the world.
    1310
    If we were to enforce that judgment, as we are entitled to do, it is believed that it would be detrimental to British fishing interests and British fishermen in other parts. In other words, foreign countries would resent it. That is a question which I am not prepared to deal with. It is a question which the Foreign Office is eminently well qualified to deal with. It is for that reason, and that reason only, that the judgment of the High Court has not been enforced. To come to a much more practical question, all the hon. Members who have spoken representing fishing constituencies have urged strongly the claims of the fishermen to advances of money from the State to enable them either to equip existing boats with steam or motor apparatus, or to buy or build motor boats to carry on the industry in place of the old boats. I need scarcely say that generally speaking I am in sympathy with that view. But consider the situation for a moment. In the first place we have no statutory power at present to make advances of that kind, except to fishing constituencies within the crofting area. That statutory power is contained in the Crofters Act, 1886. It empowers the Treasury to hand over to the Fishery Board certain sums for the purpose among other purposes of making loans to fishermen. It is quite true, as my hon. Friend for the Wick Burghs has told us, that the experience of the Fishery Board was not very happy in administering that part of the Act. I read the other day a series of reports from inspectors in all parts of Scotland. All of them were hostile to advances of this kind being given. They said—and it commended itself to one's judgment—that the enterprising, active and sensible fisherman provided boats from their own resources. Where competition is keen—and it is very keen in some of the fishing districts—those enterprising men were able from their own funds and resources to furnish themselves with better equipped boats and gear, and they said it would be an unfair advantage that would be enjoyed by those who obtained loans from the State, to enable them to procure boats and gear and to come into competition with their neighbours who, by their own enterprise and at their own expense, had equipped their own boats. There is a good deal in that.
    9.0 P.M.
    When I looked over the reports showing the remarkable progress made by the fishing industry in many parts of Scotland and the remarkable change that has taken

    1311
    place in the past ten years, when I read that during the past ten years the tonnage had increased, I think, by sixteen times, the value about twenty times, and the value of gear something like thirty-seven times, I was impressed by the vigour, enterprise, and energy of my fellow-countrymen in Scotland in having without outside aid so admirably equipped themselves at their own expense and from their own resources. When I found, further, that they were enabled to procure loans that they required from the banks at a reasonable rate of interest, and when I found also that the expenditure is very great in building and equipping one of these modern trawlers, it appears to me that a much larger question was raised than at first sight appears. It would involve the making of loans to a fabulous extent right and left all round the coast. It is a striking fact that there have been no representations from the fishermen themselves asking for loans of this character. Where the most complaints have been made and the most demands have come from are the districts where the fishing is poor and unsuitable altogether. From the information I gathered it seems to me that the energy and enterprise of my countrymen were sufficient to cope with the difficulty, and enabled them to equip for themselves modern boats, with modern gear, as well as their neighbours and fellow-countrymen. Let the Committee remember that if we were to embark on a policy of making loans it would require to be done under a new statute, and in view of the present discussion I have satisfied myself that there is no clause of the Development Act of 1909 which would enable loans of this kind to be given, and it would require an Act specially passed for the purpose.
    Mr. R. HARCOURT: I quite appreciate the fact that under the Development Act loans cannot be granted to individuals working for profit, but could the right hon. Gentleman say anything on the point of credit banks. I had a conversation with one of the Development Commissioners, who indicated a plan to me—this is no breach of pledge—that credit banks might be the proper means of dealing with this matter. Can the right hon. Gentleman, on behalf of the Government, express any view in regard to credit banks?
    Mr. URE: I have no view that I can at present state with regard to credit banks.
    1312
    My investigation has shown that fishermen have no difficulty in obtaining loans on remarkably reasonable terms from the banks. If I remember aright I think that they got loans at 6 per cent.
    Mr. R. HARCOURT: They should get them at 3 per cent.
    Mr. URE: In regard to the complaints of insufficient policing of the Moray Firth, it is really a question of ways and means. You have got to consider, on the one hand, the advantage to be gained by having a large fleet of vessels, and, on the other hand, you have to consider the enormous expense involved in employing a large fleet of vessels. Do not let the Committee forget that the trawling of the Moray Firth is really not conducted by the regular respectable trawlers of this country. It is only what I call the riffraff who appear there and spurious foreigners—men from Grimsby flying Norwegian or Danish flags. There is no intelligent trawler but knows that if the Moray Firth was open to everybody and everybody went there, soon there would be no fish to be had. The thing would come to an end. I myself have conferred with trawlers in the constituencies which are represented by my hon. Friends the Members for North Aberdeen and South Aberdeen. These fishermen have told me in fact that they knew quite well that if trawling in the forbidden waters of the Moray Firth became common there would be an end to the fishing. It would be just as injurious to them as to line fishermen. Accordingly it is only, so far as my information goes, what I may call the riff-raff of the trawlers who go there, and those boats of which I have nothing good to say.
    Some say close it to everybody, or open it to everybody, and that there is no middle course. Seriously, do hon. Members who represent line fishermen say that it will be better if we cannot close it to everybody that we should open it to everybody. Is it not certain that our legislation has resulted in confining the trawling within the Moray Firth practically to the outcasts of the trawling industry and not to the regular trawler at all? I think it is certain that we have done a great deal by the Act which we passed a couple of years ago to rid the Moray Firth of those pests. I know that the hon. Member for North Aberdeen thinks that the Act has been entirely ineffective. I think it has done good, and, at all events, let us give it a fair chance. We have not had experience enough yet to draw any certain

    1313
    or wise inferences. Let us give it another year's trial and let us see what the effect will be. So far as my information goes, and I have been looking at the figures recently, it has been effective. Down to July last it was more effective than I believe it has been since. In July last from the information given by the Fishery Board and the figures supplied to me I was well founded in my statement that practically we had brought these Norwegian and other pests to stay away from the Moray Firth. I regret to say that there has been a change to some extent since then and that more of them have appeared, and that a great many of them, and I do not dispute this for a moment, have been seen in the Moray Firth, and have not landed their fish at Grimsby, and therefore do not come within the scope of the Act. Of course, my hon. Friend the Member for North Aberdeen draws the inference that it is only the few who land their fish at Grimsby who are touched by the recent Act, and that the large number of those seen fishing in the Moray Firth are, people who carry the fish away and sell it in foreign waters. I do not think that that is a safe and certain inference, but it is an inference my hon. Friend is at liberty to draw. Meantime I would counsel the hon. Member to give this Act a fair trial.
    Mr. WILKIE: Would it not be possible to trace those other trawlers that are taking the fish elsewhere?
    Mr. URE: All things are possible, but it would require an enormous fleet of cruisers to trace all those various foreigners—Belgians, Germans, and the rest, into their quarters, find out where they landed their fish, and whether they were caught in the Moray Firth. Of course we should be told that they were not caught in the Moray Firth, and we should have no means of checking erroneous statements. I do not think it would be practically possible to employ a large fleet of cruisers and incur expense far beyond the resources of the Department. I would appeal to hon. Members to let the Act have fair play and give it another year's trial. The people who are mostly concerned are quite satisfied. I do not remember any complaint from the line fishermen. I think the Act has rid the Moray Firth of the regular trawler, and I would hope as time goes on that we shall get it more and more free from those. I apologise for having risen a little sooner than perhaps I ought to have risen, but I shall
    1314
    endeavour to answer any point's my hon. Friends raise subsequently.
    Mr. COWAN: The right hon. Gentleman commenced his speech by telling us that he was in entire agreement with everything which had been said by the three previous speakers. I think as the speech developed it became evident that the agreement, though entire in regard to one matter—the question of the limits of territorial waters, was not quite so complete in regard to certain other matters as the Lord Advocate perhaps thought. That was particularly so in regard to the matter of the proposed loans to fishermen. I confess that I heard the Lord Advocate with a good deal of surprise declaring that no representation had been received from fishermen desiring that those loans should be granted to them to acquire steam drifters and to fit motors into existing crafts. Only within the last two or three weeks, and certainly within the last month, I myself handed to the Secretary for Scotland, whose absence from this House, although I understand it is out of order to mention it, I still deplore, I handed to him a widely signed petition from the fishermen on the entire Aberdeenshire coast, expressly asking that those loans should be granted, and presenting a strong case, or at any rate their case, in support of that demand. The Secretary for Scotland received that petition sympathetically, and promised that it should have careful consideration. He has since assured me that he has referred it to persons in a position to give him useful information and advice. I gather from what the Lord Advocate has told us as to the information being hostile that the reports which have been received from the inspectors throughout Scotland have been received in connection with that petition and the inquiries to which it has led. Naturally I am disappointed to hear that the inspectors should be hostile. Officially they seem to be, so one must believe, but personally and privately I have some reason to believe that the inspectors are not all hostile, and that, some of them believe the scheme to be practicable and desirable.
    I was astonished to hear that the inspectors should report to the Scottish Office that they find that the more well-to-do and more prosperous fishermen resent the idea of their poorer and less fortunate brethren being assisted by loan. I think, to say the least of it, that that is not a generous attitude, and it is not

