Sitting of 19 July 1912

Preamble
The House met at Twelve of the clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Gas Companies (Standard Burner) Bill, Staffordshire Potteries Water Bill,
Lords Amendments considered, and agreed to.
Swanage Gas and Water Bill [Lords],
Read the third time, and passed, with Amendments.
York United Gas Bill [Lords] (King's Consent signified),
Bill read the third time, and passed, with Amendments.
Llanelly Rural District Water Bill [Lords],
As amended, considered; Amendments made; Bill to be read the third time.
West Riding of Yorkshire Asylums Bill
[Lords],
As amended, to be considered upon Monday next.
Gas and Water Provisional Orders Bill,
Lords Amendments considered, and agreed to.
Education Board Provisional Orders Confirmation (Essex, etc.) Bill [Lords],
Education Board Provisional Orders Confirmation (Kent, etc.) Bill [Lords],
Read the third time, and passed, without Amendments.
Electric Lighting Provisional Orders (No. 3) Bill,
Read the third time, and passed.
Land Drainage (Lincoln West) (South District) Provisional Order Bill [Lords],
Read the third time, and passed, without Amendment.
Dunbar Water Order Confirmation Bill,
Read the third time, and passed.
Local Government Provisional Order (No. 14) Bill,
As amended, considered; to be read the third time upon Monday next.
Norfolk Fisheries Provisional Order Bill (by Order),
Second Reading deferred till Monday next.

WAYLEAVE RENTS.
Return presented relative thereto [ordered 1st April; Mr. Henry M'Laren]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. No. 261.]
NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE COMMISSION (IRELAND) (REGULATIONS).
Copy presented of Provisional Regulations of the National Health Insurance Commission (Ireland)"as to Notices by Employers under Section 47 (2) of the National Insurance Act, 1911 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 262.]
CENSUS OF PRODUCTION, 1907.
Copy presented of Final Report on the First Census of Production of the United Kingdom, with Tables [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
MERCHANT SHIPPING ACTS, 1894 TO 1906 (DISPENSING POWERS).
Copy presented of Report by the Board of Trade of the Cases in which they have exercised their powers under Section 78 of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1906, during the year ended 31st May, 1912 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 263.]
TRADE REPORTS (ANNUAL SERIES).
Copies presented of Diplomatic and Consular Reports, Annual Series, Nos. 4914, 4949, and 4950 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
POST OFFICE (WIRELESS INSTALLATION).
Copy presented of Draft Specification of Imperial Wireless Installation [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.

LOCAL TAXATION RETURNS (ENG-LAND AND WALES).
Copy presented of the Annual Local Taxation Returns for England and Wales

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for the year 1910–11. Part I. [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 264.]

MARCONI'S WIRELESS TELEGRAPH COMPANY, LIMITED.
Copy ordered of Agreement between Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company, Limited, Commendatore Guglielmo Marconi, and the Postmaster-General, with regard to the establishment of a chain of Imperial wireless stations, together with a Copy of the Treasury Minute thereon.—[Mr. Masterman.]
Return presented relative thereto [ordered 19th July; Mr. Masterman]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.

  Putumayo District, Peru (Rubber Collectors).
  Mr. KINGasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has information that the perpetrators of out-rages in the Putumayo district of the Amazon have been punished?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Acland): I have no information beyond that published in the recent Blue Book.
  Mr. WEDGWOOD: May I ask whether the Foreign Secretary has yet had any assistance or co-operation from the United States Government in this matter?
  Mr. ACLAND: I do not think we have yet heard anything from the United States Government. Of course, one of the objects of publishing the Blue Book was that it might influence public opinion in the United States, and no doubt it will produce its natural effect.
  Mr. DOUGLAS HALL: Is it not a, fact that the agreements signed by these labourers are, on paper, almost identical with the agreements signed by Indian indentured labourers—
  Mr. SPEAKER: That does not arise out of this question.
  Mr. KINGasked whether a Roman Catholic mission to Peru will receive help, advice, and encouragement from the Foreign Office and His Majesty's representatives abroad, but not a Protestant mission to Peru; and, if so, whether there
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  is any precedent for the Foreign Office favouring one religious Christian denomination above another?
  Mr. ACLAND: The Foreign Office is not directly concerned with the despatch of religious missions to the Putumayo, though, I would, of course, give such assistance as might be possible or advisable. The Peruvian Constitution does not permit the public exercise of any save the Roman Catholic religion. Missions of other denominations would not, as I am informed, be accorded the necessary facilities by the Peruvian authorities.
  Mr. KING: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Peruvian authorities have lately given a site for a Protestant religious body?
  Mr. ACLAND: May I ask whether that was in or near Putumayo?
  Mr. KING: On a point of Order. Is it the usual practice for a Minister to put questions?
  Mr. SPEAKER: It is an inconvenient plan for Ministers to put questions. The hon. Member must give notice of his question.
  Mr. KING: Perhaps the Minister will put his question on the Paper?
  Mr. WEDGWOOD: May I ask if it much matters whether these natives are made Catholic or Protestant so long as they are saved from these brutes?
  Mr. ACLAND: I think, in determining to support a mission, it is rather important to select that mission which will have the best chance of getting something done, and the question which particular religion will be represented by the mission ought to be subordinated to that. It is a fact that it is likely that the Catholic mission would have a far better chance of getting something done than any other mission that can be sent.
  Mr. ALDEN: Has the hon. Member any idea what view the United States Government take of this matter?
  Mr. ACLAND: I have not.
  Mr. KING: Is the hon. Member aware that one of the gentlemen promoting the Catholic Mission publicly expressed his complete satisfaction with the action of King Leopold in the Congo?
  Mr. SPEAKER: That has nothing to do with the question.
  Mr. KINGasked whether there are churches of the Church of England in Peru at Callao, Lima, and Cuzco; that missionaries of the British and Foreign Bible Society come and go freely in Peru, selling and distributing Protestant versions of the Bible, and that other Protestant mission agencies at work in Peru are recognised and protected by the Government; and how it is that His Majesty's representative in Peru has stated that only a Catholic mission in Peru would be permitted to proceed to the Putumayo or would have any chance of success?
  Mr. ACLAND: I have no official information with regard to the first two questions. As regards the third part of the question, the words used by His Majesty's representative were to the effect that any application for facilities for a Protestant mission to the Putumayo would probably meet with an answer similar to that received in 1907 when a project was entertained by the Baptist Missionary Society of sending a mission to the Peruvian Amazon. On this occasion the Peruvian Government, when the matter was brought to their notice, expressed their inability to accede to the desire of the society as being in opposition to the terms of the Peruvian constitution which forbids the public exercise of any religion save the Roman Catholic.
  Mr. KING: Is the hon. Gentleman aware there is a great probability of the Peruvian constitution being entirely altered within a very few months?
  Mr. NOEL BUXTONasked whether steps are being taken for the prevention of further atrocities on the rubber estates of the Putumayo River?
  Lord ROBERT CECILasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has any reason to believe that the Peruvian Government are making any serious efforts to bring to justice the perpetrators of the atrocities on the Putumayo; and, if not, whether he will concert with the Government of the United States measures to compel the Peruvian Government to do so?
  Mr. ACLAND: I have nothing further to add at present to the information published in the recent Blue Book and to the answers returned to questions already asked in this House on the subject.
  Mr. REDDY: Arising out of that answer, may I ask what steps the Government intend to take, if any, against the directors of that horrible company?
  Mr. ACLAND: The company is in liquidation.
  Sir F. BANBURY: May I ask whether the directors are not equally liable for action which they took when the company was not in liquidation, even though the company may afterwards have gone into liquidation?
  Mr. ACLAND: I hope that is so. We shall be delighted to find that any of these persons are amenable to English law.
  Mr. DOUGLAS HALL: Will the hon. Gentleman publish the names of the directors of this company?
  Mr. ACLAND: My right hon. Friend will consider that.
  Sir F. BANBURY: May I ask whether the hon. Gentleman will take steps to bring these people to justice, or, at any rate, have the matter investigated so the country may know to what extent these directors were or were not responsible?
  Mr. ACLAND: Yes, Sir, certainly.
  Mr. DOUGLAS HALL: Will the hon. Gentleman take into serious consideration the recommendation of the United States that they would seriously consider whether Peru is a suitable State to have control over a district like this, and whether they ought to be forcibly dispossessed of it?
  Mr. ACLAND: I think questions concerning international relations of that kind ought to be put on the Paper.
  Lord R. CECIL: May I ask the hon. Gentleman whether he will assure the House the Government will consider what steps, however vigorous, can be taken to ensure putting a stop to these outrageous and abominable cruelties?
  Mr. ACLAND: That is referred to in one of my answers, in which it was stated His Majesty's Government would do everything they possibly could to help in any action the United States might take. It is clear the United States has a better opportunity for getting things done than any other Government interested.
  Colonel YATE: Is there any foundation for the statement that the perpetrators of these outrages were Englishmen?
  Mr. ACLAND: No, Sir, none; but a private notice question is going to be asked on that matter.
  Mr. DOUGLAS HALLrose—
  Mr. SPEAKER: Hon. Members had better put down any further questions. We have already had eight.

  Panama Canal.
  Mr. KINGasked whether the right hon. Gentleman can state how the rights of this country, under the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty concerning the Panama Canal, are affected by the Bill now before the American Senate; and whether an undertaking has been asked from the United States Government that exemptions and preferential dues will not be given to the vessels of any one nation in the Panama Canal?
  Mr. ACLAND: I do not think that I can add usefully at present to the statement I made in reply to the hon. Member on Tuesday last.

  Pilotage Bill.
  Sir GILBERT PARKERasked whether an assurance has been given to the French Government that, with the consent of Parliament, alien pilotage shall be permitted in British waters as indicated by Clause 19 of the Pilotage Bill now before Parliament?
  The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Buxton, for Sir E. Grey): My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has asked me to answer this question. The French Government were informed by His Majesty's Government of their intention to propose to Parliament the provisions of Clause 19 (2) of the Pilotage Bill, and the French Government have intimated that the enactment of those provisions would be accepted by them as a solution of the difficult question which has formed the subject of discussions between the two Governments for a considerable time past. I cannot at all accept the description of the Clause suggested in the question, its only intention being to introduce certain very strictly limited exceptions to the operation of Section 73 of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1906.

  Persia.
  Sir GEORGE SCOTT ROBERTSONasked the number of Turkish troops at present in territory which Persia claims as her own?
  Mr. ACLAND: There have for some time been Turkish troops in territory claimed to be Persian, but I have not got accurate information as to the number. Negotiations are now in progress at Constantinople to settle the boundary.

  Korea (Export Duty on Rice).
  Mr. MITCHELL - THOMSONasked whether His Majesty's Government have yet received from the Japanese Government any reply to their representations in regard to the proposed alteration of the Export Duty on rice from Korea; and, if so, what is the nature of such reply?
  Mr. ACLAND: The reply of the Japanese Government to the representations referred to was to the effect that the sole intention of the Declaration made in August, 1910, maintaining the Corean tariff for ten years, was to avoid disturbing the economic interests of the several foreign Powers in Corea itself, and that there was no fear of prejudice to those interests resulting from the abolition of Export Duties. The Japanese Government added that they considered themselves properly entitled to do in the matter of Customs Duties subsequently to annexation what the Corean Government were able to do prior thereto. His Majesty's Government have maintained in principle their right of objection; but they have decided not to press it in the present case, in view of the fact that no important British interests are likely to suffer prejudice.

  St. Elizabeth, Jamaica.
  EARL Of RONALDSHAYasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he has any information which he can give to the House as to the distress prevailing in the district of St. Elizabeth, in Jamaica, as a result of prolonged drought, and as to whether measures, such as the construction of reservoirs, are being or will be undertaken by Government, with a view to preventing the occurrence of a similar state of things in the future?
  Mr. GULLAND (Lord of the Treasury): On the 25th of June the Acting Governor telegraphed to my right hon. Friend as follows:—
  "Usual spring rains have failed without present indication of any change in conditions east and west, moderate showers north insufficient, south quite inadequate, drought St. Elizabeth and parts Manchester becoming serious; orders have been given for new public works voted to be pushed on and road metal to be purchased so as to afford people means of earning wages; parochial boards excavating tanks as relief works."
  My right hon. Friend consulted Sir Sydney Olivier, who was on leave at the time, and was informed that the measures being taken were in his opinion the best practicable. At the same time my right hon. Friend regrets to say that Sir Sydney Olivier thought it impossible to provide

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  an adequate and continuous water supply for the districts specially affected.
  A further telegram has just been received to the following effect:—
  "Drought conditions somewhat relieved, partial showers having fallen in most arears."

  Cable Service (Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa).
  Sir GEORGE DOUGHTYasked the Postmaster-General (12) whether now that the establishment of a cable-letter service between this country and America has proved such a great success that no less than 677,000 words were exchanged at the rate of twenty words for 6s. in the first three months of this year, he will at once seek to secure this particular boon of cheap cable communication conferred on the people of Australia and New Zealand at a rate not exceeding ten words for 6s. or twenty words for 10s.; and (13) whether the charge of 2s. 6d. per word for cable service between this country and South Africa is an obstacle to the development of trade between the two countries; and whether, seeing the great success that has attended the establishment of the deferred cable rate and a cable-letter service between Great Britain and Canada, he will at once approach the cable companies with a view of securing for South Africa similar cable concessions and advantages?
  The POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Herbert Samuel): I am engaged in negotiations on this subject, but the negotiations are not yet concluded.

  Limavady Post Office.
  Mr. HUGH BARRIEasked when it is proposed to bring the staff in Limavady Post Office up to its normal strength; and what has been the cause of the delay in doing so?
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: I am having inquiry made and will communicate with the hon. Member.

  Government Printing Work.
  Mr. GEORGE ROBERTSasked if provincial printing firms are allowed to tender for Government work such as that connected with the National Insurance Act, etc., on equal terms with London firms; and, if so, the methods by which firms are invited to tender?
  Mr. MASTERMAN: Provincial printing firms are invited to tender for Government work except in the few cases where
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  special circumstances require the work to be done in London. For ordinary work the invitations to tender are issued by way of advertisement in the Press (daily and trade papers), and, in addition, a separate invitation is addressed to every firm on the Stationery Office list of contractors.

  Board of Customs and Excise.
  Mr. GRETTONasked what has been the increase in the staff of the Board of Customs and Excise in each of the two last financial years; if the increase has been in the indoor staff or in the outdoor staff, or both; and if the increase of the staff has now ceased?
  The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Masterman): The estimates for the Customs and Excise Department for 1911–12 provided for 344 more established posts than those for 1910–11; and the estimates for 1912–13 provide for fifty-nine more than those for 1911–12. These figures represent additions to both the indoor and outdoor staff. Since the estimates for 1912–13 were prepared the Treasury have sanctioned the addition of a large number of men available for both outdoor and indoor work.
  Mr. GRETTON: What does the last number amount to?
  Mr. MASTERMAN: I cannot say, but I will find out.

  Port of London (Strike).
  Mr. LANSBURYasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has received a letter from the Transport Workers' Federation, calling his attention to the insulting and obscene behaviour of certain strike breakers at Tilbury and other docks; and whether he has called for or received any report from the police on the subject?
  The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. McKenna): I received the letter referred to, and I am making inquiry of the police with regard to the statements it contains. I may say that about a fortnight ago the Essex police reported to me that they had received complaints of misconduct by men in the trains passing Grays, and that they were taking steps to prevent a recurrence of such misconduct, though they were hampered by the difficulty of identifying men who committed the offences while the train was in rapid motion.
  Mr. LANSBURY: Is it the fact the police have now stopped a train and annexed a large number of pistols that were in the possession of these men?
  Mr. McKENNA: No such information has reached me, but I will inquire.

  Hyde Park Disturbance.
  Mr. LANSBURYasked the Home Secretary whether he is now able to state the result of his further inquiry into the causes leading to the disturbance in Hyde Park on Sunday last; how many persons were charged in connection with the disturbance; what was the nature of their offence and the sentences inflicted; and whether, in view of the discrepancy between the statements made by the police and the general public, he will order an investigation to be made into the previous characters of the persons charged in order that material may be available for reviewing the sentences?
  Mr. McKENNA: The Commissioner of Police has investigated the matter and has furnished me with a report. It appears quite clear that the disturbance originated in a remark made by a person present at the meeting which was resented by those around him. Two witnesses heard the words, "Three cheers for Lord Devon-port" shouted, but it is not definitely established that these were the words used by the person in question. At all events, it became necessary for the police to protect this person from violence and to remove him under escort from the park. The police were then attacked by the angry-crowd and had to make several arrests, and when they reached the Grosvenor Gate, they closed it to prevent the disorderly crowd following them. There can be no doubt that the closing of the gate prevented serious disturbance in the street. Eight persons were charged with offences, and seven of these were convicted. Three of them were convicted of assaulting the police and sentenced respectively to two months' hard labour; one month in the second division; and a fine of 30s. or fifteen days in the second division. One was convicted of kicking a police horse and sentenced to 30s. or fifteen days in the second division. Two were convicted of insulting behaviour and sentenced to fines of 12s. (with eight days in default), and 10s. 6d. respectively. One person who attempted to rescue a prisoner was bound over in his own recognisances of 40s. The magistrate had the whole evidence before him, and if
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  there had been any material discrepancies, he would, of course, have given the accused the benefit of any doubt arising therefrom. No investigation into the previous character of the defendants appears to be necessary. The magistrate in passing sentence obviously gave full consideration to any circumstances favourable to the defendants, and would necessarily treat them as persons of previous good character when, as in this case, there was no evidence to the contrary.
  Mr. BOOTH: Am I to understand from my right hon. Friend that anyone asking a question or making an interjection at any open-air meeting in Hyde Park is to be forthwith hustled out?
  Mr. McKENNA: No, Sir; I do not think my answer could give rise to that suggestion.
  Mr. LANSBURY: Is it not a fact that most of these persons who have been sentenced are under the age of twenty-one, and that one of the men who were bound over had his wife with him at the time he was supposed to be helping in the rescue of prisoners; and considering the fact that Members of this House who were present take a different view from that stated by the right hon. Gentleman this afternoon, and on another occasion, will he not allow some evidence to be given before some impartial tribunal on the matter? I can assure him there is very great feeling in the matter?
  Mr. McKENNA: I have no information upon either of the points raised by my hon. Friend, but I will certainly inquire into them. So far as I can gather, full evidence was called at the Court.
  Mr. LANSBURY: Only on the side of the police.
  Mr. McKENNA: It was open to the defendants to call evidence.
  Mr. LANSBURY: Is it not a fact that these men were arrested on the Sunday and put on their trial on Monday morning, so that there was positively no chance of calling witnesses or doing anything. I do not think that any of the men were represented by a solicitor, and the whole of the evidence upon which they were convicted was police evidence.

  Suffragist Prisoners.
  Mr. LANSBURYasked the names of the men and women in prison for

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  offences connected with the suffrage agitation; how many, if any, of these prisoners are on hunger strike; how many, if any, are being forcibly fed; and whether all the prisoners are receiving the benefits of Rule 243A?
  Mr. McKENNA: Four women and one man are in prison for offences connected with the suffrage agitation. They are all taking food in the natural way. The women are being treated under Rule 243A. The man, who was convicted of a violent assault, was sentenced to hard labour, and is not treated under Rule 243A.

  Street "Auctioneers."
  Mr. POINTERasked the Home Secretary whether he is aware of the practice of auctioneers at street corners who, in order to induce the public to purchase their wares, give articles away to persons in the crowd who are really confederates; and whether the police have any instructions to deal with cases where such deception is observed?
  Mr. McKENNA: I believe such a practice has for many years existed. It does not necessarily involve a fraud within the criminal law. If a case of fraudulent imposition of a criminal character came to the notice of the police they would deal with it.
  Mr. POINTER: Is it not practically a case of the confidence trick, and is it not fraudulent intention?
  Mr. McKENNA: I do not feel competent to argue the point with my hon. Friend.
  Mr. CROOKS: Have you ever attended one?
  Mr. KING: Will the right hon. Gentleman institute a test prosecution with the object of bringing this matter to the notice of the public, and, if possible, of securing a conviction?
  Mr. McKENNA: I think that is a question which should be addressed to my right hon. Friend the Attorney-General, and not to me.

  Election Expenses (1910).
  Mr. PIKE PEASEasked the total amount of election expenses paid for each General Election in England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, respectively, in 1910?
  Mr. McKENNA: If the hon. Member will allow me I will have the figures printed with the Votes. [See Written Answers this date.]
  Mr. CULLINAN: Will the right hon. Gentleman give a Return of the amount of money expended in the different constitutencies in England?
  Mr. McKENNA: I shall be glad if the hon. Member would put down a question on that point.

  Amalgamations of School Districts (Scotland).
  Captain WARINGasked the Secretary for Scotland whether, in view of the fact that amalgamations of school districts are ordered by the Scottish Education Department after an inquiry, the Report of which is treated as secret, he will direct that the considerations which led the Department, which in these cases acts as judge and jury, to order amalgamation shall in future be set out in the annual Report of that Department, or otherwise laid upon the Table, in order that notice may be taken of the administration of the Scottish Education Department in this House?
  Mr. PIRIE: Before the right hon. Gentleman answers that question, may I ask him if there is not greater need for publicity owing to the fact that anyone connected with the teaching profession in Scotland who holds views or expresses views antagonistic to the views of the Scottish Education Department becomes a marked man, and his chances of promotion in the teaching profession are prejudiced by any request he may make?
  The SECRETARY for SCOTLAND (Mr. McKinnon Wood): I am unable to discover any relevancy between the question put orally by the hon. Gentleman and the question on the Paper. The answer to the question on the Paper is, that the procedure followed by the Scotch Education Department in adjudicating upon proposals for amalgamation of school boards under Section 22 of the Act of 1908 is in accordance with the terms of the Act. The procedure is as follows: The Department only acts upon application from a school board, which has to state its reasons in favour of amalgamation. These are sent by the Department to the other board or boards concerned, who are asked for their observations, and given every opportunity of stating objections. Sometimes agree-

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  ment is arrived at, but, if not, then an inquiry is held at which both sides are represented and state their respective cases in public. The decision of the Department is communicated in draft form to the school boards concerned, and forty-days are allowed for the stating of further objections or the suggestion of modifications. It seems to me that this procedure provides ample safeguards for every interest.
  MARQUESS Of TULLIBARDINE: Who is it settles the matter finally; who is the arbiter?
  Mr. McKINNON WOOD: The Act of Parliament gives the power to the Scottish Education Department, and the Vice-President of the Council is the person responsible to Parliament for the decision.
  Mr. PIRIE: Will the right hon. Gentleman once and for all settle the mystery of who is the Scottish Education Department. Does he agree with his subordinate, the Lord Advocate, that the Scottish Education Department is Sir John Struthers and no other, or is it himself?
  Mr. McKINNON WOOD: I am afraid my hon. Friend's sense of humour was not employed in estimating the intention of the Lord Advocate's reply. I think that reply was intended as a pleasant jest.
  Mr. PIRIE: Not by him.

  Taxation of Land Values.
  Mr. FELLasked the Prime Minister if the unofficial Committee on the Taxation of Land Values is to sit in any public office or building, and if any Government officials are to be compelled to give evidence before it; and, if so, will the Committee pay the adequate rent and payment for the time occupied by such officials?
  The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Lloyd George): The answers to the first and second part of the question are in the negative; the third part therefore does not arise.

  Royal Dockyards.
  Mr. WHELERasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether the replies to the petitions of the workmen of His Majesty's dockyards will be issued before the Navy Estimates are discussed in the House of Commons?
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Dr. Macnamara): I hope to make a statement indicating the nature of our replies in the Debate on Monday.
  Mr. WHELER: Did the right hon. Gentleman promise that the petitions should be issued practically from week to week all through the Session, and now in the last days of the Session we are not told any more?
  Dr. MACNAMARA: We have done all we could to hasten them. They do not concern us only. If the hon. Member will possess his soul in patience for a few hours he will have a reply.
  Mr. TYSON WILSONasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he will issue instructions to the establishment at Portland to exhibit in prominent places accessible to the workmen the regulations governing employment in confined spaces?
  Dr. MACNAMARA: It is presumed the instructions referred to are those which were issued to the dockyards generally, for exhibition, in 1908. There is no objection to copies being posted at Portland, and this will be done.
  Mr. TYSON WILSONasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he will have a list of the piecework rates for men employed at the coaling depot, Portsmouth, exhibited in places accessible to the men; and whether he will inquire into the system of payment to these men, who have hitherto not received payment in accordance with the schedule of prices?
  Dr. MACNAMARA: The coaling work at Portsmouth is divided into two classes: (1) The distribution of yard purpose coal to workshops, official residences, etc. (2) Discharge of colliers, supply to ships not in commission, tugs, etc. For the former, the work is performed by yard labour under a scheme of prices which is exhibited in a place accessible to the men concerned. For the latter, comprising by far the bulk of the coaling operations of the port, the work is performed under a contract, which provides that the rates paid by the contractor to his employés should be those current in the district for competent workmen.

  Potato Tops.
  Mr. C. BATHURSTasked the President of the Board of Agriculture

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  whether his expert advisers share the view, publicly expressed, after continuous experiments and tests, by the nutriment department of the Institute for Zymo-technical Industry at Berlin, that potato-tops are edible by farm stock and have a food value equal to that of good meadow hay; and, if so, whether, in view of the fact that at least 2,000,000 tons are annually thrown away as worthless in the United Kingdom, the Board will make known to potato growers, by leaflet or otherwise, what method of treatment is necessary to enable them to utilise or obtain value for such produce?
  Mr. GULLAND (Lord of the Treasury): It is well known that green potato tops are edible, and in seasons of scarcity are occasionally fed to stock. But, with the exception of a few early kinds, the harvesting of the tops at a stage when stock would eat them would injure the crop of tubers. My right hon. Friend is advised that the haulms of potatoes would be quite unfit for stock-feeding if allowed to ripen in accordance with the ordinary practice. The full report of the work to which the hon. Member refers does not appear to have been published, and, as at present advised, the Board are not prepared to express an opinion as to the conclusions arrived at by those conducting the experiments.
  Mr. C. BATHURST: Will the hon. Gentleman inquire whether the Board of Agriculture has studied the report of this institute at Berlin, which shows that after mechanical treatment there is very high feeding value in potato tops?
  Mr. GULLAND: The Board will be glad to consider anything which may utilise stock.

  Foot-and-Mouth Disease.
  Mr. C. BATHURSTasked the President of the Board of Agriculture whether his attention has been called to the fact that on each of the last three occasions upon which a recrudescence of foot-and-mouth disease has occurred in the United Kingdom the embargo placed by Argentina and other foreign importing countries upon British livestock had been removed for less than ten days, and in consequence no such stock had reached such countries prior to the reimposition of such embargo; and whether the Board are considering the possibility of such occurrence being due to some cause other than mere coincidence?
  Mr. GULLAND: The answer to both parts of the question is in the affirmative.
  Mr. C. BATHURST: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that there is a growing impression amongst agriculturists that foot-and-mouth disease germs are being deliberately imported into this country from abroad?
  Mr. GULLAND: Perhaps the hon. Member will put a question to my right hon. Friend.
  Mr. BURGOYNE: Is the embargo imposed by Argentina put on on account of the unreasonable manner in which we impose the embargo on live cattle for slaughter?
  Mr. LANE-FOXasked the President of the Board of Agriculture whether he can see his way, consistently with the public interest, to allow fat cattle to be brought for immediate slaughter into Selby?
  Mr. GULLAND: An Order is in preparation which will allow animals to be moved for slaughter into a zone which includes Selby. If nothing unforeseen occurs, it is proposed that it should be brought into operation at the beginning of next week.
  Mr. ROWNTREEasked the President of the Board of Agriculture whether he can now sanction the entering of fat cattle into the city of York for immediate slaughter from unscheduled areas?
  Mr. BUTCHERasked the President of the Board of Agriculture whether he has yet found it possible, consistently with the public interest, to issue an Order sanctioning the entry of fat cattle into the city of York under licences for immediate slaughter; and, if such an Order has not yet been issued, whether he hopes to issue such Order on an early day?
  Mr. GULLAND: An Order will be issued to-day modifying the restrictions applicable to the city of York and the surrounding area which will have the effect of allowing the holding of fat stock markets.
  Mr. BUTCHER: Will that Order take effect to-day in view of the great importance of holding a fat stock auction in the city of York on Tuesday next?
  Mr. GULLAND: I understand it is hoped to bring the Order into operation

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  on Monday—this applies to the Selby one also—at any rate, so far as York market is concerned, in time for the market on Tuesday.

  Vegetables.
  Mr. C. BATHURSTasked the President of the Board of Agriculture whether he realises that the value of the Return relating to vegetables in the Board's buff book [Cd. 6272] is minimised by the use of such different units of comparison as the crate, the bundle, the hundredweight, and the pound, and in the case of vegetable marrows, cucumbers, lettuces, and cabbages of the dozen, an expression giving no indication of the merits of the crop; and whether steps can be taken in the next official Returns of such produce to reduce in number these various units of comparison and to select either weights or measures well understood by the general public, and affording some indication of the seasonal standard of each crop referred to?
  Mr. GULLAND: The annual Return of prices is compiled mainly with a view to the comparison of the market value of agricultural produce at different periods, and the weights and measures for which the prices are quoted are those generally used in the trade and most readily understood by persons interested. In the Board's weekly return of market prices, where the main object is to compare values at different markets within the same week, the varying weights and measures are, as far as possible, converted to a common denominator, the rates of conversion—which must in many cases be approximate—being given in a footnote. My right hon. Friend is inclined to think that this is on the whole the most convenient system that can be adopted, but he will be glad to consider any practical suggestions for improvement.
  Mr. C. BATHURST: Does the hon. Gentleman suggest that the market value of vegetable marrows or cabbages is clearly indicated by the price given for the sale of a dozen of such commodities?
  Mr. GULLAND: Personally, I have no information as to that.

  Local Taxation Accounts.
  Mr. BRIDGEMANasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer to what cause he attributes the fact that from 1st April to 13th July, 1912, the amount of payments
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  from the Treasury to Local Taxation Accounts was less by £114,336 than it was during the same period of last year?
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: The issues from the Exchequer to the Local Taxation Accounts are regulated by the requirements of the distributing Departments (within the limits of the Grants) and are not necessarily made in the same amounts or on the same dates in each year. The issues between 1st April and 13th July, 1912, happen to have been smaller than they were in the corresponding period of the previous year; but this accidental circumstance indicates no shrinkage in the total amounts available.

  Income Tax (Repayments to Agricultural Landowners).
  Mr. C. BATHURSTasked what is the aggregate amount which has been repaid or allowed during the last financial year to agricultural landowners under Section 69 of the Finance (1909–10) Act, 1910, in respect of maintenance, insurance, management, and repairs, on payment of Income Tax under Schedule A?
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: The amount was approximately £53,000. I may add that these allowances can be claimed within three years, and the amounts being claimed in successive years are rapidly increasing as the concession is becoming better known and appreciated.
  Mr. C. BATHURST: May I ask whether there is any prospect of putting agricultural landowners under Schedule D, so that they will be assessed on their net incomes?
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I should like, first of all, to see the result of this experiment before we go further, for although we allow £500,000 as a margin, subject to the landowners submitting their accounts, up to the present they have not made their claims except for £53,000. The accounts are now coming in more rapidly.

  Territorial Force (Signallers).
  1.0 P.M.
  Mr. WHELERasked whether helios are supplied to the signallers of the Territorial Force; and, if not, whether it is proposed to supply them in the future?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Mr. Tennant): Helios are not at present supplied, and the question of their provision is a matter for consideration with due regard to other requirements.
  Mr. WHELER: Is it possible for them to do their duty efficiently if they are not supplied with helios?
  Mr. TENNANT: I think they are perfectly able.
  MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE: May I ask the hon. Gentleman if these signallers are examined in helio signalling when they have to pass for their certificates, and, if so, how is it possible to examine them if they have not had training in the work?
  Mr. TENNANT: I do not think they will be examined.

  Bridlington Camps (Hay and Straw Supplies).
  Mr. EDWARD WOODasked whether hay and straw for the forthcoming camps near Bridlington is to be brought from Liverpool; and whether the farmers in the Bridlington district were given the opportunity of supplying it before the order was placed elsewhere?
  Mr. TENNANT: Full opportunity was given to farmers in the Bridlington district to supply forage and paillasse straw to the camps mentioned. Little or no help could be obtained from them; and in the case of straw, as only about one-third of the total requirements could be obtained locally, a contract was made with a Liverpool firm, who are supplying straw from Lincolnshire. It is not known from what source the contractors will obtain the hay required.
  Mr. LANE-FOX: May I ask whether the difficulty in the matter is the price, or does the hon. Gentleman mean to imply that the farmers are not willing to supply hay and straw for the camps?
  Mr. TENNANT: I understand that the farmers have not a sufficient quantity to meet the requirements.
  MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE: May I ask whether the hon. Gentleman could arrange to deal with farmers' clubs in order to get sufficient hay and straw, as is done at other places?
  Mr. TENNANT: I will make inquiry as to that.

  NATIONAL INSURANCE ACT.

    PAYMENTS BY CHEQUE.
    Lord ROBERT CECILasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether post
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    offices are allowed to accept cheques in payment of insurance stamps; and whether, if not, he will give instructions that they may do so in cases where the officials are satisfied that the cheque is genuine and the drawer good for the amount for which it is drawn?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: Under the ordinary Post Office rule cheques are not accepted in payment of postage stamps, and in the case of Insurance stamps I do not think the invidious duty should be thrown upon postmasters of determining whose cheques should be accepted and whose refused. But I am arranging that large firms or companies who wish to purchase stamps in bulk may send cheques to the General Post Offices in London, Edinburgh or Dublin. I am in communication with the Insurance Commissioners with respect to the possibility of arrangements being made for the direct supply of large quantities of stamps by them in return for payment by cheque.
    Lord R. CECIL: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider whether it will not be possible to give a discretion to postmasters either to accept or reject cheques if they think it convenient?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: I am afraid in any particular case where the postmaster was doubtful whether he ought to accept a cheque, and ultimately declined to do so, his relations with the person whose cheque was refused would become somewhat strained.

    SANATORIUM BENEFIT (WILTSHIRE).
    Mr. GODFREY LOCKER-LAMPSONasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether it is estimated that there will be any difference in Wiltshire during the first year of the operation of the National Insurance Act between the amount for sanatorium benefit provided for under the Act and the amount which will actually be allocated to Wiltshire according to the Memorandum No. 112, I.C, recently issued by the Insurance Commissioners; and, if so, whether it is estimated that the actual amount to be allocated to Wiltshire will be less than that provided for under the Act?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: The Act does not provide for any definite allocation of funds for sanatorium benefit for the period from 15th July to the end of the present year, to which alone the allocation proposed in the Memorandum applies.

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    The allocation for the first full year after the commencement of the Act will be made in January next, in accordance with the provisions of Sections 16 and 61.
    Mr. G. LOCKER-LAMPSON: Will there be sufficient money between now and the end of the year to provide sanatoria?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: Yes, £220,000 was set aside up to November, and if more is required more will be set aside.

    INSURANCE COMPANIES AND TRADE UNIONS (REPRESENTATIONS TO CONTRIBUTORS).
    Mr. HICKS BEACHasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether many industrial insurance companies and trade unions are advising employed contributors that, even if they have applied for membership and been accepted as members by an approved society under the National Insurance Act, and although their insurance cards and books have been made out by and registered in the books of an approved society, they may nevertheless hand their stamped cards to any other approved society; that some insurance companies and unions are even threatening to send round and collect such cards at the end of the thirteen weeks; and whether he will take steps to put a stop to such a practice, which would entail considerable hardship on the society which has had all the trouble of preparing the original cards and books of those Contibutors?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: Although the Commissioners will be prepared to regard the presentation of a card through a society as sufficient primâ facie evidence in favour of that society's claim to the provisional credit of a reserve value in respect of the contributor to whom the card belongs, yet if any claim to that member is made by any other society the Commissioners will investigate the circumstances, and credit will finally be given in accordance with the facts disclosed. Any such attempt as described by the hon. Member involves a breach of the Regulations and an attempt to claim credit improperly will expose those making it to the penalties prescribed in the Act. Persons who, having joined a society, desire to transfer to another, must give due notice of their intention of withdrawing to the society which they wish to leave.
    Mr. BOOTH: Are we to understand the right hon. Gentleman accepts this state-
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    ment with regard to insurance companies and trade unions as having any foundation at all?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I take no responsibility for any statement contained in the question.

    APPROVED SOCIETIES (LEGAL LIABILITY FOR BENEFITS).
    Mr. G. LOCKER-LAMPSONasked whether an insured person can sue his approved society if he is unable to obtain the benefits to which he is entitled, and in respect of which enforced deductions have been made from his wages under the National Insurance Act?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I would refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to the Noble Lord the Member for Newtown on 6th June.
    Mr. G. LOCKER-LAMPSON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that he asked me to put down this question?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: On examination, I found it had already been answered. If the hon. Gentleman looks it up he will find it has been answered.
    Mr. G. LOCKER-LAMPSON: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether an insured person can sue an approved society?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: If the hon. Gentleman will do me the honour of looking it up, he will see an answer has been given. I cannot always repeat the answers.

    DEPOSIT CONTRIBUTORS.
    Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANSasked what deductions will be made from the contributions paid by and for a male and a female deposit contributor, respectively, as the cost of administration and for sanatorium benefit for the remainder of the present year; and on what date does the present year end for this purpose?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: It has not yet been finally settled what deductions it will be necessary to make from the amounts standing to the credit of deposit contributors in order to provide for cost of administration for the remainder of the present year; the amount to be deducted in respect of the cost of sanatorium benefit will not in any case exceed seven-ninths of one penny for every three contributions paid in case of males, and three-farthings for every three contributions paid in the case of females.
    Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when the Commissioners will make up their minds how-much is to be deducted for costs of administration?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I hope very shortly.
    Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: Does the right hon. Gentleman appreciate the fact that if it is not done before the 1st January there may be great difficulty in deposit contributors getting any benefit next year?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I hope it will be decided many mouths before the 1st January.
    Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANSasked whether any and, if so, what deduction will be made from the contributions of a deposit contributor in respect of the period 15th July, 1911, to 15th January, 1912, for the cost of medical benefit?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: No sums will be charged against the contributions of deposit contributors in respect of medical benefit for the period 15th July, 1912, to 14th January, 1913, such contributors not being entitled to that benefit during that period. The amounts to be charged against the contributions of deposit contributors in respect of expenses of administration for the period above mentioned have not yet been finally settled.

    CANVASSERS.
    Colonel BAGOTasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether his attention has been called to the fact that the representatives of certain insurance organisations are leaving contribution cards on workmen with the names already filled in, presumably with the object of conveying the impression that theirs is the only medium of insurance under the Act; whether such agents are entitled to issue cards to persons who are not at the time members of their organisation; and whether he will issue a circular with a view to putting a stop to this practice?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: Approved societies are not entitled to issue cards otherwise than to their members, and the cards, which are the property of the Insurance Commisioners, have been supplied to societies on the express condition that they would only be so issued. If the hon. and gallant Member can give me any definite instances of the practices to which he refers, I will cause inquiries to be made.

    POTATO GATHERERS.
    Mr. EDWARD WOODasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether his attention has been called to the fact that an official lecturer at Boroughbridge, on 6th July last, was of opinion that potato gatherers were included under the National Insurance Act, and that another official lecturer at York, on 11th July, was of opinion that such labour was outside the provisions of the Act; and which interpretation of the Act has the support of the Commissioners?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: Persons engaged in potato-picking are compulsory contributors if they were insured persons immediately before, but not otherwise. The lecturer at Boroughbridge was referring to persons who go from other employment to potato-picking; the lecturer at York was referring (as he definitely stated) to casual labour, namely, to persons not insured at the time they are engaged for potato-picking. I am sending the hon. Member a copy of the Subsidiary Employments Order, 1912 (No. 2), which defines the position of this and similar classes of employment.
    Mr. LANE-FOX: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the lecturer at Borough-bridge distinctly stated that men digging potatoes come under the Act, and when the statement was challenged he repeated it?
    Mr. MASTERMAN(who informs the official reporter that he heard Mr. Lane-Fox indistinctly and understood him to refer to the lecturer at York): My information is definitely that he was only referring to casual labour, and in that case he was correct.
    MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE: Have there not been two leaflets issued giving different, opinions as to the meaning of the words "raising," "lifting," and "gathering"?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: A special Order was issued in the first place, and it was subsequently modified in accordance with advice received from agricultural members of the Advisory Committee.

    ALTERNATE RESIDENCE (ENGLAND AND IRELAND).
    Mr. MILDMAYasked whether, in the event of an employer's household being resident for a portion of the year in Ireland and for a portion in London, contributions in respect of the National

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    Insurance Act will have to be made and prospective benefits be secured on the Irish or on the English scale?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: Contributions will be payable at the English rate while in England and at the Irish rate in Ireland. The servants will, unless they receive a money payment instead, be entitled to medical benefit while in England but not in Ireland.

    ROYAL LONDON MUTUAL INSURANCE SOCIETY.
    Mr. POINTERasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that the Royal London Mutual Insurance Society is informing its employés that if the society pays the contributions of its employés under the National Insurance Act the employés must declare for the approved section of the society; and what action he proposes to take to prevent this pressure on insured persons?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: There is nothing in the National Insurance Act which prevents an employer from paying the contributions either of his employés in general or of such of them as he may select.
    Mr. POINTER: What is the decision of the Department with regard to the last part of my question?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: Whether the society are entitled to tell their employés that they must join the society's approved section or leave their service? I will inquire into that matter.

    YOUTH'S CONTRIBUTIONS.
    Sir FREDERICK BANBURYasked whether an employed person between 16 and 21 has to pay 7d. a week under the National Insurance Act, 4d. by the employed person and 3d. by the employer, inasmuch as the variations of the rates of contributions relate only to employed persons of 21 years and upwards?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: The statement in the latter part of the question is correct. The contribution payable in respect of male employed persons in Great Britain between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one is 7d., of which 4d. may be deducted from wages, whether or not the remuneration is at a higher rate than 2s. 6d. a day.
    Sir F. BANBURY: Why does a boy of eighteen in receipt of 10s. a week pay 4d., while a man of twenty-one pays 1d.?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: The only reply I can give to that is that it was so decided by Parliament.

    CURATES' CONTRIBUTIONS.
    Mr. WRIGHTasked whether curates of the Church of England and curates of the Roman Catholic Chuch, whose incomes are less in amount than £160, come within the provisions of the Insurance Act as to compulsory insurance; and, if so, who is responsible for the employers' contributions?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: The question of the position under the National Insurance Act of curates of the Church of England has been submitted for decision by the High Court under Section 66 of the Act. The Commissioners will be prepared, if application is made to them, to make arrangements for the determination of the position of curates of the Roman Catholic Church as soon as the decision of the Court in the case of Church of England curates has been given.
    Mr. CHARLES BATHURST: When is a decision likely to be given? The matter is of immense importance to the clergy.
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I think the case is going to be taken next week.
    Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: What is to be done by the curates meanwhile? Will anyone be liable for penalties for not stamping a card?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I do not think any penalty would be enforced. The advice is given in all cases that payment should be made, and it will be subsequently refunded if the decision goes the other way.

    BRITISH MEDICAL ASSOCIATION.
    Mr. BOOTHasked the Secretary to the Treasury if he has investigated the circumstances connected with the boycott of Dr. Richards, of Winkleigh, North Devon, and the present condition of his practice and the service of the friendly societies which it includes; and what arrangements the Insurance Commissioners intend to make for medical service for such societies if the British Medical Association forbids a practitioner to serve the clubs in question?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I have nothing to add to the statements made by my right hon. Friend the Chancelor of the Exchequer in reply to questions by the hon. Gentleman and others on 15th May. The

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    medical service referred to is not service under the Act, and the Insurance Commissioners have no power to intervene.
    Mr. BOOTH: Have the Insurance Commissioners laid all the facts before the Advisory Committee?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I am not sure if these particular facts have been brought before the Advisory Committee.

    ESTATE CARPENTERS.
    Mr. EDWARD WOODasked the President of the Board of Trade whether estate joiners and woodmen employed in sawing are in all cases insurable under Part II. of the National Insurance Act?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Robertson): The case of estate joiners is covered by the answer given on 17th July to the hon. Member for the Eastbourne Division of Sussex. As regards woodmen employed in sawing, the nearest decision already given by the Umpire is No. 203, which lays down that contributions are not payable in respect of "workmen employed by timber merchants owning or working sawmills and engaged wholly or mainly in the work of converting timber or logs into planks, boards, or scantlings." Though the decision does not directly relate to estate woodmen, it would seem a reasonable inference that such woodmen, if engaged on the kinds of work specified, would also be excluded. It will, however, be understood that I have no power to give a binding decision on such a matter, which is one for determination in case of doubt by the Umpire. As a number of questions have been raised as to the position under Part II. of the National Insurance Act of certain classes of estate workmen, I will, by leave of the House, take this opportunity of making a statement which may be of some practical service in guiding employers and workmen at the outset. I must repeat that I have no authority to give any binding decision whether contributions are payable in respect of any individual workmen or class of workmen, that being a matter solely determinable in doubtful cases by the Umpire. The questions raised relate to the position of certain classes of workmen employed on private estates in country districts as regards their liability to compulsory insurance under Part II. of the National Insurance Act. So far as such workmen are clearly employed in insured trades, no doubt arises, for there is no
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    question that under the Act estate workmen employed in insured trades are liable to contributions equally with workmen engaged on similar work employed by way of trade or business. What occupations are within the insured trades is, of course, a matter for determination in case of doubt by the Umpire. The questions that have been raised are therefore solely concerned with the position of workmen partly employed in insured trades and partly in other occupations, as, for example, estate carpenters, masons or labourers employed on private estates in rural districts, sometimes in building and repairing cottages, and at other times in fencing, gate-making, road repairing, quarrying, or other non-insurable work. It is to be noted that the Act (Section 97) makes special provision for persons in rural districts who are only occasionally employed in insured trades. I am now referring solely to districts of a rural character. In such a district the question whether or not at any particular time contributions are payable in respect of any particular workman—namely, an estate carpenter—depends on whether at the time the principal occupation of the carpenter is in connection with building or other insured trade or with some non-insurable occupation—namely, the making of fences. In many cases the workman's principal occupation will be clear from the nature of the occupation which he holds himself out as following. In other cases it will be determined by the nature of the work on which he has recently been engaged—that is, not merely in the current week or month, but over a substantial period such as a, year. Thus there will be no need, as some have supposed, for the employer to forecast the kind of work on which the workman is likely to be engaged at some future time. The question to be decided in a doubtful case is whether he is or is not a workman who, on his past record, would be reasonably described as a building operative or as engaged in some other insured trade? If this question is answered in the negative no step need be taken to insure him, though by mutual agreement between employer and workman he may be treated as an insured workman.
    Mr. LANE-FOX: Is it required to insure these men before the decision is given, and what is the position of a man whose past record is of a very mixed kind, and how are we to know until some more definite decision has been given?
    Mr. ROBERTSON: The hon. Member or anyone may refer a doubtful case to the Umpire.
    Mr. LANE-FOX: Are the workmen to be made to pay this contribution, which in some cases is entirely unnecessary, until a decision has been given?
    Mr. ROBERTSON: The answer will show that if a workman is insured and is non-insurable the contributions will be returnable.
    Captain CLIVEasked whether an estate carpenter who is employed, as the occasion arises, sometimes at work that is insurable and sometimes at work that is uninsurable under Part II. of the National Insurance Act, will require to be insured only for the weeks when he is engaged at insurable work; and will he receive unemployment pay for the weeks when he is not so engaged?
    Mr. ROBERTSON: Contributions under Part II. of the National Insurance Act are payable only in respect of periods during which a workman is employed in an insured trade. It is also provided, under Section 97 of the Act, that occasional employment in an insured trade in a district of a rural character does not make a workman liable to compulsory contributions if his principal occupation in the district is not in an insured trade. In reply to the second part of the question, I would refer to Section 107 (1) of the Act, the effect of which is that a workman cannot obtain benefit, as being unemployed, while he is following any remunerative occupation in an insured trade or any other occupation from which he derives any remuneration or profit greater than that which he would derive from the receipt of unemployment benefit under Part II. of the Act.