    1315
    the usual attitude adopted by prosperous tradesmen towards their less fortunate numbers. I should be sorry to think that that really corresponded to the actual facts of the case. I think that the fishermen who are so independent that they do not need loans themselves do not require very much to be considered in this connection. They are men who have got capital and who are able to obtain capital upon easy terms. Some months ago I asked a question in this House as to whether the Government would entertain the idea of making advances to fishermen for this purpose, and the Lord Advocate informed me that he considered the matter was one to be dealt with by private enterprise, and now he tells us it is dealt with by private enterprise, that it is done satisfactorily, and that money can be obtained from private capitalists for this purpose at 6 per cent. He seemed to consider that a very reasonable rate. As the Member for Montrose Burghs (Mr. R. Harcourt) interjected at that point, the State might advance at something like 3 per cent., and it seems to he possible that in the difference between the 3 per cent. of the State and the 6 per cent. of private enterprise there would be a distinct margin with which to provide a Sinking Fund so as to enable the capital to be paid off during the lifetime of the party. I submit that the scheme is a practical scheme, and not only practicable, but absolutely necessary if we are to save the fishing industry of the North-East of Scotland from extinction.
    You find one Aberdeenshire village after another, as you go along the coast, sinking into decay. We find in many of these villages very few young men; most of the inhabitants are old. We find that these men have not capital to enable them to adapt their industry to the changing conditions. We find that men who were able to purchase fishing boats some years ago are not now able to purchase the much more expensive craft required to carry on the industry on competitive lines. A steam drifter costs from £2,500 to £3,400, and there are very few fishermen, even if some of them join together, who have that amount of money to invest. The hon. Member for St. Andrews Burghs (Major Anstruther-Gray) has justly referred from the other side of the House to the fact that Scottish fishermen are among the most enterprising, solid, honest class of men in the United Kingdom. They are men whose word is their bond. They are in a
    1316
    position to give ample security either in their enterprise or character or their boats, and in many cases other security might be offered. It is not fair to compare what has been done under the Crofters Act of 1886 with what is proposed to be done in the measures we invite the Government to take. I think this whole question is surrounded by unnecessary complication and a cloud of misapprehension and exaggerations. For example, the Lord Advocate has told us that the fishing industry in Scotland is prosperous, and he proves that prosperity by showing that the total of fish caught has increased. I do not wish to dispute the figures for one moment, but they are not revelant to this controversy. For if the catch has increased it is because the trawlers have increased. It is not on behalf of the trawler owners or the would-be owners of trawlers that we make this demand. They are well able to take care of themselves; but we speak on behalf of the line fishermen, the men who see their living being taken away from them, and who cannot compete with the trawlers unless they are able to acquire motor-boats equipped with modern petrol engines, or steam drifters. Whilst the trawling industry may be and is a means of prosperity to people of large capital, the line fisherman is in a very precarious position. I have visited these villages not only once but many times, and I know very many of the men engaged in it, and the extreme difficulty they have in making a living at all out of the sea, from which in past years they used to reap so abundant a harvest.
    The House really ought to consider how important it is to the nation, not merely from the commercial point of view but for national safety, that everything should be done to maintain this hardy population around our coasts. If only as recruiting-grounds for the Imperial Navy I think these people have a very strong claim upon us. It is impossible to dismiss a scheme of this sort airily as socialistic in its tendencies. Many of us are opposed to the tenets held by those who call themselves Socialists, but we all want legislation and administration which comes perilously near to what may be described as socialistic. I do not think anyone of either party will fear to associate themselves with a scheme to benefit a great and important class in the community because of a misrepresentation of that kind. I think there is a fund from which money could be drawn, without the special legislation such as the Lord Advocate sug-

    1317
    gested, and which I should be glad to see coming from him. Money could be drawn to make a reasonable beginning of a scheme by which these people could be encouraged to obtain steam drifters on reasonable terms and obtain capital at a rate which was not unremunerative. I think the Development Fund may be tapped for this purpose. I think it exists for purposes of this sort. One thing which is closely connected with the interests of my fishing Constituents might be usefully served by a grant from the Development Fund.
    All the fishing villages around the coast of Aberdeenshire, with two exceptions, have decreased alarmingly in population between the date of the last Census and the previous one. These two are the villages of Inverallochy and St. Combs, and it is owing to the Fraserburgh Light Railway. That railway was established by the Great North of Scotland Co. with a grant from the State. At the other side of Fraserburgh there was a scheme which was elaborately laid before the Treasury for some considerable time, and the Treasury have gone so far as to give a grant of £17,000 towards the construction of that line. It would restore prosperity and save what were formerly thriving villages along the Aberdeenshire coast. It is only a reasonable and proper thing, and if the £17,000 is found to be inadequate for the purpose intended, the Treasury should ask the Development Fund to come in and make an additional grant for this purpose. I have other subjects to which I desire to call attention in addition to that of the Scotch line fishermen, but the ground has been covered by other speakers, and I have confined myself to that claim alone, and I hope that something will be done to provide these loans from the State, either by the special legislation suggested by the Lord Advocate, or by obtaining some additional funds from the Development Fund. I do not care very much where the money comes from, but I do say that if it has been found to be wise, proper, and patriotic to make Grants to fishermen in Ireland there is no reason which I know or can think of or imagine why my own countrymen in Scotland should not be considered in the matters I have placed before the Committee.
    Mr. DUNCAN MILLAR: The hon. Gentleman who has just spoken has made a very eloquent appeal on behalf of the line fishermen in Scotland. I venture to think that that appeal is a very much-
    1318
    needed one, as the situation which has arisen to-day in Scotland is a very serious one indeed in many parts, owing to the decay of line-fishing. We have, as the Census results have shown, many districts where the population has decreased because the people have been hemmed in, shall I say by laws which at present prevent them settling on the land. In other respects they are also hemmed in by a system which prevails upon the sea, and which for many years past has led to the destruction of many of the best spawning beds and fishing grounds along the shores of Scotland. Many different aspects of the trawling question have been touched on in the course of Debate, but there is one to which I would like to draw the attention of the Committee. It has not been dealt with very fully. I think it is one of very great importance. It is in regard to the administration of the law as it at present stands against illegal trawling. Hon. Members who have spoken think that it is a very desirable thing that we ought to have our limits extended, but this is a matter which requires very serious consideration, and I am glad to think that the right hon. Gentleman has taken a very sympathetic view of this question. I hope he will press his views strongly upon the Government. Until, however, that question has been settled we have got to deal with the situation as it is to-day.
    We have got at the present time quite a series of laws in existence which have for their purpose the prevention of illegal trawling along the coast of Scotland. I know the Fishery Board are very anxious to secure the efficient administration of the law. I think we are very fortunate in having at the head of the Fishery Board such a very capable Chairman and such a very capable Secretary as the Board possesses. All I should like to say is that the experience of the last two years has proved that the law will require to be very much more strictly administered if you are to put an end to the practice which prevails all along our coasts of trawlers fishing inshore and taking immature fish from the fishing and spawning ground, thus damaging very much indeed the whole of the fisheries off the coast of Scotland. I drew the attention of the Lord Advocate last year to figures showing the number of convictions which were obtained during 1909 for illegal trawling. I regret that I have not got figures to deal with the matter as fully as one would have liked for 1910. We have not yet got the report of