    SEASONAL EMPLOYMENTS.
    Captain CLIVEasked whether a man employed in painting buildings for six months in the summer will be considered as engaged in the construction or repair of buildings and therefore require to be insured under Part II. of the National Insurance Act; and, if he fails to get other employment in the winter, will he be entitled to unemployment pay during that six months?
    Mr. ROBERTSON: In the case mentioned by the hon. Member the workman would be liable to contributions during the six months of employment in painting buildings and would be entitled to benefit
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    thereafter when unemployed for the periods allowed by the Act. As the hon. Member is doubtless aware, a workman's claim to unemployment benefit is limited by the number of his contributions in the proportion of one week's benefit for five week's contributions.
    Mr. C. BATHURST: If such a person ceased to paint buildings or greenhouses, as is not uncommon, and took to painting gates or railings, would he continue to be an insured person?
    Mr. ROBERTSON: Perhaps the hon. Member will give me notice.
    MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE: If one of these rural workers, after having contributed to unemployed pay for some time, ceases to be a carpenter and becomes an ordinary estate servant, will he be allowed to get unemployment pay for the contributions he paid when he was a carpenter?
    Mr. ROBERTSON: He will get unemployment pay solely under the conditions and limitations prescribed in the Act.
    MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE: Am I to understand that he pays these contributions for nothing?
    Mr. ROBERTSON: That may happen in any insurance system.

    RECOVERABLE CONTRIBUTIONS.
    Captain CLIVEasked whether, if a man is insured under Part II. of the National Insurance Act and it afterwards transpires that he was not so insurable, the money that has been paid by him and his employer will be recoverable, and, if so, from whom?
    Mr. ROBERTSON: When contributions have been paid under an erroneous belief that a workman was a workman in an insured trade, the Board of Trade will make a refund in full to the employer and the workman respectively, on proper application being made, subject, however, in the case of the workman, to the deduction of any unemployment benefit that may have been paid to him in respect of those contributions. The point is covered by paragraph 31 of the Unemployment Insurance Regulations, 1912, of which I am sending the hon. Member a copy.

    WOLVERHAMPTON LABOUR EXCHANGE.
    Mr. BIRDasked whether, in the case of 150 workmen in Wolverhampton on

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    Monday last with whose application for unemployment books the local Labour Exchange had failed to comply, but the representative of which subsequently permitted the men to start work without the books, the Government will pay the wages lost by these men from no fault of their own?
    Mr. ROBERTSON: My information appears to show that every facility was offered by the manager of the Wolverhampton Exchange to employers of workmen who had failed to obtain their unemployment books by Monday morning last. If, however, the hon. Member will supply me with additional details further inquiry shall be made.

    UNEMPLOYMENT BOOKS.
    Mr. BIRDasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will issue instructions that prosecutions are not to be instituted against employers who had permitted workmen to start without their unemployment books, in cases where these workmen had been unable to obtain the books from Labour Exchanges, owing to no fault of their own?
    Mr. ROBERTSON: Under the Unemployment Insurance Regulations an employer is not obliged to obtain an unemployment book from a workman in an insured trade before engaging him, but only "as soon as may be after the date of engagement." I would point out, however, that in case of necessity a temporary unemployment book may be immediately obtained by a workman from any Labour Exchange or local office of the Unemployment Fund on demand, and if the workman fails to produce to the employer either a regular or a temporary unemployment book the employer can himself obtain an emergency book from any Labour Exchange or other local office on giving the name and occupation of the workman. I need hardly say that no prosectuion will be instituted in cases where the failure to obtain a book is not due to the default of either employer or workman.

    INVALIDED SOLDIERS AND SAILORS.
    Mr. PIKE PEASEasked whether a soldier or sailor invalided out of the Army or Navy after several years' service, who is unable to join an approved society, will have to wait at least three months before being able to obtain any benefits from the Army and Navy Insurance Fund; and, if so, can the Commissioners see their way to remedy this hardship?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: No, Sir; a soldier or sailor invalided out of the Army or Navy would at once be entitled to benefits out of the Army and Navy Insurance Fund after proving that the state of his health is such that he cannot obtain admission to an approved society. The Commissioners are now endeavouring to arrange that where a soldier or sailor is discharged in such a state of health that he will clearly be unable to join an approved society, he may be at once admitted to the Army and Navy Insurance Fund on a certificate from the Army and Navy doctor.

    DISTURBANCE AT KILREA.
    Mr. MOONEY: May I ask whether a report has been received in regard to the disturbance at Kilrea, on the 13th inst., and more particularly whether there is any truth in the statement that attacks were made on women and children?
    Mr. T. W. RUSSELL (Vice-President of the Board of Agriculture, Ireland): I have received the following telegram from the police officer in the district:—
    "No outrage was committed by Nationalists at Kilrea on 13th July last on women and children. The affair in question did not commence by an attack on a child of fourteen years, nor was any child severely hurt. The perpetrators did not then attack a party of excursionists, young women, nor pelt them with stones or other missiles. The facts are: A party riot provoked by a private dispute occurred in Kilrea on night of 13th inst., on the arrival of the last train from Portrush, between the Orangemen and a party of Ancient Order of Hibernians. Each side threw stones, bottles, and other missiles, Revolvers were discharged on both sides. Mark Reilly, jun., and Patrick Henry, Nationalists, were struck by revolver bullets. They have been medically treated, and are now doing well. Several shop windows, the property of traders on both sides, were broken. No arrests yet. The town is now quiet."
    Some of the rioters have been identified and will be prosecuted.
    Mr. MOORE: Were these telegrams in response to certain questions sent by the right hon. Gentleman? If so, can we have the document which has been quoted and the correspondence laid on the Table?
    Mr. RUSSELL: Yes, the answers are in response to questions put by me. I was not able to give the information on the day on which I was asked, but I promised to get it and I have now given it to the House.
    Mr. MOORE: Is it not the case that the Hibernians assembled on that day and lay in wait for the return of the excursionists, and that the excusionists had no arms and

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    no weapons, and that the attack was made on them by an organised band of Hibernians?
    Mr. RUSSELL: I do not know about lying in wait, but it is a curious fact that if the excursionists had no arms two Nationalists happened to be shot.
    Mr. MOORE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Nationalist who was shot was going over to meet his own men and was mistaken by them for a member of the other party?
    Lord ROBERT CECIL: Is it not the practice for the police to furnish reports in writing on such matters, and was the Irish Government left entirely dependent on telegraphic communication in respect of a matter that took place over a week ago?
    Mr. RUSSELL: I have no doubt that the Irish Government has received a report. It has not reached me.
    Lord ROBERT CECIL: Is there any intention of communicating it to the House of Commons, and if not, why not?
    Mr. RUSSELL: I have no doubt there will be no difficulty about it; but I differ from the allegations that have been made. What it really means is a public-house brawl.
    Mr. MOORE: Did the County Inspector arrive on Sunday night in Kilrea, and have you not yet received a report from him?
    Mr. RUSSELL: I cannot answer that question. The telegrams read are from the District Inspector.
    Viscount HELMSLEY: Are revolvers a common adjunct to public-house rows in Ireland?
    Mr. RUSSELL: I am afraid they very often are.
    Mr. SHEEHY: Is it not common knowledge that the Orangemen have been boasting for the last three or four months that they are arming all over the North?

    PUTUMAYO ATROCITIES.
    Mr. SANDYS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs a question, of which I have given him private
    688
    notice: Whether his attention has been called to articles which have appeared in the German Press, in which it is stated that the atrocities in Putumayo, referred to in the Blue Book recently issued, were committed by British subjects; whether it is not made perfectly clear in the Blue Book that the British Government has done everything in its power to induce the Peruvian Government to put an end to existing conditions in that region; whether the only British subjects involved were a certain number of natives from the Barbadoes, who had been originally brought to Putumayo from the West Indies; and whether he will call the attention of the German Government to this matter, in view of the fact that these misrepresentations, unless contradicted, are likely unfavourably to prejudice public opinion?
    Mr. ACLAND: As the hon. Member was only able to give me notice at the beginning of questions to-day, and as the Secretary of State is not at the present moment in London, I am not able to say whether he has seen the articles referred to; but we have received no communication on the subject from His Majesty's representative in Berlin. The statements of fact in the second and third parts of the question are absolutely accurate. No outrages of any kind were committed by Englishmen. With regard to the last part of the question, I think that the attention called to the matter by the hon. Member will be sufficient to correct the mistaken impression of the facts which may have been conveyed, no doubt owing to a hasty or incomplete reading or understanding of the Blue Book.
    Mr. KING: Will the hon. Gentleman communicate with the Consul-General in Cologne, which is the district where these reports have been chiefly circulated?
    Mr. ACLAND: I almost think that that will be unnecessary. I have no reason to think that deliberate misrepresentations have been made, and I think that the attention very properly called to the matter by the hon. Member will be sufficient.

    ILLEGAL TRAWLING (GALWAY BAY).
    Mr. DUFFY: I beg to ask the Vice-President of the Board of Agriculture, Ireland, a question, of which I have given him private notice: Whether any complaints

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    have reached him from the fishermen who live on the Aran Isles, Galway Bay, respecting the enormous amount of injury done to them by steam trawlers invading the line limit laid down by the Board of Fisheries? Is he aware that these poor people live entirely by fishing? Is he aware that a strong representation was sent to the Board of Agriculture so long ago as Monday, 15th July, complaining of the serious injury inflicted by reason of allowing these foreign steam trawlers to trawl within the prescibed limits, and will he give special direction to have the "Helga" more frequently stationed in the bay to prevent this illegal trawling?
    Mr. RUSSELL: I only received notice of the hon. Gentleman's question last night. I will make inquiries into the matter. But I may say that the Department have only one cruiser at their disposal, and that it cannot be in every place at the same time.
    Mr. DUFFY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that representations to the effect mentioned in my report have been made to the Board of Agriculture in the past week, and that no attention has been paid to them?
    Mr. RUSSELL: Yes, I am aware of the complaint. It is not possible to keep the cruiser constantly at the Aran Islands.
    Mr. O'DONNELL: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is general complaint along the whole Western Coast of Ireland of lack of attention on the part of whatever authorities are responsible?
    Mr. RUSSELL: I am aware of the complaint. I am also aware that the evils of illegal trawling have greatly diminished of late.
    Mr. FLAVIN: Where are all the cruisers and battleships that we saw last week? There are 223 of them, and why cannot the Irish people get one?
    Mr. KILBRIDE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this boat which he says cannot always be kept at the Aran Islands is at the present moment at Kingstown at the Regatta?

    FOOT-AND-MOUTH DISEASE.
    Mr. C. BATHURST: I would like to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he
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    can give us any information in reference to the recent alarming outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in Ireland?
    Mr. RUSSELL: I do not know that the hon. Gentleman is justified in describing it as an alarming outbreak, because it has been wholly confined to the district of Swords, in the county Dublin. There was an additional case this week, but there has been no other case. We are doing our best to control the disease, but no one knows better than the hon. Gentleman that that is not easily done. Every effort has been made to confine the disease within the single area of Swords, and we have been successful in doing so up to the present moment. I cannot say that the disease is not active there. We had a case on Tuesday, and therefore I am not prepared to say that we are in a position to make any recommendations in regard to facilities from the Dublin district or the district of Meath immediately adjoining Swords, but I wish to impress on the House that while the difficulty in Swords has been very great there has not been a sign of foot-and-mouth disease in any other part of Ireland.
    Mr. C. BATHURST: Has not this outbreak to which the right hon. Gentleman refers taken place upon a separate farm wedged between the two farms upon which the previous outbreaks had taken place, and, if that is so, is it not desirable in such a case to have a wholesale slaughter of all the animals in that particular district?
    Mr. RUSSELL: The hon. Member is quite correct. The case on Tuesday was on a farm such as he describes, between the two farms which had been previously affected. That is not an unusual thing in these outbreaks. I am afraid almost to say how many animals we have slaughtered since the disease broke out. We have been slaughtering almost continuously.
    Mr. SHEEHY: In reference to Meath, may I ask why a portion of it has been included in the Order, seeing that there is no sign of disease there?
    Mr. RUSSELL: There is no actual disease in Meath, but the part included is within 10 or 12 miles of Swords, and it was impossible to avoid including that part in the Order.

MENTAL DEFICIENCY BILL.
Order read for resuming adjourned Debate on Question [10th June], "That the Bill be now read a second time."
Question again proposed. Debate resumed.
Mr. WEDGWOOD: I beg to move to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day six months."
The last time this Bill was debated I made a speech on that occasion which I was not able to complete, but perhaps the House will permit me to recapitulate and summarise the arguments I then used against the Bill. It seems to me that the worst part of this Mental Deficiency Bill is its drafting by the Home Office. I do not mean to say that the drafting is not sufficiently exact, or that it would not, if passed into an Act of Parliament, be a very effective Act of Parliament. What I complain of is that the Bill appears to be drafted by the Home Office simply and solely from the point of view of efficiency instead of having an eye to the liberty of the subject or the freedom and rights of the people whose liberties it is proposed to take away. There is an entire absence throughout the whole of the Bill of any suggestion that it would not be perfectly right and just on the part of the State to make what regulations they like for the lives of these people, and to put people in prison for life, although they have committed no crime. The safeguards are fair to the ratepayers, fair to the property of the people who are segregated for life, and fair to the delators who select these unfortunate people, and get them imprisoned. The safeguards for the people themselves are remarkable by their absence from the Bill. That is the sort of spirit which makes one very cautious indeed about accepting a measure which betrays that spirit. In the second place, I think it is most important that the House should put its foot down firmly on the growing authority of specialists in the legislation of the country. You cannot argue the question. You are not on the same footing with them. Public opinion is absolutely valueless and unable to cope with the dictum of the specialist. We are setting up an inquisition which is more dangerous than the old inquisition. On the old inquisition as to opinion you could bring public opinion to bear, but in regard to the inquisition as to mental deficiency, which is the inquisition of the specialist or
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the doctor, you have no public opinion to bring to bear, because you have no grounds on which to argue. The process of handing over to a county committee all these enormous powers of black-listing people is really the power of selecting from amongst these black-listed people the victims who are to be locked up, and the fact that you are locking them up and putting all the onus and responsibility of it upon the doctors in those institutions themselves, seems to me to be a step which requires very carefully watching indeed before this House sanctions it.
This is a case of the danger of perpetual imprisonment. The Home Secretary said it was not a case of perpetual imprisonment. But it is. In the first place, a man is sent to one of these homes under a process which I will subsequently describe, and he is only locked up for a year. At the end of that year his case is to be reconsidered, and if he is again remitted for a further period, it is for five years, and his case comes up again at the end of that period, and continues popping up every five years. When he is examined at the end of the first year, or each subsequent five years, a report is drawn up and carried out by the officer of the home itself—a home which is conducted for private gain—and there is no guarantee whatever that the doctor will not be indirectly influenced by the fact that if he reports a man or woman as fit to leave the home the institution will lose a patient and lose a source of income coming from the Government. Then the report is not a report on any special case; it is merely a general report made to the Commissioners on all the cases each year. The whole scheme is so devised as to make it more and more difficult for a man or woman to escape from one of these homes to which he or she has been sent. Thus it is made, to my mind, a sentence of perpetual imprisonment on the people sent to those homes. It has been truly said that there will be many cases in future of people in the Courts of the country who will beg to be sentenced to hard labour rather than be acquitted, because if acquitted they would be sent to imprisonment for life. If once a man or woman is introduced into the black list, then that man or woman can be sent to imprisonment for life by the magistrate, without any chance of appeal whatever, in lieu of being convicted upon even the smallest offence. Anyone who is charged before

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the police magistrate, though not convicted, can be sentenced in this way.
Another point I should like to summarise is this: We, as politicians, ought not to be too much bound by the Report of the Royal Commission. After all, the Royal Commissioners are not politicians, they are not responsible to the electors of this country, and what they say is not final. But what we say is final, and it is of the utmost importance that we should look at this question not simply from the point of view of expediency; it is not a question only of what is most economical to the ratepayers of the country, of what is good for the country, or for the welfare of society as a whole; we are trustees for the freedom and rights of British citizens, and it is our duty to look at this question not only from the point of view of the possible or probable benefits to society if you only eliminate the unfit and carefully breed up a people physically and mentally well equipped. That is not the only side to be considered; we have also to consider the fundamental basis of British liberties, and see that it is not tampered with, however good the object put forward may be. There is possible ground for compromise in connection with this Bill. The present system of dealing with the feeble-minded in this country is a purely voluntary matter. The homes are voluntary, with some little assistance from the rates; but practically the whole organisation of this country in regard to the mentally deficient, and for looking after them when they have attained the age of puberty, is in voluntary hands. Under this Bill you are taking a large stride forward, and not only bringing in State aid to assist the voluntary institutions, but you are going further and saying that the State aid must be accompanied by compulsion and the compulsory segregation of the unfit. Surely that is a step which is not justified by the present position of affairs. We have not arrived at any intermediate stage of giving State assistance and of providing State homes, so long as these people are free to leave those homes after a certain period of detention, and it seems to me there is a general possibility of compromise. There are many who regret deeply that the National Insurance Act was compulsory, and who are sorry that the Act did not merely provide assistance to the friendly societies to deal with these matters, without compelling the people to be thrifty. There
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were many who thought that the Government took too large a step forward when they skipped the State assistance to thrift and went on to make thrift compulsory. Here it seems to me that the Government is in danger of making exactly the same mistake of jumping too far forward. I would strongly urge that this Bill might be made perfectly satisfactory if the compulsory part of it was left out, and if people were allowed, after a certain period of detention, to escape from these prisons and leave them voluntarily, and retain in the Bill that Government assistance and grant of public money, and I am afraid there will have to be a large Grant, and retain assistance to every voluntary scheme of dealing with the mentally defective, and go further and provide State homes, where those people will be looked after on the very best lines. Do not leave out that stage and spring straight away to compulsory segregation of the unfit, as though those unfortunate people had no rights, just as other citizens have. On those lines, I do hope it is possible still for the Government to compromise. I am quite confident that so long as compulsion remains in this Bill you may whittle down the Clauses and you may make them a little less harsh here or put a safeguard in there, but so long as compulsion remains, so long as you can say that this Bill, as it is at present, is a Bill for putting people who have committed no crime whatever to prison for life, so long as that remains, I do not believe it will ever find its way on to the Statute Book of this country.
I go on to deal with the Bill itself, as so far I have been recapitulating arguments used on the last occasion. By Clause 8 you will see that the authority to administer this Bill is to be a committee of the county council, which is to have a Mentally Defective Committee, just as it has an Asylums Committee. That committee will perform one principal function. It will, of course, supervise the homes, but its principal function is to have a register of all those people to whom the term "defective" may at any time be applied. They are to draw up a "black list," with the help of the overseers of the poor and the medical practitioners, and, no doubt, the police. They are to prepare that black list by a process of delation among the inhabitants of the country. Under Clause 12 you will see that the duty of the local authority is—
"to ascertain what persons within their area are defectives;

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"to keep such persons under supervision."
As soon as a man is ascertained to be defective he is entered on the black list and those people are, so to speak, shadowed by the police, the overseer of the poor, and by all the excellently intentioned bodies who look after the poor of this country with such very great attention. Then having kept them under supervision they are to keep the register of those defective persons, and they are to provide suitable accommodation, and they are to employ sufficient officers to carry out those services. A vast new department is to be created in order to compile this black list, in order to carry out this process of delation and to keep a register, and to supervise those people who, while they are absolutely free to walk about the country, are to have this department looking after them. There is then the second part of Clause 12, and I do not think cynicism could go further. That part is devoted entirely to providing safeguards for the ratepayers, but you will not find a single safeguard for those unfortunate people who are to be black-listed, shadowed, and shamed. By Clause 13 children are dealt with in the same way. The children who are attending school are entered upon the list, and provision is made further on for the automatic drafting of those children as they reach the age of sixteen into those homes where they are absolutely segregated for the rest of their lives. There is no bringing of them before a magistrate, as, when they reach the age of sixteen, those unfortunate children are separated away from their families, not allowed to be visited by their parents, or to go out and see anybody. Under Clause 13 all those children are to be in the charge of this committee and entered on the list. By Clause 17, which is the real backbone of this Bill, you will see what the Bill really does. That Clause gives a very clear statement of the people who are to come within the purview of the Act. Subsection (2) details the people who are to be described as defective, but as the apologists for the Home Office pointed out over and over again the defective qua defective is not dealt with under the Bill. It is clear if they are defective, and are found wandering about under the first part of Clause 17. I will deal with the people who are to be described as defective and entered on this black list, because this Act will be a terrible thing, for as
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soon as a man is entered on the list he is deprived of all his rights as a free citizen; he is not sent to prison, but he is liable to be sent at any moment. Therefore it is an important thing to see what it is that turns a free British subject into a defective within the meaning of this Act. By Sub-section (2) you will see that the first class of persons are idiots, and there can be no doubt they are defective people who want special treatment. By paragraph (c) of that Sub-section you will see that defectives are:—
"Feeble-minded persons—that is to say, persons who may be capable of earning their living under favourable circumstances, but are incapable, through mental defect existing from birth or from an early age,

(i) of competing on equal terms with their normal fellows or

(ii) of managing themselves and their affairs with ordinary prudence."

Is it possible that there could be a more sweeping definition? There are a great number of Members in this House, and very nearly half the people of the country, because I presume their normal fellows must be the average, who are not capable of competing on equal terms with the average man, as otherwise he would not be an average man. That definition is strong enough, but if hon. Members will turn to the Report of the Royal Commission which sat on this subject they will find where that definition of feeble-minded persons finds its place, for the definition is taken almost word for word from the recommendation in the Report. They will find a foot-note in which the doctors state that they are willing to accept that definition of feeble-minded persons, because they understand that it includes and covers all people who are described or may be described as either facile or prodigal. If everybody who is facile or who is prodigal is to be included as feebleminded persons, and if everybody who is unable to compete on equal terms with their fellows, or who is incapable of managing themselves and their affairs with ordinary prudence, and if those people are to be put on the black list it will be a very, very amazing list and a very costly department which will require to be kept up to date. Against being entered on this black list there is no appeal whatever. There is no possibility of protest against these officials putting anybody's name upon the list. But I have not yet finished

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my description of the people who are mentally defective within the meaning of the Act.
Paragraph (d); "Persons who from an early age display some mental defect coupled with strong vicious or criminal propensities on which punishment has little or no deterrent effect."
That includes a good many children. A great many people anxious to get rid of their children may be induced to take advantage of that definition to get their children sent away.
Paragraph (e): "Mentally infirm persons—that is to say, persons who through mental infirmity arising from age"—not infirmity which has existed from birth—"or the decay of their faculties are incapable of managing themselves or their affairs."
Are all the old people whose faculties decay after they are seventy years of age to be locked up in the interests of society, whether they can carry on their lives usefully or not? These persons are to be entered on the black list as defective persons, and any persons entered on that list, if on any occasion they are brought before a magistrate and charged with any offence, whether they are guilty or not, can be sent to a feeble-minded home for the rest of their days. I have tried to show the people who are to be black-listed or delated; I will now show what must happen before they are put away. They may be dealt with if they "are found wandering about." A good many rich people might be found wandering about. But the whole of this measure applies only to the poor; it does not apply to the rich at all. Defectives "who are charged with the commission of any offence"—charged, mind you, not found guilty—are to be put away. Of course, people who are under going sentences of imprisonment or penal servitude, or serving a period in a reformatory or an industrial school, if they are on the black list, are done for at once. Paragraph (d) deals with children who have been in a defective school up to the age of sixteen. Defectives who are discharged from special schools on attaining the age of sixteen are to be dealt with under this Act. If the Local Education authority recommends that the children who go through defective schools should be dealt with under this Act, they will be so dealt with automatically, without any appeal on the part of the parents whatever.
Mr. CAWLEY: The hon. Member said that there would be no proceedings before a magistrate in their case. That is the point I want him to make good.
Mr. WEDGWOOD: The hon. Member reads the Bill in a different way from what I do. As I read the Bill, anyone who conies from such a school, so long as the county council passes a resolution to that effect, will automatically go into a defective home. That is what the promoters desire, and I understand that that is what is embodied in the Bill. Paragraph (e) includes defectives—
"in whose case it is considered desirable in the interests of the community that they should be deprived of the opportunity of procreating children."
That is about the most abominable thing ever suggested. It is directed simply against unfortunate women who have babies and who do not take precautions against having them. It is a Bill against prostitution under the guise of a Bill to protect people who are feeble-minded. Any persons who are on the black list, if the overseers of the poor or the police consider it desirable that they should be deprived of the opportunity of bearing children, are to be locked up for life, or else, I suppose, undergo an operation which will prevent their having any more children. Paragraph (f): Any one who is on the black list and
"in whose case such other circumstances exist as may be specified in any Order made by the Secretary of State."
Anybody who gets on the black list has only to avoid paragraphs (a), (b), (c), (d), and (e). The Secretary of State may at any moment by a stroke of the pen invent a new crime which will deprive the individual of all his rights of citizenship and send him to prison for life. I think that that Sub-section, at any rate, might have been omitted from a Bill drafted by the Home Office. Are they not taking to themselves enough powers without adding this extreme attack on the liberties of the individual? Clause 17 is the backbone of the Bill. We have already had indications from the Home Office that they are willing, now that public opinion has been aroused on this question, to strike out a good many of these definitions. But our strongest objection is to the fact that people, when they have once been sent to these homes, are not to be allowed to leave so long as the doctors desire to keep them there. That is the kernel of our objection to the Bill,

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and however much the Home Office may be willing to accept alterations in Clause 17, it will not remove our fundamental objection to the compulsory segregation for life of people who get within these meshes of this measure. Clause 18 makes it perfectly clear that the persons who are to operate this Act are to be the overseers of the poor. "Overseer" is a beautiful word; it will come to mean the tyrant of the poor, the man who is able with the assistance of the police to inaugurate a perfect reign of terror amongst the people who are likely to come within the terms of the Act. It is the same word—overseer of the slave, overseer of the poor. All these Bills are meant for the very poor. Clause 19 is the saving clause for the rich. The rich are always omitted from measures of this sort. Defectives liable to be dealt with under this Act may be "placed under guardianship." Where there is sufficient money, guardianship is all right. It is only the people who have no relations to find the money that are to be sent to prison. Under Clause 20 you get the machinery by which these people will be incarcerated. Next to Clause 17, I think Clause 20 is the most important in the Bill:—
"Any relative or friend—"
I like the word "friend"—
"of a person alleged to be defective"—
that is to say whose name appears on a list—
"and subject to be dealt with under this Act, or an officer of the local authority authorised in that behal—"
That is a new departure,
"may make a private application—"
[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] When you are handing over numbers of people to overseers of the poor, new Commissioners who are going to look after these defectives, surely at least you might allow the application to be made in public so that the Press can be present!
"may make a private application by petition to a judicial authority for such an Order as is hereinafter in this Section mentioned:
"Provided that if the petition is not presented by a relative—"
That is to say, if a friend presents it,
"or by an officer of the local authority, it shall contain a statement of the reasons."
If it is presented by a relative or an officer of the local authority there is no difficulty at all, but if a friend presents it
"it shall contain a statement of the reason why the petition is not presented by a relative, and of the connection of the petitioner with the person to whom the petition relates."
We come to Sub-section (2)—
"Where such a petition is presented it shall be accompanied by two medical certificates."
It need not be accompanied by two medical certificates, but only by a certificate, if the
"alleged defective has refused to submit 'herself' to medical examination."
This Act deals with women and not with men.
Sir FREDERICK BANBURY: Oh, yes.
Mr. WEDGWOOD: It is not intended to. So that wherever a person refuses to undergo a medical examination then all that is necessary is that the friend, or relative, or an overseer of the poor, shall himself sign a certificate that A.B. told him he would not be examined, and in that case no medical certificate is required.
Lord ROBERT CECIL: Hear, hear.
Mr. WEDGWOOD: I do not believe the people of this country know in the least what this Clause means. The petitioner has also got to sign a statutory declaration and get somebody else to sign it to the effect that the person is a defective within the meaning of this Act. I suppose anybody can do that, because the meaning of the Act is sufficiently vague and wide. He has to state the class of defectives to which he is alleged to belong, but if he makes a mistake about that and the magistrates think there ought to be another declaration, all he has to do is to sign a certificate first that So-and-So would not be excepted, and secondly, that So-and-So was a defective within the meaning of this Clause 17, which may include nearly half of the community. This private application is made. What is the next step? Probably the person of whom the application is about to be made knows nothing whatever about it. It is not said that he must be informed that this application is about to be made. In Sub-section (3) you will find that the first thing he knows is the arrival of the summons saying that he must appear before a bench of magistrates to answer the application that has to be made,

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"Upon the presentation of the petition, and such documents as aforesaid, the judicial authority shall either visit the person to whom the petition relates—"
Of course they would not do that in an ordinary case.
"or summon him to appear before him to show cause why an order should not be made against him."
He goes. The proceedings again are conducted in private. [An HON. MEMBER: "They may be conducted in private."] He is not allowed the option. The Court has to decide whether or not they shall be carried on in private or public.
Lord ROBERT CECIL: No, no.
The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Ellis Griffith): Read Sub-section (4).
Mr. WEDGWOOD: "Proceedings before the judicial authority 'may' in any case, if the judicial authority thinks fit, and shall, if so desired by the person to whom the petition relates, be conducted in private."
But it is quite clear that the person to whom it relates has no right to demand that the matter shall be held in public. It depends entirely upon the judicial authority as to whether there must or must not be a public application. I am sorry to have to deal with this Bill in such a disjointed fashion. It is a very long Bill, and one does not know quite how to read it consecutively. The main point about the measure is this: You have first of all the local authority drawing up a list of the people who are defective within the meaning of this Act. They draw this up with the assistance of a new department that they are to create, with the assistance of the police and with the assistance of the overseers to the poor. By the way, I should have added that a committee of the local authority has got to co-opt on its membership two medical practitioners—specialists on this subject. I think there ought to be a special provision that medical practitioners should not be permitted. It seems to me that the doctor is going to be the chief person under this Act. If there is anyone who ought to be precluded under this Act it ought to be the doctors, particularly those who have their own theories and fancies as to many of these matters.
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Anyone who appears on the list drawn up by the local authority, whatever for, comes before the magistrates to be segregated for life. If they get in contact with the law in any way, if they happen to be children in the schools, if they happen to be people considered undesirable that they should have children at all, they get locked up for life. The procedure under which they are wholly segregated is a procedure which takes no trouble to see that the interests of the person is considered. It simply regards the interests of the State. These defectives are sentenced in private irrevocably, and without any appeal whatsoever. Once they get into these homes they are reported on at stated periods, in a year in the first case, and every five years subsequently. There is no trouble taken to see that they shall be actually examined by the medical authorities. They are reported upon by the medical authorities of the institution. They are reported on in bulk and not individually. Throughout the whole of this measure anyone who reads it will see that it is not conceived in the interests of the feebleminded persons themselves, but that it is conceived in what I should call the worst traditions of the Home Office.
Lord ROBERT CECIL: Hear, hear.
Mr. WEDGWOOD: The Home Office is an admirable institution from one point of view. Those in it are kind enough to the poor, but they are very firm. They are very apt to consider the whole of the population as if they were children who want guiding at every step. That is natural. It is the Home Office business to interfere and to protect people. They are doing that all their lives. They think that their duty is far more important than liberty or justice. It is natural for them to be firm and kind, and disregard liberty. You can almost hear them saying, "I know it is hard, but you are inconvenient to society and must go to prison for life." That is the Home Office attitude. Their view is the convenience of society; the comfort of society. Our views as Members of Parliament are something far different from that. The convenience of society comes second; the liberty of British citizens first.
Sir F. BANBURY: I have very much pleasure in seconding the Amendment moved by the hon. Gentleman opposite for the rejection of this Bill. I think I am right in saying that this is the 19th July, and that in a fortnight we are going to rise

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for a well-earned holiday, and that we are to come back again in October, and, as I presume, we shall not sit on Christmas Day, that will leave us less than three months for legislation before the end of the year. The Government have brought before the House three momentous Bills, which, with one exception, have only been read a first time, and the one that has been read a second time the Committee stage has only been advanced as far as the first Clause. In that state of public business this Bill of sixty-eight Clauses is presented to us, and I defy anyone who has not read it with very great care for at least four or five days to thoroughly appreciate what is contained in this Bill. Yet we are asked, in addition to all the other business we have on hand, to deal with a Bill of this description, which puts into the hands of the Home Secretary such powers as that he might confine everybody who is disagreeable to him or whom he might like to remove from the right and liberty and power of exercising his own judgment on matters connected with this country. I do not deny that there are a certain number of people in this country who are mentally deficient, and who require to be taken care of by somebody else; but I say it is a very lamentable occurrence that it should be necessary at all in this year 1912 to bring forward a Bill of this description. For the last forty years we have been educating the people, and we now spend, I think, including the money contributed by the rates, something like £25,000,000 a year on education. We are blessed, or cursed, as some of us think, with the Government, whose sole desire is, so they say, to advance the interests of the masses, and who have been passing all sorts of legislation providing for the sanitary welfare of the people, for the feeding of necessitous children, and doing all sorts of things of that kind; and now we are confronted with a Bill which practically says that the result of all this social reform legislation—I use that word for want of a better—I do not know what social reform is—
Mr. BOOTH: You have a Committee on your own side investigating it.
2.0 P.M.
Sir F. BANBURY: Yes, but they do not know anything about it. After all this social reform legislation the Government come forward to-day and say, "Here is a Bill which is absolutely necessary to look after a portion of the population who are not able to look after themselves."
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Would it not be far better to have saved this £25,000,000 which we have spent on education, and remained in the state in which we were forty years ago, when this sort of legislation was not required? I will deal now for a few moments with the machinery which is going to be set up under this Bill. I have taken the trouble to ascertain from one or two boards of guardians with whom I am more or less acquainted some information upon this Bill, and I have found that they all object to the creation of another authority. They tell me that at present the case of the mentally deficient who are not lunatics is looked after by the boards of guardians, and I have heard from a variety of people they are the most capable people to look after them. Now you are going to set up another authority, at very great expense, and you are going to take them away from the care of those people who, according to their own statement, have some knowledge of the matter, and to set up a local authority to look after the mentally deficient. In my own Constituency, the City of London, there is, I am told, considerable objection to this Bill upon that ground. The council's jurisdiction is taken away, and another authority is to be set up. I am told by the authorities of the City that, in their opinion, the border line between lunacy and mental deficiency, as denned in the Bill, would largely depend upon the opinion of the examining medical officer, and, if friction and difficulty are to be avoided, the working of both classes should, as far as possible, be placed in the same hands. That seems to me to be a reasonable and proper view to take of the matter. I venture to say, if the Government are really anxious to do something in this direction and on this question, which no doubt touches most important interests, we ought to have a considerable time in a new Session to devote to this work. We ought not to be asked to pass legislation of this sort without due consideration and without proper care and knowledge as to what we are really doing. If anyone looks at the Bill they will be surprised. I must say I am accustomed in these days to shocks, and I find cold water running down my back almost every time I take up a Bill and read it. [An HON. MEMBER: "The White Slave Traffic Bill,"] That was a very bad Bill, but it has been amended to a certain extent in Committee; but I did not think

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it possible that any sane Government would bring in a Bill of this description. I have only read very little of it, but it is quite enough, and I do not think I want to read any more—
Attention called to the fact that forty Members were not present. House counted, and forty Members being found present—
Sir F. BANBURY: The Bill commences by setting up a special Commission. There are to be six Commissioners, and the Home Secretary may appoint one of those Commissioners to be chairman. Then, of course, there is the remuneration for these Commissioners, and the Commissioners act under the control and subject to regulations made by the Home Secretary. That creates a very serious state of affairs. It practically puts into the hands of the Home Secretary powers to lock up anybody he likes. The hon. Member is learned in the law, and no doubt he will be able to contradict me if I am wrong when I say that never in the history of this country have such powers been given before by any Statute to any one individual. I do not want to make any comments complimentary or otherwise in regard to the right hon. Gentleman who at present adorns the office of Secretary of State for the Home Department, but it must be remembered that we are legislating for the future. When Bills are being carried through this House what is said during the discussion is not always acted upon. What is acted upon is the Statute which is passed, and what is said has no effect upon the Statute after it has become law. We are enacting for all time that any Secretary of State thirty or forty years hence is going to have this enormous power put into his hands. Clause 5 provides as follows:—
"The Commissioners, acting under the control of, and subject to regulations made by, the Secretary of State."
As I read that the Commissioners are bound to obey any regulations made by the Secretary of State, and they will also be bound to act under his control, and practically the Secretary of State is master of the Commissioners. I do not want to go into all the extraordinary provisions of this Bill, and I will pass on from Clause 1 to Clause 13, which provides:—
"(1) The duties of a local education authority shall include a duty to make
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arrangements, subject to the approval of the Board of Education,—

(a) for ascertaining what persons within their area are defective children within the meaning of this Act;

(b) for ascertaining which of such children are educable;

(c) for notifying to the local authority under this Act the names and addresses of defective children who are ascertained to be not educable and of children discharged from special schools or classes provided under the Elementary Education (Defective and Epileptic Children) Act, 1899, on attaining the age of sixteen or before attaining that age, who are in the opinion of the local education authority defective."

Look at the enormous amount of work which is going to be put upon the local education authorities and the Board of Education. Already we are spending something like £25,000,000, including the amount derived from the rates and taxes, for educational purposes, and now we are going to put this further burden upon the education authorities. My belief is that at the present moment the school teachers exercise a great deal too much power over the parents through the children, and now you are going to put an enormous additional power into their hands. You are practically going to enact that any school teacher may say, "Look here, Mrs. Jones, or Mr. Jones, I believe your child is defective and I am going to do certain things. I am going to report to the authority that your child is defective."
GOLDSMITH: But they do that now.
Sir F. BANBURY: If they can do it now why waste time discussing this provision giving power to do something which can already be done? I should like for a moment to deal with Clause 17, which is an extraordinary one. With regard to this Clause words fail me when I endeavour to explain or discuss it calmly and in moderate language. I have had a little discussion with an hon. Member of this House as to what is the meaning of the first three lines, which are as follows:—
"(1) Save as expressly provided by this Act, the following persons, and no others, shall be subject to be dealt with under this Act, that is to say, persons who are defective."

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It is clear that persons who are defectives will be dealt with under this Act, and all of those classes mentioned on page 8 and page 9 of this Bill can be dealt with under this Act. I can conceive of no other interpretation. These are the people who will be dealt with:—
"(a) who are found wandering about."
In future it is to be a crime to be found wandering about, because you may be taken up and privately examined and said to be a mentally deficient person, and then you may be locked up for the remainder of your life. Then there comes this most extraordinary provision:—
"(b) who are charged with the commission of any offence."
See what that power might be in the hands of a Tory Home Secretary. Suppose the improbable was to happen, and I was to be made Home Secretary under a Tory Government. There are a great number of hon. Members of this House who regard my opinions as being extremely wrong, and they believe that I am rather determined in my opinions and prepared to act up to them. Under those circumstances look at the power you would put into my hands! Suppose I came across somebody who has done something which I think is wrong. I consult perhaps my under-secretary, who will very likely be a gentleman learned in the law, and I say to him, "Do you think this man will be convicted?" My under-secretary may reply, "No, I do not think it is possible to get him convicted." I say, "Very well, we will lock him up as a defective person." In that case there will be no more trouble about it; and I am not in favour of entrusting anybody with powers of this description. I am sorry the hon. Member for Hitchin (Lord R. Cecil) is not in the House, or the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury), because here is a way of getting out of the difficulty of forcible feeding. I think all the suffragists could be locked up as being mentally deficient under this Bill, and I am not sure you would not be right in so doing.
Then there is anyone who is "undergoing detention in an inebriate reformatory." No wonder the hon. Member for Lincoln (Mr. C. Roberts) is in favour of the Bill. Look at the power it will put in his hands. Any private person could give information. How many people detained in inebriate reformatories will the hon. Gentleman denounce as in the days of the
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old Inquisition, or the days of the French Revolution to the Robespierre on the Front Treasury Bench. The old French Kings never had greater power than the hon. Gentleman will have if he can get over his superior officer under this Bill. There is also the habitual drunkard. It has been so drawn that everybody is roped in under the Bill. Then we come to this extraordinary paragraph:—
"in whose case it is desirable in the interests of the community that they should be deprived of the opportunity of procreating children."
Who is going to decide that? As far as I can make out, it is the Commissioners acting under the control of the Home Secretary. He is going to decide whether people shall or shall not procreate children. It may be a good thing to stop certain people having children, but why the Home Secretary should be the person to decide whether or not you shall have a child is beyond my belief. There follows this very serious case:—
"in whose case such other circumstances exist as may be specified in any Order made by the Secretary of State, as being circumstances which make it desirable that they should be subject to be dealt with under this Act."
The Franchise Bill is rejected, and there is no time to take the Plural Voters Bill. All plural voters are immediately scheduled as being people whom it is desirable should be subject to be dealt with under this Act. I do not say the right hon. Gentleman will do it.
The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. McKenna): Under the Bill they must be defectives as well.
Sir F. BANBURY: Who is to decide that? As far as I can make out the right hon. Gentleman will decide it.
Mr. McKENNA: No, the judicial authority and two doctors. They must have been found to be defective as well.
Sir F. BANBURY: I rather doubt that. Supposing the two doctors were going to get appointments under the Insurance Act.
Mr. WEDGWOOD: Two doctors are not necessary at all.
Sir F. BANBURY: The hon. Gentleman who has read the Bill rather disagrees with the right hon. Gentleman, but, as I

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have already said, this is such an enormous thing that I have not been able to read it all through, and I will not contradict the right hon. Gentleman, but I am sure he will admit he thinks all people who vote Conservative are defective. I certainly think people who vote Liberal are defective, and I should certainly say they ought to be subject to be dealt with under this Act. The whole thing is absolutely absurd, and much as I desired the retention of the House of Lords I really do not want to be put under an absolute dictator as I shall be if this Bill is passed. What does this mean?
"From an early age as to be unable to guard themselves against common physical dangers."
The hon. Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury) told us the other day somebody gave him a blow in the park. That was a common physical danger against which he was not able to guard himself. I do not know whether he would be considered defective under this Bill. Then there is the paragraph about earning your living, and that sort of thing, and this extraordinary Clause follows:—
"(ii.) Of managing themselves and their affairs with ordinary prudence."
How many Members of this House are there capable of managing their affairs with ordinary prudence1? Not very many. Take Cobden, who was the great prophet of hon. Members opposite, and who was a very great man. I disagree with him, but that does not prevent me acknowledging he was a great man. He could not manage his affairs with ordinary prudence, though he had been a great manufacturer. He was constantly in debt and failed in carrying out all his business projects, and had to get £100,000 from his admirers in order to prevent him going bankrupt and being destitute. [HON. MEMBERS: "Pitt,"] I do not think Pitt is quite an illustration, because, although he was not a rich man, he was never a man of business. Cobden was a man of business and a manufacturer, and he ought to have been a successful man. He was not, and therefore he would have been locked up by my right hon. Friend (Mr. Lyttelton), who supports the Bill, if he had been Home Secretary at the time. Clause 20 begins—
"Any relative or friend of a person alleged to be a defective."
Look at the power you are going to put into the hands of people! Everybody is
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not moved by righteousness; on the contrary, there are a great many people who would like to get others out of the way. Human nature is wicked; you cannot help it, it is; and to put power into the hands of people to be able to go behind the backs of their friends and say we had better get him out of the way is monstrous. He is going to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer inconvenient questions about the fall of Consols. Get him out of the way. Look at the power which may result under this Bill! It is further provided that a petition may be presented by an officer of a local authority. Local authorities have a great deal too much power at present, and to give them power of that sort is, I think, absolutely wrong. It could not possibly be retained if the Bill unfortunately become law. Sub-section (4) says:—
"Proceedings before the judicial authority may in any case if the judicial authority thinks fit …. be conducted in private."
Mr. BOOTH: Very often one man.
Sir F. BANBURY: Certainly. A stipendary magistrate or a justice appointed for that special purpose. If he thinks fit then the proceedings shall be conducted in private. Really, we are going back to the days before the Star Chamber. I do not think the Star Chamber was quite as bad as that. All the efforts which our forefathers put forward in order that there might be incorruptible judges and that cases of this sort might be heard in public are to be reversed, and we are to go back to the worst days of the Stuart kings and of the French kings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. I have only got to Clause 23, and there are sixty-eight Clauses in the Bill. Clause 23 says:—
"If any officer of the local authority authorised in that behalf or any constable finds any person whom he has reasonable cause to believe to be a defective wandering about, or neglected, or cruelly treated, he may take such person to a place of safety, and such person may be there detained until a petition under this Act can be presented."
Look at the power you put in the hands of an officer of a local authority! He sees someone wandering about and he says, "I think that person is a defective," or if he thinks he is neglected or cruelly treated he may take him up and lock him up and there is no appeal against it.