    1319
    the Fishery Board. I think it is very much to be regretted that some attempt was not made to accelerate the publication of the report for the purpose of this Debate. I pointed out to the right hon. Gentleman that there had been a very large increase in the number of prosecutions and convictions for illegal trawling. I would like to quote the passage in the report of the Fishery Board for 1909, which deals with the subject, namely:—
    "If the number of prosecutions undertaken be any criterion, illegal trawling was carried on to a much larger extent than usual during the year under review, sixty-three cases having been tried as compared with thirty in 1908, a yearly average of twenty-eight since 1886."
    It is quite true that during the past year the figures are not quite so high. I understand that for 1910 there were thirty convictions, but during the present year again there is a tendency for the number of convictions to increase. What I point out is that you have at the present time under existing laws which have for their object the prevention of these illegal practices, these practices continuing and increasing and causing immense damage to the spawning ground. There is one particular feature in regard to these convictions which I think also ought to be kept in view, and that is that while fines are imposed—I do not think they are nearly heavy enough, I think they ought to be doubled—they are very seldom paid. Take 1909 for example. There was imposed in fines £4,738. Of that amount only £1,026, or a little less than a quarter, was paid. For 1910 fines amounting to £2,005 were imposed, and only £544 paid. In these cases where the fines were not paid the parties convicted, that is the masters of the vessels, were sent to prison. They were sent to prison under an arrangement, in some cases, I believe, with the owners of the trawler, who preferred to keep their officers—who were the victims in these instances—in prison and keep their families while the father was in prison—
    Mr. ESSLEMONT: May I ask the hon. Gentleman what evidence he makes that statement on?
    Mr. MILLAR: I have received evidence on different occasions in regard to such practices. I want to be perfectly clear. I am not charging the owners of all trawlers with such a practice, but I believe it is a practice which does exist. I have had evidence of it on different occasions.
    1320
    The point which I make is this that while these fines, amounting to a very considerable sum are imposed, they are very seldom paid. Unless you can enforce payment of these fines in such a way to make the penalty really a severe one on the responsible party you will have a continuation of this existing practice. I do think the figures are eloquent. Since 1886, when the law was first enforced, up to the present day there have been 643 convictions, and £30,910 imposed in fines. Of this sum only some £13,000 has been paid. What is the remedy for it? If you are going to enforce the existing law—and I agree that those hon. Members who are interested in trawling and who represent constituencies where there are trawlers are as anxious as any other Member to see that the law is enforced—we must all agree that the penalties shall be such as will really bring home the offence to the offenders. The Sea Fisheries Regulation (Scotland) Act of 1895, which, in Section 10, deals with the question of the thirteen-mile limit, by Sub-section (6) of that Section provides—
    "That failing payment by a certain date named in the conviction of the fine imposed upon the person or persons convicted, decree may be pronounced against the owner or owners of the offending vessels …"
    I am quite satisfied that a provision to that effect, which has already found its way on the Statute Book in connection with the very much smaller offence in regard to the thirteen-mile limit, although that Section is at present a dead letter, could be, and I hope may be provided in the case of the offence of going within the three-mile limit, or the closed areas, of the Moray Firth, the Firth of Forth, and all the closed areas around our coast. I see no reason why such a provision should not be carried into effect by the Government, and I certainly hope that the Fishery Board in considering this question will keep in view the necessity of securing more stringent penalties and legislation. One other point which I wish to deal with is the assistance given by the Government to the development of fisheries. I think the fishermen of Scotland ought to recognise and keep in view the great advantages they will derive through the action of the Government in passing the Development Act, and the Scotch Fishery Board ought to take a considerable share in carrying into effect the provisions of the Act. I understand that various committees

    1321
    have been appointed to report to the Development Commissioners as to the state of the harbours along our coasts. That is a very important question.
    It has been suggested in certain quarters that there has been considerable delay in visiting the different parts of the northeast coast. I have reason to believe that the Fishery Board acted very wisely when they sought to carry out their inquiry not only in one portion, but through the whole of the area of Scotland in order that they might be in a position to consider the needs of all without discriminating, and that one district should not be favoured more than another. I think their policy is wise, and it seems to me that they have taken up their duties in connection with this question at the earliest possible moment, and that no time has been lost in getting the matter dealt with, and I sincerely hope the Commissioners visiting the coast of Scotland may secure grants for harbours to the localities upon conditions not too severe, because in many districts it is difficult for small communities to raise large sums of their own in order to develop their harbours and to meet the conditions of the Development Commissioners.
    The Committee listened with great interest to the statement made by the right hon. Gentleman on the matter of the extension of the three-mile limit. We urge upon him at an early date to take the opportunity of urging the Government to re-summon the North Sea Convention, so that all interested in the fisheries in the North Sea may be agreed upon the question of the protection of the interests not only of one section, but of all sections of the community interested in fishing. Those interested in trawling have every bit as much at stake as the line fishermen, and if the supply of fish in the North Sea is to be continued and not to be seriously injured as in past years all I hose engaged in fishing in the North Sea ought to arrange amongst themselves to secure the protection of the spawning beds and fishing grounds.
    There ought to be no real difficulty in regard to the international question, if those nations principally concerned in the North Sea Convention were brought together to discuss the whole question at the present time. I think the question of the wider limits might to a certain extent be narrowed to the North Sea, itself in the first instance, and that the question of further extending the
    1322
    territorial limits might be for consideration at a later stage. I am glad to think so many Members are supporting the claims of the line fishermen. Although I no longer represent a fishing constituency, I still continue to have a very great interest in that most industrious and deserving class, and while the Government is at the present moment engaged in dealing with matters of such great interest to large industrial constituencies such as I represent in North-East Lanark, both in regard to the Mines Bill and in regard to the National Insurance Bill, I am glad to take this opportunity of giving expression to my views with regard to the other class.
    Mr. ESSLEMONT: I should like to say a word or two in reference to the speech of the hon. Member who has just sat down. He referred to the fact that during the last few years some thousands of pounds in fines imposed upon trawlers only a comparatively small sum was paid. But I think it should be pointed out to the Committee that the persons accused of these offences and found guilty had the alternative of paying a fine or going to prison. I refuse to believe that any man who had the money to put down in court would prefer to go to prison for sixty days in order to avoid paying the fine. I am not at all satisfied that the hon. Member was justified in stating that the owners of these fishing vessels are directly responsible for the malpractices carried on by the skippers. I represent a very large number of trawlers, and they have given me an assurance that on no occasions do they encourage their men to fish in prohibited areas. For myself I have always maintained that it was not in the public interest that trawlers should be permitted in certain areas, and it is my desire, and it is the desire of others who represent trawlers, that the law should be observed and no one permitted to fish in prohibited areas.
    The hon. Member said he had evidence that satisfied himself that encouragement was given to those men to refuse to pay the fines and to go to prison. I invite him to produce that evidence. Why does he not produce it to the Committee? I do not think that is the case. He said that additional penalties should be imposed, and he referred to an obsolete Act in which power was given to the judge to impose a fine upon the owner in the event of default by the accused person. I think