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Surely this is legislation gone mad, and no sane person in this House would ever think of passing a Bill containing a Clause of this sort. Let me ask the right hon. Gentleman in his own interest to withdraw this Bill, and later on, when he has a little time to consider all these matters—say next Session or the Session after—bring in a short Bill of one or two Clauses, saying that people who ought not to procreate children shall not do so. There is another Clause enabling the local authority to spend certain sums of money—another means of spending the money of the unfortunate ratepayer as if he were not sufficiently mulct already. I only wish I had the powers of argument which Cobden possessed. Unfortunately I have not, but I hope I have been able to say enough to induce hon. Members to read this Bill, because, if they do that, I have no doubt they will vote against the Second Reading, or, at any rate, put it off to a later date, so that they may have more time for considering it.
Mr. GOLDSMITH: I am afraid I am unable to give my support to the unholy alliance between the hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Wedgwood) and the hon. Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury). The Home Secretary when moving the Second Reading of this Bill gave us an assurance that any points which might be raised in the House would receive full consideration in Committee upstairs, and it is on that understanding that many Members on this side are going to support the Second Reading. My greatest objection to the Bill is that it proposes to set up an entirely new Board of Commissioners; it proposes to create a new staff of officials. That is a failing which is common to a great many of the Bills which have been introduced by the Government. In some cases I agree it may have been necessary to create a new Government Department, but in the case of this Bill it would seem to be absolutely unnecessary. You have in existence at the present moment the Lunacy Commissioners who, for a great many years, have been administering the Lunacy Acts and consequently have had great experience in dealing with lunatics and persons of unsound mind. I know the right hon. Gentleman will say that this Bill does not deal with lunatics or persons of unsound mind, but merely with persons who are mentally deficient. That is perfectly true, but experts will inform the
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right hon. Gentleman that there are a good many cases on the border line, and that often it is absolutely impossible to say whether a man is a lunatic, or an imbecile, or mentally deficient within the meaning of this Bill. More than that, at the present time idiots and imbeciles are dealt with under the Idiots Act by the Lunacy Commissioners. They are also included in this Bill now before the House.
The proposals of this Bill are supposed to be based on the Report of the Royal Commission, yet one of the first and main recommendations of that Royal Commission was that an entirely new central body should be set up—one central body and Board of Control, to deal with the mentally deficient of all kinds and all classes. The Report of the Royal Commission went a little further. It recommended that the powers and duties of the Board of Education under the Act of 1899, and the special schools which have been set up under that Act, should be transferred to the Board of Control. Therefore, if the recommendation of the Royal Commission were adopted, we should have one central authority dealing with persons who were mentally abnormal, while if the proposals of the Bill were adopted, we should have the Lunacy Commissioners administering the Lunacy Act, we should have the Commissions created under this Bill dealing with the mentally deficient, and we should have the Board of Education dealing with children under fifteen who are at the present time in the special schools. Anyone who knows anything about the mentally defective, anyone who is an expert, is of opinion that one central authority should be created to make provision of every kind for the mentally defective. I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman what he proposes to do with regard to the education of those children who are not at the present time in special schools. The House is probably aware that the Act of 1899 was only permissive, and but few of the educational authorities have taken advantage of it to set up special schools for the mentally defective. I believe that only one-quarter of the children who are supposed to be mentally defective within the meaning of this Bill are at the present time in special schools. This Bill does not make the Act of 1899 compulsory. On the one hand, it leaves the care of all educable mentally deficient children in the hands of the educational authority, but it does not compel the local authority to make provision for those children. They are asked to hand over to a new local

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authority those children who are imbecile and who are found to be non-educable within the meaning of the Act of 1899, but nothing whatever is proposed as to those mentally defective children who should be in special schools, but are not there because the local authority have not taken advantage of the Act of 1899. Everyone knows that, even where these special schools have been set up, they are not satisfactory in every respect. They are supposed to contain children who are incapable of receiving proper benefits in an ordinary public elementary school, but are not incapable of receiving benefits through instruction in special schools. At the present moment these special schools contain children who are merely backward and mentally defective in the meaning of the Act of 1899. They contain children who are practically imbecile—who are morally and criminally defective. I should like to read to the House one paragraph from the evidence of the Medical Officer of the London County Council. He says:—
"The difficulty of saying what is proper benefit from instruction in a special class is very great, and no distinct line can be drawn between the markedly feeble-minded and the imbecile. As there is no provision specially relating to the care of those excluded as 'imbecile,' the tendency has been to assess most doubtful children as 'capable of proper benefit,' and the special classes contain a considerable number of such children who have been given the benefit of the doubt."
Everyone will agree that these special schools are set up at a great cost to the ratepayers. In London, for instance, there are ninety such schools that contain accommodation for something like 6,000 children, and cost the ratepayers over £99,000 a year. These special schools ought to be used for such children who can become self-supporting in after-life. The other children, idiots and imbeciles, derive practically no benefit whatever from day schools, in which they only spend from twenty-four to thirty hours a week. Everyone will agree that children who are merely backward ought not to be mixed with children who are imbeciles and children who are morally and criminally defective. For all these children you want to have institutional treatment, and you want residential homes and institutions. I should like to point out to the right hon. Gentleman that education authorities under the Act of 1899 cannot compel parents to send their children to such institutions. I am sorry to say that under this Bill no provision is made to enable local education authorities to send children to institutions. I take it that the first object of this Bill is to protect those persons who are unable
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to take care of themselves, and that the second object is to protect the community by preventing these people from having children. It is no use denying the fact that the latter is the main object of the Bill.
Mr. RUPERT GUINNESS: No.
Mr. GOLDSMITH: In my opinion that is the main object of the Bill. Anyone who has had anything to do with mental deficients will know that most of the children in our special schools are the offspring of mentally defective parents. The only way you can attain that object is by putting these people, not under local guardianship, but in institutions and residential homes. You want very drastic powers, but those powers must be accompanied by adequate safeguards. I am afraid that those safeguards are not very conspicuous in this Bill; in fact, you might say that they are conspicuous by their absence. I believe those safeguards were more conspicuous in the Bill which was introduced by my hon. Friend (Mr. G. Stewart), and which has been passed by the Committee upstairs. The hon. Baronet the Member for the City referred to Clause 23, under which any constable can apparently take in charge any person whom he has reasonable cause to believe to be a defective. If he finds him wandering about, or neglected, or cruelly treated, he can take him off and lock him up for an indefinite period, until a petition under this Bill can be presented. I think that Clause and many other Clauses mentioned by the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Wedgwood) and the hon. Baronet require redrafting and amending when we get into Committee, but I think they are really Committee points, and that the House would be wise to give the Bill a Second Reading to-day.
There is only one other point to which I wish to refer, that is the financial question, which is a very important matter. The House will agree that the charge for the mentally deficient ought to be a national charge, and ought not to be a heavy burden upon the local authorities. The right hon. Gentleman, in his speech the other day, told us that the local authority would not have to maintain a mentally deficient person unless they received 7s. a week from the Exchequer towards that person's maintenance. I do not suppose that 7s. a week will be sufficient to maintain that person; it will probably cost something like 13s. or 14s. a

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week, and therefore a charge of 6s. or 7s. a week will fall upon the local authority, while, in addition to that, the local authority will have to bear the whole capital expenditure of putting up these asylums and homes. Therefore there will be a very heavy charge placed upon the local authorities and on the ratepayers. The Grant which the Government propose to make of £150,000 a year is totally inadequate. In London alone it is calculated that there are 9,000 persons who will come under this Bill, that is to say, 9,000 mentally deficients, who are not at present in institutions or special schools or homes. The proportion which London will receive out of the £150,000 will enable them to look after 930 mentally deficient persons out of 9,000. The House will therefore agree that the Grant of £150,000 is wholly inadequate. I hope that if not in the first year, at any rate in future years the Government will be able to give a larger Grant than they propose to give under this Bill. I am certain that the money will be well spent and well invested by the taxpayers, because we shall be able to deal with a great danger which is threatening the community and an evil with which all social reformers have been trying to deal. The hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London has said that he did not know what social reform meant. I believe a great many Members on both sides of the House know what is meant by social reform, and I trust that the House will give the Bill a Second Reading, and that the necessary Amendments will be made in Committee.
Mr. CAWLEY: I do not think either the House or the country will derive much enlightenment on the contents of this Bill either from the Mover or the Seconder of the rejection. I believe a great deal of the opposition to it has been based on misapprehension as to its scope and contents, and in several respects this Debate has tendered rather to deepen than to dispel the gloom. The hon. Member (Mr. Wedgwood) seems to imagine that it is going to establish an army of officials who are busy preparing a black list which, when any man gets upon it, deprives him of all the rights of free citizenship. All that is provided is that certain officials who at present come into contact with people shall take notice of those who are feeble-minded and report to the local authority—overseers, the medical officer of health, and others. There are no new officials to be set up and when once on the
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black list a person loses no rights of any kind whatever. Nothing can be done to him which could not be done before. He loses no rights of any kind. The hon. Member, referring to the Clause which places the duty upon the overseers to report cases of feeble-minded persons they come across, said this showed that the Bill was really to be run by the overseers of the poor, and was to be a Poor Law measure. There is nothing from beginning to end in the Bill which gives overseers any power to take any action other than making this report. It is not to be run by the officers of the Poor Law in any shape or form. The hon. Member laid very great stress on the fact that "private" application was to be made to the judicial authority and that emphasis was cheered by one or two Members opposite as though that use of the word "private" made the hearing private. Surely it is only reasonable that the application should be private and that until the case is actually heard it should not be published to the world that an application has been made against so and so as a feeble-minded person. I believe that to be entirely in the interest of the feeble-minded person himself, and it would be a great hardship if that were taken away and anyone were allowed to present a petition saying that someone else was a feeble-minded person and publish it to the world at large. The hearing is to be public unless the authority says it is not to be public, or unless the person alleged to be defective demands it.
That Clause, however, wants amending by saying that under no circumstances, if the alleged defective desires it to be public, shall it be private. I have no doubt that Amendment will be made. The hon. Member referred to the case of children, and said that on leaving a special school they would automatically be taken away and imprisoned. I have looked through the Bill, and I find that is not the case; but that in the case of children leaving school at sixteen there are two steps to be taken. First of all, the local education authority have to certify that it is for the benefit of the children that they should go to a home; and, secondly, the whole proceedings must be gone through as the proceedings before a judicial authority have to be gone through. The hon. Member's whole reading of the Bill showed a misapprehension of its scope. It does not say that all defectives are to be locked up, or even, as he put it, that all defective women are to be locked

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up. The scope of the Bill is very clearly laid down, in spite of the hon. Baronet's suggestion as to the use of the word "and" in Clause 16—
"The following persons and no others, that is to say, persons who are defective and"
and then follows a certain number of classes. There you have the scheme of the Bill. Persons must be defective and they must be suffering in some other way or they must come in contact with the law in some other way. It is not intended that defectives who are properly looked after in their own homes, or who are harmless defectives, shall be brought within the scope of the Bill; but simply that defectives who are at present either themselves suffering or inflicting suffering upon other people should come under the proper authorities. Really I think as much as anything this is a Bill to put persons who are at present under inappropriate restraint under appropriate restraint. Attention has been directed to the various terms used in the definition of defective and in the classes of defectives who come within the scope of the Bill. It has already been mentioned that these are substantially the definitions suggested by the Royal Commission which sat upon this question, and they are based upon definitions drawn up by the Royal College of Physicians, and I think the Government could not do anything else than put into their Bill definitions which have such high authority as that. It is essentially a matter for discussion in this House, and I have no doubt the Government will not regard these suggestions of the Royal Commission and the Royal College of Surgeons as being verbally inspired. I think the same is true of the first Sub-section referring to the class of people who come within the scope of the Bill. I quite agree that paragraphs (e) and (f) are far too wide. I do not think, in the first place, it will ever be admitted that there ought to be a power in the hands of the Secretary of State to say what classes of people are to be defective and are to come within the Bill, and I do not think any Clause as wide as (e) should be allowed to be in the Bill when it passes this House. I understand this is to cover the case of women who are continually in and out of the workhouse. If that be so, and I believe it is, very much narrower words could be found to meet their case. But, after all, these and other parts of this Bill to
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which attention has been directed are mainly Committee points. The classes, the definitions and the safeguards, are Committee points. The safeguards are almost identically the same as those in the case of lunatics, though there is a good deal left to regulation which would better be embodied in the Bill itself.
Lord ROBERT CECIL: Does the hon. Member mean his observation to apply to that provision of the Bill which says that if there is difficulty in medically examining mental defectives, medical certificates may be dispensed with? There is no such provision in the Lunacy Act that I am aware of.
Mr. CAWLEY: We find that almost word for word in the Lunacy Act. It does not say the certificate is dispensed with. There must be a certificate of two doctors. But these are in the main Committee points, and there are only two real objections which are urged against the Bill. One is perhaps a Committee point too, but it is a substantial objection if it is correct. It is that we are setting up an entirely new authority and that we have been asked to put the administration of the Bill under the Lunacy Commissioners. That is not the recommendation of the Royal Commission. The Royal Commission expressly says the Lunacy Commissioners at present have more work than they can do. The Lunacy Commission also points out that under the Bill the Board, that is the central authority, will have before them a much larger and more various field to work than the Lunacy Commissioners have dealt with, and there should therefore be a recognition in this change of administration. Therefore, they want a different authority and different men upon it. The Report of the Commission says:—
"We think the Secretary of State for the Home Department, who is the central authority under the Lunacy Act, should have the right of appointing the Commissioners, and should represent the Board in the House, and be expected to explain and defend its policy and reply to questions in regard to it, just as he would be expected to do in regard to other business which came more directly under his Department."
It will be seen, therefore, that the Government are carrying out the recommendation of the Commission in setting up a new authority under the Home Office. But the Report undoubtedly does recommend that the Lunacy Commission should be amalgamated with this Board. I think there is very great force in everything that has been said about the unwisdom of having two authorities. Clause 62 of the Bill

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says that they may afterwards be amalgamated by Order in Council. I would suggest that if it be at all possible on the Committee stage of the Bill—and I think it is quite possible—the Government should introduce an Amendment for the purpose of carrying out the wish of the Royal Commission in this matter, and also, I believe, the wish of this House. A rather more serious objection was raised by the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Wedgwood) in relation to the question of individual liberty. He used somewhat strong language about it to-day. I think a good deal of the idea that the Bill would take away individual liberty is dissipated when one considers the actual terms of the Bill. If anybody thinks it is going to be abused, I would point out that there is far greater scope for abuse under the Lunacy Acts than under this Bill, for it must be much easier for a visitor to tell whether a patient is feeble-minded than to tell whether a person is normally sane.
Nobody can tell in certain cases whether a patient suffers from lunacy now and then, but everybody can tell whether a person is substantially feeble-minded, or, at any rate, one can form a better opinion on that. The hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme said that a large number of people who are perfectly free and in the enjoyment of a certain amount of happiness will, under this Bill, be liable to be sent to prison on the dictum of specialists, and he thought that was a very dangerous thing. I think he is mistaken on two points. In the first place, the whole of the evidence before the Royal Commission went to show that feeble-minded persons could be equally as happy in homes as outside. In the second place, the hon. Member is wrong in regarding these people as free and in the enjoyment of a certain amount of happiness. Where are they at the present time? The Report of the Commission shows perfectly clearly that a very large number are in institutions. It states also that about 2,500 were in prison on one day. The evidence went to show that a certain number were not people of criminal intent themselves, but that they were used by other people to steal for them. The feeble-minded persons were arrested and sent to prison, and after being there for short terms they came out again and continued to act in the same way. I do not think there will be much sympathy felt for people who use feeble-minded persons in that way. That is one section of the
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people who, according to the hon. Member, are free, and in the enjoyment of a certain amount of happiness.
3.0 P.M.
A certain number are at present in asylums. They receive there entirely inappropriate treatment, which is much more expensive than they require. Fifty per cent. of the girls in rescue homes are feeble-minded. Lastly, there are a large number in workhouses. There are some for whom workhouses may not be inappropriate, but for others they are very appropriate indeed. The feeble-minded women referred to before belong to the class who are continually going in and out of workhouses. This is what was said before the Commission, and I think it expresses the view which I have already stated:—
"Feeble-minded girls and women form a large proportion of the unmarried mothers who come to the lying-in wards of our workhouses, where they often appear again and again, adding to the rates and to the deterioration of the race by producing sickly and deficient children."
These people are not at the present time free and in the enjoyment of a certain amount of happiness as the hon. Member imagines. A large proportion of these people will come within the scope of this Bill. A good deal of nonsense is talked in the name of liberty. Those who talk of individual liberty are themselves prepared to admit that a certain number of people must be under restraint. You cannot put a person who is not able to look after himself loose on the streets of London where he is liable to be run over. You must recognise that a certain number must be under some form of restraint. But what is not recognised is there are people who are mentally affected who are likely to come under just as great moral disasters and inflict upon themselves just as much suffering as the more extreme cases who are not able to protect themselves physically. It is not realised how large this class is and how much it does suffer at the present time. What I suggest to the House is that we should treat most of the questions raised to-day as being Committee points, and that in Committee the Bill be safeguarded and strengthened as much as possible; but that meantime we should not sacrifice these poor people who are now suffering for an idea of abstract liberty, and we should not deprive them of a restraint which does them no harm in order to let them have the kind of liberty that at present is represented by being in and out of the casual wards, the maternity wards, and the prisons. Do

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not allow them to suffer in order to get a freedom of the kind which they have no capacity to enjoy, because the whole of the evidence goes to show that a great many of these people are quite incapable of enjoying themselves in the ordinary sense, and it is infinitely better that they should be under the kind of influence of the people in these homes rather than the kind of influence which they meet with in the streets and common lodging-houses of the great cities of this country. I ask the House therefore not to sacrifice these people to an abstract idealism, but to pass this Bill.
Colonel RAWSON: I wish to say a few words on behalf of the five voluntary institutions which have been working for the last fifty or sixty years with a class to which this Bill refers. The House no doubt knows that they are Earlswood, Royal Albert Institution, and the Eastern Counties, Western Counties, and Midland Counties Asylums. They are not lunatic asylums. There has been a great deal of misunderstanding about the class of people dealt with in these institutions. They have been under the Idiots Act, and have been able to accept idiots and imbeciles. When that Act was passed the word "imbecile" included the class called "feeble-minded." Therefore for the last fifty or sixty years we have been working for the class which this Bill proposes to befriend. We are very anxious to work with the Home Secretary to make this Bill a success as far as lies in our power, but we are anxious to be able to carry on the same work which we have hitherto done in our institutions. We have in our institutions over 2,000 inmates. I think I am right in saying that quite half of those consist of a class who can be defined now as feeble-minded, and who will be dealt with under this Bill. We are anxious to continue on the same lines as those on which we have worked. The Home Secretary very kindly saw a deputation of the institutions a few weeks ago, and we laid our views before them and made several suggestions. I believe that he is ready to acquiesce in those suggestions, but on behalf of the institutions I am anxious to get an undertaking from the Home Secretary across the floor of the House, so that we may know exactly where we stand, and I propose to reiterate in a, few words what the suggestions were. In the first place, we suggest that the registration of an institution under the Idiots Act shall be equivalent
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to the certification of an institution under the Mental Deficiency Act, in so far as that any person who can be sent under certificate to an institution certified under the Mental Deficiency Act can, under the same certificate, be received in an institution registered under the Idiots Act, and that nothing shall prevent an institution registered under the Idiots Act, and receiving patients under that Act, receiving at the same time patients certified under the. Mental Deficiency Act, and that nothing shall prevent institutions registered under the Idiots Act, and receiving patients under that Act, from receiving at the same time mentally defective children certified under the Education of Defective Children Act, 1899. We are also anxious that the proposed local authorities be empowered to contract with the boards of management of these institutions for the care, education, and maintenance of any defectives needing institutional care, and that the local education authorities be empowered to contract with our boards for the care, education, and maintenance of any defective children who require such care. I think it would be a very great advantage if we were allowed to receive children earlier than the age of sixteen. We believe it would be a very great advantage to the child to have that care in the institution which he very often does not receive. We think that although by going to these schools which have been already referred to a child may get a certain amount of learning yet he does not get that care which he would get in one of our institutions. We believe if we were allowed to receive children before the age of sixteen we could do far more to cure them and they would be far more likely to turn out useful citizens afterwards than if we only had them after the age of sixteen. I hope that the Home Secretary or the Under-Secretary of the Home Department will be able to reassure us on these points. We are only too anxious to work with him, and I hope that we may be able to support the Bill.
Mr. A. A. ALLEN: As one who for a great many years was closely associated with the county council special schools in London I am extremely glad that at last we are pushing forward a Government Bill for dealing with this problem. I am bound to say I do regret that the Home Office have not worked more closely in co-operation with the Board of Education in bringing forward this measure, because as was pointed out just now by the

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hon. Member for Stowmarket (Mr. Goldsmith) the Act which deals with mentally defective children is a permissive law which has only been adopted by a very few educational authorities throughout the country. I think the fact that this Act has not been adopted, and that in a large part of the country no provision is made for defective children does increase the problem that we have to face in dealing with adult mentally defectives, because no doubt when you do take these children at an early age and give the individual treatment and the special treatment which you can give in a special school, you can in a very large number of cases produce so much improvement that in time they can either be drafted into an ordinary school or can when they leave the special school become capable of earning their own living. But if no provision is made for these children in special schools it is not possible in a large number of cases to do justice to them as the children are excluded from school and run about the streets and gradually go from bad to worse until they become practically hopeless to deal with.
Therefore I should have been very glad if it had been possible for this Bill to include a provision making obligatory the establishment of special schools for these children throughout the country generally. The criticisms which have been levelled against the Bill are very largely on points of detail. I am bound to say that I do not think anybody who has had to deal with this problem could fail to recognise the absolute necessity there is for some such measure as this. But what is the case now? Even in those places where there are special schools provided for the children, and controlled by the local authority, after the age of sixteen, when they leave, unless the educational authority are fortunate enough to secure good work for them, which is a very difficult thing to do, all the advantage of the special school within a very short time is lost, and the ratepayers' money is very largely thrown away. We have made an experiment in London in dealing with girls who were in custodial treatment, but the existing conditions do not enable us to put any compulsion upon the parents, who give us constant trouble by taking their girls away; but even where we have kept the girls under custodial treatment until the age of sixteen, very soon after that age, when they leave, they are to be found in the streets.
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A great deal has been said about keeping these people in perpetual imprisonment, but I have seen splendid work done in the institutions to which they are sent, and when you compare their life with the life of a defective person who leaves school and goes into the streets, anyone must see that it is the most fortunate thing that could happen to these defective people that they should get into these special institutions, where they are protected from the evils of life, and do not sink lower and lower as so often occurs with defective persons who are not in those homes. It is well known that a large number of habitual offenders are simply so because of their being feeble-minded, and it is really through no fault of their own. While this measure may be open to criticism, and no doubt it is, I do maintain that anyone with a knowledge of the problem at all, particularly those who have to do with schools for mentally defective children, must welcome it as a step in the right direction. With regard to finance, I am perfectly prepared to agree with those who say that under the financial provisions of the Bill, £150,000 a year will be quite inadequate for dealing with the problem properly. I am not in favour of making the whole charge a national charge, because I recognise that a great deal can be done by the local authorities in the way of administering the housing laws and the sanitary laws to raise the standard of the community, and in part to diminish the evil connected with the mentally defective. But, while a certain charge should be put on the local authorities, I do not think that the Government are making sufficient provision, and they will defeat their own end if they try to force on the local authorities a very heavy charge in respect to work of this description. I am glad the Bill has been introduced, and that the Government are adopting a reasonable attitude in regard to Amendments which they are willing to accept in Committee. I am anxious that the measure should be passed into law at the earliest possible moment, because I have already seen so much of the evils that now arise from the discharge of children from the special schools without being able to make any provision whatever for their future.
Lord ROBERT CECIL: It seems to me that the House is in a somewhat unfortunate mood in regard to this Bill. Members are mainly impressed with the evil which exists, as we all are, and the House appears to me rather to have got into the

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condition of saying something must be done, which is always a very unfortunate position for any legislative assembly to arrive at. The real thing to ascertain is whether the actual proposal is one that will do good or harm. This Bill has been called "a great and comprehensive measure" for settling the question. I have a profound distrust of great and comprehensive measures. The meaning of the phrase is simply this, that the authors of the proposal lay down a few general principles which they carry into effect, straight through, regardless of the real facts of the case. As a matter of fact, the conditions of all human problems are infinitely various. The only satisfactory way of dealing with any evil that exists is by dealing with it very tentatively and very carefully—dealing with the evil and no more than the evil which exists. What is the evil which exists? I do not deny that it is very serious. Anyone who has anything to do with the criminal law must be acutely conscious that the vast proportion—I put it at four-fifths—of the criminals who appear in our Courts of Justice are not really normal in their mental condition. Most of them are very much the reverse, and personally I should be very glad to see an alteration of our law which would provide for the detention of such persons after they had undergone the proper punishment for their crime. I believe myself that is a change in the law which even such a strenuous upholder of individual liberty as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Rawlinson) would be in favour of. I regret very much that so far as I can see, after examining the Bill, that there is no adequate provision in it for dealing with that particular class. Another great evil is undoubtedly the case of the women who also are mentally defective, but who are not, generally speaking, criminal, but are the mothers of illegitimate children. I agree that is a very serious evil and one that ought to be dealt with. I think that it might be dealt with by much more moderate provisions than are contained in this Bill. I do not think that the provisions in this Bill are at all necessary for dealing with that evil. I do not see why you should not have some provision by which, where women give birth to illegitimate children, there should be power, in some form or another, to charge her with being unable to look after herself, and to lock her up in such institutions as are here proposed.
Any tentative measure of that kind I should myself be in favour of. Those are
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two evils which obviously can be dealt with by small measures of reform, and you need not establish new departments or anything of that kind. What is the other evil? It is the danger to the race. I confess I feel very nervous about applying any remedy on the ground of eugenics in the present condition of our knowledge of that science. I fully admit myself that it is a most important matter, which ought to occupy our attention very closely, but to say broadly that a mentally defective parent is not fit to produce children is going very far indeed. Take some of the people who are mentioned in this Bill—the epileptic, for example. Some of the greatest men of genius in the world were epileptic. Julius Cæsar, I believe, was epileptic, and there is some ground for believing that Louis Napoleon was epileptic. Surely it would be very rash in our present condition of knowledge to conclude that the mere fact of a man being mentally deficient or mentally defective is a ground for sterilising the individual who is subject to that defect. That really is the meaning of a great part of this Bill, or it has no meaning at all.
The proposal is to shut up, to put it in the rather crude and perhaps necessarily crude language of the Bill, those in whose case it is desirable in the interests of the community that they should be deprived of the opportunity of procreating children. I confess I look on that provision with considerable doubt. That being the evil, and granted that we ought to proceed first of all to establish the evil, and then to consider what remedy would deal with that evil; and lastly, and most important of all, whether the remedy would not create greater evils than those which it seeks to remove, how are we to judge this Bill. To my mind, it is oppressive and unduly elaborate. I am not going to go over all the points which were, I must honestly say, I thought admirably made by the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Wedgwood), and by the hon. Baronet the Member for the City (Sir F. Banbury). No one has yet defended Clause 17, which contains the definitions. No one pretends that that is satisfactory, or that anyone could defend the definition of feeble-minded, or the provision that all feeble-minded people are to be locked up, or "in whose case such other circumstances exist as may be specified in any order by the Secretary of State." That is nothing short of giving absolute unlimited power of detention without trial or any adequate trial by the Secretary of State of any person who is incapable of managing his own

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affairs. Nothing more grotesque than that proposal from the Government has ever been put before the House of Commons.
A great number of matters have been referred to. Just look at Clause 24, which deals with the evil which the hon. Member who last spoke, drew our attention to as a very serious evil. That Clause deals with the case of children who have been in special schools, and who are to be transferred to institutions. That is to be done by machinery provided in the Bill on the moton of the local education authority. In that Clause no suggestion is made that the parents of the children are even to be consulted. I think that is a perfect outrage. I do not say that the parents of the children ought necessarily to be the deciding parties, but I think it is extremely characteristic of the spirit in which the Bill is drafted that the parents in this case are not to be consulted at all.
Mr. CAWLEY: The Noble Lord forgets that at the actual inquiry parents can appear.
Lord ROBERT CECIL: Of course they can appear like anybody else, but there is no special provision I am aware of giving parents any right to appear. In my judgment, before any proceedings are taken in the case of a child the parents ought to be consulted. I am merely taking two or three casual instances, just to show the spirit in which the Bill is drawn, when you examine almost every Clause. Take Clause 27, Sub-section (3), which provides that if a man is tried before the Court of Quarter Sessions, and if the Court should be of opinion, though he is acquitted, that he is a person mentally defective, they may make an order, as far as I can make out, for his detention under the Bill. That seems tome to be one of the most astonishing proposals ever put before Parliament. I should have thought, after a man had been tried and acquitted, he ought to be allowed to go free for that time, and if there is some other charge to be made against him it ought to be investigated de novo, by proper provision instituted for that purpose. Clause 50 is, I think, one of the most extraordinary Clauses you could imagine. It is the Clause which makes it a misdemeanour if anyone intermarries with a mentally defective person.
Mr. CAWLEY: knowingly.
Lord ROBERT CECIL: I think you ought to know something about the mental condition of the person you marry under any circumstances. If a person was thought by the new dictator we are asked to set up in the Secretary of State, or by the judicial authority, the justice of the peace, to be mentally defective, then the person who intermarries with him or her would be guilty of a misdemeanour. This is not the case of a person being an habitual drunkard, or a case under any of the provisions of the first Sub-section of Clause 17. If anyone is incapable of managing his or her affairs, or if you marry somebody whom you know to be incapable of managing his or her affairs, you are guilty of a misdemeanour. That is actually the provision of this Bill, as I understand it. I think it is perfectly outrageous for a Government to put such a Clause as that before the House of Commons. It has already been pointed out by the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme that under Clause 17 a person is mentally defective who is from age incapable of managing himself or his affairs. It is said that he can only be shut up if he is also being neglected. I ask hon. Members who are familiar with this kind of case whether that does not really put a premium on those who are the heartless relatives of old people, so that they can first neglect them, bringing them under the first Sub-section, and then get them shut up because they are mentally defective? I am sure that is a very serious danger from such knowledge as I have of these matters, and it is the kind of risk that you run if you have legislation of this kind. I think that is a matter which unquestionably must be amended. I am not going into the definitions, which have already been sufficiently discussed, but I wish to say this. We are told that the definition provided or suggested was approved of by the Royal College of Surgeons or by the Royal College of Physicians. If there is anybody I would less trust in a matter of personal liberty than a bureaucrat, it is an expert. Greatly as I respect the medical profession, I would no more trust them to draw up provisions that could be safely carried into effect with due regard to the liberty of the subject, than I would trust any occupant of the Treasury Bench.
Mr. ALDEN: Who is to define?
Lord ROBERT CECIL: The House of Commons, if it is still capable of doing anything.
Mr. ALDEN: Are you convinced the House of Commons is capable?
Lord ROBERT CECIL: The hon. Member takes an even more pessimistic view of the situation than I do. I say quite deliberately if we have no safeguards here except the views of the Royal College of Physicians, then I am not prepared to legislate on a matter which will affect the liberty of the subject. Let me say a word or two about the other matter in the Bill, and that is to set up an entirely new authority and to transfer, for no reason I have yet heard given which seems at all adequate, to the Home Office the control of the mentally defective people from the care of the Lunacy Commissioners. That seems to me to be a pure piece of bureaucratic jealousy. There is no reason I have yet heard given for the establishment of a new authority. There are immense additional powers and duties conferred upon local authorities. The hon. Member for the Heywood Division (Mr. Cawley), who made a very interesting speech, said that we need not be afraid of a wholesale creation of new officials, as the existing officials of the local authorities would be charged with the execution of this Bill.
Mr. CAWLEY: With the preparing of black list.
Lord ROBERT CECIL: Surely the hon. Member has not realised Clause 12 (e), which gives express power to the local authority to appoint or employ sufficient officers or other persons to assist them in the performance of their duties under the Act. That is in the same Clause as that which provides for the black list and for the supervision of those who are on the black list. Therefore, it is quite plain that there is an invitation to local authorities to appoint an army of new officials, if necessary, to look after these unhappy people who are to be black-listed. It is true that under Clause 18 the existing officials also are charged with the duty of carrying out the Act and making certain representations. But there is nothing to prevent, and indeed everything to encourage, a local authority to add to these officials to any extent they may think right. In Clause 20 (9) there seems to be an indication of another set of officials to be appointed by the Commissioners, because when they are satisfied that some-
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body who has not been locked up by anybody else ought to be locked up, then they may direct an inspector or other person to present a petition. So that there seems to be a series of inspectors under that Clause in addition to all the others. I was very sorry to hear the hon. Member (Mr. Cawley) and others sneer at the respect for individual liberty which had been enunciated by the hon. Member for New-castle-under-Lyme (Mr. Wedgwood). I confess that I am an almost fanatical believer in the importance of individual liberty. I do not think there is any more important principle in the whole of our Constitution or in any of our institutions. I do not deny, nobody denies, that there are certain people who, in their own interests and in the interests of the community, must be subjected to restraint. Of course, I am in favour of locking up dangerous criminals, and, indeed, of punishing others, and of locking up, if necessary, lunatics. Under proper restrictions and conditions I am not against even the restraint of mentally defective persons.
But what the hon. Member and those who sit with him forget is that in making this kind of provision which, in his mind, is to operate against mentally defective people and those only, he draws the wording of this Bill so wide that a vast number of people who cannot, be described as mentally defective come within its provisions. The only trust we have is in the almost superhuman wisdom and moderation of the officials who are to administer the Act. I have no confidence in officials, any more than I have in any other human being. I believe that they do right when the temptation to do wrong is not strong enough to overcome their virtue, and under no other conditions. Because they are called officials, and put on gold lace and appropriate hats, they are not free from the weaknesses of human nature. On the contrary, the temptations that assail officials necessarily from their position, are in some ways more dangerous to the community than those which assail ordinary private individuals. I myself am not prepared to assent to a Bill which, in every Clause of it, seems to me to place at the mercy of an officialism of this description the liberties of an individual who may possibly be absolutely free from mental defect in any true sense of the term. I am told by hon. Members in favour of the Bill that the object is admirable, that the evil is undoubted, that we ought to do something,

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and that all the defects which have been pointed out could be put right in Committee. I do not follow that reasoning. I should not follow it in any circumstances. I think you have to judge by the Bill as it is presented to the House. If you show that almost every Clause of a Bill is defective, it is no answer to be told that all that can be put right in Committee. In a matter of this kind we are entitled to have a reasonable Bill put before us before we read it a second time and send it upstairs to a place where most of us, naturally and properly, will not be, to deal with its details.
In this case we are not presented with the alternative that we must take the Government Bill or do nothing. There is a private Member's Bill dealing with this subject. I cannot claim to have given very close study to it, but I have read it, and it appears to me, although there may be some objections, to be an infinitely better measure than that proposed by the Government. It is far less elaborate, it is far less costly, and, as far as I can see, it contains far greater safeguards for the liberty of the individual. Moreover, that Bill is through Committee. Why, in Heaven's name, should not the Government, if they think that this is a matter which ought to be dealt with—and I agree if it can be dealt with by prudent and proper legislation—adopt that private Member's Bill and allow it to be considered? I protest against the doctrine that the Government are entitled to bring before us a Bill which has not been defended by a single speaker this afternoon and which everybody agrees can be tolerable only if it is very largely amended, to ask us to read it a second time and send it upstairs to a Committee, where it will be examined in October or November, reproduced in this House I do not know when, but very likely in January or February, dealt with on Report probably in a single evening, and read a third time without any adequate consideration at all. That is not the way to deal with a Bill so defective as the present measure. It appears to me that the proper course for the House to take in reference to this Bill is to reject the Second Reading and ask the Government to deal with the matter by means of that private Member's Bill.
Mr. HUME-WILLIAMS: The Noble lord has deplored the fact that the House appears to have come to the conclusion
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that something ought to be done in this matter. I confess that that seems to be rather hopeful than otherwise. I am certainly one of those who think not only that something ought to be done, but that it ought to have been done some time ago. During this afternoon's Debate, interesting as it has been, perhaps not quite sufficient stress has been laid upon the real danger which exists in the country at the present time in the uncontrolled class of people with whom it is contemplated this Bill should deal. There are unfortunately a very large class who perpetually live on the border line between sanity and insanity. At present there is no provision for dealing with them at all. Only too often they quite unexpectedly cross the thin line which in their case divides sanity from insanity, and we hear of the perpetration of some horrible crime for which no redress is found in dealing with the criminal who, in nine cases out of ten, is scarcely cognisant of what he has done. A few years ago there was a case which may be in the recollection of hon. Members. Some children were playing in a field in Surrey, when a man came along the road, went into the field, and cut the throats of two of the children. It turned out that he was mad, and had been for a short time detained in an asylum. He had been set free as cured; apparently when he came out of the asylum he was cured as far as the authorities could see, but on the way he had a sudden access of insanity which led him to do the act in question. There is a vast body of men wandering about the country at the present time, totally uncontrolled, whose minds are liable to sudden defection of that kind, and who therefore constitute a danger to the community. A man may have been confined in an asylum, and set free because he no more comes under the strict definition of a lunatic. That does not at all affect the fact that he may be mentally deficient.
The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. McKenna): That is exactly the point.
Mr. HUME-WILLIAMS: I hope the House will realise the point of the Noble Lord who has just spoken so ably; that is the help this Bill will give in Clause 27 to those who are concerned in the administration of the Criminal Law. I speak with some little experience of the difficulties that confront those who are engaged in this administration in dealing with this

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class or classes. It happens not once or twice but perhaps fifteen or twenty times in the year that a man is brought up charged with some crime, even attempted suicide, and the circumstances are such that one is led to make inquiries as to the condition of his mind. You have the doctor from the infirmary or from the prison, who says, "Oh, well, the man is weak minded." He is what the people in the country call "soft." You put a question to the doctor: "Did the man understand what he was doing?" The doctor replies: "I cannot say he did not understand what he was doing." You ask, "Do you think he now understands these proceedings?" And the doctor answers, "I cannot say he is so bad that he cannot understand these proceedings." What is the result? You have no option. You have to sentence him for the crime for which he has been convicted, and you do it with a certain knowledge that when the man's term of imprisonment is over, and he comes out, he will almost of necessity do the same or a similar thing again.
His tendency is such, his associations are such, his chances are so few, that he degenerates at once into a sort of minor habitual criminal. At the present time you have no power to deal with him in any form. On these two grounds, if there were none others, I suggest that the dealing with this class of people has become a national duty, and should be undertaken at once. If that is so, the matter should be dealt with out of national resources. There is a great deal of philanthropic effort in the country at the present time directed to the cure of this class. This Bill will kill it. You cannot have a State-aided institution side by side with a voluntary institution. Do one thing or the other. Either leave this class to voluntary effort or deal with them yourselves adequately. The £150,000 which this Bill proposes to allocate is ludicrously inadequate. Do the thing properly, as I think you ought to do, or leave it to philanthropic institutions, and give them such help as you can. For these reasons I think the principle of this Bill is admirable.
The question seems to me to boil itself down to this simple proposition: Does this Bill contain so much good that it can be made an effective Bill? That it is bad in some of its provisions at the present time is beyond question. This Clause 17, Subsection (1), with its paragraph (f), is one of the most ludicrous Clauses that I know with the exception of some of the Clauses
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of the National Insurance Act, because paragraph (f) provides that the class of people who are to be treated under the Bill are to be determined by an Order by the Secretary of State. We are getting accustomed to Acts of Parliament drafted by officials whom you appoint under it. When the National Insurance Act was before the House everybody noted that the most important provisions were drafted by the Insurance Committee. Apparently here the class of people is to be determined by the Secretary of State. I should like to see that Clause deleted in its entirety before I support the Second Reading. I do not think that the question is one to be determined at all by a tribunal or by a Committee of this House. Sub-section (c), of Clause 17, is purely humorous. The idea that you are to be treated as a defective because you are incapable of competing on equal terms with your normal fellows is purely comic. In the profession in which I earn my bread I am quite unable to compete on terms of equality with a great number of men because they are endowed with much greater brain power than I am. Still I should not like to be shut up as mentally defective. Even in this House there are those whose attributes tend largely to that success which some of us can never hope to emulate.
There is the wonderful self-restraint of the Chancellor of the Exchequer; the undying humour of the hon. Member for North Somerset; the deep-inherited religious convictions towards Nonconformity of the hon. Member for Swansea; and the passion of one hon. Member for seeing the House counted out. All these attributes belong to what I suppose one must call one's normal associates, and they are qualities which one cannot hope to emulate. You are therefore to be chained up and treated as a defective because you are apparently incapable of managing yourself or your affairs with ordinary prudence. I suppose I am incapable of managing my affairs with ordinary prudence if I speculate badly or make a bad investment. Anybody who invested in Consols at the time the Liberal Government came into office obviously was a person who could not be said to have managed his affairs with ordinary prudence. If there was an individual so unfortunate that he invested in Consols at that psychological period and voted for the Liberal candidate at the same time, probably he himself would now admit that the sooner he is put under restraint the

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better! The Clause is unworkable and ridiculous, and I should like to see it taken out altogether.
There is Clause 50. This is the first time in any English Act of Parliament that there has been incorporated a principle forbidding intermarriage between some of the population and the mentally defective. I believe a law to this effect is in operation in several of the United States, but it does not operate in this way. The rule that obtains in those States is that no intermarriage is allowed unless a certificate of health is obtained as a preliminary. I do not think English people are prepared for that. It seems to me that is going a great deal further than the people of this country will tolerate. But that is the Clause as it is drafted. I would suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that it will not carry out what I believe he intends. To start with, it does not deal with intermarriages between defectives, which is the most crying of all evils. It only deals with marriage between a sane person and a defective person. Therefore it certainly wants alteration in that respect. Then, again, it makes it a criminal offence not only to marry defectives, but to celebrate marriage between them. I venture to say you would never get a conviction under that Clause. It is the most difficult thing to prove, and you are going to put upon the clergyman carrying out the ceremony of marrying people the onus of an inquiry which it is impossible for him to discharge. I suggest that something on the lines of health would be the only way in which you could work it, namely, that when those people are discharged from care, some sort of a clean bill of health might be given which it would be necessary for them to produce before being married. I hope these few criticisms will be dealt with now, and that some undertaking will be given that they will not be left over to the Committee stage. If I get an undertaking of that sort I will support the Second Reading of this Bill.
4.0 P.M.
Mr. ELLIS GRIFFITH: I wish to intervene for a little time at this stage in order to state, as far as I am able, the views which the Home Department and the Government take with regard to the details of this Bill. I can assure my hon. and learned Friend who has just sat down that the points he has mentioned will be carefully considered by us. I have no doubt this is one of those Bills that must be dealt
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with under the rule laid down by the Noble Lord, to which in its real object I do not think any serious objection could be taken. He said a Bill may be sound in principle, but that its details may be of such an extravagant character that his horror of the details would overcome his love for the object of the Bill. I think the principles that underlie this Bill and which are the most proper subject for discussion at this stage, are two, or at most three. First of all, I do not think there can be any doubt on either side of the House that there is a real problem to be dealt with some way or another. The Home Office has received a great many resolutions from county councils, town councils, boards of guardians, education authorities, and from a great number of philanthropic bodies pointing out the necessity for doing something. I may say we have had resolutions from altogether 300 boards of guardians on the matter. These resolutions have become much more numerous in the last three months. The boards of guardians in almost every instance point out the frequency with which women come to the workhouse and give birth to children and go out again. They also point out that in the districts for which they are responsible there is constant intermarriage between feeble-minded persons, and an increase of population which in the long run is thrown upon the rates for its support. These are matters of course for the House. I think the first point, that put by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme is the important question, and it is this are we justified in proceeding compulsorily or should we leave it to voluntary effort, or should we compel the detention of these people under the direct control of the State? In other words, should we deprive them of their liberty in the interests of the community, and in their own interests as well? I do not think that anyone could read the report of the Royal Commission without coming to the conclusion that within proper limits that ought to be done. The Royal Commission went into the matter very carefully, and the Poor Law Commission in turn adopted practically the Royal Commission's Report, so that I think we may say we have now behind us a great weight of authority for making compulsory the basis of this legislation. It may be said although you proceed compulsorily against these people you must do it within certain safeguards

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and precautions. I think we all agree to that principle. The only question is whether this Bill in the main satisfies this contention. Of course, upon a Second Reading Debate we have got to consider not every detail of the Bill but whether on its main lines and intentions it satisfies those two criterions I have put before the House. What are the steps taken? Objection has been taken to the definition of the word feeble-minded. Of course, we all know it is extremely difficult to get a definition. We went to the very highest authority, the Royal College, upon this matter, and they have given us a definition. It may not be very satisfactory but it is the best we can get. I have no doubt Gentlemen who criticise it could do much better, but they have not done so yet. Of course these men are experts; it is a very serious charge. I do not know what the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme would say if I asked him for a definition of a single tax. We only distrust experts on something we do not understand ourselves, and, of course everybody speaks with great contempt of experts. The position of the expert, as we know, is worse than that of an advanced perjurer.
I invite the attention of the House to this. What are the safeguards and precautions taken under this Bill? The Noble Lord opposite was not only pessimistic, but he was cynical. He thought there were a great number of people in this country who wanted to undermine the personal liberties of another class. That, if I may say so, is a grotesque exaggeration. There may be a few individual instances, but they are very exceptional circumstances. It was stated more than once in the course of this Debate that you distinguish here between the rich and poor, and that this Bill deals only with the poor. I think the House will agree with me when I say this, that with regard to the difficulties that have arisen in connection with personal liberty in these cases, that difficulty has arisen in the main from the fact that the person whose liberty was about to be taken away had property, and there was a conspiracy more against his property than his person. That is a commonplace of the history of all these cases. What is it that is done under this Bill? First of all, there is a petition which is heard in private. A great outcry has been raised because this petition should be heard in private. I wonder what the hon. Baronet and his colleague upon this side
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of the House—I mean his colleague on Fridays—
Sir F. BANBURY: Perhaps he would come over to this side.
Mr. ELLIS GRIFFITH: Perhaps the hon. Baronet will come over to him, but that is a matter for personal negotiation between them. But what an outcry there would have been if this petition were to be heard in public. The hon. Baronet said words failed him. I do not myself think words will ever fail the hon. Baronet. You can say: "Here is a man whom we believe to be incapable of earning his livelihood, and you are driving him into a court of law, where you publish his name under the stigma of being mentally deficient." There is no end to eloquence of that kind. You must remember, however, that the man is mentally deficient, and therefore I do not think you ought to give him an option. Really if the Committee and the House later on should think that publicity in these matters is better than privacy, hon. Members may come to that decision. This provision is intended in the interests of the man himself, and the case should not be made a matter of public inquiry, but should be heard in private, simply and solely in the man's own interest. There is no conspiracy of silence against the poor man. The matter may be tried not necessarily in this way. If the House thinks that the man is prejudiced by this private inquiry, it can be put right in Committee. I should have thought that the feelings of the hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London, and others who have a great regard for tradition, would have been equally opposed to the lunacy laws, because these provisions are on the analogy of the lunacy laws of this country which have been in operation for sixty long years; and therefore, what has been described as this terrible curtailment of personal liberty has been going on every day, and this kind of thing has been going on all the time.
Mr. BOOTH: May I point out that I never lose an opportunity of protesting against the police powers of the Home Department?
Mr. ELLIS GRIFFITH: At any rate, the procedure we have adopted follows the practice under the lunacy laws. The object of the lunacy law procedure was to keep the matter private in the interests