    1323
    that is a monstrous proposal. The owner is not cited; he gets no opportunity of putting in his defence, and yet my hon. Friend says although the owner has not committed the offence a fine should be imposed upon him without giving him an opportunity of defence. I understand my hon. Friend is a lawyer, but I think it is contrary to all accepted principles of British justice that a man should have a fine imposed upon him for an offence he has not committed and of which he is not accused, and in reference to which he gets no opportunity of putting in his defence.
    With regard to this question of loans to fishermen, personally I do not think there is, up to the present time, any very great demand for loans. There has been some move in the matter recently. I am inclined to agree with the Lord Advocate when he stated that private enterprise and the credit of the fishermen themselves had been sufficient up to the present time to meet the case. I think there are very few instances in which fishermen have found any difficulty in purchasing steam drifters and other vessels of a similar character. The industry which I have the honour to represent must be considered as well as the line-fishing industry. Why should the line fishermen get State loans while those in the trawling industry are not to have State loans on easy terms as well? [An HON. MEMBER: "They are rich men."] I do not think the hon. Member knows so much about the trawlers' banking accounts as I do. As a matter of fact, they are not rich men, and these trawlers are owned by a very large number of persons who put down comparatively small sums of money as part-owners of the vessel. They have developed this industry very much.
    I do not think it is desirable that those hon. Members who represent fishing communities should be continually decrying the trawling industry. It is a most valuable industry, and but for its existence large quantities of the best food obtainable would not have been forthcoming. I think we ought to be able to reconcile these differences without condemning the trawling industry as if it was responsible for all the depopulation to which the hon. Member for East Aberdeenshire (Mr. Cowan) has referred. I do not think the trawling industry has very much to do with that question at all, and the real reason for the depopulation is the lack of
    1324
    proper harbour accommodation. The boats have increased in size, and it is no longer possible to draw them into the little creeks, as was the case when they were much smaller. It is not the existence of the trawling industry that has damaged the line industry; on the contrary, I believe it has benefited very considerably, because it has created a great market for fish which did not previously exist. I think we ought to find some way of reconciling our differences and encourage the whole industry of fishing in every possible way.
    Mr. SCOTT DICKSON: Speaking from my own recollection of the administration of the law, when I was in an official position, I cannot help thinking that we are conducting our legislation and administration on entirely wrong lines. If trawling is as bad as it is said to be it could easily be stopped. I do not believe in the present system of having a law which it is sought to enforce by penalties which do not in the least enforce it. I think we ought to endeavour to arrive at some final conclusion upon this subject. At the present time we are trying to ride two horses at once, or perhaps I ought to say we are riding one horse one way and the other horse the opposite way. If it is found that trawling is good then it ought not to be put down. We should make up our minds within what limits trawling should be permitted. We ought to decide whether foreign trawlers should be excluded, and whether the three-mile limit should be extended. We are allowing this very important question to drift, drift, drift. We have had commission after commission appointed, and we are not the least bit nearer a solution. It is idle having cases brought up in Parliament, or cases in the ordinary Sheriff's Court where the unfortunate skipper or the cook is put forward, and where the trawler owner or the master pays. That is not approaching the question in a business-like way. The first thing we ought to decide is whether trawling really does damage the spawning beds; whether it does the mischief alleged to the line fishermen, whether they are being injured, and if so, whether the corresponding benefits secured by procuring an enormous fish supply is not worth the comparatively little injury which is alleged. All these questions we are continually talking about, but we do not arrive any nearer a solution. If trawling does damage the line fishing industry, is this industry not more

    1325
    than compensated for by giving us a large supply of cheap food. [An HON. MEMBER: "It is not cheap."] Yes, it is cheap food, for I have seen in York on a Saturday afternoon pounds of cheap fish sold for a few coppers because they were plentiful.
    Mr. ROBERT HARCOURT: But supposing it decreases the?
    Mr. SCOTT DICKSON: That is exactly the point I want us to address ourselves to. We have had more than one commission upon this subject, and we have never yet reached a sensible or a wise conclusion on the subject. It is quite out of the question to ask that we should proceed to legislate on this matter until we have great deal better grounds for saying that trawling does injure the fish supply. As far as my knowledge goes we have not any definite evidence that will enable us to arrive at a sound conclusion at all. This continual wrangling between those who represent line-fishermen and trawlers does not advance the question one bit. We are spending a great deal of eloquence and Parliamentary time upon this matter, and we are not advancing towards a solution. Before we can arrive at anything practical we must make up our minds one way or the other. It seems to me perfectly plain that before we can arrive at any conclusion upon the conflicting claims of the line fishermen and the trawlers we ought to make up our minds whether we are going to have the three-mile limit extended, and whether the foreigners are going to be treated differently to ourselves. If trawling is found to be a bad thing it ought to cease. The present condition of things is very unsatisfactory. I do not believe the House of Commons is at this moment in a position to give an intelligent vote upon the question whether trawling is good, bad, or indifferent; whether it ought to be supported or condemned; and whether the claims of the line fishermen, as against trawlers, should be supported. It seems to me the only way in which we could reach a conclusion, unsatisfactory though that way may be, is by the appointment of somebody to inquire into this question and try to arrive at some satisfactory result. As far as I can see, I do not think the Government can be blamed in this matter, because I do not think there is information at present available to enable any Government to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion.
    Mr. SUTHERLAND: I did not agree altogether with my hon. Friend the Member for South Aberdeen (Mr. Esslemont) when he said we who represent line fishermen want only to decry trawlers. We do nothing of the kind. We do say, those of us who know, that the present Fishery Board is somewhat over-represented in the trawling interest. It may or may not have been possible to have avoided that, but I submit it is the fact. My right hon. Friend the Member for the Leith Burghs (Mr. Munro - Ferguson) stated in his opinion practical fishermen ought to be members of the Fishery Board. That raises a very difficult question. It would be very difficult indeed for fishermen on our coast to attend meetings of the Fishery Board. I think what the right hon. Gentleman said about an advisory committee has been very largely got over. Lord Pentland last year met a very large deputation of those engaged in the fishing industry. That conference did a great deal of good, and it has been agreed such conferences shall be held in future. If that is the case, many of the obstacles the industry formerly had to encounter will be surmounted. I, for one, am of opinion this Fishery Board for Scotland is a distinct improvement on any Fishery Board we have had. We have two or three practical men there. Some of us indeed would have liked to see some other men there. I myself presented two petitions signed by thousands of fishermen and fish curers in favour of one man, but, for reasons into which I need not enter, he was not appointed. I should like the Fishery Board for Scotland, now it has a new membership, to go in for more up-to-date methods. We get little or no information from the Fishery Board as to what is done on the Continent. That has to be picked up by Members engaged in the industry. I do not know what the late Lord Advocate wants. What is it he wants us to prove? He was in office for a considerable time, and, as far as I can recollect, he took certain steps, or proposed to take certain steps, against trawling. Why did he do so? Was he not convinced trawling was not the most beneficent method of fishing?
    Mr. SCOTT DICKSON: I was only convinced of this: I had to administer the law at that time. I thought it was very unsatisfactory.
    Mr. SUTHERLAND: I am sorry the right hon. Gentleman took no steps to find

    1327
    out the truth. I myself have lived for a large portion of my life on the shores of the Moray Firth, and if he comes there I will prove to demonstration, that, if he allows them to open the Moray Firth to trawlers, our line fishermen may emigrate as soon as they like. I believe this Act has done some good, and I believe, if more time were given, we should see what are the facts; but that is no reason why something more should not be done. Indeed, something more must be done. The Foreign Secretary, two years ago, stated the whole question was under consideration and investigation, and a conclusion must be come to soon. I should like to know how soon—within a year or within two years? This method of going on is a bit antiquated. It is absurd we should only have a three-mile limit merely because, years ago, it was believed the distance of a gun-shot was three miles.
    In 1878, when this question came up in the House of Lords, both Lord Halsbury and Lord Salisbury would not commit themselves to this limit. Lord Salisbury said great care had been taken not to name three miles as the limit, and in 1895 the Fishery Board was empowered to make regulations for a thirteen-mile limit. We are willing to give time to see how the present Act operates, but if it is not satisfactory, then something of a more drastic nature must be done. My hon. Friend the Member for East Aberdeenshire referred to the question of loans for fishermen. That is a matter on which, on the face of it much may be said, but before such a method can, in my opinion, he entered into, a Committee representing the various interests of the industry will have to be appointed. At present the industry is not in a very healthy state. Are loans to be given to individual fishermen? Does the hon. Member think the fishing fleet is capable of indefinite expansion without reference to market limitations? If you over capitalise, and if you over produce, you will not only harm the fishermen you want to support but you will destroy the whole industry. In Banffshire, where most of the steam drifters are, I am told they have been financed largely by banks which charge them the same rate of interest as they do other enterprises. Private lenders are not very quick in calling up capital, but as soon as this industry is financed by the State both interest and capital will be called up very stringently. I admit this is a question of
    1328
    great importance, and I hope, if it is to be taken up, the Secretary for Scotland will consider the advisability of appointing a Committee.
    We in the North-East of Scotland are more concerned as to the question of harbours. Lord Pentland was good enough last year to go along the coast and examine the state of harbours for himself, and in that respect he did good work. He knows what is wanted. Now we are to get grants from the Development Commissioners. That is a body that seems to be surrounded with a great deal of mystery. They have got a local habitation and a name, but where they meet, how they meet, and what is the nature of the argument to be produced to them passes my comprehension. I would say to them—Scotland has a right to say—"Give us the portion of goods that falleth to us," and as soon as that is done we will expend that money in the way that we know Scotland requires. We require more money for our harbours. We require generous treatment.
    I am told with good authority that the Development Commission is to give Ireland something like £54,000 for fishery purposes. If that is the case, Scotland has a fishing industry four times the value of that of Ireland, and has four or five times the number of harbours, and therefore Scotland ought to get four or five times the amount of money. I have no objection to Uganda getting a railway and £250,000 for it, but I venture to say that the Government should "begin at Jerusalem." I do not see why the Government should not help us as well as the natives of Uganda. What we need most at the present time is money for all our harbours, and there will be no rest until the harbours are put into a condition to take the larger vessels. Attempts are being made to send these vessels to central harbours. If you do that, you will destroy the character and prestige of our fishermen in these villages and you will crowd them into large centres. At the present moment the fishermen living in our coast villages occupy a place not only of prominence but of pre-eminence. They take a leading part in the fishing industry, but so soon as you put them into these central harbours, you degrade them into a third-rate position as labourers; not merely into a lower class, but into a class apart. You will depopulate these villages and throw the men into the towns and the whole of their property will stand idle. You will deplete schools and