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of the person concerned. Really I think the House will agree that whether we are right or wrong in this matter, our intentions are of the best, and in the interests of the people concerned, and if the lunacy law procedure has worked well in the main for sixty years, I think, unless there is some strong objection, the same procedure might be followed in this case. It must be remembered what the judicial authority is. It consists either of a county court judge, a stipendiary magistrate, or a selected magistrate. I do not expect the critic of this Bill has much confidence in magistrates. I suppose they have a little confidence in the county court judge, perhaps a little less in a stipendiary magistrate, and less still in an unpaid magistrate. That, however, is the judicial authority, and as far as this part of the Bill is concerned, I think I can with some confidence recommend it for the approval of the House. Hon. Members may differ a good deal about definition, but after all the real thing a magistrate has to decide upon is the demeanour of the man or woman who comes before him.
A great deal of personal observation is much more likely to settle the question than anything else. That is the real safeguard. Before the Order is made a competent, legal, judicial authority, who has before him the man or woman who is alleged to be a defective, inquires into the matter and comes to a decision. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, unless there is some collusion or some conspiracy, which is a most unlikely contingency, I think the House will agree that is a satisfactory procedure in order to arrive at a proper conclusion. It does not end there. Supposing the individual has been found by this judicial authority to be a defective and has been placed under guardianship or detained, then there is an appeal to Quarter Sessions, which is again composed of magistrates, there is an appeal to the Commissioners, and ultimately there is, as there is in all these kinds of cases, visitation, inspection, and reports from doctors. It is said this is an interference with personal liberty. Of course it is. That is the very essence of the Bill. There is no doubt about that. The only question is whether this is one of those principles which justify us in interfering with personal liberty. This is a case in which personal liberty must and ought to be interfered with, not only in the interests
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of the community, but also of the man himself.
The other question of principle which I think is appropriate for discussion at this stage is that of the central authority. I am personally not very much out of harmony with a great deal of that which has been said in criticism upon this matter. We all agree that if it were possible all the mentally defective in this country ought to be put under one authority. That is the view of most men who have given any thought and study to this subject. If possible, all classes of mentally defective, idiots, lunatics, and mentally deficients, the whole section, ought to be under the control and authority of one central State authority. The advantage of that is there would be more classification and we might hope for much better results than we obtain at present. The Royal Commission suggested a Board of Control, which they looked upon as an enlarged and reorganised Lunacy Commission, and for the Commissioners we are setting up I make two claims. First of all, I claim the body we are setting up is appropriate for the particular purpose they have to carry out under this Bill, and I also claim that when that further re-organisation and enlargement comes, as we hope it will come some day, it will be adaptable for the larger scheme, which we look upon as the perfection. If that be so, I think we may say this Bill goes as far as we can go at the present moment. If it be found possible by means of negotiation with the authorities now in charge of this matter to come to an understanding we may in the course of the Committee stage be able to insert an arrangement which will be more satisfactory to most Members on both sides of the House. If hon. Members will look at Clause 62 they will see there is power to amalgamate the Lunacy Department with the Commissioners. It is a sort of anticipation that something of the kind may be possible in the future—that we contemplate that it should be done. I think the questions put by the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds have already been answered. I think he will be satisfied that the suggestions of the special committees representing voluntary institutions will be met: there will be no difficulty in such institutions, where properly registered, receiving cases as well as those certified under the Mental Deficiency Act. As to whether certain points are within or outside the scope of the Bill there will be no dispute: that matter will be put right.
Mr. POLLOCK: In regard to Clause 62 to which the hon. Gentleman referred: Does he contemplate bringing Masters in Lunacy under the Home Office?
Mr. ELLIS GRIFFITH: I should think that in any amalgamation those appointments would be reserved. You may have an amalgamation under the general direction of the Home Office, but it might very well happen that as the Lord Chancellor now has power to appoint certain legal officers that power of appointment will remain with the Lord Chancellor. Next I come to the question of the money Grant. It has been said in many quarters that the amount is not sufficient. It may very well be that it is not, but there is one misapprehension I would like to correct. None of the cost of the central authority will come out of it. It will be met out of Supply from year to year, as the case may be. As far as the cost of the central authority is concerned, the sum fixed is £150,000. It is exceedingly difficult to calculate what the expenditure will be under this Bill. I say quite frankly it may very well turn out that £150,000 is not an adequate sum from the point of view of the local authority, but, at any rate, it is a start. Of course, the Home Office, like every other Department, have to go to the Treasury for money, and this represents the present Treasury Grant in respect of this Bill. It will enable the local authority to make a start, and I am certain that if circumstances justify a further addition to the Grant it will be made. I hope that in spite of the hostile criticism that has been passed upon this Bill, criticism mainly upon its details, that the House will see its way to give a Second Heading to the Bill, which, at any rate, in its main features and aspects, has been waited for by the country for many years past. It is really high time that it was passed. I ask the House, fairly unanimously, to come to the conclusion that it is an honest and an efficient grappling with a most urgent social question, not only important in itself, but important in its relation to other questions. With the help of the criticisms which have been passed upon it to-day it may, perhaps, be made into a better Bill than it is at present, so that it will do something to safeguard the interests and give a chance of cure to an afflicted body of men and women in this country.
Mr. ALFRED LYTTELTON: I am in favour of the principle of this Bill, but
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I must confess that the details of it have not been well carried out; in fact, they were hardly seriously defended by the representative of the Government who has spoken. Anyone who looks at Clause 17, which is one of the central features of the Bill, will see there an attempt to define what feeble-mindedness is, and everyone—I do not except even the hon. Gentleman who has just addressed us—must think it is contrary to the most ordinary common sense. The only defence which has been made for it is that the definition was taken, if I may say so, bald-headed from the Royal College of Physicians. Without depreciating science in any way, I think it would be far better if these people had been denned as "half-witted," rather than that they should be denned in the elaborate nonsense which appears in this Clause. I ventured to indicate to the Government—and I am glad to find in the speech just made that they substantially give their assent—that it was quite impossible to defend the provisions with regard to the central authority. You have a very highly trained and experienced body of men who have been in existence for many years, who have an elaborate machinery for the examination and visitation of people of weak mind, yet the Government, presuming to be in its senses, ignores the experience and knowledge of all these highly skilled gentlemen, sets up, at great cost, an entirely different body, holding out to the House the ultimate expectation of amalgamating it with the far more experienced body. No reason at all has been given for that. On the contrary, the Under-Secretary said, quite rightly, that there ought to be one authority. If there is to be one authority, why do you replace the one which exists and which has experience by one which has no experience?
The only objections which have been made to the principle of this Bill have been made by my Noble Friend (Lord Robert Cecil), the hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury), and the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Wedgwood), paving carefully considered their speeches, I consider that they are the three persons in the House who ought to be most in harmony with the principle of this Bill, because they are extremely assiduous and eager. That is a very honourable position and one we should all agree with. What is the position at present? These feeble-minded people are unable, by reason of their weakness,

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in the first place to resist the impulses of crime, and in the second place to resist the ravages of dirt and disease, and in the third place are totally unable to earn a livelihood in the struggle for life. How can we deal with them at present? The defenders of personal liberty have a very eccentric notion of liberty. They deliberately ask the House to continue the system under which it is admitted that these unfortunate people, without any moral defect at all, are consigned to hospitals, workhouses, asylums, and gaols. Is that an agreeable form of liberty? The occupants of these institutions lead a miserable life, and they pass from misery to degradation. They were brought before me in former times in my capacity as a criminal judge, and my Noble Friend (Lord Robert Cecil) really made the case for a Bill of this kind with extraordinary completeness. He said these poor people are brought before him, and he is obliged, contrary to his own good sense and good feeling, because there is no other course open to him, to send people to an absolutely inappropriate place. That is the whole point. My Noble Friend admits they ought to be detained, but they ought not to be detained in this way. If they cannot be detained in prison or in the workhouse, of course the only alternative is that they should be detained in a proper place, where such facilities as they have can be trained and where the glimmer of intelligence that they have can ultimately be blown sometimes into a flame of ordinary good sense.
Lord ROBERT CECIL: I said, or tried to say, quite distinctly, that I was not against the detention of mental defectives in any circumstances, subject to proper safeguards, but in my view the Bill is so deficient in proper safeguards that it is impossible for the House to read it a second time.
Mr. A. LYTTELTON: I listened very carefully. The Noble Lord's statement of fact was that four-fifths of the prisoners brought before him were of abnormal mind, and he referred to an immoral class of women. But my Noble Friend's suggestion for dealing with these people was first to sentence them to imprisonment and to detention afterwards. That surely is not right. It is punishing them for an offence which, ex hypothesi, they have never committed. Guilt of mind is necessary for a criminal offence. Surely in principle the
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Bill is right in saying, "Do not apply inappropriate punishment to people who ought not to be punished. Do not wait till a crime has been committed and then deal with them. Try by detention and training in an establishment to prevent the commission of the crime which you are at present dealing with in so harsh and cruel a manner." That really is the principle of the Bill. My Noble Friend thinks that it would be more convenient to deal with these unhappy people after they have committed a crime and not before. The view entertained by others is that you must endeavour to train them from the beginning, and so prevent them from committing a crime at all, and that the process should be begun at the earliest possible stage. I have heard criticisms upon that portion of the Bill which relates to the education authority. Surely it is right that those who are observing children should have something to say in this matter.
It is rather grotesquely suggested that the education authority would desire to put people in asylums. The education authority, who are able to observe children from their tender years, should have the duty, when they go from school and are subject to the temptations and calamities which absolutely wreck and ruin their lives, of notifying in the proper quarter that such and such children are feebleminded, and that they ought to be further trained and looked after for the next four or five years. What could be move rational than that? The failure to deal with children between sixteen and twenty at the most impressionable age, is precisely the very thing which often plunges them into permanent imbecility of a criminal kind. I am bound to support the Secretary of State in what he said against the severe animadversions on what are called the secrecy provisions of the Bill. In lunacy nineteen cases out of twenty are kept in profound secrecy. The eases which are heard in public are cases where somebody interested wishes an advertisement. Such cases are generally heard in public to the great detriment of everybody concerned, and especially the unfortunate subject of the inquiry. Before the suggestions contained in this Bill were made, I had been told by those who administer the Lunacy Acts that by far the most valuable and decisive of all the methods for ascertaining whether a person was a lunatic was the private talk which takes place between the Master in Lunacy and the alleged lunatic. A few

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questions put in a quiet room by a really experienced man will do far more good in testing the real truth of the matter than by putting a man in the position of being subjected to a painful and excruciating public inquiry as to whether he is mad or not.
There is one thing which the hon. Gentleman did not make clear to me, and that was, what he was going to do in the case of the voluntary associations on whose behalf, I am sure he will agree, a very sensible appeal was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Colonel Rawson). I should like to press the Government for an undertaking that they will not submit these private institutions which have done admirable work to the process of registration. They are in receipt of voluntary subscriptions which relieve the ratepayers to the extent of £82,000 a year, and they deal with more than 2,000 feeble-minded people. On coming under the visitation and inspection required by this Act they should be entitled to be registered under this Act, and they should not be put to any further investigation than that to which they are already submitted. I do not suppose they will mind in the least whether they are visited by the Lunacy Commissioners or the authority to be set up by this Act, but they ought not to be visited by or registered under both authorities. One registration should be sufficient, and I think that on showing they are duly qualified, as undoubtedly they are, to receive Grants under this Act, they ought to be declared entitled to receive them. I do not think that anybody who desires the efficacy of this Act is satisfied with the Grant of £150,000. The investigations of the London County Council have shown that £90,000 has to be expended by them in providing for some 8,000 of these feeble-minded people. That shows how extraordinarily inadequate the sum of £150,000 a year must be for dealing with a class who are estimated by the Royal Commission to comprise 66,000 people who are not at present treated in institutions and whose condition requires treatment. I may close with one more appeal to the advocates of liberty in this House not to refuse a Second Reading to this Bill, however callously it may have been drawn and however absurd many of us may think some of its details. It must be drastically remodelled. Once allow the House to get into Committee on this Bill, thresh out those questions thoroughly,
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and put in every safeguard that is reasonable in this Bill and you will then be confronted with the position that I ventured to put to the House at the beginning, namely, that you will be by this Bill enabled to put for their own good these unfortunate people in appropriate places of detention and you will relieve the authorities in this country from the really monstrous burden at present laid upon their conscience, namely, that of sending to mingle with the wicked and the baser those who are merely mentally afflicted.
Mr. CHARLES ROBERTS: We have heard an argument from the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Wedgwood) which, in my view, was a travesty and caricature of the facts. The hon. Member really proceeded on the assumption that the Bill was wrong. When it was pointed out that the Bill was not what he imagined it to be, well he said it is the intention of the Bill anyhow, whether it is in the Bill or not. He really approached it with almost a mania of suspicion, and I think he gave an entirely unfair account of those Clauses. The whole of the speech of the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme, and of the hon. Baronet the Member for the City could equally well have been applied to the Lunacy Act of 1890, in regard to the absence of safeguards. As a matter of fact, complaint has been made about the hearing in private, but under the Lunacy Act there is no option at all; the private hearing is compulsory; and the provisions as to the treatment of lunatics found wandering, or neglected, or cruelly treated, are all repeated from the Lunacy Act. The definition of the word "lunatic" is a person of "unsound mind," words which are certainly wider in actual drafting than they are held to be in practice. It does not follow that there should not be proper and absolute safeguards; I quite agree that there ought to be; but the details of this Bill are attacked only by the abstract advocates of the liberties of the subject. We have waited so long, I shall be greatly disappointed if we do not succeed this year in getting something put on to the Statute Book. The only real difficulty is the extension of the Bill and of the Clauses as to procedure and machinery. In regard to what was said by the right hon. Gentleman opposite as to the central authority, I was very glad to hear the Under-Secretary say that the Government had an open mind on the point. He opened the door, though not very widely—at least,

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it is ajar—and I do not think it would be out of the power of the Committee to reconstitute the Bill in regard to the central authority. I believe that on the Royal Commission there was a real difference of opinion as to the central authority. The Report includes a paragraph which argued for the solution adopted by the Bill. But if you look at the summary of recommendations you find that it is not included among them, which I think is clear evidence of the divergence of opinion among the Commissioners. The Report can only be quoted very doubtfully in favour of the solution adopted by the Bill.
Mr. A. LYTTELTON: The Royal Commission recommended that the central authority should be detached from the Home Office.
Mr. C. ROBERTS: Yes: but I think it is fair to say that they recommended a semi-detached position. I do not see how the solution adopted in the Bill can be carried through without a great deal of friction and without overlapping. It is said by the Home Secretary that the Lunacy Commission have no staff. They have a staff to deal with inspections and the passing of plans. At the present moment the Home Office is the authority under the Lunacy Act for enforcing accommodation for lunatics, and for forcing local authorities to act. That, no doubt, would still remain, subject, I think, to the advice of the new central authority. I think if you go through the Bill you will see everywhere the extraordinary dualism which results. Thus take the local authority; you get the possibilty of having two visiting committees dealing with people who belong very much to the same sort of class, and there will certainly be overlapping, friction and trouble. That is not essential, I admit, as you may have the same committee. Then on the question of finance there is a singular difficulty under the present arrangement. There is now a Grant of 4s. per head for the provision for lunatics, and under this Bill there is to be a Grant of 7s. per head. What it comes to is, stripped of all details, that you will be paying the county councils 3s. per head to decide that a person is mentally defective and not a lunatic. Though we want more rather than less money under this Bill, yet that the classification of persons as mentally defective should depend on the difference in State Grants is really absurd. I hope that will be altered in some way, and, though we
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do not want less money, I venture to think there ought to be equality of Grants between the two classes. If you go further into the Bill once more this dualism appears. There are a number of Clauses in the Bill which would be decidedly advantageous to the administration of the Lunacy Acts, and which might be extended, but there is another set of Clauses which would introduce great discrepancies and anomalies, and which in practice would be troublesome. Taking all those points together, I trust that the Home Office will not wait for this ultimate amalgamation which is foreshadowed in Clause 62. These eventual amalgamations take so long to carry through. There has, for instance, always been the possibility of amalgamating the Masters in Lunacy and the Lunacy Commissioners. As soon as you get two bodies set up there are vested interests and divergencies of opinion, and the difficulty of amalgamation is very great. It does seem to me if the Home Office is really at present considering the amalgamation of these two bodies so as to get a central body, the procedure of first setting up the two bodies and then bringing them together, when you have vested interests and friction arising, is a most singular procedure. I should have thought the simplest course would have been to make one central authority, and so avoid those enormous difficulties which I am quite certain will occur if you take the other line of procedure. I will not labour that point, but I hope the Home Secretary will not regard any Amendments I put down as betokening any want of friendship towards the Bill. I believe that in principle it is much needed, and though I certainly trust it will be carefully considered in Committee, I would thank the Home Office for having undertaken this difficult task, and I trust that the Bill, when it has been revised, overhauled, and indeed reconstructed, will be satisfactorily carried through.
Mr. POLLOCK: I wish as a friend of the Bill to offer a few suggestions, because I am anxious that it should be made into as good a Bill as possible. On the question of finance it seems to me that the position will not be met merely by a larger Grant. The scheme of the Bill is that when the 7s. a week is granted by the central authority to the local authorities the latter can be called upon to provide sufficient accommodation for the mentally defective of the district. If you increase the sum of £150,000 you will not get over

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the difficulty. You will really only increase the burden which you place upon the local authority. The increase of the Grant will only increase the demand made upon the local authority, and if you increase that demand it will not be so easy to have the scheme carried out. Under Clause 28 there is power to transfer defective prisoners to institutions. If that power is exercised you may use up a good deal of the money provided under the Bill by occupying space by prisoners rather than by the persons who are really the objects of the Bill. I hope I am wrong in that, but I point it out as a matter to be considered by the Home Secretary.
In addition you have to consider whether there is a proper authority which can deal with this very important body known as the mentally defective. The curious thing is that you are going to set up a new body of Commissioners without requiring that they should have either medical or legal knowledge. I think that some sort of provision ought to be made in respect of that. It is the more important inasmuch as you have a body with great experience who have for a long time carried out their duties extremely well. It is rather unfortunate that you should start with a new body instead of, as apparently is ultimately intended in Clause 62, amalgamating this new body with the existing body. The existing body will not be large enough, and it surely will be far easier to add new Commissioners to the existing Commissioners, and so to make use of the fund of experience and of authority which the present Lunacy Commissioners afford, and which it will be very unfortunate to lay aside when you are trying to work a new system. There is another point. You are going to set up a new body who are to deal with the persons contemplated by this Act as being within the sphere of the Act. It is a curious thing that this Act does not deal at all with persons who are at present in voluntary institutions. The result is that you will have a certain number of defectives in cither lunatic or

Division No. 151.]

AYES.

[50 p.m.

Abraham, William (Dublin Harbour)

Arnold, Sydney

Bentham, G. J.

Acland, Francis Dyke

Baker, Joseph Allen (Finsbury, E.)

Bigland, Alfred

Addison, Dr. C.

Balcarres, Lord

Boland, John Pius

Adkins, Sir W. Ryland D.

Barran, Sir J. N. (Hawick)

Boscawen, Sir Arthur S. T. Griffith-

Ainsworth, John Stirling

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

Brocklehurst, William B.

Alden, Percy

Beale, Sir William Phipson

Brunner, J. F. L.

Allen, Arthur Acland (Dumbartonshire)

Beauchamp, Sir Edward

Bryce, J. Annan

Allen, Rt. Hon. Charles P. (Stroud)

Beck, Arthur Cecil

Buckmaster, Stanley O.

Amery, L. C. M. S.

Beckett, Hon. Gervase

Burke, E. Haviland-

Anstruther-Gray, Major William

Benn, W. W. (Tower Hamlets, St. Geo

Burns, Rt. Hon. John

voluntary asylums who are dealt with under one set of Acts—that is the Lunacy Acts and the Idiots Act—and another number who are under this Mental Deficiency Act—if it becomes an Act, as I hope it will. The result is that you must get a very large amount of overlapping, which is unfortunate and expensive and leads to friction.
There is another point which is entirely left out of this Bill. You have no powers under this Act, as you have under the Lunacy Act, to enable persons voluntarily to take advantage of the Act. Those who are expert in these matters attach great importance to this, for this reason: If you are to have the inquiries that have been referred to you to bring a person within the scope of this Bill, you put a premium against a person voluntarily taking advantage of it. Under Section 229 of the Lunacy Act persons may voluntarily accept detention in an institution or asylum, because they feel that they can make it their home. There are many defectives who would be very happily dealt with in that way, and who would voluntarily undergo residence in one of these asylums. But if in order to take advantage of the Mental Deficiency Bill their relatives or friends have to move in the matter in the way suggested you at once put a premium against the voluntary idea, which works at present very well, and is a valuable asset to those persons who do not want to confront their fellows with the fact that they have got the mentally deficient amongst them; at the same time in respect of whom it is very important that they should have facilities for being maintained voluntarily in an institution.
Mr. BOOTH: There are twenty important points—
Mr. McKENNArose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."
Question put, "That the Question be now put."
The House divided: Ayes, 230; Noes, 38.

Buxton, Noel (Norfolk, N.)

Hogge, James Myles

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

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

Holmes, Daniel Turner

O Shaughnessy, P. J.

Campbell, Capt. Duncan F. (Ayr, N.)

Holt, Richard Durning

O'Shee, James John

Carr-Gomm, H. W.

Horner, Andrew Long

O'Sullivan, Timothy

Cassel, Felix

Hudson, Walter

Palmer, Godfrey Mark

Cawley, Sir Frederick (Prestwich)

Hughes, Spencer Leigh

Parker, James (Halifax)

Cawley, H. T. (Heywood)

Illingworth, Percy H.

Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)

Chancellor, Henry George

Isaacs, Rt. Hon. Sir Rufus

Pearce, William (Limehouse)

Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S.

Jardine, Sir John (Roxburgh)

Peto, Basil Edward

Clancy, John Joseph

Jones, Edgar (Merthyr Tydvil)

Phillips, John (Longford, S.)

Clough, William

Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)

Pointer, Joseph

Collins, Godfrey P. (Greenock)

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

Pole-Carew, Sir R.

Compton-Rickett, Rt. Hon. Sir J.