    1329
    churches and will have to build churches and schools in those places where you send them. In fact you are encouraging the emigration of the best part of your population. These villages lying along our coast have thriven because they have engaged solely in one industry, the fishing industry, night and day. Therefore, we have the right to press the Lord Advocate on this question. First, he must understand that we do not come here to swear at large. We have come here to concentrate attention on the fact that we must have more money. Hon. Members have raised the question about the Scottish Office being responsible for getting more money from the Treasury. Every one of us believes it is the duty of the Scottish Office to get more money for our harbours. We want a distinct pledge that the Lord Advocate will not allow our claims to be anticipated by England or Ireland. There is an Advisory Fishery Committee to the Development Commissioners. Two of the number are Scotchmen; the great proportion are Englishmen. Why should that be so? I do not know what the value of the fishing of England is compared with that of Scotland. The Board of Agriculture and Fisheries in England is so engaged in thwarting the policy of the Board for Scotland that they have given us no report or returns of fisheries in England since the year 1908. Surely the Member for Argyllshire (Mr. Ainsworth) will not seek to fasten upon us a Department of Agriculture and Fisheries. I appeal to the Lord Advocate to tell us whether, on behalf of the Scottish Office, he will see to it that Scotland will get its fair share of money to build and extend necessary harbours, and that we do not lose anything by a delay which seems to me unaccountable.
    Major M'MICKING: I desire to call attention to a fishery problem in the south of Scotland, namely, the case of the Solway fishermen. This question affects some of my Constituents, and I think it merits the most careful investigation of the Fishery Board. The facts are these: For many years these fishermen have been in the habit of using paidle nets to take white fish. These nets are from four and a half feet to five feet in height, with leaders from sixty to eighty yards in length. I am bound to admit that not only do they catch white fish, such as codlins, flounders, and plaice, but occasionally they catch salmon, grilse, and trout. These nets are used all along the
    1330
    Solway, and on the coasts of Dumfriesshire and the Stewartry. I have a letter here which was received by a fisherman in the Caerlaverock district. It reads as follows:—
    "Annan Fishery District.
    "Sir,—I am informed that you have erected paidle nets with covers in Brewin Scour, ex-adverso of the lands of Nethertown in the district, which nets are so constructed and situated as to be capable of taking fish of the salmon kind to the detriment of the rights of the proprietors of salmon fisheries in the district. You will doubtless be aware that by the recent decision of the Court of Session, in Buccleugh v. Smith and others, following upon a series of decisions on similar have, such nets have been declared illegal. If you lines not already done so, I have, therefore, to request you to have the nets complained of forthwith removed, or so altered, or so constructed as to render them incapable of capturing salmon, or fish of the salmon kind.
    "I am,
    "Your obedient servant,
    "JOHN F. CORMACK,
    "Clerk to Annan District Fishery Board."
    That was a letter written to a fisherman in the district of Dumfriesshire. Some of my Constituents in Stewartry who are fishermen are anxious about this, because they use the same nets and anticipate that some day they may get the same letter. I want to say a word on their behalf. I make no criticism whatever of the decision of the Court of Session. I should like to see the rights of proprietors of salmon fishing protected, but it is also only right that the fishermen should be protected also. Their livelihood depends on their being able effectively to take these whitefish. I want to enlist the sympathy of the Fishery Board on their behalf, and I hope they will be able to find some way out of the difficulty after investigating the subject. Surely it would be a great calamity if, owing to the fact that occasionally a salmon or a grilse found its way into the nets of existing fishermen they should be deprived of the effective means of pursuing their useful and lawful vocation.
    Mr. J. M. HENDERSON: I approach this subject with great trepidation, because I do not represent the line-fisherman or the trawler, and am only an outsider, but sometimes the outsider sees a little that the protagonists of these various kinds of fishermen do not. The hon. Member for the Elgin Burghs was right when he said that the Scottish banks provide these fishermen with loans on sufficiently favourable terms and at a sufficiently low rate of interest to enable them to obtain boats, and there is no necessity, in my opinion, for any credit banks. It struck me that my right hon. Friend spoke the truth when he said that he has never been able to arrive at any exact position with regard to this fishing. We do not

    1331
    know whether the spawning beds are going to leave England or not; we do not know where the herrings come from or where they go. We had an inquiry as to why they went away from Shetland and Orkney, and some said it was because the whales were killed, and others said it was because the whales did not come to be killed because the herrings did not come, and the fact is we do not know what the truth is. As the Lord Advocate said, it is very difficult to know whether this trawling would do so very much harm. Of one thing I am certain. If Great Britain required to close the Solway Firth and it required the consent of foreign countries to do it I do not think they would find very much difficulty in getting Russia to agree. The Solway Firth is 120 miles broad, and if we closed it Russia would claim the right to close the Baltic, and Italy the right to close the Adriatic. If we claimed to shut up 120 miles from the foreigners they might do that. [An HON. MEMBER: "But we own both sides."] They would find some excuse for doing that, and is it desirable to raise this question internationally, because if our Fleet is to be supreme it must have access to every sea, supposing it does not go within the three-mile limit. As far as this trawling is concerned, is it a good thing or a bad? Can anybody doubt that it is a good thing? Trawling has made Aberdeen, with its enormous population. There can be no doubt about it. Into that town every day between 200 and 400 tons of fish are brought. Line fishermen never could supply that quantity, and see what the effect of the change would be upon the commerce of the country.
    Major ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: It is not the trawling that we object to, but the poaching within the three-mile limit. No one objects to trawling.
    Mr. J. M. HENDERSON: The trawlers came to that town and established themselves in great quantities. I have never heard that there was any other great cause for the increase of population from 100,000 to 150,000. The great thing that the line fishermen want is better harbours. To carry on successful fishing you must have larger vessels, and some of these harbours are not big enough to hold them. It is a very extraordinary thing that Buckie and Cullan, which are in Banffshire, are two of the few places which have increased in population at the last census, and they are both line-fishing
    1332
    villages, so that trawling is not having a very bad effect on them. I approach this from an outside point of view, but I think there is a great deal too much agitation about this trawling one way and another. It ought to be settled, and we ought to find out whether it is good or bad. My own belief is that it is very good. So long as it is, I think this agitation aganst it should be stopped, because I do not think you are doing much good to the line fishermen. They are always hoping for something to be done which really it would be very difficult and almost impossible to do.
    Mr. BEALE: Hon. Members who have addressed the Committee have confined themselves to the question as it affects the Moray Firth and the North-Eastern parts of Scotland. I want to say a word about the interests of the fisheries of the Firth of Clyde. What we want is more accurate observation and information as to the way trawling, especially upon the spawning banks, is so mischievous that it ought at least to be prohibited during some parts of the year. Up to last December an order was enforced by which trawling was prohibited during the spring and early summer on the spawning beds in the Firth of Clyde. That order left it open to the trammel net, which does not scratch the bank and drive away the spawn. There was an agitation for some time even against that. I believe my friends, instigated from Glasgow, thought it ought to be a close time altogether, but instead of decreeing a close time altogether last December, the Fishery Board repealed the order, which closed the banks during the spawning season. They were advised in the matter, no doubt, by a very eminent gentleman, but the long experience of the previous years conveyed to me the impression that the conclusions were rather hastily come to. I represent net fishermen, whose interests are opposed to those of the trawlers, but I would rather have seen an absolutely close time during the spawning season than see what is seriously apprehended in my Constituency—the fishing there and in Loch Fyne materially injured in this way. I know, as the Lord Advocate has stated, that when you come to deal with the questions relating to the prospects of fisheries, and to measure the reasons which will produce a good season or a bad one there are a number of different opinions. It is very difficult indeed to come to a logical conclusion. I would

    1333
    ask the Fishery Board to consider whether they may not be acting hastily in accepting the result of a short period of scientific observation as the foundation of their decision, and whether they should not watch carefully in the broader parts of the Firth of Clyde and Loch Fyne. Have they the slightest reason to suspect that the prohibitive order will operate to destroy the livelihood of a large number of men in the fishing villages on the coasts both of Ayrshire and other side of the Firth of Clyde?
    Sir JOHN JARDINE: I would like to draw the attention of the Lord Advocate and the Committee to another fish which has not been so much mentioned to-day, and to other waters which have not been so much referred to, but which are of great importance to the people of Scotland. I should say that perhaps the salmon is more peculiarly a Scotsman than any of those wanderers that, like the wind, comes from no one knows where and go wherever they list. The salmon has the merit of being peculiarly attached to the dwellers round the Scottish coasts, and particularly to those near the town of Berwick-on-Tweed, which is near enough to Scotland to be well within the purview of my observations to-night. I do not think that enough attention has been given to the preservation of the salmon fisheries, and to the increase of that particular class of inhabitants of the streams, the lochs, and the seas. We have to consider that the salmon is peculiarly a Scotsman. They come time after time to the place where they were born, and where they have spent the happiest years of their lives. Only the other day I was talking to an ex-provost of a Scottish Burgh, and he told me that one morning the whole of the big caul that stretches over the River Tweed, not far below the house where Sir Walter Scott lived at Abbotsford, was covered by salmon which had come in large numbers. The people were wondering how these thousands of salmon should have come to visit the Tweed at that time. The belief was that they had returned from a visit to their other friends in the sea, I want now to call particular attention to the difficulties which attend the proper management of the great fishing interests of the inland districts of Scotland, along the estuaries and the places where they go into the sea. There are complaints that the cauls are too high for the salmon easily to leap up them when they want to
    1334
    spawn. It is complained with regard to salmon fisheries that control should be taken away from proprietors who have no charters on which to base their rights, and there is certainly a demand that there should be some means of bringing proprietors under some tribunal where they could be required to produce evidence to show that they have exclusive rights on particular stretches of river to exclude all other people from taking fish there. Much of what I wished to say applies also to another fish that is held in repute in all the south of Scotland. I refer to the trout. Many people in the county of Roxburgh complain to me that there are fewer trout than there used to be when the fishery laws were far less strict and the people were empowered to take the fish.
    Mr. PIRIE: On a point of Order. May I ask whether the hon. Member is in order in discussing the question of inland waters and whether they come within the jurisdiction of the Scotch Fishery Board?
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN (Mr. Whitley): I notice that there is an inspector of salmon fisheries on the Board.
    Sir JOHN JARDINE: Not to contravene your ruling nor to raise any possible objection, nor to interfere with any suggestion of exact propriety, might I say that what I was going to say about the trout will apply equally to the preservation of the salmon? I would apply the grievances of my Constituents who want to catch salmon. What they say is that when there were no Fishery Acts which did apply to salmon there were more fish in the river, because the people looked upon the rivers and the fish as being under their own particular protection. They got lots of benefit from them and many a pleasant meal they had. They say now that if we could revert to that system, that if the management of the rivers and streams were put under more popular control, for instance, if the county council of the various counties through which such a river as the Tweed runs, and the burghs along the stream, had the right of having members representing the people of the district, there would be a more generous feeling that all these fisheries ought to be under protection, much as people say that if you let your private garden be open for the public to come into, they would soon appreciate the benefit they were getting from your generosity, and would take care not only to re-

    1335
    frain from injuring any plant or flower themselves, but actively to pursue and prosecute any other person whom they caught doing any mischief there. Therefore, if the Fishery Board would take this matter into its consideration there would be more salmon not only in the sea but in the River Tweed and in all those tributaries up to the smallest stream which are now under the jurisdiction of those statute laws. This matter has been occupying the attention of the people for a great many years, and so general is the feeling that even the Tweed Fishery Commissioners have expressed the opinion that something is needed, and some of them have even gone so far as to say that it would be a very good thing if the existing laws were repealed. In that way these fisheries would be very greatly benefited.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I think the hon. Gentleman is now going too far up stream. Perhaps the Lord Advocate will be able to tell us how far the inspection of salmon fisheries goes. The hon. Member was referring to some fisheries now controlled by legislation, and not by the Fishery Board.
    Sir J. JARDINE: I believe if what I have advocated were done there would be far less of that poaching with nets which is one of the greatest grievances and nuisances in the county of Roxburgh.
    Mr. MUNRO-FERGUSON: A good deal remains to be done in regard to the regulations about trout fishing, and, without going up stream at all, but simply taking a look at our coast, it is obvious from the manner in which salmon are now caught by proprietors, that the different proprietors are simply cutting one another's throats and affecting the fishery. The only way in which there can be effective fishing is in large areas under one man. The right hon. Gentleman has addressed us with severe logic upon the question of trawling, and referred to the abolition of trawling. I do not think that extreme form of treatment is one that will help us very much towards that rational solution at which he himself is aiming. What have we discovered? We know that in the narrow waters trawling would empty those waters of fish, and therefore trawling is prohibited in those waters. In regard to the extension of territorial waters, I think the limit of ten or eleven miles has been proposed. But what would that additional strip of inshore water be
    1336
    compared with the whole of the vast ocean waters left free for trawling? I would like to know whether the Lord Advocate has any information as to when the International Commission of Investigation is likely to report. We have received large volumes, and we have been receiving them for a long time. I wonder when the end of that investigation will come, because we at any rate want information on a material point, in order to judge how far it is possible to fish the North Sea in sections, as I think was proposed by some speakers tonight. It is said that some of us attack trawling, but we recognise the value of that form of fishing in providing a food supply. But what we desire is to see the law enforced. My right hon. Friend opposite, when he was in office, I understand, enforced the law, though much against his will. At any rate, whether in good will or ill will, he will not dispute the fact that the law should be enforced. The law at present is not adequately enforced. The fines may be heavy, the imprisonment may be severe, but from all I can learn these regulations are constantly broken.
    Mr. SCOTT DICKSON: I agree, but that is because of the policy behind the law.
    Mr. MUNRO-FERGUSON: Surely our policy is sufficient to protect those in territorial waters and in some cases areas which are extra-territorial; and the utmost limit that has been proposed is within the extended territorial waters. Therefore it cannot be said that the policy or such great issues are raised by those who demand reasonable protection for the fishermen and inshore fishers against trawlers, or that the demands are so exaggerated as to require such a drastic definition of policy as that which my right hon. Friend demands. The question of the extension of the territorial waters is, of course, a matter for international agreement. I am sorry that the Under-Secretary for the Foreign Office is not here, as he received a very important deputation the other day, and, after all, anything that we have got out of the Government of late years has been from the Foreign Office. It was owing to the good fortune of the Secretary of State being in the House when we were discussing the landing of fish caught in the Moray Firth at English ports which led to the prohibition being applied to English people in English ports. We should have liked to have heard from the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs as to