Jowett, Frederick William

Pollock, Ernest Murray

Condon, Thomas Joseph

Joyce, Michael

Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.

Cotton, William Francis

Keating, Matthew

Power, Patrick Joseph

Craig, Captain James (Down, E.)

Kellaway, Frederick George

Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)

Crawshay-Williams, Eliot

Kelly, Edward

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

Crichton-Stuart, Lord Ninian

Kennedy, Vincent Paul

Raffan, Peter Wilson

Crumley, Patrick

Kerry, Earl of

Rawson, Colonel Richard H.

Cullinan, John

Kilbride, Denis

Reddy, Michael

Dalziel, Davison (Brixton)

Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Cricklade)

Redmond, William (Clare, E.)

Dalziel, Rt. Hon. Sir J. H. (Kirkcaldy)

Lardner, James Carrige Rushe

Richardson, Albion (Peckham)

Davies, Timothy (Lines., Louth)

Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, West)

Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

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

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

Roberts, George H. (Norwich)

Dawes, James Arthur

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

Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradford)

De Forest, Baron

Locker-Lampson, G. (Salisbury)

Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke)

Delany, William

Low, Sir Frederick (Norwich)

Roche, Augustine (Louth)

Denniss, E. R. B.

Lundon, Thomas

Rowlands, James

Dickinson, W. H.

Lynch, Arthur Alfred

Russell, Rt. Hon. Thomas W.

Donelan, Captain A.

Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. A. (S. Geo. Han. S.)

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

Duffy, William J.

MacCaw, Wm. J. MacGeagh

Scott, A. MacCallum (Glas., Bridgeton)

Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness)

Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs)

Scott, Leslie (Liverpool, Exchange)

Elverston, Sir Harold

McGhee, Richard

Seely, Colonel Rt. Hon. J. E. B.

Esmonde, Dr. John (Tipperary)

Maclean, Donald

Sheeny, David

Esmonde, Sir Thomas (Wexford, N.)

Macnamara, Rt. Hon. Dr. T. J.

Smith, Harold (Warrington)

Essex, Richard Walter

Macpherson, James Ian

Soames, Arthur Wellesley

Esslemont, George Birnie

McCallum, Sir John M.

Spicer, Rt. Hon. Sir Albert

Farrell, James Patrick

McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald

Stewart, Gershom

Ffrench, Peter

Marshall, Arthur Harold

Summers, James Woolley

Fitzgibbon, John

Mason, David M. (Coventry)

Sutherland, John E.

Flavin, Michael Joseph

Meagher, Michael

Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford

Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.)

Tennant, Harold John

Goldstone, Frank

Menzies, Sir Walter

Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen, E.)

Gordon, Hon. John Edward (Brighton)

Molloy, Michael

Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)

Greenwood, Hamar (Sunderland)

Molteno, Percy Alport

Toulmin, Sir George

Greig, Col. James William

Money, L. G. Chiozza

Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander

Griffith, Ellis Jones

Mooney, John J.

Walsh, Stephen (Lanes., Ince)

Guest, Hon. Frederick E. (Dorset, E.)

Morgan, George Hay

Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent)

Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway)

Morison, Hector

Warner, Sir Thomas Courtenay

Hackett, John

Muldoon, John

Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

Hall, D. B. (Isle of Wight)

Munro, R.

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

Hancock, John George

Nannetti, Joseph P.

White, J. Dundas (Glas., Tradeston)

Harmsworth, Cecil (Luton, Beds)

Needham, Christopher P.

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

Harmsworth, R. L. (Caithness-shire)

Newdegate, F. A.

White, Patrick (Meath, North)

Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, West)

Newton, Harry Kottingham

Whitehouse, John Howard

Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)

Nicholson, Sir Charles N. (Doncaster)

Whyte, A. F. (Perth)

Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry

Nolan, Joseph

Williamson, Sir Archibald

Hayden, John Patrick

Norton, Captain Cecil W.

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

Hayward, Evan

Nuttall, Harry

Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

Hazleton, Richard (Galway, N.)

O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

Wood, John (Stalybridge)

Henderson, Major H. (Berks, Abingdon)

O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

Wood, Rt. Hon. T. McKinnon (Glasgow)

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

O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

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

Herbert, Col. Sir Ivor (Mon. S.)

O'Doherty, Philip

Young, William (Perth, East)

Herbert, Hon. A. (Somerset, S.)

O'Donnell, Thomas

Yoxall, Sir James Henry

Higham, John Sharp

O'Dowd, John

Hills, J. W.

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

TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr.

Hinds John

O'Malley, William

Gulland and Mr. G. Howard.

Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H.

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

NOES.

Banbury, Sir Frederick George

Gibbs, George Abraham

Nield, Herbert

Bathurst, Charles (Wilts, Wilton)

Goldsmith, Frank

Outhwaite, R. L.

Beach, Hon. Michael Hugh Hicks

Grant, J. A.

Paget, Almeric Hugh

Bird, Alfred

Greene, W. R.

Pringle, William M. R.

Boyton, James

Gretton, John

Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel

Bridgeman, William Clive

Guinness, Hon. Rupert (Essex, S.E.)

Rees, Sir J. D.

Bull, Sir William James

Guinness, Hon. W.E. (Bury S.Edmunds)

Talbot, Lord Edmund

Cameron, Robert

Gwynne, R. S. (Sussex, Eastbourne)

Tryon, Captain George Clement

Carlile, Sir Edward Hildred

Hoare, Samuel John Gurney

Wedgwood, Josiah C.

Cecil, Lord R. (Herts, Hitchin)

King, Joseph

Willoughby, Major Hon. Claud

Clay, Captain H. H. Spender

Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement

Dairymple, Viscount

Lloyd, George Ambrose

TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr.

Falle, Bertram Godfray

Malcolm, Ian

Booth and Marquess of Tullibardine.

Fell, Arthur

Morrell, Philip

Question put accordingly, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."

Division No. 152.]

AYES.

[5.10 p.m.

Abraham, William (Dublin Harbour)

Goldsmith, Frank

Mooney, J. J.

Acland, Francis Dyke

Goldstone, Frank

Morgan, George Hay

Addison, Dr. C.

Gordon, Hon. John Edward (Brighton)

Morison, Hector

Adkins, Sir W. Ryland D.

Greene, Walter Raymond

Muldoon, John

Ainsworth, John Stirling

Greenwood, Hamar (Sunderland)

Munro, Robert

Alden, Percy

Greig, Col. J. W.

Nannetti, Joseph P.

Allen, Arthur A. (Dumbarton)

Grimth, Ellis Jones

Needham, Christopher T.

Allen, Rt. Hon. Charles P. (Stroud)

Guest, Hon. Frederick E. (Dorset, E.)

Newdegate, F. A.

Amery, L. C. M. S.

Guinness, Hon. Rubert (Essex, S.E.)

Newton, Harry Kottingham

Anstruthsr-Gray, Major William

Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway)

Nicholson, Sir Charles N. (Doncaster)

Arnold, Sydney

Hackett, J.

Nolan, Joseph

Baker, Joseph Allen (Finsbury, E.)

Hall, D. B. (Isle of Wight)

Norton, Capt. Cecil W.

Barran, Sir John N. (Hawick B.)

Hancock, John George

Nuttall, Harry

Barrie, H. T.

Harmsworth, Cecil (Luton, Beds)

O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

Bathurst, Charles (Wilts, Wilton)

Harmsworth, R. L. (Caithness-shire)

O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

Beale, Sir William Phipson

Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, West)

O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

Beauchamp, Sir Edward

Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)

O'Doherty, Philip

Beck, Arthur Cecil

Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry

O'Donnell, Thomas

Beckett, Hon. Gervase

Hayden, John Patrick

O'Down, John

Benn, W. W. (T. H'mts., St. George)

Hayward, Evan

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

Bentham, G. J.

Hazleton, Richard (Galway, N.)

O'Malley, William

Bigland, Alfred

Henderson, Major H. (Berkshire)

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

Bird, Alfred

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

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

Boland, John Pius

Herbert, Col. Sir Ivor (Mon., S,)

O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

Boscawen, Sir Arthur S. T. Griffith-

Herbert, Hon. A. (Somerset, S.)

O'Shee, James John

Boyton, James

Higham, John Sharp

O'Sullivan, Timothy

Bridgeman, William Clive

Hills, John Waller

Paget, Almeric Hugh

Brocklehurst, William B.

Hinds, John

Palmer, Godfrey Mark

Brunner, John F. L.

Hoare, Samuel John Gurney

Parker, James (Halifax)

Bryce, John Annan

Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H.

Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)

Buckmaster, Stamey O.

Hogge, James Myles

Pearce, William (Limehouse)

Burke, E. Haviland-

Holmes, Daniel Turner

Phillips, John (Longford, S.)

Burns, Rt. Hon. John

Holt, Richard Durning

Pointer, Joseph

Buxton, Noel (Norfolk, N.)

Horner, Andrew Long

Pole-Carew, sir R.

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

Hudeon, Walter

Pollock, Ernest Murray

Campbell, Duncan F. (Ayr, N.)

Hughes, Spencer Leigh

Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.

Carlile, Sir Edward Hildred

Illingworth, Percy H.

Power, Patrick Joseph

Carr-Gomm, H. W.

Isaacs, Rt. Hon. Sir Ruins

Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)

Cassel, Felix

Jardine, Sir John (Roxburghshire)

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

Cawley, Sir Frederick (Prestwich)

Jones, Edgar R. (Merthyr Tydvil)

Raffan, Peter Wilson

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

Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)

Rawson, Colonel Richard H.

Chancellor, H. G.

Jones, W. S. Glyn- (Stepney)

Reddy, M.

Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S.

Joyce, Michael

Redmond, William (Clare, E.)

Clancy, John Joseph

Keating, Matthew

Rees, Sir J. D.

Clay, Captain H. H. Spender

Kellaway, Frederick George

Richardson, Albion (Peckham)

Clough, William

Kelly, Edward

Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

Collins, Godfrey P. (Greenock)

Kennedy, Vincent Paul

Roberts, George H. (Norwich)

Compton-Rickett, Rt. Hon. Sir J.

Kerry, Earl of

Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradford)

Condon, Thomas Joseph

Kilbride, Denis

Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke)

Cotton, William Francis

King, J.

Roche, Augustine (Louth)

Craig, Captain James (Down E.)

Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement

Rowlands, James

Crawshay-Williams, Eliot

Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Cricklade)

Russell, Rt. Hon. Thomas W.

Crumley, Patrick

Lardner, James Carrige Rushe

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

Cullinan, John

Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, West)

Scott, Leslie (Liverpool, Exchange)

Dalziel, Rt. Hon. Sir J. H. (Kirkcaldy)

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

Seely, Col. Rt. Hon. J. E. B.

Davies, Timothy (Lines., Louth)

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

Sheehy, David

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

Lloyd, George Ambrose

Smith, Harold (Warrington)

Dawes, J. A.

Locker-Lampson, G. (Salisbury)

Soames, Arthur Wellesley

De Forest, Baron

Low, Sir Frederick (Norwich)

Spicer, Rt. Hon. Sir Albert

Delany, William

Lundon, T.

Stewart, Gershom

Denniss, E. R. B.

Lynch, A. A.

Summers, James Woolley

Dickinson, W. H.

Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. A. (S. Geo.,Han.S.)

Sutherland, John E.

Donelan, Captain A.

MacCaw, Wm. J. MacGengh

Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

Duffy, William J.

Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs)

Tennant, Harold John

Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness)

McGhee, Richard

Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen, E.)

Elverston, Sir Harold

Maclean, Donald

Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)

Esmonde, Dr. John (Tipperary, N.)

Macnamara, Rt. Hon. T. J.

Tryon, Captain George Clement

Esmonde, Sir Thomas (Wexford, N.)

Macpherson, James Ian

Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander

Essex, Richard Walter

MacCallum, Sir John M.

Walsh, Stephen (Lanes., Ince)

Esslemont, George Birnie

McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald

Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent)

Falle, Bertram Godfray

Marshall, Arthur Harold

Warner, Sir Thomas Courtenay

Farrell, James Patrick

Mason, David M. (Coventry)

Wason, John Cat heart (Orkney)

Fell, Arthur

Meagher, Michael

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

Ffrench, Peter

Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.)

White, J. Dundas (Glasgow, Tradeston)

Fitzgibbon, John

Menzies, Sir Walter

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

Flavin, Michael Joseph

Molloy, M.

White, Patrick (Meath, North)

Gibbs, George Abraham

Moltene, Percy Aiport

Whitehouse, John Howard

Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford

Money, L. G. Chiozza

Whyte, A. F. (Perth)

The House divided: Ayes, 242; Noes, 19.

Williamson, Sir A.

Wood, Rt. Hon. T. McKinnon (Glasgow)

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

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

TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr

Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

Young, William (Perth, East)

Gulland and Mr. G. Howard.

Wood, John (Stalybridge)

Yoxall, Sir James Henry

NOES.

Banbury, Sir Frederick George

Gretton, John

Talbot, Lord Edmund

Benn, Ion Hamilton (Greenwich)

Guinness, Hon. W.E. (Bury S.Edmunds)

Tullibardine, Marquess of

Bull, Sir William James

Gwynne, R. S. (Sussex, Eastbourne)

Willoughby, Major Hon. Claud

Cecil, Lord R. (Herts, Hitchin)

Malcolm, Ian

Crichton-Stuart, Lord Ninian

Nield, Herbert

Dalrymple, Viscount

Pringle, William M. R.

TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr.

Dalziel, Davison (Brixton)

Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel

Booth and Mr. Wedgwood.

Grant, James Augustus

Scott, A. MacCallum (Glas., Bridgeton)

Main Question put, and agreed to. Bill read a second time.
Motion made, and Question proposed,

Division No. 153.]

AYES.

[5.16 p.m.

Banbury, Sir Frederick George

Gibbs, George Abraham

Pole-Carew, Sir R.

Beach, Hon. Michael Hugh Hicks

Grant, James Augustus

Pringle, William M. R.

Beckett, Hon. Gervase

Guinness, Hon. W.E. (Bury S.Edmunds)

Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel

Benn, Ion Hamilton (Greenwich)

Gwynne, R. S. (Sussex, Eastbourne)

Rees, Sir J. D.

Booth, Frederick Handel

Hall, D. B. (Isle of Wight)

Scott, A. MacCallum (Glas., Bridgeton)

Boyton, James

Henderson, Major H. (Berks, Abingdon)

Tryon, Captain George Clement

Bridgeman, William Clive

Kerry, Earl of

Tullibardine, Marquess of

Bull, Sir William James

Newdegate, F. A.

Wedgwood, Josiah

Cassel, Felix

Newton, Harry Kottingham

Willoughby, Major Hon. Claud

Dairymple, Viscount

Nield, Herbert

Falle, Bertram Godfray

Paget, Almeric Hugh

TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr.

Fell, Arthur

Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)

Malcolm and Mr. Peto.

NOES.

Abraham, William (Dublin Harbour)

Cullinan, John

Herbert, Hon. A. (Somerset, S.)

Acland, Francis Dyke

Dalziel, Davison (Brixton)

Higham, John Sharp

Addison, Dr. Christopher

Dalziel, Rt. Hon. Sir J. H. (Kirkcaldy)

Hills, John Waller

Ainsworth, John Stirling

Davies, Timothy (Lines., Louth)

Hinds, John

Alden, Percy

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

Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H.

Allen, Arthur Acland (Dumbartonshire)

Dawes, J. A.

Hogge, James Myles

Allen, Rt. Hon. Charles P. (Stroud)

De Forest, Baron

Holmes, Daniel Turner

Amery, L. C. M. S.

Delany, William

Horner, Andrew Long

Anstruther-Gray, Major William

Denniss, E. R. B.

Hudson, Walter

Arnold, Sydney

Dickinson, W. H.

Hughes, Spencer Leigh

Baker, Joseph Allen (Finsbury, E.)

Donelan, Captain A.

Illingworth, Percy H.

Barran, Sir J. N. (Hawick)

Duffy, William J.

Isaacs, Rt. Hon. Sir Rufus

Beale, Sir William Phipson

Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness)

Jardine, Sir John (Roxburghshire)

Beauchamp, Sir Edward

Elverston, Sir Harold

Jones, Edgar R. (Merthyr Tydvil)

Beck, Arthur Cecil

Esmonde, Dr. John (Tipperary, N.)

Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)

Benn, W. W. (T. H'mts., St. George)

Esmonde, Sir Thomas (Wexford, N.)

Jones, William S. Glyn- (Stepney)

Bentham, George Jackson

Essex, Richard Walter

Joyce, Michael

Bird, Alfred

Esslemont, George Birnie

Keating, Matthew

Boland, John Pius

Farrell, James Patrick

Kellaway, Frederick George

Boscawen, Sir Arthur S. E. Griffiths-

Ffrench, Peter

Kelly, Edward

Brocklehurst, William B.

Fitzgibbon, John

Kennedy, Vincent Paul

Bryce, John Annan

Flavin, Michael Joseph

Kilbride, Denis

Buckmaster, Stanley O.

Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford

King, J.

Burke, E. Haviland-

Goldsmith, Frank

Kinloch-Ceoke, Sir Clement

Burns, Rt. Hon. John

Goldstone, Frank

Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Cricklade)

Buxton, Noel (Norfolk, North)

Gordon, Hon. John Edward (Brighton)

Lardner, James Carrige Rushe

Campbell, Capt. Duncan F. (Ayr, N.)

Greene, Walter Raymond

Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, West)

Carr-Gomm, H. W.

Greig, Col. J. W.

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

Cawley, Sir Frederick (Prestwich)

Griffith, Ellis J.

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

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

Guest, Hon. Frederick E. (Dorset, E.)

Lloyd, George Ambrose

Chancellor, H. G.

Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway)

Locker-Lampson, G. (Salisbury)

Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S.

Hackett, John

Low, Sir Frederick (Norwich)

Clancy, John Joseph

Hancock, John George

Lundon, Thomas

Clay, Captain H. H. Spender

Harmsworth, Cecil (Luton, Beds)

Lynch, A. A.

Clough, William

Harmsworth, R. L. (Caithness-shire)

Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. A. (St. Geo., Han.S.)

Collins, G. P. (Greenock)

Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, West)

MacCaw, Win. J. MacGeagh

Compton-Rickett, Rt. Hon. Sir J.

Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)

Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs)

Condon, Thomas Joseph

Havelock-Alan, Sir Henry

McGhee, Richard

Cotton, William Francis

Hayden, John Patrick

Macnamara, Rt. Hon. Dr. T. J.

Craig, Captain James (Down, E.)

Hayward, Evan

Macpherson, James Ian

Crawshay-Williams, Eliot

Hazleton, Richard (Galway, N.)

McCallum, Sir John M.

Cripps, Sir Charles Alfred

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

McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald

Crumley, Patrick

Herbert, Col. Sir Ivor (Mon., S.)

Marshall, Arthur Harold

"That the Bill be committed to a Committee of the Whole House."—[Mr. Booth.]
The House divided: Ayes, 33; Noes, 208.

Mason, David M. (Coventry)

Palmer, Godfrey Mark

Soames, Arthur Wellesley.

Meagher, Michael

Parker, James (Halifax)

Spicer, Rt. Hon. Sir Albert

Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.)

Pearce, William (Limehouse)

Steel-Maitland, A. D.

Menzies, Sir Walter

Phillips, John (Longford, S.)

Stewart, Gershom

Molloy, Michael

Pointer, Joseph

Summers, James Woolley

Molteno, Percy Alport

Pollock, Ernest Murray

Sutherland, John E.

Money, L. G. Chiozza

Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.

Talbot, Lord Edmund

Morgan, George Hay

Power, Patrick Joseph

Tennant, Harold John

Morison, Hector

Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)

Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen, E.)

Muldoon, John

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

Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)

Munro, Robert

Rattan, Peter Wilson

Walsh, Stephen (Lanes., Ince)

Nannetti, Joseph P.

Rawson, Colonel Richard H.

Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent)

Nicholson, Sir Charles (Doncaster)

Reddy, M.

Warner, Sir Thomas Courtenay

Nolan, Joseph

Redmond, William (Clare, E.)

Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

Norton, Captain Cecil W.

Richardson, Albion (Peckham)

White, J. Dundas (Glas., Tradeston)

Nuttall, Harry

Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

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

O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)

White, Patrick (Meath, North)

O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradford)

Whitehouse, John Howard

O'Doherty, Philip

Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke)

Whyte, Alexander F. (Perth)

O'Donnell, Thomas

Roche, Augustine (Louth)

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

O'Dowd, John

Rowlands, James

Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

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

Russell, Rt. Hon. Thomas W.

Wood, Rt. Hon. T. McKinnon (Glasgow)

O'Neill, Dr. Charles (Armagh)

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

Young, William (Perth, East)

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

Scott, Leslie (Liverpool, Exchange)

Yoxall, Sir James Henry

O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

Seely, Rt. Hon. Col. J. E. B.

O'Shee, James John

Sheehy, David

TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr.

O'Sullivan, Timothy

Smith, Harold (Warrington)

Gulland and Mr. G. Howard.

Bill committed to a Standing Committee.
Whereupon Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 3.
Adjourned at Twenty-seven minutes after Five o'clock, until Monday next, 22nd July.

PETITIONS PRESENTED DURING THE WEEK.
The following Petitions were presented during the week, and ordered to lie upon the Table:—
MONDAY.
Established Church (Wales) Bill—Petitions against, from Everton and Liverpool.
TUESDAY.
Bankruptcy Bill [Lords]—Petition from Edinburgh, against.

WEDNESDAY.
County Courts Bill—Petition of Scottish Trade Protection Society, for alteration.
Temperance (Scotland) Bill—Petition from Glasgow, in favour.
Trade Unions (No. 2) Bill—Petition from Edinburgh, against.

FRIDAY.
Bankruptcy Bill—Petition from Edinburgh, for alteration.
NATIONAL INSUEANCE ACT.
  EXEMPTIONS AND DEDUCTIONS.
  EXEMPTIONS AND DEDUCTIONS.
  VOLUNTARY INSURANCE.
  VOLUNTARY INSURANCE.
  APPOINTMENTS (IRELAND).
  APPOINTMENTS (IRELAND).
  CASUAL EMPLOYMENT.
  CASUAL EMPLOYMENT.
  APPRENTICES.
  APPRENTICES.
  Imperial and Local Taxation Committee (Report).
  Imperial and Local Taxation Committee (Report).
  Land Purchase (Ireland).
  Land Purchase (Ireland).
  Old Age Pensions.
  Old Age Pensions.
  Admiralty Contracts (Fair-Wages Clause).
  Admiralty Contracts (Fair-Wages Clause).
  Parliamentary Visit to the Fleet.
  Parliamentary Visit to the Fleet.
  War Office Workmen (Portsmouth).
  War Office Workmen (Portsmouth).
  Territorial Force.
  Territorial Force.
  Home Office (Discovery of Inflammable Mixture).
  Home Office (Discovery of Inflammable Mixture).
  Prison Service (Instructors).
  Prison Service (Instructors).
  Election Expenses, 1910.
  Election Expenses, 1910.
  Ægean Islands.
  Ægean Islands.
  Steamship "Marquess of Hartington."
  Steamship "Marquess of Hartington."
  Standing Committee of Parliament (Foreign States).
  Standing Committee of Parliament (Foreign States).
  Port of London (Conditions of Employment).
  Port of London (Conditions of Employment).
  National Telephone Company.
  National Telephone Company.
BARONIES OF BURGH, STRABOLGI AND COBHAM.
Committee for Privileges met: Claims considered: Resolution agreed to by the Committee; report thereof to be made to the House.