    1337
    whether the Foreign Office is really taking action in this matter. The Foreign Office is an extremely busy Department, and unless those responsible to the interests of Scottish fisheries apply due pressure to the Foreign Office we cannot expect that the Foreign Office will press this question forward as we hope it may be pressed. There are one or two smaller matters which I think might be taken up by our Fishery Board. There is a question like that of the development of the shell fishing, and I can give my right hon. Friend the Lord Advocate one example in an agricultural co-operative society to which I belong. We have inter alia facilitated the marketing of shell fish in Caithness and elsewhere, with the result that almost a double profit has been made by the fishermen. I think, whether in the marketing, of fish or whether in the revival of the ancient oyster industry of Scotland and the shell fishing industry, that by technical training in order to make that industry flourish with us, as in France, and by effort in that direction much might be done to improve the returns from what might be called the smaller profits of the great fishing industry.
    Mr. AINSWORTH: I want just to add a word or two to what was said by my hon. Friend on behalf of the fishermen of the West Coast of Scotland. I think the Debate has been extremely interesting and important, and I am sure it will show the Scottish Office and the Fishery Board how much it is possible for the Board to carry out in its reorganised form. I was pleased to hear that it is proposed that the Members shall go around the country and see the different parts where the industry is carried on. I was also pleased to hear of the intended expenditure on harbours. We have a small harbour which is an extremely valuable harbour, between Tarbert and Campbelltown. I hope the Fishery Board will do all they can to increase the facilities given by these small harbours which are resorted to by the fishermen, and if they were properly adapted to receive them they might be the means of saving them from loss and danger. There are just two points I hope the Fishery Board will take into serious consideration. The first is the question of a close time for herrings. It has been much debated, but we have not yet arrived at unanimity. I feel sure that if the Board were to take the matter into their charge and travel into the different parts, and consult with the fishermen, we
    1338
    should be able to arrive at a decision upon that subject, which would be most valuable in improving the breeding grounds in the South. The other point is whether the fish should be sold in boxes, but I will not go into that as the hour is late.
    Sir WALTER MENZIES: I can speak from the point of view of a constituency where there is no sea-coast line, and neither line-fishing nor trawl-fishing, and I think I may be able to take a more impartial view of the questions that have been discussed. I know that there is a great amount of food imported by the trawlers. If we were to give any extreme preference, by money or otherwise, to the line fishermen we would have as much right to give it to the trawlers. I quite sympathise with the Foreign Office in the position it has taken up in this matter. I am quite positive that if the Foreign Office reopened the Northern Fisheries Convention, and imposed restrictions upon trawling along our coasts, foreign countries would seek to impose similar restrictions upon our fishermen, and we would lose in that way. We own many times more trawlers in this country than all the countries of Europe put together. If we were to impose those restrictions upon our coasts they would certainly have a right to impose restrictions upon us. We find the coasts of France, Portugal, and right down to the coast of Morocco full of trawlers from Great Britain. If we reopened this question, and allowed these countries to have a say in the matter and close their coasts to us, the loss would be more to this country than to any other. If it is considered well from charitable motives to help these line fishermen, who cannot, apparently, keep pace with other fishermen and improve their machinery, I at any rate would have no objection, but as a business proposition I say that the trawlers are the more effective instrument for getting fish, they have shown more progress, and they are likely to be more successful in getting fish. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Leith Burghs called attention to the infinitesimal part, or shred of ocean which we and our line fishermen wish to protect from our country. But I would call his attention to the fact that it is upon this shred or infinitesimal portion of the ocean that the fish are to be caught. There are millions upon millions of square miles of ocean, but there are no fish in them. The fish are to be got within the three or four-

    1339
    mile limit—sometimes, as we hope, within the thirteen-mile limit. Therefore if we in this country decide to reopen this Convention and decide to extend the limit to thirteen miles our trawling industry, our people, and our food supply would be the sufferers.
    Mr. URE: To the calm and moderate statements of hon. Gentlemen I have listened with great sympathy. As to the case of the Solway fishermen it is a hard one. They prosecute an industry to which they are entitled. After careful consideration the Court came to the conclusion that the particular mode of fishing that the men concerned adopted was calculated to ensure the taking habitually and not occasionally of the capture of salmon or grilse. The arguments put before the learned judges suggested that if they decided adversely to the fishermen that they would virtually extinguish a great industry, for it is a great industry on the Solway Firth. To that they replied that there was plenty of evidence to show that it was quite possible for the men to prosecute the white fishing so as not to infringe the regulations. The learned judges went out of their way to suggest—and I think it was a very valuable suggestion and well worthy of attention—that an amicable arrangement might be come to between the fishermen and the proprietors, so that, whilst the law should be observed, at the same time the industry could be prosecuted. I am sure the proprietors would be ready to meet these poor men. Many investigations have been made into this question and many reports have been issued, and I deprecate further investigation and report. I am sure, looking into the decision of the learned judges, which I did with very great care, it would be quite possible to arrange and to fix upon a mode of fishing by which the rights of the proprietors on the one hand would be preserved and by which this industry prosecuted by so many respectable and deserving people, on the other hand would be allowed to go on. In reply to the matters brought forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Argyllshire, I will certainly communicate the suggestion he made to the proper quarter. I had interviews with numbers of fishermen in his constituency and heard their views expressed with great interest and sincerity. I admit there was difference of opinion, and it seems to me to be a case for an impartial, well-informed
    1340
    Board to investigate, and I will undertake to convey the views the hon. Member brought forward to the newly-constituted Board. We have infused fresh blood into it, and I fervently hope we shall have excellent results from the work they have commenced in a spirit which promises well for the fishing industry of Scotland.
    11.0 P.M.
    Mr. PIRIE: Great interest has been shown from all parts of Scotland in the Debate this evening. This makes it all the more lamentable that we are compelled to carry on the Debate without having in our possession the annual report of the Fishery Board of Scotland. It is really extraordinary that on the only occasion when we Scottish Members have an opportunity of discussing these matters the annual report of the Board should not be in our hands. I had hoped the Lord Advocate, in his speech, would at least have dealt with the statement brought before the Committee by my hon. Friend the Member for East Aberdeenshire. The Lord Advocate's statement and the statement of my hon. Friend were directly at variance. The Lord Advocate said that no representations had been made this year. The hon. Member for East Aberdeenshire gave us definite information that the Secretary for Scotland had had representations from hundreds of fishermen. That is a striking example of the disadvantage we labour under in this House through having a mouthpiece here to interpret the views of the Scotch Office, instead of having the head of that Office here to answer questions himself.
    And, it being Eleven of the clock, the Chairman left the Chair to make his report to the House.
    Resolution to be reported upon Tuesday, 13th June; Committee also report Progress; to sit again upon Tuesday, 13th June.

SOLICITORS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
Order for Second Reading read, and discharged; Bill withdrawn.
Attention called to the fact that forty Members were not present; House counted, and forty Members being found present,
Further Orders of the day read, and subsequent dates fixed.

SHERIFF'S SUBSTITUTE (SCOTLAND) BILL.
Order for Second Reading read, and discharged; Bill withdrawn.
Adjourned at Sixteen minutes after Eleven o'clock.

NATIONAL INSURANCE BILL.
  FRIENDLY SOCIETIES (AFFILIATION).
  FRIENDLY SOCIETIES (AFFILIATION).
  COACH-BUILDERS.
  COACH-BUILDERS.
  LEGAL ADVICE (CAPITATION GRANT).
  LEGAL ADVICE (CAPITATION GRANT).
  SICKNESS AND MATERNITY.
  SICKNESS AND MATERNITY.
  Old Age Pensions.
  Old Age Pensions.
  Land Purchase (Ireland).
  Land Purchase (Ireland).
  Evicted Tenants.
  Evicted Tenants.
  Ballivor Petty Session.
  Ballivor Petty Session.
  Irish Labourers' Houses.
  Irish Labourers' Houses.
  Colonel Brabazon.
  Colonel Brabazon.
  Greenwich Hospital Age Pension.
  Greenwich Hospital Age Pension.
  Army Reserve.
  Army Reserve.
  Yeomanry (Subaltern Officers).
  Yeomanry (Subaltern Officers).
  Veteran Reserve.
  Veteran Reserve.
  Straits Settlements (Maladministration).
  Straits Settlements (Maladministration).
  Opium Revenue (India).
  Opium Revenue (India).
  Trade Unions (No. 2) Bill.
  Trade Unions (No. 2) Bill.
  Jury System (Small Tradesmen).
  Jury System (Small Tradesmen).
  Vaccination (Farnham and Croydon Boards of Guardians).
  Vaccination (Farnham and Croydon Boards of Guardians).
  Post Office (London Sorting Offices).
  Post Office (London Sorting Offices).
  Post Office Cleaners.
  Post Office Cleaners.
  Walham Green Post Office.
  Walham Green Post Office.
  Foreign Trawlers (Scottish Waters).
  Foreign Trawlers (Scottish Waters).
GAS AND WATER ORDERS CONFIRMATION BILL. [H.L.]
Committed: The Committee to be proposed by the Committee of Selection in regard to the Guisborough Water Order.
ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDERS (NO.2) BILL. [H.L.]
Committed: The Committee to be proposed by the Committee of Selection in regard to the Macclesfield Order and the Pateley Bridge Order.
BRISTOL TRAMWAYS BILL.
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and referred to the Examiners.
TAMWORTH GAS BILL.
Returned from the Commons, with the Amendments, agreed to.

COMMONS ACT, 1876 (WINTON AND KABER COMMONS, WESTMORELAND).
Special Report by the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries upon modification of a Provisional Order for the regulation of Winton Fell, Kaber Fell, Kaber Rigg, Kaber Green, Winton Cow Close, Winton Longrigg, Hunger Rigg, Winton Green, and Fell Lane, in the parishes of Winton, Kaber, and Hartly, in the county of Westmoreland, and the parish of Muker, in the North Riding of the county of York.
Laid before the House (pursuant to Act), and ordered to lie on the Table.

GAS AND WATER WORKS FACILITIES ACT, 1870.
Report by the Board of Trade as to the grounds for dispensing with the consent of the Cannock Urban District Council, the Cannock Rural District Council, the Hatherton and Shareshill Parish Councils, and the parish meetings of the townships

1019
of Huntington and Saredon in the case of the Cannock Gas Provisional Order.
Laid before the House (pursuant to Act), and ordered to lie on the Table.

HORNSEA URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL BILL.
The King's consent signified, and Bill reported, with Amendments.
THORNEY DRAINAGE BILL. [H.L.]
Reported, with Amendments.
MERTHYR TYDFIL CORPORATIONWATER BILL. [H.L.]
Reported from the Select Committee, with Amendments.
ABERDARE URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL BILL. [H.L.]
Reported from the Select Committee with Amendments.
SOUTHAMPTON HARBOUR BILL.
The King's consent signified, and Bill reported from the Select Committee, with Amendments.
MANCHESTER CORPORATION BILL. [H.L.]
Reported from the Select Committee, with Amendments.
PAIGNTON URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL BILL.
Reported from the Select Committee, with Amendments.
DOVER GRAVING DOCK BILL.
  MILFORD DOCKS BILL.
  Read 2a, and committed.
CHAMBERS INSTITUTION PEEBLES ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL. [H.L.]
A Bill to confirm a Provisional Order relating to Chambers Institution, Peebles—Was presented by the Earl Beauchamp (for the Lord Pentland): Read 1a; to be printed; and (pursuant to the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899, section 7), deemed to have been read 2a, and reported from the Committee. (No. 96.)

ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 2) BILL. [H.L.]
(Macclesfield and Pately Bridge Orders.)
Report from the Committee of Selection that the Five Lords appointed a Select Committee on the Macclesfield and District Railless Traction and Electricity Supply Bill [H.L.] do form the Select Committee for the consideration of the Electric Lighting Provisional Orders (No.2) Bill [H.L.]—(Macclesfield and Pateley Bridge Orders); read, and agreed to: All petitions referred to the Committee, with leave to the Petitioners praying to be heard by Counsel against the Bill to be heard as desired, as also Counsel for the Bill.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
Standing Order No. XXXIX considered (according to order), and suspended for this day' sitting.
EDUCATION BOARD PROVISIONAL ORDERS CONFIRMATION (DURHAM, &c.) BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a (according to order), and passed, and sent to the Commons.

AERIAL NAVIGATION BILL.
[SECOND READING.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD HERSCHELL: My Lords, the measure which I have to introduce to your Lordships this afternoon is one which will, I feel sure, commend itself to the House in general; but before stating what are the provisions of the Bill I should like very briefly to outline the steps that have led up to its introduction. Attention was first called to the danger which might be caused to crowds by aeroplanes on the occasion of the. University Boat Race this year, when several aeroplanes manoeuvred over the heads of the crowd in such a way that the spectators could see that dangerous results would follow should an accident occur. Further attention was called to the matter by the flying at Hendon Aerodrome on May 12, when one or two aeronauts performed flights over the heads of the spectators, with great skill, it is true, but

1021
at the same time in a way which was rather suggestive of danger.
Not unnaturally the question then arose as to what would happen if similar flights were performed on the occasion of the Coronation, and probably in consequence of this on May 18 the Royal Aero Club issued a notice warning aviators against performing flights during the Coronation over the route of the Procession, and also stating that any aviator who did so would have his certificate suspended. But, as a matter of fact, previous to this the Chief Commissioner of Police had already represented to the Home Secretary that in his opinion serious danger might arise if such flights were permitted, and he had even suggested that legislation might be introduced with a view to preventing them. The matter was therefore already fully under consideration when on May 21 there occurred that terrible disaster which I am sure must have filled the minds of all the members of your Lordships' House with horror and with feelings of the deepest sympathy for the French people in the loss which they sustained. I allude to the deplorable accident at Issy-les-Moulineaux. The Secretary of State then, though he recognised that the action which had been taken by the Royal Aero Club would in all probability prove effective in so far as the Coronation is concerned, came to the conclusion that in view of the serious danger it was incumbent upon him to apply to Parliament for powers which he could use effectively, not only on the occasion of the Coronation but also on other similar occasions. He therefore gave instructions for the drafting of this Bill, which has already passed the House of Commons.
In the original Bill as it was introduced in the House of Commons there was a clause proposing penalties upon any one who navigates an air craft recklessly or negligently or to the danger of the public, this, of course, being based upon Section 1 of the Motor Car Act of 1903. However, very strong representations were made, on behalf of the Royal Aero Club and of the Aerial Defence Committee, to the effect that the clause was very vague and that in their opinion it would tend seriously to impede the progress of the study of aerial navigation. Consequently the Home Secretary decided to omit the clause and to rely wholly upon the powers which now appear
1022
in Clause 1 of the Bill as amended. This clause gives the Secretary of State power from time to time to forbid the navigation of air craft over particular areas where special danger would be deemed to be caused. The penalties, which were originally two years imprisonment and a fine of £500, have been reduced, but they are still severe—namely, a term of imprisonment not exceeding six months and a fine of £200. The procedure under the Bill may be summary or on indictment, but it is in either case in the option of the persons prosecuted to claim trial by jury should they so desire, and, further, all convictions, whether the punishment is by fine or by imprisonment, are subject to appeal. These, my Lords, are the provisions of the Bill, and in this form it passed the House of Commons with the assent of the representatives of the Royal Aero Club and the Aerial Defence Committee.
At the same time I am authorised to give the strongest possible assurances that His Majesty's Government have not the slightest desire to impede the study and progress of aerial navigation. On the contrary, they are anxious to promote it; but it is really in the interests no less of the aviators themselves than of the general public that some efficient means should be found of preventing the possibility of the occurrence of some grave disaster, which might, and probably would, turn public opinion entirely against aviation and aviators. The suggestion was made that the Bill should be limited in time, but this the Home Secretary felt bound to refuse, and the representatives of aviation whom I have mentioned acquiesced in his decision. At the same time he gave a definite assurance that a fuller and more complete measure dealing with the whole subject of aerial navigation would be introduced and passed as soon as possible. A Bill on the subject is, indeed, actually in draft, and will be brought in as soon as the state of public business permits.
The present measure, therefore, is only an interim one, though it is not possible to state now when the more complete Bill can be produced. I hope that the few remarks I have made have been sufficient to show, in the first place, the necessity for the introduction of some measure of this sort, and, secondly, that, the Government are in no way actuated by any hostile

1023
feelings towards aviation and aviators. I therefore trust your Lordships will see your way to allow the Bill to be passed through all its stages this afternoon, with a view to its being placed on the Statute Book with the least possible delay. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Herschell.)
THE EARL OF HALSBURY: My Lords, I only wish to say that this seems to me a very proper measure of precaution.
On Question, Bill read 2a: Committee negatived: Then (Standing Order No. XXXIX having been suspended), Bill read 3a and passed.

HOUSE OF LORDS OFFICES.
Order of the Day for the consideration of the Second Report from the Select Committee, read.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTES (THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE): My Lords, I think that this Report explains itself. The two matters concerned are very fully set out, and unless any of your Lordships desire that I should answer questions upon them I will content myself by formally moving that the Report be agreed to.
Moved, That the Report be agreed to.—(The Earl of Donoughmore.)
On Question, Report agreed to.
House adjourned at a quarter before Five o'clock till To-morrow, half-past Ten o'clock.